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Not that much in grade/high school but as a history major at an IL state school I certainly had to take more than one "Illinois History" class. The 400 level one was one of the most boring classes I have ever taken, but I am guessing that had more to do with the prof than the content. While it was boring I did actual learn a TON about the states history I had never heard/read before. That particular class also made a point to not focus that heavily on Chicago history and more on the mid to lower states events, which I appreciated. Not that I dislike Chicago history, but it was still good to expand I felt.
In my area of Kentucky, we actually spend half a year in the 7th or 8th grade on state history. That was a few years ago and I'm not sure what they do now, if anything.
When I was in school, there was almost no study of the history of the state of Wisconsin. In grade school, around 5th grade, there was a monthly reader that came out of the State Historical Society, and our teacher would spend about an hour discussing its extracurricular contents. In High School, the state was covered only anecdotally by the Civics teacher, to the extent that he knew anything about the state in the first place, but no formal study of it from textbooks. No exam ever required any more than the name of the state capital and the year of admission to the union, which was easy because I was in 5th grade in the centennial year.
By contrast, when I got to college in Louisiana, my classmates had a mind-boggling depth of knowledge about the history of the state, could name a lot of ex-governors and what they did, knew exactly where all geographical features were, and could describe war battles in Louisiana in minute detail, which they argued over endlessly.
Of course, when your state's history is populated by people like Huey Long, Jean Lafitte, Andrew Jackson, and Evangeline (never mind that she was fictitious), it's a lot easier for a student to get enthusiastic about it.
Not much, honestly. I'm 27 and I wish I had soaked up that subject. I'm completely blind to it all.
I grew up in the burbs north of NYC. I don't recall learning that much about NY state specifically. NY, having been integral to many parts of US history, popped up a lot, but I don't remember focusing on it. My little town had been burned by the British in the Revolutionary War and we learned mostly local things like that. I did enjoy the recreation of that "battle" in 1980, which was the 300th anniversary of the town's founding.
My daughter is now in fourth grade, and a very big focus this year is on NY state history. They did a big thing on geography of the state, then the native Americans here, and now are on the European explorers who came to NY.
In 9th grade we had a semester long class on Washington State history that I had to take.
When I taught in Alabama in the '80s-early 90's, I think there was a mandatory semester long jr. high class on Alabama history. It seems like when I came back to Alabama schools in 2000 that class had been dropped and a required civics class was in it's place...I think.
I taught a semester long class to 8th graders on Oregon history during the '90s.
Don't remember CA history classes the few years I taught there a hundred years ago...I never taught it, not in jr high or high school any way.
I think state history ought to be taught at some point during elementary school and again in junior or senior high. Some states (and I would guess each of them) have a really rich, deep, interesting history.
We studied Kentucky history in the 4th grade. We even did little skits based on individual events in the state's history, but I couldn't recount a shred of what we were taught. Kentucky is hardly an illustrious state. It was rather boring for an 8 year old.
I took Colorado History in the 8th grade [of course THEN there wasn't as much history as now]
The main thing I remember is the SLANT of the History
Col. John Chivington engaged a tribe of Cheyenne Indians in a pre dawn battle. The Cheyene were defeated with no loss of life to the Cavalry.
A NUMBER of years later I got the true slant to the battle....Chivington rode into a camp of SLEEPING Cheyenne and massacared every man woman and child in the camp.
I took Tennessee History in the seventh grade (I lived in Memphis at the time). Shortly after beginning the eighth grade we moved to Alabama, where I had to take Alabama History.
Neither class taught me nearly as much as my own post-college studies. Suffice it to say that there was a WHOLE DANGED LOT of history that these classes ignored or glossed over...
-- Nighteyes
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