> But when you're in school, there isn't time for that. You aren't going to know a bunch of things about history to put things into context, because there simply isn't enough time for it.

I think you just had bad teachers. Historical context was always part of the English language/literature curricula at my high school, and it definitely made a difference. I didn’t even go to a good school. Our district was the worst funded in our state with a 40% dropout rate.