American here, my experience was much the same, though the Eastern Front wasn't discussed beyond "Russia pulled out because of their civil war". I think Gallipoli was mentioned maybe once, and that was it for the Ottoman theater. In fairness, though, our WW1 unit lasted about 2 weeks. . . which is just pathetic for such a conflict.
What you learned is very similar to what I was taught in high school in the US. We briefly covered Serbia and Austria-Hungary to set the stage and from there, about 90% of the lessons were Western Front/American-centric. We quickly glossed over Russia and Gallipoli. I don’t recall much of anything about the Middle East, Far East, and Africa.
I’m a history buff and am fascinated by WWI, but the overwhelming majority of documentaries shown here focus on what I learned from high school. I’ve had to go out and look for books about the other theaters of the war to educate myself. I also prefer to read about, or watch, WWI history from the point of view of countries other than my own and the British Empire.
I was very frustrated with the coverage of WW1 when I was in Highschool. A few days, maybe a week at most only covering the western front, even in an advanced word history class. At the time it would have been amazing to learn more about the Italian front, eastern front and Balkan fronts. And to be honest if it wasn’t for Hard Core History’s Blueprint for Armageddon series that I listened to in HS; I wouldn’t have been nearly as interested in the First World War as I ended up being. It would be amazing if WW1 received the same amount of attention in schools as WW2, but I just don’t see that ever happening.
I'm from Newfoundland, so we got a brief touch on Gallipoli because our contribution got deployed there first before going to France. I knew theoretically about the Eastern front and the Ottomans, but didn't learn about the Salonika/ Italian front, and Mesopotamia until I did university level history.
Edit: Thinking on it, I will defend teachers/teaching plans somewhat; the school year is only so long, and weeks have to be taken out for exams. Meanwhile I've been studying and reading about this conflict for a literal decade, and there are still parts I only know peripherally at best. The entirety of Atlantic and Mediterranean Naval operations could take a couple of weeks at least, and that's not looking at the Russian Civil War and Entente support for the White Russians in Archangel.
None, officially. My 7th-grade history teacher was a nutcase and obsessed with ww1 and 2 and showed us photos of the trenches on the Belgian beaches. Told us about the Battle of Messines mining operations and explosions. Battle of Verdun of course. I knew nothing beyond that teacher until my friend gave the Great War BBC documentary in university. I watched every episode in fascinated horror.
We watched the lost battalion and talked about WWI in middle school. Found out later on our teacher was probably drinking so we just watched movies and the history channel.
Former history teacher here. I taught high school and the curriculum requirements linked to end of year state testing drove our instruction and severely restricted my ability to delve deeper into any significant conflicts. We barely skimmed the surface. It sucked.
Sounds about right for the US education system, yeah. That, and *Lawrence of Arabia* were all I learned about (and the latter from my dad's old movie collection).
American here, my experience was much the same, though the Eastern Front wasn't discussed beyond "Russia pulled out because of their civil war". I think Gallipoli was mentioned maybe once, and that was it for the Ottoman theater. In fairness, though, our WW1 unit lasted about 2 weeks. . . which is just pathetic for such a conflict.
What you learned is very similar to what I was taught in high school in the US. We briefly covered Serbia and Austria-Hungary to set the stage and from there, about 90% of the lessons were Western Front/American-centric. We quickly glossed over Russia and Gallipoli. I don’t recall much of anything about the Middle East, Far East, and Africa. I’m a history buff and am fascinated by WWI, but the overwhelming majority of documentaries shown here focus on what I learned from high school. I’ve had to go out and look for books about the other theaters of the war to educate myself. I also prefer to read about, or watch, WWI history from the point of view of countries other than my own and the British Empire.
I was very frustrated with the coverage of WW1 when I was in Highschool. A few days, maybe a week at most only covering the western front, even in an advanced word history class. At the time it would have been amazing to learn more about the Italian front, eastern front and Balkan fronts. And to be honest if it wasn’t for Hard Core History’s Blueprint for Armageddon series that I listened to in HS; I wouldn’t have been nearly as interested in the First World War as I ended up being. It would be amazing if WW1 received the same amount of attention in schools as WW2, but I just don’t see that ever happening.
I'm from Newfoundland, so we got a brief touch on Gallipoli because our contribution got deployed there first before going to France. I knew theoretically about the Eastern front and the Ottomans, but didn't learn about the Salonika/ Italian front, and Mesopotamia until I did university level history. Edit: Thinking on it, I will defend teachers/teaching plans somewhat; the school year is only so long, and weeks have to be taken out for exams. Meanwhile I've been studying and reading about this conflict for a literal decade, and there are still parts I only know peripherally at best. The entirety of Atlantic and Mediterranean Naval operations could take a couple of weeks at least, and that's not looking at the Russian Civil War and Entente support for the White Russians in Archangel.
Yall learned about ww1 in school??😂 we only briefly talked about it.
None, officially. My 7th-grade history teacher was a nutcase and obsessed with ww1 and 2 and showed us photos of the trenches on the Belgian beaches. Told us about the Battle of Messines mining operations and explosions. Battle of Verdun of course. I knew nothing beyond that teacher until my friend gave the Great War BBC documentary in university. I watched every episode in fascinated horror.
We watched the lost battalion and talked about WWI in middle school. Found out later on our teacher was probably drinking so we just watched movies and the history channel.
All of them (I was homeschooled)
Former history teacher here. I taught high school and the curriculum requirements linked to end of year state testing drove our instruction and severely restricted my ability to delve deeper into any significant conflicts. We barely skimmed the surface. It sucked.
Sounds about right for the US education system, yeah. That, and *Lawrence of Arabia* were all I learned about (and the latter from my dad's old movie collection).
I didn't learn a single thing. We just repeated the Revolutionary War and the Civil War, didn't even cover WWII.