Things overheard in the hairdressers. Couldn’t believe my ears this afternoon.

[ChocolateDoll]

Sat with dye on my hair listening to this conversation taking place next to me. Didn’t know whether to laugh or cry

HAIRDRESSER: What you going to do on your holidays, then?

CLIENT: Well, we’re planning to visit Auschwitz.

HAIRDRESSER: Oh, right. What you gonna do there then? Just chill out for a bit?

CLIENT: Umm...well uhhh....it’s a concentration camp, you know?

HAIRDRESSER: oh right....sorry.....thought it was like a resort or something.

I think there is a lot to be said for teaching local history, at least in primary. One junior school I went to we had an eccentric teacher who was passionate about local history and was forever taking us on walks pointing out local buildings etc.

There is a Tudor farm near me, in walking distance of a few primary schools, it has free entry and a few farm animals and is usually empty.

I think if it starts local and then grows it is more real to children than seeing things in books.

Obviously the national curriculum would need tweaking out of it's present shape but starting with local history whether that's a battle 1000 years ago or a Victorian mill starting with something local, preferably that you can visit and see and then fitting that in with other local things eg the council estate I live on was built in the 1920s and 1930s would perhaps make the subject more relevant.

Every town has statues and war memorials and it's own history.

But it’s not just in history lessons you learn about history, is it? It’s by reading novels, watching TV and films, watching the news, talking to people in general, surely.

The Holocaust isn’t ‘history’ in the way that, say, understanding the Treaty of Versailles is. It’s general knowledge - a relatively recent event that shaped the world and is referenced regularly in popular culture. To be ignorant of it does imply a sort of ‘opt out’. I must say I agree with a PP who said some people’s brains are just a bit more open than others.

It's not just in history lessons you learn about history is it?

Exactly so - such cultural learning is a virtuous circle in which, if you take an interest in the world around you, everything leads to everything else

The hairdresser was probably only half listening

Not at the hairdressers, but i had a similat experience. I'm just back from a holiday road trip in south-eastern Europe and i had an appointment booked to donate blood on my return. As part of the screening questions you have to tell them if you've been out of three country since your last donation and if so where you've been. So I rattled off the countries we'd been to and the response I got was: "Kosovo? So which country is that in then?"

Black lamb but it's not a country that's recognised universally is it so the answer Serbia. This History threads been done before and personally I don't find history interesting so I don't judge others that don't while accepting otherso do like learning about the war and other things that happened 60 plus years ago, but I'm not fussed.

It's recognised by the UK and most of the EU and officially as the UK is concerned the answer is not serbia. Also on the blood donation website they include it as an independent country separate to Serbia. And in this case it's not 60 years ago but 10 (independence) - 20 (the last war) years ago so within most adults' lifetimes.

I studied the Second World War (and war more generally) for A level and then my degree and recognise that I know a lot about it and history more broadly. I come from a family that reads a lot and we are all historians (in the loosest sense of the world, none of us have pursued it beyond uni). But you don't know what you don't know. How is someone supposed to know about something if they haven't come across it before?

I have also been to Auschwitz and we were stood looking at the 'Arbeit Macht Frei' gate and an American voice said loudly: 'd'ya think I can get an 'I survived auschwitz' tshirt?'

My point is that it is better to not know than to know and still be completely ignorant. All those who heard were horrified and we had to walk away.

For me, it's irrelevant whether you find history interesting or not. It's basic, essential knowledge. Learning some key facts about one's own country's history and recent world history should be no more optional than learning to read or add up.

I would have thought more people ought to know about the Holocaust than say 12 months ago given the Labour Party's inaction against anti-semitic comments about their members and the IHRA definition.

I'm a bit agog that anyone would say 'I'm not interested in it therefore not knowing about important world events is OK'.

Odd to cite the treaty of Versaille as somewhat too far removed and irrelevant, given it could be argued that this had a contributory effect to WWII also.

Nobody can know everything but some things I think most of us would consider basic general knowledge. And knowing that auschwitz is best known as a location for a WWII concentration camp.

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

Its not exactly the same as learning about the runrig system.

My SIL came round for drinks one evening and was in my loo for about 20 mins. I called through "have you fell in?" Turns out she was looking for the UK on the giant world map we have hung in there. In the end I had to go in and show her. She had no clue. Was shocked at how small the UK is in comparison with continents.

She was 26 at the time.

I'm always surprised how many Brits are unaware of the Irish famine https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GreatFaminee_(Ireland) where so many suffered, died and the lucky ones got to emigrate. And that was only over the channel.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GreatFaminee_(Ireland)

That link won't work but you get the gist.

We learned a out it at school. What about the Highland clearances?

Argh not the channel, The Irish Sea.

Agree about Highland Clearances, never taught of that at school but read of it.

Also if you want to get your DC into history, if you think the school isn't really covering enough, Horrible Histories are a great start (the books and the shows )- esp live shows, the re-enactments in castles like Warwick. And lots of the actors are fit as .

The hairdresser obviously just doesn't give a shit.

I'm 24 and this is the first I've heard of this

^
Please... Heard of what? The holocaust? Hairdressing?

Lady roch

^^

I learned about the famine reading Frank Mccourt when I was in my mid 20's.

History is probably one of the most difficult subjects for selecting which bits to study. And there tends to be a lot of bias about “home” history, e.g. the negative effects of British colonialism, which kind of get swept under the carpet.

AdoraBell mentions upthread about a teacher from San Francisco not knowing about earthquakes there. Presuming it was the 1906 earthquake, a lot of the history of that event got “buried” by renaming it the Great Fire of 1906. The reason for that was commercial – the city needed investors to help rebuild the city, but very few were likely to invest in an earthquake-prone area, whereas a fire could be marketed as preventable.

I’m not sure that fictionalising history helps, except perhaps as a jumping off point. There’s always the danger of the story becoming more important than the reality. I’ve not watched Braveheart but I gather it was heavily criticised for historical inaccuracies.

I know there are now programmes in some US liberal arts universities, where all first-year undergraduates study a specific range of subjects, to replace the Western Civilisation course with a World History course. That’s partly to get away from the idea that civilisation has marched relentlessly westward: from Greece to Rome to Western Europe to the USA. And partly to recognise, with increasing numbers of students who have a family history from other than Western Europe, that history also happens in other parts of the world.

There are good resources on the internet, but they’re not always easy to find. And I think one of the things that might hold people back from seeking out more knowledge is the idea that learning involves tests and exams, because that is the experience of being at school. It takes a bit of a mental shift to see learning as just fun. There are loads of documentaries on TV (well, on Sky), but after a day at work, then cooking, then doing bedtime, then sorting out uniform and tomorrow’s lunch bags, etc, etc, who wants to then sit down and do some “learning”? But if it’s a Lucy Worsley programme, yes there is always something to “learn”, but it’s primarily a cracking good story.

And, of course, my school experience, so many decades ago, has resulted in an essay. Sorry about that, but we didn't have powerpoint back then.