At the request of my Engineering degreed daughter, I just bought tickets to see Oppenheimer in 70mm tomorrow night (the day before it opens nationally - one of the few perks of paying to live in LA).

You would think this is going to be a hooray hashtag Women in STEM story but unfortunately, it's a sad state of education story.

After I bought the tickets, she says to me, now who was this guy? Was he like a Nazi scientist or something?

My jaw hit the floor. Not so much that she didn't know who he was - at least she's going to attend the movie and find out, but the fact that she didn't even know whose side he was on. She does know that we stole some scientists from the Nazis but that is more space program related.

I spent a ton of dough on private girls school in Australia and on out of state tuition at the West Point of the South. I can't believe that they didn't cover the development of The Bomb in either of those settings.

Maybe it's just accepted these days that "Nukes are Bad M'Kay" and they don't even discuss the Manhattan Project in history class.

It's been a long time since I took American History in HS, or US Military History in college but I just can't believe that kids these days would not even know the particulars about how we won the War in the Pacific. Since the Pacific Theater affected Australia the most, you'd think that they would teach schoolchildren that their bacon was saved by The Yanks and their A-Bombs. Also by Yanks like my Grandfather who went to Brisbane before participating in amphibious assaults in New Guinea and The Philippines.

So I asked her why did she want to see a 3 hour long movie (runtime 180 minutes with $22 tickets) if she didn't even know who the guy was. She said she heard it was a good movie.

I sure hope it is a good movie, we'll see.

So my question for the parents out there is - What do your kids know about Robert Oppenheimer, The Manhattan Project, WWII in the Pacific?

Is this just an isolated incident or, are we in the midst of an American History Pandemic?

Politics because - our kids should being taught this at the HS and/or College level.

It's possible that the name was tossed out there and she simply doesn't remember it. I've personally taught students material that they don't remember the next week. It has to be repeated over and over and over, because the baseline for kids right now is memorize crap for a test and forget it immediately after.

Kids are too busy learning about mutilating kids' genitalia, how boys can have babies, and men can have periods. They don't have time to learn history, math, etc.

Don't take this the wrong way Hollywood BQ, but what did you teach your child about US History over the years?

I wasn't taught anything about Oppenheimer in HS or college. I don't think this is that big a deal, OP. It's certainly not a "sign of the times" thing.

The Banned said:

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It's possible that the name was tossed out there and she simply doesn't remember it. I've personally taught students material that they don't remember the next week. It has to be repeated over and over and over, because the baseline for kids right now is memorize crap for a test and forget it immediately after.

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Some people really like history and remember it. Others don't.

My kids know that it wasn't over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor

I really don't remember leaning about Oppenheimer I. Public schools or, hell even college and I was a history major. Now what I learned is because I'm a huge history nerd and studied this on my own. I don't know all the facts but have a decent idea of what he did.

Meh. A lot of people know about WWII, the general timeline, d-day, what countries were fighting who, etc. But may not know the name Oppenheimer. Or had heard it but aren't sure who he was. Doesn't mean much.

On another note, Cillian Murphy is one of the most underrated actors in the world. Fantastic cast in this movie. I won't be going on opening weekend but will be seeing it the weekend of August 4th.

For a reference, I'm an old who was apparently taught more history in public school and at TAMU than my kids were. We were taught the bomb was developed by the U.S. and there was some mention that it was a secret called the Manhattan Project. But we were never taught names like who the scientists were other than a passing mention or two. I don't recall learning of Oppenheimer until my own readings as an adult.

I think you're blowing it out of proportion a bit.

I'm an engineer and a history lover. If asked about:

Manhattan project? Sure, could talk about it. Enola Gay? She was a B-29. Fat Man and Little Boy? Those were the bombs.

Oppenheimer? They sell investments.

My HS son took a dual credit, college History course last summer.

It was so ridiculous, I ended up auditing it with him. It should have been renamed 'Racial History of the United States', because that's all it dealt with. As an example, the section on WWII didnt mention Hitler one time, in any of the study material, quizzes or tests. Not once. Every section was like this. Very little actual historical knowledge, just information about how groups were negatively affected socially.

I was bothered by the material, because it was severely lacking actual historical information. As a result, I did some quick research on the book/author and found out it was the #1 history curriculum used in High School and college currently.