remember when there was a shared reality?
This is so weird. I was talking about this the other day with younger coworkers. It was the anniversary of the Challenger Explosion. I wasn’t alive for the tragedy, but I know what it is. Some of my coworkers that were alive for it but didn’t remember it outright. There was also confusion between Apollo 1, Apollo 13, Challenger, and Columbia. But they could organize these events with a little prompting.
My sub-25-year-old coworkers had either never heard of these events or couldn’t place them on a timeline anywhere close to their actual dates. Off by decades. One thought the Apollo missions were in the 90s. Most of them were kinda amazed to find out just how long ago the last person walked on the moon. One thought WWII ended at the turn of the last century. And before anyone tells me I’m being a pretentious history nerd, we’re all teachers. We should know these things.
I wonder if there are any academic studies trying to figure out who, growing up, were included by the adults when they experienced events (world or otherwise) and who were excluded?
I have the strong impression that the adults around me, while I was growing up, didn’t really seemed inclined to include me in the goings on of the world. So I would be vaguely aware that “something” had/was/is happening/ed but it was “not something I needed to know about”.
Combine that with public education framing history, in almost all contexts, as having been “a very long time ago” and historical moments become unstuck in time and exist as a fact just sitting in your brain like a bullet-point on a list.
It kinda broke my brain when I got in my young adult years and came across some listicle style articles that would mention how such-n-such a person who had been alive as an adult during the US civil war years lived to see two world wars and war making technology go from cannons and muskets to aircraft carriers and nuclear bombs. As a kid learning about eras of history like the US civil war, it always felt like “ancient history”, like the people alive back then just stopped existing after that event.
That’s interesting insight. Are you in the Gen Z demographic? If so, would you mind me asking what’s your earliest conception you live in a “world”? I don’t necessarily mean that you live in a globe, but rather that other people live far away, and inhabit places different from your home surroundings?
I ask this because I always encounter a large amount of disbelief from my students (aged 5-12) when I show them things like maps. Not so much past age 10, but I do 2nd grade (ages 7-8) unit on Ancient Greek art and vases. A lot of the students will, no joke, be convinced Greece is next to Washington DC, a 45 minute drive away. We live in the Midwest of America. I know by that age I had a firm understanding that the Earth is round and there are other places/countries.
It’s just weird. The kids are alright, but there are large fundamental gaps in their worldview I don’t know how to adequately fill. They know the US is a country. Like I can ask “What country do we live in” and they’ll say America. Then I’ll ask if they know of any other countries and they’re like, “That’s impossible. America is the country we live in.” And around and around the circle goes.
I am of the Millennial demographic.
If so, would you mind me asking what’s your earliest conception you live in a “world”? I don’t necessarily mean that you live in a globe, but rather that other people live far away, and inhabit places different from your home surroundings?
Not Gen Z but I’ll give an answer anyways.
I’m not sure I can remember any particular moment. But between my parents moving almost two whole US states away from their parents (and a chunk of their siblings having moved all over the USA) and movies like Indiana Jones, James Bond, etc being big in the 70’s & 80’s there was a steady drip feed into my young brain that there were “other places” with people who looked/acted differently and a sense of distance.
A lot of the students will, no joke, be convinced Greece is next to Washington DC
That is wild to me. I get a kid not quite realizing the scale of distance but not knowing/forgetting about an an entire ocean is very surprising. Though, as I think about it, there is a logic to it. A kid that hears about a country called “Greece” (probably in a context like ‘Washington D.C. talks to Greece’ about some aspect of global politics) second or third hand but not yet being formally taught about the country of Greece, is likely to force two mismatched puzzle pieces together as a way to make sense of things. I remember being super interested in mythology as a kid, I would absolutely believe that at some point, I thought that the country of Egypt only existed in the past since I was reading books about ancient Egyptian gods before getting to any World Geography sections in school.
(Rhetorical question, I don’t need you to answer.) If I were in your position, I’d be wondering how many of my students have traveled and/or have family that live in another state that they occasionally go visit. Is there any correlation between a child traveling multiple hours/days to go on a family vacation or spend time with relatives and thinking the country of Greece is a next door neighbor to Washington, D.C.?
…man
this makes me feel weirdly sad, for some reason.
One thing that also contributed is VHS, and later DVD. You had access to physical media, like your parents’ VHS collection, or browsing a video rental store.
even years ago, had a buddy dating a girl younger and he was playing for her a personally curated playlist of all oldies. she didn’t like the playlist, she didn’t know any of the songs. he was incredulous and asked how she didn’t know any of the songs, and she replied, well i wasn’t around then, and then more incredulously he was like, ya, neither was I! – these are just the classic songs!
like, she must’ve never listened to the radio. it’s just crazy and unexpected, that not only does the music changed, but the media by which is passed down has changed, to the degree that people don’t know righteous melody or whatever. i guess i assumed the post-war consensus and the subsequent development of “pop culture” would be a giant text for everybody, but really i was just living in the memories of boomers, their nostalgia becoming my nostalgia, and fascinating that that this will end with me I guess.
I found a YouTube link in your post. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
