REGINA: A rich history

I think something that we miss out on in America is having the experience of living in a very old country. I mean, compare Germany to America. Germany has houses that are more than twice as old as America as a country is.

Now, relative to its age, America has made a lot out of itself. But there’s so much more culture to be found in a country with a history as long as Germany’s. A great deal of the most famous composers in history came from Germany, or, if not Germany, from German-speaking countries. There are so many different types of architecture to be found in Germany, too. I’m not a big fan of older American architecture, but even in the large, over-the-top buildings that can be found in Germany, there’s something incredibly charming which I feel American architecture lacks. And a lot of it is incredibly well preserved.

You can go and find houses that people lived in 400 years ago fairly easily. I think it’s incredible that there are buildings to be found here that are older than America is.

Being as old as it is, and having had so many great people and things that have come out of Germany, it’s a wonder that Germans are so humble. America really doesn’t have any excuse to be as cocky and full of itself as it is. Germany, and Europe in general, has been around so much longer and has done so much more; it’s just insane how proud Americans are to live there when we’ve done so little in comparison.

I feel as though instead of so much focus on the history of the United States in K12, there should be more of a focus on what the rest of the world has been doing as well (my own experiences being that, until I got to USC Upstate, essentially nothing beyond what concerned America specifically was discussed in school). I think that if we were to teach our students more about the world around us, maybe Americans would stop thinking that they’re the best there is and see that there are other countries out there that are just as great, and in some cases, better, than our own.