The growing emergence of social movements and public debates interrogating the validity of how history is taught in schools has shed light on the importance of understanding what led to their apparition . The realization of a mismatch between how a society is experienced and how its history has been represented in education can be identified as one of the main sources of such conversations. However, the portrayal of such movements as a threat to social cohesion can be understood as a way to avoid addressing what is being evaluated. Such discomfort in criticizing representations of the past seems to be reflected in radical reactions to contemporary events. The connections between representations of the past and portrayal of contemporary realities questioning it will be explored in this analysis. The cases of France, Canada, and Germany will constitute a basis of examples from which these connections can be investigated, and the question of educational filtering assessed. Each case presents specificities, and the various ways in which representations of the past can be contrasted with depictions of the present will be analyzed. This comparison allows for a reflection on the process of deciding what should be taught, and the various factors influencing and conditioning this decision, as well as what purpose such choices seem to serve.