For those of you who attended HS in Utah: What was the general perspective of what you were taught about the LDS Church when learning about Utah history?
I went to high school in Idaho and it sure did not spill over in any meaningful way up there.
In fact, in my young TBM mind, I was Shocked! Shocked I tell you when I lived in St. Louis MO (dh was in graduate school) and worked in a bank there 1973-76). It made the local news when then gov. Kitt Bond rescinded the extermination order against the mormons that had been declared by then Gov. Boggs back in the 1840's. I was absolutely blown away when I realized that NO one I worked with knew a thing about that and had NOT studied it in MO. history. It was a big letdown for me. Of course, my co-workers wanted me to tell them all about it because I was such an oddity and the only mormon they had ever encountered!
This was quite a few years ago in a small Utah town so hopefully there has been some progress in the way Utah history is taught:
My history teacher asked if there were any non-Mormon kids in the class. One girl raised her hand. The teacher then stated that Utah history is mostly Mormon history. Utah history began in the spring of 1820 when a young man named Joseph Smith was wondering what church to join,.......,.... and eventually led to Mormon pioneers coming to the Salt Lake Valley to conquer an empty land,.................
As far as any History Class per the district curriculum, I was taught history out of a standard test book. Mormonism was not a hot topic in that class. I was particularly interested in WWII history, with an emphasis on the aircraft, so I delved deeply into that area of study.
However, in seminary which my parents made sure I attended daily. The history of the church was that the Mormonism was persecuted for nothing more than believing in Joseph Smiths prophecies. Smith was also portrayed as an honest upstanding moral person, who was persecuted for his following the commands of God. Everything was snow white with Smith, and everything negative said or done to him was by those who were inspired by the devil.
As I grew older, it became obvious to me that Mormonism like many other religions was based upon fear and punishment, and if you were lucky you got to return to heaven. They were right, and everybody else was wrong.
Moved to a small town in SoUtah my Sophomore year of High School. Moved there from Texas - medium size town with a major league football Stadium for the High School.
Utah Schoo was a joke in football.
Did not have any Utah History classes while in Texas we had history classes every year with a big emphasis on the Lone Star Republic of Texas.
A lot of Texas History classes and the others always had references to Texas in National and World happenings - or their effect on Texas.
Watch the movie FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS to get the feel and realize it even downplays how big High School football is - and the Stadium for the Permian Panthers really is the one they play in.
Until parents converted to mormonism and planned the move I never figured we would move away. Oil business and apparently Utah has a some in a very small way.
Pre 1847, was only told of Jim Bridger and cache valley and trappers like Ogden.
Kit Carson and his survey of the Great Salt Lake.
Then poof! Mormons appeared.
Then poof! Golden Spike and the rail roads.
Then a bunch of trivial stuff, local history of surrounding towns etc.
Was a half year class.
What was left out?
Spanish settlements in Utah. Native Americans, period. Bear River Massacre Mountain Meadows Utah War Isolation and occupation during the civil war Struggle for statehood and plural marriage Pre history, lake Bonneville, dinosaurs, you know the cool stuff.
Utah history starts with the age of dinosaurs and goes up to whenever the text book was published. Before we even get to the Mormons, we study dinosaurs, the Ice Age, Lake Bonneville geography, the major Indian tribes and their culture and the various white men,including Mountain Men explorers and wagon trains which went through Utah, including the Donners. We next get into the history of the church and Joseph Smith as it pertains to why they settled here. This includes such things as polygamy, blòck voting,the Nauvoo Expositor etc that lead to tensions wherever they settled. Doctrine was only discussed if it has some historical impact. I discussed a little about the differences in doctrine between Mormons and other denominations without taking a side. The purpose being to understand differences which lead to tensions We then learned about pioneer life, the settlements of different areas, the Mountain Meadows Massacre, Brigham Young and the path to statehood and so called end of polygamy . We also learned about other major religions and their contributions. After statehood,it was pretty much Utah's role in the history of the US. Of course all teachers have some leeway in how and what they teach. I tried to remain neutral. In short, we didn't spend the entire year or even the semester. discussing Mormons. Another point, Utah history isn't taught in high school per se. It gets a paragraph or two when studying the west and little more. It is a 7th grade class exclusively. Sometimes it is a year class. Some schools teach it for a semester and then teach civics the rest of the year
I should add that I taught Utah history fairly recently. When I took the class as a 7th grader back in the 60s it was different. The text book was written by Milton R. Hunter who,was a GA I think and he seemed to think that Utah history was all about the church and not anything else.I babysat for another teacher who had a relative who taught Utah history at BYU. She told me that he hated the book. As she put it,"If the Mormons didn't do it, it didn't happen." I thought that summed it up pretty well.It was alsompretty boring and was mainly taught as a dialog between a teacher and 7th graders who acted like they had never heard anything about Joseph Smith, Brigham Young or pretty much anything else.It was as if they had just dropped in from another planet. It was annoying in the extreme. I was a good little Mormon at the time and hated it