What the teachers don´t tell you

[martinemonster]

Do you remember being taught history in school? Now, I only had Norwegian history for 10 years instead of 12, seeing as I transferred to an international school which focused on European, rather than Norwegian modern history, but unless I´m very much mistaken, there was a lot of important stuff left out of my curriculum.

Did you for instance know that the Vikings enjoyed same sex relations?

Or did your teacher or curriculum state anything about the results of Norwegian development aid, or question the views of Norway as a promoter of peace in the world?

Or, most importantly, did you learn that from 1935-1977, more than 44 000 sterilisations were carried out in Norway, and only about half of them were done on condoning patients?

I didn´t learn any of this in high school. The reason I know it now is because I study history at university level. I think it´s time to be more controversial when deciding the curriculum of Norwegian history classes. People should be aware. Or am I wrong? Were you taught this in school? Was I the only one who missed those classes?

And to you people from other countries: Do you ever wonder what might have been left out of your curriculums?

Comments

[gurimalla.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure what I learned about the vikings (seeing as the vikings were curriculum in like 2. grade or something) but the answer to the other two questions is yes. Of course.
And I didn't even have normal history for the last three years, I had art and music history.
If you didn't learn about point two and/or three in history or social science that means your school/teacher didn't follow the curriculum plans, which is quite common and a big problem when it happens. The curriculum plans are there for a reason...

[martinemonster.livejournal.com]

Well color me impressed! I guess I was wrong then. (I´m not being sarcastic, I´m actually impressed)

Guess my country isn´t as bad as I thought, and I was just in the vicinity of bad teachers.

[gurimalla.livejournal.com]

You weren't all wrong though. Because having these things in our curriculum doesn't help if the teachers just skip it. Also, some subjects such as RLE (religion, etikk og livssyn) are not very good and put way too much emphasis on Christianity and a lot of teachers have a tendency to teach Christianity as a religion or even as fact and other religions as myths and curiosities.

But no, it's probably not as bad as you thought, our politicians do have their moments, you know... :p

[sortkatt.livejournal.com]

Actually, we don't have curriculum plans anymore. We just have some "knowledge goals" or something, and get to make our own curriculum. To a degree. There are still certain points that has to be covered, but teachers are to a larger degree free to define their own curriculum. Mostly this is a good thing, but if you have 'tarded teachers (and they do exist), it's not.