Why doesn't England have a National Anthem?

But it’s not “out of date” so whose perspective do you think history should be taught from?

Your mistake is you think change is improvement, All that’s happened is the agenda for which the teaching of history is being used has changed.

Can you at least see how harmful this “nasty old Britain” rhetoric is for social cohesion in Britain is?

We were teaching history from a white man's perspective. Not women's perspective. Not the effect those white men had on anybody else. It was selected memory history.
It's not ageism asking how old you are with your opinion of teaching a narrow and out dated view of British history.

Well I’ve had a go at some others - needs some work but I’ve gone for a MN inspired anthem.

To Holst”s Jupiter

I am begrudgingly going to sing a long to this
Entire and whole and perfect the nature of my kids
The poster asks no questions
we suspects she’s taking piss
To Boden joules and Primark, clutches pearls to chest
Labour never falters, but sure we’ll pay the price
Single sex spaces, the final sacrifice

And there’s another country, I heard it’s name is France
Most dear to them that love her, most great to them that prance
We wish there was no Brexit. We would all be moving there.
We always drink her Champers and scoff her Camembert
And there is only secular, there’s no deity ‘lowed there
And her ways of socialism
No Tories hiding here.

Actually I don't entirely like the words of 'I vow to thee, my country'. I don't believe any nation is owed 'the love that asks no questions', particularly if it's followed by 'That lays upon the altar the dearest and the best'. Soft words to a lovely tune exhorting unquestioning sacrifice don't strike me as at all a good idea. I love my country but we should certainly question and seek to improve!

(And it bugs me that I can't listen to the planets without those words inserting themselves over the music)

I too could get behind this. - there’ll be someone along in a sec complaining the second verse is alienating to atheists but there you go.

Well actually Millenia ago. - sorry couldn’t resist,

Actually, I agree with you. I've changed my mind on Jerusalem now. I prefer this one. Written by Gustav Holst as part of The Planets Suite. Great tune, and I love the words.

God Save the King is an utter dirge and should be abandoned. Very self-congratulatory for a monarch too, which is really why they themselves don't sing it. Just get rid!!

Scotland already has Flower of Scotland which is lovely, and Wales has Land of My Fathers which is a great tune. Why couldn't England adopt Jerusalem, or something similar?

Yes, England should have their own and we should scrap GSTK altogether.

I can't remember. It was decades ago.

Sounds a great curriculum

Did you not do the Stone Age?

That's not the history I got taught at school.

To be fair I dropped history after S2 but up to that up to that point we did votes for women and the suffragettes, WWII (and what I remember of that was the evacuees experience and the Holocaust), the Jacobite Rebellions and the Highland Clearances.

Wouldn't call any of that the 'nice bits'.

As did France Spain Portugal, the Netherlands Persia. Macedonia, Rome, Scandinavia. Etc etc . In fact every single successful country has done something similar - most countries were formed out of such colonisation of various little kingdoms. It’s just the way the world was shaped.

It’s not really a good or bad thing - certainly nothing we should be beating ourselves up about now. Interesting how you word it “to build our economy” though still them and is for you deep down isn’t it?

Actually, I’m saying teach it in a balanced way but on a way that we and children are proud to be British. What do you think are the downsides to the Industrial Revolution that aren’t revisionism or anachronism? What do you think were the upsides to the Empire?

The trouble is, when we start along the lines of “Oh big bad Britain” what do you think happens to pride in one’s country? If you don’t have pride in that country, what do you think happens to that country?

So you don’t agree with teaching kids about the culture of their country )those were the first things that popped into my mind) - you find British culture all a bit twee do you?

Culture is full of rituals which create a social cohesion and individual stability through that sense of belonging. they are important to any society. Shared knowledge and experience, being a part of something bigger. That culture can be local (eg making Well dressings in Derbyshire) or national eg coming together for a 2 minute silence on armistice day ( not typing through it).

it’s singing the National anthem together. Singing together seems to be a primordial way of affirming membership of a group.

Are you anti tribe - are you purely individualistic in your view of human nature?

We need commonality, humans are tribalistic. It doesn’t really matter what those tribes customs are but they need to be shared by all members. If you stick competing tribes on one bit of land human history shows is it’s never peaceful

Britain spent at least two hundred years stomping over the world, invading other countries and imposing our culture on them. It is entirely reasonable that we understand the cultures we invaded and have since welcomed to our country to help build our economy.

My bad. I was thinking along the lines of recorded history which was about 2,000 years ago. I wasn't aware, not having been at school for decades, that they taught history going that far back. I remember learning about the Romans, maybe the Vikings but don't remember going further back than that.

Yes, but you seem to be coming from the only teach the nice bits perspective. Great white saviour, the industrial revolution had no downsides, white cliffs of Dover and bravely standing alone, etc.

Dancing round the maypole, singing hymns, and traditional songs and stories - it's all a but Summer Isle, isn't it?

Don’t mention the Roman invasion!!! Apparently the concept of divide and conquer has only been around since the British Empire though so not sure how the Romans did it.

I’m suggesting that if we are going to teach about the British Empire this needs to be done in the context of examples of other empires rather than using it as a political weapon to put down Britain. If it can’t be taught in a balanced way maybe it should be left out the curriculum.

Britain has a 1000 year old history

Does it ? Every day is a school day. So the migrations of entire civilisations around 6000-3000 BCE are nothing ? The civilisations that cluttered the South West with their interminable long barrows are a figment of the imagination ?

Even the sodding Romans were calling it Britannia when Julius Caesar popped in in 54 BCE.

Yes, GSTK is very dreary. I’d like Jerusalem or the tune of Land of hope and glory - with some new words, but not all. A really rousing tune is a must!

Trouble is, if it were ever agreed that we should have a new one, what’s the betting it’d be something equally uninspiring - like the sort of U.K. Eurovision entry that invariably gets zero points.

I'm not understanding your point. Britain has a 1000 year old history and there is limited time to study it all. Are you suggesting that the history of Britain is scrapped and instead pupils study Empires?

When were you born? What a bizarre ageist question.? Why did it have to change? We are teaching a history of a country. A very long history.