I listened to an Irish podcast recently where they were talking about the knowledge gap between Brits and Irish people about Ireland which is immense. And one thing they flagged was a lack of awareness of the history. This has also been an issue with BLM and the lack of knowledge among Brits about Empire, which isn't really covered in people's education.
This gels with my own experience too.
They then went into some of the reasons in terms of education so at the age of 18 about 40% of English kids take a history A-level, while about 90% of Irish kids do history as part of their leaving cert. In neither country is it mandatory but it's far more common in Ireland than England. But what was really interesting was the difference in syllabus and I'm genuinely not sure what's best (not looking into the content of the individual courses).
So the Irish approach is that there is a set syllabus which applies nationally and seems to be a sort of national and European story - you either do Early Modern or Later Modern history which are:
QuoteIrish history, 1494-1815
1. Reform and Reformation in Tudor Ireland, 1494-1558
2. Rebellion and conquest in Elizabethan Ireland, 1558-1603
3. Kingdom versus colony — the struggle for mastery in Ireland, 1603-1660
4. Establishing a colonial ascendancy, 1660-1715
5. Colony versus kingdom – tensions in mid-18th century Ireland, 1715-1770
6. The end of the Irish kingdom and the establishment of the Union, 1770-1815
History of Europe and the wider world, 1492-1815
1. Europe from Renaissance to Reformation, 1492-1567
2. Religion and power – politics in the later sixteenth century, 1567-1609
3. The eclipse of Old Europe, 1609-1660
4. Europe in the age of Louis XIV, 1660-1715
5. Establishing empires, 1715-1775
6. Empires in revolution, 1775-1815
QuoteIrish history, 1815-1993
1. Ireland and the Union, 1815-1870
2. Movements for political and social reform, 1870-1914
3. The pursuit of sovereignty and the impact of partition, 1912-1949
4. The Irish diaspora, 1840-1966
5. Politics and society in Northern Ireland, 1949-1993
6. Government, economy and society in the Republic of Ireland, 1949-1989
History of Europe and the wider world, 1815-1992
1. Nationalism and state formation in Europe, 1815-1871
2. Nation states and international tensions, 1871-1920
3. Dictatorship and democracy, 1920-1945
4. Division and realignment in Europe, 1945-1992
5. European retreat from empire and the aftermath, 1945-1990
6. The United States and the world, 1945-1989
The English approach is totally different. Basically there are a set of standards that you're assessed against and it's primarily skills-based. But actually coming up with a syllabus is privatised (but regulated to make sure each exam board meets the criteria/standards). Schools then choose which exam boards they use for each course and teachers choose which options they teach - there is no requirement to teach a "national" story (you need to do at least 20% about Britain and at least one unit focused on another country). So in my experience while I never covered Empire in my A-levels I didn't really cover much British history - the only units I remember were one on late Tudor foreign policy (basically post Henry VIII) and one on social history in the 19th century, industrialisation, urbanisation, Chartists and social unrest etc. But I did units on the rise of Nazism in Germany, the rise of Fascism in Italy etc - I remember being annoyed we didn't do the Russian Revolution option.
The structure of the courses varies but, as an example this is Cambridge Internationa's syllabus options - I think you do one from each, the first three are exams and the last is coursework:
QuoteComponent 1 Document question (source-based)
Liberalism and Nationalism in Italy and Germany, 1815–1871
The Origins of the Civil War, 1846–1861
The Search for International Peace and Security, 1919–1945
Component 2 Outline study
Modern Europe, 1789–1917
The History of the USA, 1840–1941
International Relations, 1871–1945
Component 3 Interpretations question (source-based)
The Causes and Impact of British Imperialism, c.1850–1939
The Holocaust
The Origins and Development of the Cold War, 1941–1950
Component 4 Depth study
Europe of the Dictators, 1918–1941
The History of the USA, 1945–1990
International History, 1945–1991
African History, 1945–1991
Southeast Asian History, 1945–1990
The other really striking thing in comparison with Ireland is there's no real focus on the UK in the context of Europe or generally of a specific European history.
And as I say I'm not sure which is the better approach. And it's weird because I feel like the "national story" version is actually the more conservative option. To me a "national story" history class screams Michael Gove getting involved, but maybe without that you basically get huge ignorance about British history - so you have this knowledge gap and people saying, correctly, that they didn't learn anything about Empire. But then my instinct (probably because it's what I know) is that a skills-based approach that tries to teach more than UK history is probably better and more interesting to kids than lists of kings and queens etc. So I was just wondering how do other countries' systems work? And you know is it more important to teach a national story (warts and all) or a broader set of options? Is it about providing a common set of knowledge or just trying to develop skills. Particularly interested to hear if Oex or G have any thoughts.
I just made it all up when I taught.
In my experience non-Swedes know a lot less about Swedish history than Swedes. :angry:
Quote from: The Brain on August 31, 2020, 01:09:58 PM
In my experience non-Swedes know a lot less about Swedish history than Swedes. :angry:
:lol: I mean the level of ignorance is really suprising. There are a lot of Brits who are not really aware that either Ireland is an independent country or that Northern Ireland is part of the UK.
And given that it was an integral bit of the country until 1922 (the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland) and that there was an active conflict in most people's lifetime over this, it is kind of surprising how ignorant Brits are of Ireland.
Similarly every Irish person I know in the UK has a story of a very awkward conversation at some point about Cromwell. Because he's a political figure in the UK, who killed a king (and did some bad stuff in Ireland). In Ireland, to this day, Cromwell is used as a curseword.
I hear you. A somewhat similaresque thing I think is Swedes' knowledge about Finland, which is abysmal when it really shouldn't be.
I mean hell from what you have told me the English are shockingly ignorant about Scotland, Wales, and many parts of England. If they are not even that informed about people they share an island with, I can see why they wouldn't know much about Ireland.
Are they even aware places like Jersey exist?
As an American I totally get that.
Quote from: The Brain on August 31, 2020, 01:17:21 PM
I hear you. A somewhat similaresque thing I think is Swedes' knowledge about Finland, which is abysmal when it really shouldn't be.
Similar situation with Spain and Portugal.
Portugal is kind of funny from a world history type of perspective. It is never mentioned at all, even as a part of the Roman Empire or Cordoba or anything, and then suddenly shows up around 1450 then vanishes again into the mists around 1580 and never gets mentioned again...but Brazil speaks Portuguese for some reason. At some point it became a republic.
Like why is it even called Lusitania? Nobody knows :hmm: or at least doesn't consider it important enough to mention :P
Quote from: Sheilbh on August 31, 2020, 01:14:43 PM
:lol: I mean the level of ignorance is really suprising. There are a lot of Brits who are not really aware that either Ireland is an independent country or that Northern Ireland is part of the UK.
And given that it was an integral bit of the country until 1922 (the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland) and that there was an active conflict in most people's lifetime over this, it is kind of surprising how ignorant Brits are of Ireland.
Similarly every Irish person I know in the UK has a story of a very awkward conversation at some point about Cromwell. Because he's a political figure in the UK, who killed a king (and did some bad stuff in Ireland). In Ireland, to this day, Cromwell is used as a curseword.
I remember a very heated argument that I got into with my brother about 20 years ago. I mentioned something about Ireland being its own country, and he flipped out on me. Told me that I was an idiot, etc. I just looked at him while he railed, then picked up the nearby encyclopedia at my mom's house and handed him the book for the letter I. He was thrilled to find it to show me up, but the moment he started to read, I saw his face fall.
He closed the book and said, "Yeah, well part of it is still the UK." Then stormed out of the house. It occasionally comes up, but he's since married a woman whose parents are from Ireland. I'm not allowed to tell this story in front of his in-laws. :D
This is because since most American History classes tend to run out of steam after the American Civil War he never got all the way to 1921.
I guess it's the same for many countries in that they primarily focus on their national history.
From memory, my history education over the course of 6 years was (most of which touched on briefly; I highlight the "bigger" topics with a *):
- basic overview ancient Egypt (agriculture and monuments)
- basic overview ancient Greece (basic democracy, Alex the Great)
* basic overview ancient Rome (Republic, Empire, expansion, collapse)
- Migrations period
* Charlemagne and Empire of the Franks
- split of the Frank Empire
* early HRE
- monastic life, investiture controversy
- Crusades, Frederick Barbarossa
- medieval cities
- Age of Exploration and Colonialism
* Reformation & 30 Years War
* Absolutism => French Revolution + Prussian reforms
* 1848 revolution
* German unification & Bismarck
* Imperial Germany & industrialization
- WW1
* Weimar Republic (politics & economics)
* Third Reich & Holocaust
- WW2
* Post-War German partition
* European Integration, Ostpolitik
- German unification (we finished our curriculum in 1992, way ahead of schedule and were the only class in school to cover events from two years ago :P )
We learned little about, say, France, except when it intersected with Germany, or the UK, the Netherlands, or Poland. Some countries were covered in geography class. E.g. we had a semester about the GDR. Or in one year we covered USA, USSR, and Japan. In another semester we might look at India, or Kuwait (pre-Gulf War).
Around the middle ages, the focus of content moved away from social history towards political history.
I think it's fairly common for a small country to teach the history of its large neighbour, but for the large country to just focus on itself.
In Canadian schools you'll get a decent bit of US history, whereas I'm positive the reverse is not true. I'm not surprised when Brain says the same dynamic exists with Finland-Sweden.
Yeah Canada is ridiculously ignored. The only time it is mentioned is as a destination for runaway slaves.
I'm surprised the numbers doing a level history in England are so high. Is the system different now and you don't just get 4 options?
As for sure at my college history was just another subject. Not a especially huge one at that. It only had 2 classes vs e.g. 4 for maths.
But yeah. The British system sucks. Given the controversy around the empire however and the likely version your average history teacher will teach its not totally a bad idea its avoided altogether.
My big memory of history at school was there being so much in the text book we just never touched. Aside from small mentions of the industrial revolution at a young age, 1603 to 1906 just never happened.
I remember at gcse we covered the rise of the nazis, which is a good topic and worthy of study, the causes of WW1, again decent, and.... The Vietnam War. Which is just bizzare. Malaya wasn't mentioned at all as part of it and I had to be sneaky and go off syllabus behind the teachers back to include that in my coursework first draft. I was told to take it out.
Have to say though, through my encounters with people who've been through the Irish school system I'd hate to see the UK follow that path. When you're teaching to the population as a whole you can't expect the bulk to have nuanced thoughts about history so many of them just boil things down to a simple goodies and baddies, Irish and British, believing utter nonsense like the potato famine genocide. Ireland could do with reform in itself to tone down the nationalism, something which Britain really doesn't need more of....
Quote from: Barrister on August 31, 2020, 01:40:35 PM
I think it's fairly common for a small country to teach the history of its large neighbour, but for the large country to just focus on itself.
But that's my point - England doesn't focus on itself. In England the course only needs to be 20% British focused (from memory mine was 1/3 - Tudor foreign policy and British social history, I want to say from 1815 to 1914).
And as I say I'm focusing on the exams you'll do when you're 18, but even the (non-compulsory) OCR curriculum isn't Britain focused or trying to tell a "national story". So below is from OCR (definitely did exams with them) the first unit is 50% and the other two units are 25% each:
QuoteComponent Group 1
International Relations: the changing international order 1918–2001 + one depth study →
China 1950–1981: The People and the State or
Germany 1925–1955: The People and the State or
Poland 1956–1990: The People and the State (This definitely wasn't around when I was a kid and I think is probably a response to Polish immigration) or
Russia 1928–1964: The People and the State or
South Africa 1960–1994: The People and the State or
The USA 1919–1948: The People and the State or
The USA 1945–1974: The People and the State
Component Group 2
Migration to Britain c.1000 to c.2010 (1) or
Power: Monarchy and Democracy in Britain c.1000 to 2014 (2) or
War and British Society c.790 to c.2010 (3)
Component Group 3
The Impact of Empire on Britain 1688–c.1730 with Urban Environments: Patterns of Migration (1) or
The English Reformation c.1520–c.1550 with Castles: Form and Function c.1000–1750 (2) or
Personal Rule to Restoration 1629–1660 with Castles: Form and Function c.1000–1750 (3)
(1), (2) and (3) go together. While there's more "national story" here it's still sort of a bit more broken up and skills based I think.
Quote from: Tyr on August 31, 2020, 01:46:54 PM
But yeah. The British system sucks. Given the controversy around the empire however and the likely version your average history teacher will teach its not all together a bad idea its avoided altogether.
I think this depends a lot. I had one history teacher who was very into the Tudors (to the extent that her "end of term" trick was letting us watch Elizabeth while she paused and outlined the errors :lol:
But my other two teachers were Welsh and Glaswegian who both really went in on the social history module.
QuoteHave to say though, through my encounters with people who've been through the Irish school system I'd hate to see the UK follow that path. When you're teaching to the population as a whole you can't expect the bulk to have nuanced thoughts about history so many of them just boil things down to a simple goodies and baddies, Irish and British, believing utter nonsense like the potato famine genocide. Ireland could do with reform in itself to tone down the nationalism, but something which Britain really doesn't need more of....
I might park this for a separate thread as I think it's fairly easy to split Irish history into goodies and baddies and I'm not sure what the nonsense is about the great famine. But lots of Irish people I've spoken with find the embarrassment at "nationalism" really odd, because it's the basis of their being an Irish state and it's strange (from their view) that there's no equivalent nationalism in bits of the UK, or an embarassment around nationalism. Because without that what are we all doing? :lol:
Edit: Also the big hole in the English syllabuses I've posted - given the population of the UK and the size of the country and the interestingness of the history is India which really should be fixed.
Quote from: Valmy on August 31, 2020, 01:45:19 PM
Yeah Canada is ridiculously ignored. The only time it is mentioned is as a destination for runaway slaves.
you have to hit at all my countries, don't you :cry: :P
Quote from: Tyr on August 31, 2020, 01:46:54 PM
I'm surprised the numbers doing a level history in England are so high. Is the system different now and you don't just get 4 options?
I think so. I think for the most part you know do it as a straight A-level in England because they've got rid of AS levels (which helped fuck up the exams this year in England v Wales which kept AS). So yeah it would be one of 3-4 choices.
And I think it's fairly common for kids going down the humanities/social sciences/law etc route. History + English :goodboy:
Quote from: Valmy on August 31, 2020, 01:28:23 PMLike why is it even called Lusitania? Nobody knows :hmm: or at least doesn't consider it important enough to mention :P
Because of the Lusitani tribe that inhabited the area during the Roman conquest, duh. :P
Just out of curiosity if you grow up in Gloucestershire do you get any Gloucestershire history or is it pretty generic across England? Here you usually get your year when you cover the history of your state. I am sure the history of Idaho is fascinating stuff. My mother grew up in Oklahoma and most of it was all the treaties that were broken with the local tribes who were forcibly moved there.
Quote from: The Larch on August 31, 2020, 02:13:19 PM
Quote from: Valmy on August 31, 2020, 01:28:23 PMLike why is it even called Lusitania? Nobody knows :hmm: or at least doesn't consider it important enough to mention :P
Because of the Lusitani tribe that inhabited the area during the Roman conquest, duh. :P
I am sure they left a rich and fascinating legacy.
FWIW growing up in Stockholm you got some local Stockholm history. Stockholm lies om the border between two of the traditional provinces (Uppland and Södermanland) so local history was Stockholm history. :)
Quote from: Valmy on August 31, 2020, 02:15:49 PM
Quote from: The Larch on August 31, 2020, 02:13:19 PM
Quote from: Valmy on August 31, 2020, 01:28:23 PMLike why is it even called Lusitania? Nobody knows :hmm: or at least doesn't consider it important enough to mention :P
Because of the Lusitani tribe that inhabited the area during the Roman conquest, duh. :P
I am sure they left a rich and fascinating legacy.
They're the forefathers of guerrilla warfare, for instance.
They later became seafarers and were lost to history.
Quote from: Barrister on August 31, 2020, 01:40:35 PM
I think it's fairly common for a small country to teach the history of its large neighbour, but for the large country to just focus on itself.
In Canadian schools you'll get a decent bit of US history, whereas I'm positive the reverse is not true. I'm not surprised when Brain says the same dynamic exists with Finland-Sweden.
As I mentioned in the OTT, even my daughter will learn more this year about US history than RoC history.
Quote from: Valmy on August 31, 2020, 01:28:23 PM
Portugal is kind of funny from a world history type of perspective. It is never mentioned at all, even as a part of the Roman Empire or Cordoba or anything, and then suddenly shows up around 1450 then vanishes again into the mists around 1580 and never gets mentioned again...but Brazil speaks Portuguese for some reason. At some point it became a republic.
Like why is it even called Lusitania? Nobody knows :hmm: or at least doesn't consider it important enough to mention :P
:lmfao:
The emirate/caliphate part or rather link is anecdotally true at least.
Quote from: The Larch on August 31, 2020, 02:23:01 PM
They're the forefathers of guerrilla warfare, for instance.
Really? Just that one tribe out of all of Hispania? I thought the whole place was a slog for the Romans.
Quote from: Valmy on August 31, 2020, 02:15:49 PM
Quote from: The Larch on August 31, 2020, 02:13:19 PM
Quote from: Valmy on August 31, 2020, 01:28:23 PMLike why is it even called Lusitania? Nobody knows :hmm: or at least doesn't consider it important enough to mention :P
Because of the Lusitani tribe that inhabited the area during the Roman conquest, duh. :P
I am sure they left a rich and fascinating legacy.
:secret:
The famous Viriathus mentioned in the glorious History Channel programme called Barbarians Rising! (sic)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbarians_Rising (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbarians_Rising)
Plus some goddesses Trebaruna and Ataegina invoked by Moonspell
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfheart (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfheart)
Very popular album in the '90s, for instance Germany, one of their best.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfheart
I wasn't being sarcastic just saying that any details about Portugal besides the fact they are Not-Spain and were important for about 100 years are typically not mentioned in world history courses.
I was a bit sarcastic about the above mentioned History Channel Program. While the segments about Viriathus and arguably Arminius are not bad, some others are really not that great (Hannibal...).
Quote from: Valmy on August 31, 2020, 02:29:56 PM
Quote from: The Larch on August 31, 2020, 02:23:01 PM
They're the forefathers of guerrilla warfare, for instance.
Really? Just that one tribe out of all of Hispania? I thought the whole place was a slog for the Romans.
They were one of the biggest thorns in the Roman side during the pacification of the Iberian peninsula, and Viriathus employed mostly what the Romans called
latrocinium, which would amount to irregular warfare, while other tribes were involved in
bellum, which would be regular warfare. Viriathus' resistance and difficulty to be beaten while guerrillaing in the mountains of Western Iberia was such that he had to be defeated by treachery (he was assassinated by Lusitani traitors).
Funnily enough he is nowadays a Portuguese national hero and symbol of Portuguese independence, while also being claimed as a local hero by some parts of Spain.
Quote from: The Larch on August 31, 2020, 02:58:12 PM
Quote from: Valmy on August 31, 2020, 02:29:56 PM
Quote from: The Larch on August 31, 2020, 02:23:01 PM
They're the forefathers of guerrilla warfare, for instance.
Really? Just that one tribe out of all of Hispania? I thought the whole place was a slog for the Romans.
They were one of the biggest thorns in the Roman side during the pacification of the Iberian peninsula, and Viriathus employed mostly what the Romans called latrocinium, which would amount to irregular warfare, while other tribes were involved in bellum, which would be regular warfare. Viriathus' resistance and difficulty to be beaten while guerrillaing in the mountains of Western Iberia was such that he had to be defeated by treachery (he was assassinated by Lusitani traitors).
Funnily enough he is nowadays a Portuguese national hero and symbol of Portuguese independence, while also being claimed as a local hero by some parts of Spain.
That's an interesting bit of history. :)
Quote from: Valmy on August 31, 2020, 02:14:49 PM
Just out of curiosity if you grow up in Gloucestershire do you get any Gloucestershire history or is it pretty generic across England? Here you usually get your year when you cover the history of your state. I am sure the history of Idaho is fascinating stuff. My mother grew up in Oklahoma and most of it was all the treaties that were broken with the local tribes who were forcibly moved there.
I don't know anything about Gloucestershire (not 100% sure where it is :ph34r:) I'm afraid. We don't really get that type of local history I don't think - did some rough outline about how the bit of Scotland I grew up in was Norwegian for a very long time.
When I was a student in Hong Kong, there were two history courses - Chinese and everybody else.
Chinese history is very structured. Chinese history is basically a series of dynastic struggles. So the first thing before learning any history is to memorise the dynasty chart. Then they start from the very beginning, the mythical times, and go through dynasty by dynasty, until the People's Republic of China. The focus is on memorisation - what happened, and why things happened. Everything was presented as fact, and our job was to memorise them. Naturally, a lot more is said about recent dynasties like the Ming and Qing than say the Han, simply because more historical material is available. Finally, almost nothing is said about the People's Republic of China after its establishment. This is to avoid touching politics and to avoid offending anyone. This is consistent with the historical approach. Say if you were born as a history scholar in the Song dynasty, you are not supposed to write anything about the Song dynasty because you can't criticise or comment on your emperor or his family, who are absolute perfections.
Western history is far more haphazard. They can't seem to decide where to focus. So they talk a bit about the Romans, the Egyptians, the Japanese, the Americas, etc. Instead of the rather continuous Chinese story, we got segments. There is a bit of Renaissance, a bit of Napoleon, a bit of Meiji Restoration, a bit of Caesar etc. Lots of snapshots but no whole picture.
One thing about education in HK is everybody tries their best to avoid politics.
Quote from: Valmy on August 31, 2020, 01:22:29 PM
I mean hell from what you have told me the English are shockingly ignorant about Scotland, Wales, and many parts of England. If they are not even that informed about people they share an island with, I can see why they wouldn't know much about Ireland.
Are they even aware places like Jersey exist?
As an American I totally get that.
Sadly, Americans don't have the option of forgetting that Jersey exists. :(
The British system remains a little bit too esoteric to me to decipher completely what you meant in your initial post, Sheilbh.
When I get them in college, the kids have usually gone through secondary education history. The overwhelming majority of the students I got in the US had gone through history AP ("Advanced placement") which is intended as a quasi college-level course; the majority of students I got had followed these classes at elite private high schools. As far as I could tell, these AP courses covered either "European history", "US history" and "World history". Most of these courses have recently dropped the pre-modern component (or a huge chunk of it).
Is a national focus good, or bad? Both, I think. As long as an important basis for our political existence remains the state, I think it is important to understand its underpinnings, its history. Some part of it is inevitably going to be "inherited", i.e., you are going to be teaching the fucking Tudors because the Tudors have made damn sure that we keep talking about them forever. And, often for worse, that inherited part is just taught unreflexively. You just "have to know it", and that's okay, because it provides a common, cultural ground, some shared references that can serve as a link with your fellow citizens.
But there has often been a reaction against the narrow focus on national history. Some of it quite understandable. Can we truly get a good measure of who the Tudors were, if we have nothing to compare them against? Are they some sort of extraordinary dynasty, or some generic royal family? Aren't there any other ways to organize societies? What about the Dutch, at the same time? Or the Iroquois? The Aztecs?
Now, part of the problem I see is that the reaction against national history has led reformists to advocate for gigantic breadth of coverage, to the detriment of depth. "World history" encompasses India, China, Africa, South America, etc. What it does is, it flattens historical experience to a number of invariants (commerce, for instance). It favors certain themes. Which isn't bad. It's just that these are choices, yet seem to be rarely presented as such. The difficulty is this: are the choices motivated by some explicit linkages between national history and larger, more "thematic" world history? Or are the choices motivated by the desire to learn other societies on their own terms?
Striking the right balance isn't easy. It's also quite political (and rightly so). At a distance, it seemed to me that the spite with which the European project was met in the UK was reflected in the absence of European history in the program. It answers to the idea that the history of Europe had little to say about UK history; it shouldn't be that surprising then, that Britons were so woefully ignorant of European realities, felt so disconnected from it all. The current movement for more "empire" in the school curriculum wants to make an explicit link between the UK now, the composition of its population, and its imperial past. It seems to me a good idea. But how to do it, in a way that doesn't transform the central place of the UK as the only agent of history? One of the answers seems to me to show the autonomous existence of the Indian or African polities before the UK gets involved.
My American students were always quite passionate about Rome: it's not that surprising, considering that references to it presided over the birth of the country. This is an example of an "unspoken" link: not mentioned, but still resonating, almost subconsciously, in young adults. It allowed Rome to be studied "on its own". But "World history" seemed to be studied so far removed that any individual unit seemed to lose its focus compared with the US. It seemed to preserve the idea that the US cannot meaningfully be compared to any other individual country. It can be caught in global "currents" that touch all the globe, but its place within such currents remains weirdly unaddressed.
I think this contributes to the conservative backlash against college history. Obviously, if the only history you want is the one that validates how "the lousiest day in the US beats the best day in any other country", you'll never be satisfied. You want propaganda, not history. But it's also a reaction that continues to take place within the globally untouched narrative of American exceptionalism. Widening the scope of history has not changed that. It has simply made America a part of the globe, without really giving the means to assess its place. If the goal is to displace American exceptionalism, I think you'd need systematic comparisons with other states or empires.
Anyways, these are my more or less coherent thoughts for now.
QuoteI might park this for a separate thread as I think it's fairly easy to split Irish history into goodies and baddies
If you want to break it into a simple England vs. Ireland narrative then sure. Its obvious that 99 times out of 100 England is clearly in the wrong. But this is fundamentally the wrong way to look at history.
Quote
and I'm not sure what the nonsense is about the great famine.
That it was a genocide. You see an awful lot of people who believe it really was Queen Victoria dancing around Ireland stealing potatoes and cackling manically.
Its sad because the true lesson of the great famine is a very valid one to learn. But evil England tries to kill the Irish is easier and more useful.
QuoteBut lots of Irish people I've spoken with find the embarrassment at "nationalism" really odd, because it's the basis of their being an Irish state and it's strange (from their view) that there's no equivalent nationalism in bits of the UK, or an embarassment around nationalism. Because without that what are we all doing? :lol:
Yes. I understand why they've set up the system in this way. The convenient version of history with everyone in Ireland straining under the English yoke, finally fighting for the freedom and breaking free.... its just so much better for the nation than the actual more complex history where the bulk of Ireland wasn't too fussed about independence until after the Easter Rising et al.
However I fundamentally disagree with the ideology of nationalism, no matter whether it is punching up or punching down its all the same. Its lies and convenient alternate versions of the truth to empower one nation by putting another down. Once upon a time it may have served a purpose but in the 21st century it does more harm than good.
Quote
Edit: Also the big hole in the English syllabuses I've posted - given the population of the UK and the size of the country and the interestingness of the history is India which really should be fixed.
True. There's a lot of different angles that can be looked at there too. Ties nicely into the development of capitalism. Would have to be very careful to avoid it becoming a imperial nostalgia trip however; that imperialism was better than corporate rule and the best of a bunch of terrible options in the period doesn't mean its a desirable state.
Quote from: Valmy on August 31, 2020, 02:14:49 PM
Just out of curiosity if you grow up in Gloucestershire do you get any Gloucestershire history or is it pretty generic across England? Here you usually get your year when you cover the history of your state. I am sure the history of Idaho is fascinating stuff. My mother grew up in Oklahoma and most of it was all the treaties that were broken with the local tribes who were forcibly moved there.
For me I remember this being touched on a little bit at primary school. But only on a very basic level of looking at one particular historic incident and the occasional project with a local museum.
It's definitely something where more should be done.
So, what's the true lesson of the Irish famine?
Quote from: The Larch on September 01, 2020, 03:41:30 AM
So, what's the true lesson of the Irish famine?
Diversification of agriculture is important
Laissez-faire doesn't work in a crisis
A-level history syllabus for my son was (a) Tudors (b) Soviet Union 1917-1953 (c) Long written paper on causes of decolinisation in Africa
I increasingly think we spend far too much time on teaching history. Sure, everybody should have some idea, and we need some history scholars. But otherwise it isn't a very useful subject. Schools should teach things like financial management, how to find a job, coding, AI, etc instead.
Quote from: The Larch on September 01, 2020, 03:41:30 AM
So, what's the true lesson of the Irish famine?
I'd argue it was effectively a genocide - but it's along the lines of a 19th century liberal Holodmodor rather than, you know, a Mel Gibson film.
QuoteYes. I understand why they've set up the system in this way. The convenient version of history with everyone in Ireland straining under the English yoke, finally fighting for the freedom and breaking free.... its just so much better for the nation than the actual more complex history where the bulk of Ireland wasn't too fussed about independence until after the Easter Rising et al.
I don't think they're learning propaganda (in the same way I don't think English schools teach it - I never learned the old-school "good Queen Bess" style stuff at school).
But I do think the story they're learning is the story of modern Ireland which is one of colonialism and some settling, plus acts of resistance which range from full-blown nationalist (not sectarian) revolt, to other sort of bits of resistance - setting up the infrastructure of a separate state, revival of Gaelic culture or the land war (the origin of the word boycott and the first cancel culture :P). Obviously every colonial state has people who benefit from it whether they are middle-men or the ascendancy or the sort of service-providing bourgeois - Dublin solicitors etc.
I suppose I'd push the other way and say there is more continuity with the Easter Rising and the past, it's not a bolt from a clear blue sky that "changed, changed utterly". I think it comes from a context of resistance and the reason it sort of clarified Irish politics at that moment was that history.
In my view, it wasn't a genocide under any ordinary definition of that term (which I understand to be a deliberate attempt to exterminate an ethnic group). Rather it was the culmination of a long period of mismanagement and neglect by both Irish and English landowners and administrators informed partially by racism and bigotry. The main argument in favour of classifying it as a genocide is the words and actions of Trevelyan who, at best, didn't care whether a million or two Irish died and at worst thought it woudl be a good thing. On the other hand both prime ministers during the famine (Peel and Russell) were horrified by it and tried to alleviate it.
Quote from: Gups on September 01, 2020, 04:42:24 AM
In my view, it wasn't a genocide under any ordinary definition of that term (which I understand to be a deliberate attempt to exterminate an ethnic group). Rather it was the culmination of a long period of mismanagement and neglect by both Irish and English landowners and administrators informed partially by racism and bigotry. The main argument in favour of classifying it as a genocide is the words and actions of Trevelyan who, at best, didn't care whether a million or two Irish died and at worst thought it woudl be a good thing. On the other hand both prime ministers during the famine (Peel and Russell) were horrified by it and tried to alleviate it.
Peel tried to alleviate it. Russell did far less to help, I think for ideological reasons, and my understanding is it was managed far less by politicians under Russell so people like Trevelyan had a lot more influence and as you say, at the most generous reading, he's indifferent.
I think the comparison with the Holodomor is probably the nearest - and there's a question on whether that was a genocide. They are both largely man-made famines (there is a natural cause in Ireland - but everywhere in Europe gets the blight and nowhere is there a famine like this, plus there are examples of previous food shortages in Ireland that were stopped by government action such as banning the export of food etc), they're ideologically driven, and they disproportionately affect a minority ethnic group. I think in both cases there's also a sort of racial/national element to the ideology so Ukraine is a land of kulaks and the Irish overbreed and cannot, rationally, improve their agriculture to sustain themselves - so these national groups are to an extent a challenge to the political system.
Quote from: The Larch on August 31, 2020, 02:58:12 PM
Quote from: Valmy on August 31, 2020, 02:29:56 PM
Quote from: The Larch on August 31, 2020, 02:23:01 PM
They're the forefathers of guerrilla warfare, for instance.
Really? Just that one tribe out of all of Hispania? I thought the whole place was a slog for the Romans.
They were one of the biggest thorns in the Roman side during the pacification of the Iberian peninsula, and Viriathus employed mostly what the Romans called latrocinium, which would amount to irregular warfare, while other tribes were involved in bellum, which would be regular warfare. Viriathus' resistance and difficulty to be beaten while guerrillaing in the mountains of Western Iberia was such that he had to be defeated by treachery (he was assassinated by Lusitani traitors).
Funnily enough he is nowadays a Portuguese national hero and symbol of Portuguese independence, while also being claimed as a local hero by some parts of Spain.
Always liked the (completely apocryphal) story about the proconsul then betraying the traitors because "Roma traditoribus non praemiat" ("Rome doesn't pay traitors")
I remember reading the Paradox forums back in the day it was quite a revelation to find that Romanian and Hungarian history teaching differs so much that they are of different realities. Especially because of the Romanian insistence on their Dacians-ruled-the-world kind of deal, but also Hungarian high school education at least in my time largely ignored minorities within the country, until around the 1700s. The line taught was basically that everything was fine until the Turkish occupation and wars depopulated the country (which for sure did happen) and all these Slavs and Romanians moved into Hungary and later started being uppity.
And of course my favourite part of calling the Magyar pillaging campaigns across Europe as "adventures". :lol:
I would assume same intentions and mechanics at play with the UK not keen to dwell on the history of Ireland, and Ireland not keen to teach just how divided they were until very recently.
The Ur-Swede appeared ready made from primordial soup, inhabiting exactly the area that forms modern Sweden.
Quote from: Tamas on September 01, 2020, 05:38:02 AMAnd of course my favourite part of calling the Magyar pillaging campaigns across Europe as "adventures". :lol:
We learned about Otto I kicking Hungarian butt and starting to fortify the HRE frontier with tons of castles.
Quote from: Syt on September 01, 2020, 05:48:27 AM
Quote from: Tamas on September 01, 2020, 05:38:02 AMAnd of course my favourite part of calling the Magyar pillaging campaigns across Europe as "adventures". :lol:
We learned about Otto I kicking Hungarian butt and starting to fortify the HRE frontier with tons of castles.
Yeah that was a major buzzkill.
Quote from: Tamas on September 01, 2020, 05:38:02 AM
And of course my favourite part of calling the Magyar pillaging campaigns across Europe as "adventures". :lol:
Yeah I remember moving from Scotland to England when I was doing my Standard Grades (compulsory Scottish exams at 16, now changed) to GCSEs (compulsory English exams at 16). It was kind of incredible getting the wildly different perspectives on the Scottish reiving of the North of England, Henry VIII's "rough wooing" of Scotland and above all Mary Queen of Scots v Elizabeth :lol:
QuoteI would assume same intentions and mechanics at play with the UK not keen to dwell on the history of Ireland, and Ireland not keen to teach just how divided they were until very recently.
I've mainly looked at the non-compulsory history qualification that you study at 17-18. But I just find the Irish one more coherent (and I think there are several units listed up there that would touch on divisions in Ireland) because it's got two narrative streams of basically Early Modern Irish and European history, Late Modern Irish and European history.
Whereas in England there is no emphasis on history as that sort of broad narrative. You study periods slightly in isolation and there's a slight focus on the UK (at least 20%) but not to the same extent as in Ireland or, by the sounds of it, other countries and there's no real focus on European history - though you might cover France, Germany, Italy or Russia, say. Maybe my focus on "national story" is wrong - the thing, comparing the two, that I find weird is there is that the English history curriculum doesn't really do history as a broader narrative - like Early Modern/Late Modern. It's very split up into periods of 50-100 years and these are used to teach about using sources or documents etc rather than where it fits in. It feels to me a little bit more like the sort of units you'd get at university.
QuoteMy American students were always quite passionate about Rome: it's not that surprising, considering that references to it presided over the birth of the country. This is an example of an "unspoken" link: not mentioned, but still resonating, almost subconsciously, in young adults. It allowed Rome to be studied "on its own". But "World history" seemed to be studied so far removed that any individual unit seemed to lose its focus compared with the US. It seemed to preserve the idea that the US cannot meaningfully be compared to any other individual country. It can be caught in global "currents" that touch all the globe, but its place within such currents remains weirdly unaddressed.
So there's definitely a class element here in the UK with this. You know you cover the Romans in primary school when you're very young (Egyptions, Romans, Picts and Celts, Vikings etc) but I think the history syllabus at both 16 and 18 only goes back to the Medieval period at the earliest, but there are separate courses for Ancient History or Classical Civilisation (and Latin and Greek) but I think very few state schools offer those. I know a Classical Civilisation teacher at a state school, but I think it's quite rare.
QuoteWhen I get them in college, the kids have usually gone through secondary education history. The overwhelming majority of the students I got in the US had gone through history AP ("Advanced placement") which is intended as a quasi college-level course; the majority of students I got had followed these classes at elite private high schools. As far as I could tell, these AP courses covered either "European history", "US history" and "World history". Most of these courses have recently dropped the pre-modern component (or a huge chunk of it).
Is a national focus good, or bad? Both, I think. As long as an important basis for our political existence remains the state, I think it is important to understand its underpinnings, its history. Some part of it is inevitably going to be "inherited", i.e., you are going to be teaching the fucking Tudors because the Tudors have made damn sure that we keep talking about them forever. And, often for worse, that inherited part is just taught unreflexively. You just "have to know it", and that's okay, because it provides a common, cultural ground, some shared references that can serve as a link with your fellow citizens.
But there has often been a reaction against the narrow focus on national history. Some of it quite understandable. Can we truly get a good measure of who the Tudors were, if we have nothing to compare them against? Are they some sort of extraordinary dynasty, or some generic royal family? Aren't there any other ways to organize societies? What about the Dutch, at the same time? Or the Iroquois? The Aztecs?
Now, part of the problem I see is that the reaction against national history has led reformists to advocate for gigantic breadth of coverage, to the detriment of depth. "World history" encompasses India, China, Africa, South America, etc. What it does is, it flattens historical experience to a number of invariants (commerce, for instance). It favors certain themes. Which isn't bad. It's just that these are choices, yet seem to be rarely presented as such. The difficulty is this: are the choices motivated by some explicit linkages between national history and larger, more "thematic" world history? Or are the choices motivated by the desire to learn other societies on their own terms?
Yeah so I think looking at the English v Irish syllabus, plus the comments here makes me think that in England it's gone in a slightly different direction. We don't teach a "national story" but we also don't teach very broad things like "world history". The approach has been to focus on specific skills (which you use in all units) and teach those through examining specific periods. There's no English history/European history/World history approach. I remember for the compulsory history course at 16 we did have one broad stroke unit and mine was (Western/Muslim) medicine through the ages.
So in the syllabus at the top: the first exam is on documents - so you'll have a variety of primary sources and you need to interpret them; the second exam is basically about causes of events and weighing relevant factors; the third exam is an extract by a historian and basically about why historians have different interpretations and how they develop them; then the fourth exam is all of the above about your in-depth study.
But that approach doesn't have a national (or wider story) and it's also not very broad, but is reasonably deep on a period. It makes think whether we have gone too far in teaching history as a set of skills (which they'll develop at university) rather than a story whether national, European or world. My feeling, having looked at the two examples plus what people are posting, is that there might be a benefit to teaching that common story at schools and sort of distribute the skills through that. I'm not sure.
Quote from: Tamas on September 01, 2020, 05:54:47 AM
Quote from: Syt on September 01, 2020, 05:48:27 AM
Quote from: Tamas on September 01, 2020, 05:38:02 AMAnd of course my favourite part of calling the Magyar pillaging campaigns across Europe as "adventures". :lol:
We learned about Otto I kicking Hungarian butt and starting to fortify the HRE frontier with tons of castles.
Yeah that was a major buzzkill.
^_^
Quote from: Monoriu on September 01, 2020, 04:03:54 AM
I increasingly think we spend far too much time on teaching history. Sure, everybody should have some idea, and we need some history scholars. But otherwise it isn't a very useful subject. Schools should teach things like financial management, how to find a job, coding, AI, etc instead.
I find it surprising you once thought differently from this :lol:
While individuals should be left alone with their own identity and such, I think it is best if a country's inhabitants have a basic common understanding on some minimum of basic common identity that holds their country together. Ideally this identity is about liberal values, but clearly it is easier to establish a spin on history acceptable to everyone and then teach that.
Quote from: Tamas on September 01, 2020, 08:24:19 AM
While individuals should be left alone with their own identity and such, I think it is best if a country's inhabitants have a basic common understanding on some minimum of basic common identity that holds their country together. Ideally this identity is about liberal values, but clearly it is easier to establish a spin on history acceptable to everyone and then teach that.
History is pretty important for political reasons which is why it is always the big hot button issue in the recurring and interminable textbook wars here in the United States despite not actually being a very important subject in schools generally.
I think no matter what political system you have it can be pretty important to the government for that reason.
Quote from: Tamas on September 01, 2020, 08:24:19 AM
While individuals should be left alone with their own identity and such, I think it is best if a country's inhabitants have a basic common understanding on some minimum of basic common identity that holds their country together. Ideally this identity is about liberal values, but clearly it is easier to establish a spin on history acceptable to everyone and then teach that.
I don't think that the mission of teaching history should be related to the building of a national identity, but to make people understand the present through the study of the past and how the country arrived to its current situation.
Quote from: The Larch on September 01, 2020, 09:23:04 AM
Quote from: Tamas on September 01, 2020, 08:24:19 AM
While individuals should be left alone with their own identity and such, I think it is best if a country's inhabitants have a basic common understanding on some minimum of basic common identity that holds their country together. Ideally this identity is about liberal values, but clearly it is easier to establish a spin on history acceptable to everyone and then teach that.
I don't think that the mission of teaching history should be related to the building of a national identity, but to make people understand the present through the study of the past and how the country arrived to its current situation.
Yeah well that is not how I see it normally thought about. It is considered a kind of civics lesson through which "American values" or civic virtues are relayed. Only a small percentage really considers it important in its own right outside of transmitting values, the same way it is important to teach literacy or something.
Quote from: Valmy on September 01, 2020, 09:25:00 AM
Quote from: The Larch on September 01, 2020, 09:23:04 AM
Quote from: Tamas on September 01, 2020, 08:24:19 AM
While individuals should be left alone with their own identity and such, I think it is best if a country's inhabitants have a basic common understanding on some minimum of basic common identity that holds their country together. Ideally this identity is about liberal values, but clearly it is easier to establish a spin on history acceptable to everyone and then teach that.
I don't think that the mission of teaching history should be related to the building of a national identity, but to make people understand the present through the study of the past and how the country arrived to its current situation.
Yeah well that is not how I see it normally thought about. It is considered a kind of civics lesson through which "American values" or civic virtues are relayed. Only a small percentage really considers it important in its own right outside of transmitting values, the same way it is important to teach literacy or something.
In my opinion that should be the role of a different subject, but not necessarily history. There's plenty of history to be taught to pile on top the teaching of civics and political values.
Quote from: Tamas on September 01, 2020, 08:24:19 AM
While individuals should be left alone with their own identity and such, I think it is best if a country's inhabitants have a basic common understanding on some minimum of basic common identity that holds their country together. Ideally this identity is about liberal values, but clearly it is easier to establish a spin on history acceptable to everyone and then teach that.
The assumption here being that holding the country together is desirable. Which many would disagree with. Certainly that it is the most important thing isn't something I'd go along with
Quote from: The Larch on September 01, 2020, 09:27:46 AM
In my opinion that should be the role of a different subject, but not necessarily history. There's plenty of history to be taught to pile on top the teaching of civics and political values.
Ah but from what we have been saying you are definitely the minority on that. The Irish government is not interested in building up a nuanced view, they want the students to identify with the goodies so they can be good Irish citizens with proper values. Same as Texas has as its mission to teach history to let students know such self-evident truths as the goodness of "Judeo-Christian Values" and "Free-Market Capitalism" and "Democracy" as part of the history curriculum.
Quote from: celedhring on September 01, 2020, 05:12:56 AM
Quote from: The Larch on August 31, 2020, 02:58:12 PM
Quote from: Valmy on August 31, 2020, 02:29:56 PM
Quote from: The Larch on August 31, 2020, 02:23:01 PM
They're the forefathers of guerrilla warfare, for instance.
Really? Just that one tribe out of all of Hispania? I thought the whole place was a slog for the Romans.
They were one of the biggest thorns in the Roman side during the pacification of the Iberian peninsula, and Viriathus employed mostly what the Romans called latrocinium, which would amount to irregular warfare, while other tribes were involved in bellum, which would be regular warfare. Viriathus' resistance and difficulty to be beaten while guerrillaing in the mountains of Western Iberia was such that he had to be defeated by treachery (he was assassinated by Lusitani traitors).
Funnily enough he is nowadays a Portuguese national hero and symbol of Portuguese independence, while also being claimed as a local hero by some parts of Spain.
Always liked the (completely apocryphal) story about the proconsul then betraying the traitors because "Roma traditoribus non praemiat" ("Rome doesn't pay traitors")
Audax, Ditalcus e Minurus, i.e the traitors, have been more and more referred as Turdetanians, not Lusitanians though.
And the quote, or variations, also have been used for the murder of Sertorius, the one who really started the latinisation of Lusitanians and other Hispanians, by Perpenna.
Quote from: The Larch on September 01, 2020, 09:23:04 AM
Quote from: Tamas on September 01, 2020, 08:24:19 AM
While individuals should be left alone with their own identity and such, I think it is best if a country's inhabitants have a basic common understanding on some minimum of basic common identity that holds their country together. Ideally this identity is about liberal values, but clearly it is easier to establish a spin on history acceptable to everyone and then teach that.
I don't think that the mission of teaching history should be related to the building of a national identity, but to make people understand the present through the study of the past and how the country arrived to its current situation.
I would disagree.
I mean, you want to make sure that your national history is being taught with integrity and is not just propaganda, and should include your nations failings. But a shared history and values is one of the biggest factors to building a national identity, and thus really can't be divorced from learning about history in general.
Quote from: The Larch on September 01, 2020, 09:27:46 AM
In my opinion that should be the role of a different subject, but not necessarily history. There's plenty of history to be taught to pile on top the teaching of civics and political values.
Perhaps. But all history is the result of a choice, and by virtue of teaching "how the country became what it is", you already discriminate against all sorts of alternative takes, and you actively contribute to strengthening the idea of that country inevitably existing. In short, the reason why, say, Spain doesn't ditch Spanish history in favor of teaching, say, the history of India or the history of technology, is necessarily tied to the idea that understanding "Spanish" history actively contributes to participation in the current Spanish state.
I think when people disagree with the notion of national history, they have in mind some sort of RAH RAH propaganda. And certainly, it seems some conservatives want national history to be a continuous celebration. But it doesn't need to be. What it does require, however, is at least some acknowledgment that whatever is going to be taught in history class reflects a certain idea of the nation.
As I said above, one can certainly champion the idea of discarding national history entirely, in favor of other approaches. The problem we have then is that one of the major political operators of our time remains the nation-state, and making us willfully ignorant about it may be playing with fire.
Saw this on willhaben (Austrian kijiji):
(https://cache.willhaben.at/mmo/0/408/109/910_1908664374.jpg)
(https://cache.willhaben.at/mmo/0/408/109/910_1300032576.jpg)
These kinds of wall maps were quite common in my history class. This one shows Europe during the reign of Emperor Frederick II, the smaller one the realm of Frederick I Barbarossa, and a little map of the crusades of the time. I actually remember that our teacher used this one. :D
I only use German historical atlases. They rule. Other historical atlases often for whatever reason 1) include a lot of text and 2) show approximate borders even though borders were often well defined even in the middle ages.
Like the Atlas zur Weltgeschichte by Hermann Kinder and Werner Hilgemann? Translated in many languages.
I still have a copy somewhere:
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/13/PenguinAtlasCovers.png)
(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51VgV3GUHPL._SX195_.jpg)
(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51gqZJfn-UL._SX258_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg)
It's not perfect obviously, but really useful as a start.
I have a four volume set from Bayerischer Schulbuch-Verlag. It's very nice.
When I was at school, we didn't have any maps for history classes. Only textbooks.
Quote from: Duque de Bragança on September 17, 2020, 04:11:08 PM
Like the Atlas zur Weltgeschichte by Hermann Kinder and Werner Hilgemann? Translated in many languages.
I still have a copy somewhere:
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/13/PenguinAtlasCovers.png)
(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51VgV3GUHPL._SX195_.jpg)
(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51gqZJfn-UL._SX258_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg)
It's not perfect obviously, but really useful as a start.
A while back I bought a newer pair of those to replace my childhood ones; the 2nd vol. had even been updated to include 9/11 etc.
When I was in school and at least until I got my masters in Ed required two US history courses to pass High School. US History 1: Colonial Era to Reconstruction. US History 2: Reconstruction to Today (IIRC in practice we got to around 1970 covering the Civil Rights Movement).
Kids on the college track are required to take a third social studies class. The choices at my school that I can remember were Western Civ, Economics, and Law.
Seems some people are a bit unsure about a change to the UK curriculum.
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ei35J42XgAEBYLo?format=jpg&name=small)
Quote from: Syt on September 27, 2020, 05:55:35 AM
Seems some people are a bit unsure about a change to the UK curriculum.
(https://pbs.twimg.=jpg&name=small)
:unsure:
Context of this? Who from? To what?
Quote from: Tyr on September 27, 2020, 06:26:40 AM
Quote from: Syt on September 27, 2020, 05:55:35 AM
Seems some people are a bit unsure about a change to the UK curriculum.
(https://pbs.twimg.=jpg&name=small)
:unsure:
Context of this? Who from? To what?
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/plan-your-relationships-sex-and-health-curriculum
I mean that's saying don't teach extremism and is related to the personal relations, health and sex education. I could be wrong but my guess is that's aimed at MRA/incels which are a growing extremist community and one that really targets young men so exactly the people who'll be in these classes.
I don't really have an issue with guidance saying schools shouldn't work with external agencies that promote or take extreme positions.
There is no UK curriculum - it's a devolved matter.
According to this Guardian article part of these changes (not that particular section mentioned before) are actually aimed at the teaching of anti-capitalism. It basically puts and protects capitalism in ideological terms at the same level as democracy.
QuoteSchools in England told not to use anti-capitalist material in teaching
DfE categorises idea as 'extreme political stance' equating to endorsing illegal activity
The government has ordered schools in England not to use resources from organisations which have expressed a desire to end capitalism.
Department for Education (DfE) guidance issued on Thursday for school leaders and teachers involved in setting the relationship, sex and health curriculum categorised anti-capitalism as an "extreme political stance" and equated it with opposition to freedom of speech, antisemitism and endorsement of illegal activity.
Former shadow chancellor John McDonnell said the measures effectively outlawed reference in schools to key events in British history, and that it symbolised growing "authoritarianism" within the governing Conservative party.
The guidance, part of lengthy guidelines for implementing the statutory curriculum, said: "Schools should not under any circumstances use resources produced by organisations that take extreme political stances on matters. This is the case even if the material itself is not extreme, as the use of it could imply endorsement or support of the organisation."
It listed examples of what were described as "extreme political stances", such as "a publicly stated desire to abolish or overthrow democracy, capitalism, or to end free and fair elections"; opposition to freedom of speech; the use of racist, including antisemitic, language; the endorsement of illegal activity; and a failure to condemn illegal activities done in support of their cause.
McDonnell said: "On this basis it will be illegal to refer to large tracts of British history and politics including the history of British socialism, the Labour Party and trade unionism, all of which have at different times advocated the abolition of capitalism.
"This is another step in the culture war and this drift towards extreme Conservative authoritarianism is gaining pace and should worry anyone who believes that democracy requires freedom of speech and an educated populace."
Economist and former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis said the guidance showed "how easy it is to lose a country, to slip surreptitiously into totalitarianism".
He added: "Imagine an educational system that banned schools from enlisting into their curricula teaching resources dedicated to the writings of British writers like William Morris, Iris Murdoch, Thomas Paine even. Well, you don't have to. Boris Johnson's government has just instructed schools to do exactly that."
Barrister Jessica Simor QC suggested that the government has on occasion not complied with the guidance itself, after it admitted the new Brexit bill would break international law ("endorsement of illegal activity") and continued selling arms to Saudi Arabia for use in Yemen following a court ruling that it was unlawful.
Tariq Ali, the writer and activist, said although the new guidance was a sign of "moral and political bankruptcy", the advent of the internet meant such measures were futile.
"Leaving aside the stupidity, these things don't work," he said. "People will read what they want to read. Trying to enhance a version of the Prevent strategy, which is already in place, is quite scandalous and shocking.
"If you put things on a banned list, lots of young people can access them via the internet and read them. Banning them from schools will not work at all, aside from the fact it's a sign of moral and political bankruptcy."
He added: "How could both young and old people not read anti-capitalist analysis after 2008, or now with the virus going on and recessions looming all over the western world."
It is understood that the DfE is clear that schools should not work with agencies that take extreme positions, including promoting non-democratic political systems, and that teachers should be politically impartial.
Minister for school standards Nick Gibb said: "Our new relationships, sex and health education (RHSE) guidance and training resources equip all schools to provide comprehensive teaching in these areas in an age-appropriate way.
"These materials should give schools the confidence to construct a curriculum that reflects diversity of views and backgrounds, whilst fostering all pupils' respect for others, understanding of healthy relationships, and ability to look after their own wellbeing."
It comes after counter-terrorism police earlier this year placed the non-violent group Extinction Rebellion on a list of extremist ideologies that should be reported to the authorities running the Prevent programme. However, the south-east division of Counter Terrorism Policing later recalled the document.
This is potentially very disturbing. Seems very open to interpretation and could be taken as meaning no socialist teachers allowed.
I'm baffled by what's going on in these personal relationships, sex and health education. When I was growing up it was mainly about the importance of personal hygiene and putting condoms on fruit :mellow:
Although I take a lot of issue with this:
QuoteMcDonnell said: "On this basis it will be illegal to refer to large tracts of British history and politics including the history of British socialism, the Labour Party and trade unionism, all of which have at different times advocated the abolition of capitalism.
The only time when the Labour Party had people near the leadership who wanted to abolish capitalism was 2015-19. It was never a revolutionary party, unlike most of the European left. Similarly most of the union movement was not ever revolutionary (unlike in, say, France).
I'm not sure how I feel about it. The restriction is on using resources produced by organisations that take extreme political stances (I think this was, until recently, mainly focused on faith schools and mosques in particular - but is now moving to deal with the many other forms of extremism that have emerged) and then it's a list of examples of extremism. I don't really see that this prohibits left-wing teachers or teaching William Morris, Iris Murdoch or Thomas Paine etc.
I don't know, I sort of feel like wanting to abolish or overthrow capitalism is an extreme position in modern Britain. There is a difference - even in this age of cosplaying - between being on the left or anti-capitalism and wanting to abolish or overthrow it. That's pretty rare and pretty extreme. While it's absolutely fine for kids to take that view (all kids probably have an extremist phase) but schools shouldn't be seen to endorse it by using resources from, say, the CPGB but can and should teach about it posibbly.
What does "work with" mean? Can they come to schools and talk about their stuff in class? We used to have anti-democratic extremists coming to school and talk to classes, which I think was a much greater sign of democratic strength than insisting that students mustn't ever risk contamination by actually examining them. Of course their views weren't endorsed by the school and their material wasn't used as teaching materials by the school.
Quote from: The Brain on September 27, 2020, 03:12:47 PM
What does "work with" mean? Can they come to schools and talk about their stuff in class? We used to have anti-democratic extremists coming to school and talk to classes, which I think was a much greater sign of democratic strength than insisting that students mustn't ever risk contamination by actually examining them. Of course their views weren't endorsed by the school and their material wasn't used as teaching materials by the school.
I don't know. I thought work with meant collaborate with or let them use the school hall (so no meetings of the local Combat 18 branch, but the Lib Dems are okay). But having said that we definitely didn't have anti-democratic extremists coming to school and talking to classes. I don't think we had any political groups whatsoever talking to classes :mellow: