Is the Alamo a big deal nationally?

5,534 Views | 45 Replies | Last: 2 yr ago by Cen-Tex
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BQ78
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I went to grade school in California and we learned about it but it was probably more in passing than making Alamo models or things like that. We covered the Oregon Trail equally with the Alamo, so I imagine the way they covered the Oregon Trail in Texas was how we did it in California. Of course you took Texas History while we had California History.

Of course we all watched Walt Disney's Davy Crockett and had coonskin hats and we're swinging old Betsy smashing Mexicans in the head after school. Pretty racist of us.
nortex97
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The answer is...no, it's not. Also, most states don't have a state history class as part of k-12 education. I'm not sure of another one that does, now that I think about it.
AggieZUUL
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I'm pretty sure most kids outside of Texas learned about the Alamo from Pee Wee's Big Adventure.

BQ78
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As I posted, in the 1960s California had a California History semester in the 8th grade, I think they still have it. Everyone in the class was assigned one of the California Missions and had to make a report and model of it. I got Mission Soledad one of the more obscure ones in the Central Valley. I learned so much though that on a high school trip to San Francisco about four years later I had to to stop at the site and see it (even thought the mission itself was a reconstruction and the original was long gone).

Spore Ag
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Moved to Australia in 1968. Teacher asked me to say something about my country. As we just finished Texas History, the Alamo was fresh on my mind. Half way through the story I remember the the listeners were spellbound and the silence was pronounced. Lots of queries afterwards.

One has to remember even Phil Collins was fascinated by the event.
BigJim49 AustinNowDallas
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No Alamo and Texas revolution- No California !
BigJim49AustinnowDallas
Trench55
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Over the course of my career I've lived in eight states and traveled to all 50. In my experience, outside of Texas the Texas revolution and the Alamo are little more than historical anecdotes. The same can be said for the histories of most other states outside of a state's border, with the exception of historical events that significantly affected the country as a whole, e.g. the major civil war battles, etc.
Rex Racer
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Well, the Alamo IS the number 1 tourist destination in Texas, so...
cavscout96
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Learned about the Alamo during grade school history.... In Tennessee.

Also... Had state history in other k-12 education in other states. (Old man was in the Army)

None of it was as cool as Texas history though!
aalan94
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I think most non-Texans get the Alamo history from popular culture, which explains why they don't understand it. Nobody in Texas who paid attention is unaware that there were Tejanos fighting for the good guys, but outside of Texas, they probably don't know that. If you blinked during the John Wayne Alamo, you missed Juan Seguin.
Sapper Redux
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I don't remember it being mentioned in North Carolina. The name floats around in pop culture, and I think most people have a very, very vague sense of what happened, but I also wonder if that cultural memory of the Alamo is wearing off as westerns are no longer as important.
CanyonAg77
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cavscout96 said:

Learned about the Alamo during grade school history.... In Tennessee.

Also... Had state history in other k-12 education in other states. (Old man was in the Army)

None of it was as cool as Texas history though!

Lots of Tennessee folks in the Alamo
Ghost of Andrew Eaton
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My students every year for the past 20 years-"We lost at the Alamo?!?!?!"
If you say you hate the state of politics in this nation and you don't get involved in it, you obviously don't hate the state of politics in this nation.
AgBQ-00
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Good chance to teach them about a pyrrhic victory.
The_Waco_Kid
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4th grade in Minnesota was their state history. 5th grade North Carolina was their state history. 6th grade Iowa was the Native American history of the region. Moved back to Texas 8th grade and stayed through college, never took a history of Texas course until then. The only time the Alamo was mentioned in the other states' history courses was about a paragraph in "westward expansion."
Rex Racer
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Deutscher_Aggie1 said:

4th grade in Minnesota was their state history. 5th grade North Carolina was their state history. 6th grade Iowa was the Native American history of the region. Moved back to Texas 8th grade and stayed through college, never took a history of Texas course until then. The only time the Alamo was mentioned in the other states' history courses was about a paragraph in "westward expansion."
You just missed it. Texas history is covered in 7th grade, or at least it was when I was in school.
Rabid Cougar
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I was wearing a Texas flag patch on the front plate my IBA in Afghanistan in 2011. I had more than one of the locals ask me if I was from Texas. Upon my affirmation they would ask about cowboys and the Alamo.

The flag is very distinct and recognizable. After that is what they see on TV shows and movies...

Our reputation precedes us.

Ghost of Andrew Eaton
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4th and 7th grade.
If you say you hate the state of politics in this nation and you don't get involved in it, you obviously don't hate the state of politics in this nation.
Smeghead4761
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BigJim49 AustinNowDallas said:

No Alamo and Texas revolution- No California !

Maybe, maybe not...there were Americans making their way into California either way. And when (not if) the gold gets discovered, well, katy-bar the door. The Mexican-American War starts on the Sacramento instead of the Rio Grande.

I grew up in California, and we did California history in 4th grade. All I remember is Junipero Serra, missions, and the Gold Rush. My model mission was San Luis Obispo.

Now, one thing that definitely isn't taught is that Texas wasn't the only state that rebelled against Santa Anna's unconstitutional usurpation of power. Texas is just the only one that succeeded.
pmart
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BQ78 said:

I went to grade school in California and we learned about it but it was probably more in passing than making Alamo models or things like that. We covered the Oregon Trail equally with the Alamo, so I imagine the way they covered the Oregon Trail in Texas was how we did it in California. Of course you took Texas History while we had California History.

Of course we all watched Walt Disney's Davy Crockett and had coonskin hats and we're swinging old Betsy smashing Mexicans in the head after school. Pretty racist of us.


I guess you were not the only one to do this. Because of another thread on here, I listened to the audiobook of "Forget the Alamo". Going into it I knew their whole purpose for the book was to discredit what they considered the "myth of the Alamo" so I took everything they said with a grain of salt. One of their claimed grievances was that the telling of the myth left out much of the Tejano contributions causing young children to resent their Mexican American classmates. This also went for John Wayne's movie. This is something I don't remember experiencing or witnessing so I really wondered if it ever was a thing. Hopefully the tejano contributions are more thoroughly explained in Texas history today.
As to the OP's question, it seems like the movie exploded the Alamo into worldwide fame.
Ghost of Andrew Eaton
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Quote:

explain the roles played by significant individuals during the Texas Revolution, including George Childress, Lorenzo de Zavala, James Fannin, Sam Houston, Antonio Lpez de Santa Anna, Juan N. Segun, and William B. Travis; and
This is the current TEKS for people involved in the Texas Revolution.
If you say you hate the state of politics in this nation and you don't get involved in it, you obviously don't hate the state of politics in this nation.
pmart
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Ghost of Andrew Eaton said:

Quote:

explain the roles played by significant individuals during the Texas Revolution, including George Childress, Lorenzo de Zavala, James Fannin, Sam Houston, Antonio Lpez de Santa Anna, Juan N. Segun, and William B. Travis; and
This is the current TEKS for people involved in the Texas Revolution.

Awesome, hopefully they spell Seguin's name right. (Nvm, I see Texags autocorrects the spelling because of the accent, lol)

Another thing I didn't know about was the role de Zavala's granddaughter played in preserving the Alamo, particularly the long barracks.
nortex97
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I grew up in a mid-atlantic state which shall not be named as it is a petulant hive of communist scum today, and we were never instructed to my memory about the Alamo.
Rex Racer
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Ghost of Andrew Eaton said:

4th and 7th grade.
I don't remember 4th grade.
Ghost of Andrew Eaton
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Rex Racer said:

Ghost of Andrew Eaton said:

4th and 7th grade.
I don't remember 4th grade.
Unfortunately, social studies is rarely taught at the elementary school level for a number of reasons.
If you say you hate the state of politics in this nation and you don't get involved in it, you obviously don't hate the state of politics in this nation.
Sapper Redux
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Ghost of Andrew Eaton said:

Rex Racer said:

Ghost of Andrew Eaton said:

4th and 7th grade.
I don't remember 4th grade.
Unfortunately, social studies is rarely taught at the elementary school level for a number of reasons.


I genuinely question the utility of trying to teach kids history before they know how to place themselves in the world today and think abstractly. That feels more like indoctrinating than teaching. 4th grade would be the absolute earliest I would try any serious review of history.
Ghost of Andrew Eaton
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Sapper Redux said:

Ghost of Andrew Eaton said:

Rex Racer said:

Ghost of Andrew Eaton said:

4th and 7th grade.
I don't remember 4th grade.
Unfortunately, social studies is rarely taught at the elementary school level for a number of reasons.


I genuinely question the utility of trying to teach kids history before they know how to place themselves in the world today and think abstractly. That feels more like indoctrinating than teaching. 4th grade would be the absolute earliest I would try any serious review of history.
K-3 is mostly "my community" sort of stuff. 4th and 5th grade social studies is even more bare-bones than middle school. I teach 8th grade U.S. history and we don't good too far in depth because we simply don't have the time to with having to cover 1607-1876 and the Constitution so our kids can take the STAAR test. I've really focused on my class being a non-fiction reading class with history as the delivery method.

"What is your evidence?" is probably the most asked question in my classroom.
If you say you hate the state of politics in this nation and you don't get involved in it, you obviously don't hate the state of politics in this nation.
DustysLineup
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O'Brien and Bashir studied the Alamo on Deep Space 9, so I'd say the mystique of the Alamo will only grow and spread in the centuries to come.

Rex Racer
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Ghost of Andrew Eaton said:

Rex Racer said:

Ghost of Andrew Eaton said:

4th and 7th grade.
I don't remember 4th grade.
Unfortunately, social studies is rarely taught at the elementary school level for a number of reasons.
I just don't remember because I'm getting old! I may very well have been taught Texas history in 4th grade.
MGS
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Harry Lime said:

O'Brien and Bashir studied the Alamo on Deep Space 9, so I'd say the mystique of the Alamo will only grow and spread in the centuries to come.


IIRC, in the final episode of the series, O'Brian said he'd take Bashir there the next time he comes to Earth.
cavscout96
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Ghost of Andrew Eaton said:

Sapper Redux said:

Ghost of Andrew Eaton said:

Rex Racer said:

Ghost of Andrew Eaton said:

4th and 7th grade.
I don't remember 4th grade.
Unfortunately, social studies is rarely taught at the elementary school level for a number of reasons.


I genuinely question the utility of trying to teach kids history before they know how to place themselves in the world today and think abstractly. That feels more like indoctrinating than teaching. 4th grade would be the absolute earliest I would try any serious review of history.
K-3 is mostly "my community" sort of stuff. 4th and 5th grade social studies is even more bare-bones than middle school. I teach 8th grade U.S. history and we don't good too far in depth because we simply don't have the time to with having to cover 1607-1876 and the Constitution so our kids can take the STAAR test. I've really focused on my class being a non-fiction reading class with history as the delivery method.

"What is your evidence?" is probably the most asked question in my classroom.


This is why 7th and 8th should be a combined course starting with indigenous / pre discovery NA (emphasis on TX). To new world exploration, colonization, revolution, etc, etc.

In each era, bring out what was happening in TX during the period. Sort of, "Meanwhile, back at the ranch...."

Spread the whole thing out, allows for more depth, adds the context to see what was happening in TX during the same periods as the English colonies and early US history.

As focus and emphasis throughout o TX history where appropriate.


dgrogers88
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JABQ04
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I just listened to a podcast from the Uk and the Alamo was the subject. Granted it was a very very broad overview, but it seems like many people in the UK understand the basic concept thanks to Fess Parker, John Wayne and Billy Bob Thornton. There's also a movie I saw about an Alamo reenactment in England where they built an Alamo (plywood and 2 x4s) and recreated the battle. Looks like there were 3-400 people involved.
Ghost of Andrew Eaton
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cavscout96 said:

Ghost of Andrew Eaton said:

Sapper Redux said:

Ghost of Andrew Eaton said:

Rex Racer said:

Ghost of Andrew Eaton said:

4th and 7th grade.
I don't remember 4th grade.
Unfortunately, social studies is rarely taught at the elementary school level for a number of reasons.


I genuinely question the utility of trying to teach kids history before they know how to place themselves in the world today and think abstractly. That feels more like indoctrinating than teaching. 4th grade would be the absolute earliest I would try any serious review of history.
K-3 is mostly "my community" sort of stuff. 4th and 5th grade social studies is even more bare-bones than middle school. I teach 8th grade U.S. history and we don't good too far in depth because we simply don't have the time to with having to cover 1607-1876 and the Constitution so our kids can take the STAAR test. I've really focused on my class being a non-fiction reading class with history as the delivery method.

"What is your evidence?" is probably the most asked question in my classroom.


This is why 7th and 8th should be a combined course starting with indigenous / pre discovery NA (emphasis on TX). To new world exploration, colonization, revolution, etc, etc.

In each era, bring out what was happening in TX during the period. Sort of, "Meanwhile, back at the ranch...."

Spread the whole thing out, allows for more depth, adds the context to see what was happening in TX during the same periods as the English colonies and early US history.

As focus and emphasis throughout o TX history where appropriate.





Except Texas goes to modern day and U.S. stops at Reconstruction.
If you say you hate the state of politics in this nation and you don't get involved in it, you obviously don't hate the state of politics in this nation.
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