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Actually it was that product of the shotgun wedding of history and Government known as ‘Social Studies’. Social Studies was an excuse for making both subjects pablum and mush in many places but this was in Northern Virginia and the Cold War was on at full blast. The elementary school i went to was stuffed with either military kids or government workers kids . The latter were then before Viet Nam ‘Cold aWar liberals ‘ almost o a man or woman. That really means 50’s Neo-cons. Everyone more or less figured war with the Soviets was in the cards and the teachers had been around for the 30’s and then the Big War. This was Deweyesque ‘Progressive Ed’ with a real purpose. We took German or Russian names, studied the organization and operations of both the CPUSSR and the NSDAP and tried for several months to ‘live the life’ of a Hitler Jugund or BDM or a Young Pioneer. We organized 'partc cells' and even had drills simulating the slavish adulation of Hitler or Stalin & Co. We all knew the commies were bast-rds we just wanted to 'know the enemy'. It was really intense and we knew who we were, the next generation to face the forces of totalitarianism on the battlefields of either the Cold War or WWIII. Those were intense times and it is impossible for young people today to grasp how serious a business the Cold War was.