Feelings like pride and shame should not be internalized by dint of the deeds of one's ancestors. Only one's own actions deserve to be imbued with pride, shame or other emotions. The teaching of history it seems has descended into a morass of patriotic exceptionalism on the right, and a simplistic story of victims and villains on the left, combined with moralistic scapegoating. What the right and left have in common is the desire to brainwash children in their blatant attempts to jockey for power and control. There is so little nuance or objectivity to the way in which both sides of the spectrum approach "truth" that history, science, philosophy, anthropology and all other subjects may as well be taught by children themselves. However flawed the results of their efforts, at least the untutored musings of children on these subjects would not bear the taint of perfidious intensions to elevate their own status.