"Are" taught is still correct for millions of schools kids. My niece was suspended for correcting her history teacher in High School when her teacher told the class that the founding fathers of the US were founding the country on xtian principles and that's why God is mentioned in the US Constitution. She was warned first to back off but a few days later was suspended for the remainder of that week when the subject was approached again and she wouldn't let it drop. It obviously doesn't say that in her textbook but the teacher has assured the class it is true.
Millions of teachers barely use the tectbooks except sporadically in places where it coincides with what they wish to teach. Anymore the emphasis seems to be on hammering home the information included on standardized tests with no background information to make sense of it or tie it all together. Just lots of facts unmoored from any context. Workbooks not tectbooks are the needed tool. Fill them in while preparing for the test and then throw them away. Then the school can buy new ones for next year.
My nieces and nephews roll their eyes at me when I say history is fun but truthfully I'm the one who has it wrong in a way. History is boring when all your class time is spent preparing for tests and learning nothing in the process. I have nieces and nephews in several states and with the exception of the ones in private schools all the rest tell me pretty much the same thing. History is a series of unrelated facts with a minor underlying theme of "GO Team USA!" Were #1!
How was My Lai approached? An unfortunate event, almost an accident that was resulted in appropriate punishment when discovered thus proving how good Team USA really is? They are taught Team USA has apologized for the accident so it's all OK now. Yes, bad things happened in the past but we learned from them and are even more good today than we were then. And we were pretty damn good back then too!
How about the past union activities? Yes, those were tough times and some business men were pretty mean so unions were formed. The mean business men fought this but the couragous American worker won. Now workers have lots more protection than they ever had and unions are on the decline. After all, why do we need them now? Those mean business guys from the '30's are dead you know.
History teaching and schooling in general as it was in the 80's is very different from today in my opinion. The kids who come to my all to infrequent class at the community college bring some strange ideas with them compared to kids of 15-20 years ago.
To make a long post even longer a great many of my students see right through this crap to a degree. They take the "bad" behavior of others pretty much at face value but don't believe the syrupy sweet US version of itself. They generally seem to think of it a Disney like fairy tale designed to cover the ass of the current generation and their living parents. They're never sure what part of the fairy tale is true and what part made up however and this creates confusion.
John Thornton