Every country lies about its origins or political machinations, and the populace majority is fine with that until it begins to affect them in a negative fashion. You see many people in this country angry about revelations coming out about how things occurred. They use a derogatory term for bringing the truth out, "They're being PC." instead of accepting something different than their long-held beliefs.

A good "PC" example is the fact that the pilgrims were not celebrating the first Thanksgiving because of friendly Indians bringing them food and feasting with them. The colonists had a feast of Thanksgiving because their soldiers had gone to a tribe that was actively fighting with them and massacred the populace down to the last child and roaming dog. They then burned the homes and belongings of the tribe along with the bodies.

Anything to do with females or minority races is suppressed or ignored. But no one wants to accept that the scared American holiday wasn't what they were taught. The American militaries actions in the Philipines were also not taught in school or accepted in today's schools.

It seems like there has always been disagreement about what started the Civil War. Even I was taught in high school back in the late 80's that it wasn't about slavery, and Lincoln only freed the slaves in the south (but not the north) to get blacks in southern states to fight for the Union.

With human egos, it seems that even getting the truth about current events out there has always been something of an issue, and not embellishing on the past has been a bigger problem. If people can't get it straight about what is happening, there is no way they will be accurate about what happened.

Sure looks like slavery had something to do with it though:

[civilwar.org]

This is one element of history teaching that makes me the most angry. I grew up in New Jersey, 30 minutes from Philadelphia. We got ALOT of history - the whole area is full of history and I would spend hours reading about history. It blows me away the south still has some very disturbing attitudes about their 'coloreds' and how their 'blacks' know their place. It freaks me out to think there is that level of ignorance in our country. Sad to say there is a cess pool of ignorance in the current adminatration. It was only 58 years ago the last of the Jim Crow laws in the south were removed but we still have a justice system that favors whites over other citizens in this country. We must do better our democracy depends on it.

It is hard to believe. As a youngen we all new about slavery and how unjust slavery was, and the civil war was fought to correct this unjust conduct. I would think that parents would chime in and help their children understand.

It is affirmed that a large part of the gop agenda is to keep the population ignorant. They deliberately skew education to support religious ideas and go about prejudicing young minds in favor of their agenda.

That most high school students are unable to identify slavery as a primary cause of the Civil War should not be surprising, as the textbooks and curriculum covering this period are the choice of each individual state, as well as local or regional school boards. In an environment where states seem inclined to either bury the hatchet and move on, or to sweep underlying racially divisive reasons under the rug, how many of us ever come to learn the truth? How many students have actually read and analyzed the Articles of Secession of Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas?

Very upsetting and unsettling article about the teaching of slavery.

I would like a comparison analysis on other wars beyond our common memory. WWI for example. Spanish American War. Why are the Philippines US Territory? Lets have some details about the American Revolution? My point is that we may be masking the real problem by accepting that the problem is caused by teachers.

I would put a paycheck on the fact that none of the children were aware that if they were of the any of the Abrahamic faiths, would have known that THEIR religion actually ENDORSES slavery.

I'm not surprised. I was once in a college history class where the professor went halfway around the class before someone could tell him who won the Civil War.