> The other day, in my (eighth grade) history class, we were studying Confederation, and our history teacher was trying to make a point. So he asked one of our less bright students (incidentally, the one who mentioned the futile system in Things People Said) who the first Prime Minister was. (He tends to do that so we still have class interaction during a lesson.)
>
> "Umm.... Sir Issac Newton," said the student.
>
> Now, that got me thinking. Is all this stuff we Canadians are being told about us not knowing our history, we're not proud of ourselves, yak, yak, yak, actually TRUE? I mean, I certainly can't imagine an American eighth grader saying Patrick Henry was the father of their country, but I'm not sure it goes to that extreme in Canada.
>
> So is the Great White North truly lagging in historical awareness, or is that just propaganda being fed to us by the CBC or some such entity? Thoughts?
>
> -Mar"July 1, 1867"kusRTK

Don't panic! In Australia we have the same situation. I don't recall ever learning anything about our prime ministers, let alone who the first one was. There has recently been an advertising campaign to increase awareness of our history, due to the fact that this year is the 100th year since Federation. And there has also been a lot of debate as to why there is a lack of knowledge about our political history.

One of the main reasons seems to be the fact that when our country achieved it's separate identity, it did so in a very peaceful, unexciting fashion. Our birth as an independent political nation was boring. There are no tales of war. A group of men got together and created a constitution. End of story.

ding"Our first prime minister was Edmund Barton...I think..."dong