This thread hits on why we should the history of technology and food and daily life, not just kings and queens and wars…how did we get here and what decisions were made — by choice or driven by circumstance — along the way…
The mid-70s BBC science show Connections does a great job of explaining a lot of that, how civilization started with the plow and the ability to plan for next year once you knew you would be around next year…
Saw a tweet yesterday on schools dumping analog clocks because kids can't read them with the usual "sure, why not?" without any thought to what we lose when we slough off our history. Why not teach them? Skip counting 5s isn't useless, nor is fractions like halves and quarters.
It's standard fare to dump on Millenials or whatever generation for not knowing things we codgers can't even remember learning but it's not their fault. We're going to make them re-learn a lot of this, at the risk of some dying, just to save ourselves the trouble of teaching it.
