How is today's world different from how it was presented to you in school?

[begin_within]

[proud2BlibKansan]

1. The president was literate and articulate

and the whole world respected the USA.

[PowerToThePeople]

2. I was schooled to be a fascist. Had I grown up to be what I was...

socialized to become, the country would seem ideal through my freeper, kool-aid filled eyes.

edit- I was in public school during the 80's.

[FormerRepublican]

3. Americans have civil rights!

[philarq]

4. 2005--where's the Moon colony?

[begin_within]

5. And I thought we'd all be driving cars around in the air by this time.

[napi21]

6. I grew up with having to hide under your desk if there was

an alert, and constantly being told that the Russians were going to bomb us!

The good side was there were no drive by shootings, kids sniffed glue, but most of us didn't, and there was no problem riding your bike down to the local park to play ball after school because the only kids who were kidnaped were the rich kids for ransom.

For the most part, we trusted the President, and your congressman would listen to you if you called him.

[Liberty Belle]

7. Very different -- and far more negative.

I graduated in '75, in the heydey of the environmental movement. The first "Earth Day" was on my birthday. I became an environmental studies major. It was a time of great hope for the future of our planet.

Unlike today, when the Bush administration seems hellbent on destroying not only America, but our entire planet.


When I was in high school, people had a basic trust in our president, even if you didn't agree with his political views. That was shattered by Nixon, who resigned the year I graduated. Even then, though, the mistrust was largely limited to truthfulnes over political issues. Nixon lied to cover up a break in at Democratic party headquarters. It's hard to believe that the majority of Congress found that to be an impeachable offense, when today not one member will even introduce an impeachment resolution for a president who has lied to lead us into war, demonstrated incompetence to the point of allowing a major American city to drown, and did nothing to stop terrorists from destroying four airliners and two world trade centers on his watch.

We also had strong consumer watchdog groups and laws to protect consumers from corporate predators. By contrast, today those corporations are writing the rules, so we have foxes guarding the henhouse.

The U.S. used to be respected as a country that stood up for human rights. Today, we have lost that respect by invading a nation without just cause and by repeatedly condoning torture of prisoners.

In the '70s, people worried that the Cold War could lead to the Soviets destroying the world with a nuclear bomb.

Today, the Soviet Union is gone. Instead, we worry that our own president could be sufficiently unhinged to launch a nuclear weapon.

America was also admired as a beacon of democracy. Today, electronic voting fraud and the dismantling of civil liberties has turned our democracy into a mockery, sad to say.

[twenty4blackbirds]

8. uh...not much...

the details have changed but generally while I was being taught in the schooling system I learnt a few things:
* be wary of nuclear wars
* be wary of dictatorial nations (used to be USSR, PRC, East Germany)
* if a story sounds too slick to be true, it's usually fiction
* admire heroes who have courage
* 2 + 2 = 4; 2 x 2 = 4
* knowledge is power
* humour is the best way to connect with people
* humour varies from person to person
* our planet needs some loving and caring
* Mother Nature triumphs
* what you don't know can hurt you

[MnFats]

9. for starters, a prayer started each day the public school I attended

in first grade, we had to fold our hands on top of our desks, put our heads down and close our eyes. The battle-axe teacher waited annoyingly until everyone was quiet and then began the prayer.

thank GOD those days are gone!

[jobycom]

10. I no longer believe the South should have won the Civil War

But I'm much less certain the war had to be fought.

I can no longer believe in the implicit white English supremacy that was assumed.

[ThomWV]

11. School In The 50's and 60's

Shit, are you kidding? There were notions of that far distant twenty-first century that would boggle the modern mind.

Not a bit of it happened of course. The ill winds were already in motion and we didn't even see them comming.

[mrcheerful]

12. Lets see, graduate from school, get a job at

GM on the line and you were set for life. Republicans were crooks and lier's that pandered to the rich, somethings never changed. There wasn't this belief of everyone having an equal opportunity, we saw from grade one that kids from well to do families got better grades and better books then those who's parents were poor or middle class. Of course back in those days public schools out numbered religious schools 10 to 1. Also parents were relieved when the schools started offering sex ed, that way they didn't get pressured into telling kids were babies came from. Sex ed came about because of the myth's kids were told by parents and unwed mothers became a pandemic, Well girls could not figure out how they got that way because they avoided eating watermelon seeds all summer. Christens used to be quiet and kept to their own beliefs, back then there was only they Watch tower people going door to door selling their beliefs, Jehovah's witnesses. People wanted Church kept out of their lives. There were only 3 stations that carried church programs from 6am till 8am sunday mornings only. Religious nuts standing on street corners talking about other peoples sins were looked on as being unstable mental cases.

[mikelewis]

13. Pretty much the same...

The rich kids run the show and get away with murder. They act like they're innocent darlings but they're the ones selling dope and getting girls pregnant. They're the Eddie Haskell party.

[TahitiNut]

14. I started grade school under Truman and finished under JFK.

When I started, there were still areas on a world map marked "unexplored." There was a country called "Siam" and colonies called "Belgian Congo" and "British Honduras." The world's population was about 2.5 billion and the US population was about 150 million. First Class postage was 3 cents.

[mark11727]

21. I vaguely remember these 3c stamps...

[EarlG]

15. When I was in school

There was a president called George Bush fighting a war in Iraq with his buddies Dick Cheney and Colin Powell.

Odd that.

[Odin2005]

16. we have rigged elections.

And politicians represents special intrests and big business, not thier constituents.

[conflictgirl]

17. Not much different, really

I went to school in the 80s and 90s (graduated HS in '92). Back then there was the Iraq War v.1 and even then I could tell that the rah-rah patriotic stuff they were teaching us in school was mostly based on lies. We were told that if we worked hard, went to college, etc that our lives would be more successful than our parents'. I don't know if I was just listening to too much punk and grunge music ;) but I always had the feeling that the shit was going to hit the fan. I knew even then that our society was unsustainable and the day would come when we would face the consequences for it. I guess I can say that the only really surprising part to me was that I didn't expect it to all happen quite so soon.

[Ravy]

18. We are now playing the part on the world stage that...

... the comunists were. The communists were seen then as a destabilizing force by trying to force their form of government onto the rest of the world.

[Syncronaut Seven]

19. History and civics were dry and incomplete, but not terribly inaccurate

Home ec was fun, should have paid more attention to math.

Teach in high school actually let me TEACH the class in electronics, turns out I knew more.

But the real lessons were learned on the playground. That's where I learned that many humans were vicious, sadistic, violent, shallow, scared, stupid and just plain sociopathic.

I suppose if I ever fully came to terms with those lessons, I'd pretty much lose hope and jump. Delusion and denial of the true nature of humanity keep me alive.

On edit: Nothing much has really changed, other than folks have become better liars.

[bumblebee1]

20. For starters

The President (regardless of party) was at least articulate and possessed intelligence.

Western bloc- good. Eastern bloc-bad.

If you work hard and behave yourself, you could get ahead.

Everyone had a decent chance at going to college.

[wickerwoman]

22. There's all these brown people in it.

Seriously. In high school we had one black kid, three hispanic kids and four or five Asians out of almost 2000. I was such an asshole about race my first two years of college- it makes me want to bang my head against a wall thinking about it.

Plus there're gay people. I didn't know about them in high school. They taught us how to cook a shot of heroin but I never knew there were gay people until I went to college.

Also, not everybody has a car. A lot of people walk to the grocery store.

In high school, I believed you could become anything you wanted if you just worked really hard. Now it pisses me off how unequally opportunity is distributed.

But the biggest lie is that you only get one shot at things. If you screw up once, that's it. Throw in the towel. You're a loser if you haven't done something amazing by the time you're thirty. Moving back in with your parents means your life is a failure. After forty, it's all a long slide downhill.

Now I realize that we can get better at life every year we live it. It's like a grand experiment and failure is part of the path to success. I know it's a cliche but it's something I honestly didn't understand when I was in school.

[misanthrope]

23. Where to start?...

...It's drastically unjust.

An honest day's work doesn't get you much more than peace of mind and sometimes not even that.

Finding something you love to do doesn't mean that you will be able to pay the bills, it just means you'll be able to make yourself go to work in the morning.

The government doesn't really give a damn about helping or fairly representing the citizenry, only certain members of it.

Politicians seek office to help themselves and their friends, or to boost their tragically fragile self-esteem. They're not serving us as much as just trying to be remembered.

Crime goes unpunished all the time.

There are different criminal justice systems for people based upon race and class.

The Pilgrims didn't come to establish a land of religious freedom, but to establish their religion as the law of the land.

The Founding Fathers didn't actually believe in the equality of all humans.

[Bellamia]

24. A LOT different..........

how much time do you have to read an answer? It'll take a lifetime.