6th Grade World History From Heck

[Arthur Hu <ArthurH@TANGIS.COM>]

I was looking at a world history textbook that was about  2 inches thick,
the boys said he went to Nelsen Middle School in Renton, which was my
school, but they've got a regular 7 period day, not the 1 teacher that I got
in the 6th grade.

On the one hand, this is a terrific compilation of the complete history of
every major culture and religion of every continent from prehistory to 1993.
It's even got the complete 10 commandments and the Sermon from the
mount. (I thought this was verboten!)

One chapter covers early man up to the end of the stone age.
The Vietnam war takes about 3 paragraphs, Pol Pot's killing fields,
one paragraph, Egypt a chapter, Vikings 3 pages. This book has more
history than I've ever been exposed to in my life, I'm still catching up
with
the History Channel, I couldn't recognize a single "important" person from
their African civilizations section.

On the other hand, this kid said they had "only" made it halfway through
to the middle ages. This thing actually exceeds the Virginia 10th grade
world history requirement:

10th grade
10.11 The student will analyze the regional development of Asia,
Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and the Caribbean, in terms
of physical, economic, and cultural characteristics and historical
evolution from 1000 A.D. to the present.

As I remember I think we were doing some geography of some countries
in Asia and South America, nothing near as extensive as this. This
would be a great college course or high school. The only history course
I took at MIT was some silly course on the russian revolution, this would
have given me a pretty good backround.

But how much of this do you think a 6th grader will retain? If they're
teaching this stuff, you can be sure the 7th grade Social Studies
WASL will require kids to be able to recall any major historical event,
culture, or person, right? I can't imagine a final for this beast.

On the other hand, in the hands of a capable homeschooler, this
is a handy reference.

The World Past and Present Social Studies for a changing world
Maxcmillan McGraw Hill Banks et a 1993
Every continent from prehistory to mosern times. Vietnam war gets
3 paragraphs, pol pot gets 1. 3 pages old stone age. p. 110
ten commandments 69-131 egypt judaism mesopotamia
page 194 sermon on the mount
213-214 vikings
207-231 middle ages
286-295 french revolution
533-537 korea

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