Has Decolonise the Curriculum Gone too Far

[Flaxmeadow]

Just watching a Sky news item where a question was asked about a complaint that in England/UK in some schools, USA civil rights is taught, but not the English Civil War/Wars of the Three Kingdoms

I don't think this should be happening. I think our own civil war should be taught and take precedence over US civil rights being taught, though agree that USA civil

rights is an important history topic too

AIBU?

There are many parts of our own history that are neglected in the curriculum: much of the Roman Empire; the Dark Ages; the Blight (or the Famine) in Ireland; the English Civil War/War of the Three Kingdoms, including some of the truly appalling things that soldiers did in Ireland; the Scottish Clearances. Some of the appalling things done in the name of Britannia during our Empire Days. Windrush; the Miners' Strike (all but forgotten now outside the areas that suffered from it.)

That'll do for starters. Unfortunately we live in a country where the powers that be seem to think it's more important to know the salacious bedding habits of the Tudor dynasty than anything else.
We should also be taught far more world history including the US Civil Rights movement. And we should be taught more about social history and the working classes, not just the elite.

Thinking of what I studied at school, the only countries that seemed to exist were England, the USA, Russia, and the parts of the Arab-Israeli world relating only to the conflicts. And the only time periods that seemed to exist were the Russian Revolution, WWI and WWII, the Chartists and Gladstone and Disraeli, and oh yes, the Tudors.

So as long as you can name Henry VIII's 6 wives, and Jane Austen's 6 completed novels, what other history do you need to know?!

I left school with no idea about what was going on with Ireland and huh what’s the British empire.
But I knew all about Martin Luther King and prejudice towards Muslims as a result of 9/11.

I think history as a subject is most helpful when it builds up context for children gradually. I always found it bizarre what I learned about at school - Ancient Egypt but no Highland Clearances for example (educated in Scotland in the 70s). I'd prefer children to learn in ever increasing circles of relevance - there's a lot of very local history that can be linked to wider societal movements and issues. Then up to a regional or national level then continent/global.

I thinks it's completely remiss to learn about US civil rights movement at the expense of our own dark history of structural racism - through slavery and empire.

Children should be taught about the colonist history of the British Empire. The Troubles in Ireland and India (including Gandhism) would be a great start. Kids need to know that Gandhi was British when he helped started the movement to make India independant.

I think racist bigots have gone too far with their long-standing insistence that we white wash history.

I also think anyone who says gone too far probably also says they’re “not racist but....”

I disagree, I think the concepts behind US Civil Rights are globally relevant and have ongoing importance.
Also, it's recent enough that many children will have relatives who can say "Yes, I remember when that happened, we all felt sad when X happened, pleased about Y etc"
I love history but the English Civil War is a hard sell to most kids.

That’s not really decolonising the curriculum though is it? I thought decolonising the curriculum was about doing away with the assumptions of colonialism and being a colonial power that centre the white British experience and ignore the experience of people from the British colonies. Okay the US was a colony once upon a time but I would think decolonising the curriculum would be more about balancing the curriculum so it included some of the negative things the U.K. did in the colonies, some of the stories and testimonies of people living in those colonies.

Eg my kids primary school did this when they learnt about early nursing. They learnt about Florence Nightingale and her inventive techniques and how she saved many lives. They also learnt about Mary Seacole, a contemporary Jamaican nurse who travelled to the Crimean war under her own steam after being rejected for Nightingale’s nursing crew despite her experience and opened a boarding house where she also nursed wounded soldiers back to health.

It’s not about ignoring British history but about getting a fuller picture - paying attention to BAME people’s voices to understand better what really happened especially when ‘history is written by the winners’.

@drivingmissspotty

Great post

No, anti-racism has not “gone too far.”

If there’s an issue is that history teaching in this country is crap. I spent a year on Egypt, a year learning in depth knowledge about how Medieval castles are built and the different types, loads about Vasco de Gama for some reason, and quite a bit about WWII. And loads about the Tudors. Not a word about anything else.

I'm a Grandmother now. I went to a comprehensive school, in an industrial working class district in England. Like most people back then, I left school at 16.
It just seems so puzzling to me when I read posters say they have not been taught the subjects below because I was taught all of them and more and it was taught from a CLASS perspective. It was inclusive because we were all working class

US civil rights (this was taught as modern history if I remember correctly)
Slavery (this was definitely taught and at great length)
Empire (in a balanced way)
Industrialisation
Rise of the trade unions / Factory and mines acts (child labour etc and local history)

We also had been taught dates, Kings and Queens, war and conquest etc taught from primary school and...

The English Civil War, now AKA Wars of the Three Kingdoms

The ECW is a really important event in our country's history. Why is it not being taught anymore and why is a subjects like US civil rights taking precedence. I don't understand it

Im not saying US history shouldn't be taught here in our achools, but surely this country's history should come first, especially when it is such an important event

I do wish everyone would actually look at what is currently being taught before making ill informed proclamations.
Primary schools have a freer rein but ks3 years 7-9 cover Medieval realms (1066 etc), feudal system, early civilizations (African and Islamic cities etc) early modern Europe, Plague, Tudors and the growth of world empires,Civil War, Cromwell as a hero / villan, trade, industry, and Empire including a solid look at slavery and India, the Victorian era and post victorian end of empires, lead up to the, 1ww, the1ww, the effect of the Versailles treaty, Weimar Germany, the 2ww, the Holocaust, nuclear attack, cold war.
That's just ks3. In two lessons a week. Ks4 has a vast array of options depending on exam board and goes into very great detail. All you have to dois google the syllabus for OCR or AQA.

The ECW isn’t really anything to do with colonialism though is it?

It might be an important event in our history but I think if I had to choose I would rather children learned about the civil rights movement in the US since it has ongoing relevance.

I feel like part of the point of learning about history is to learn FROM it. I don’t know what lessons I can take from say, memorising the order of Henry VIII’s wives, or the date of the Battle of Bosworth @ Field.

In two lessons a week

Yep. I wonder if anyone critiquing has had this limited amount of time to get through a massive amount of human history? I mean, something has to give, so what gives? Do we ditch teaching the Holocaust as 'unfashionable'? I hope not, though I've already this week read comments about the 'privileging of Holocaust history' due to whiteness, so who knows?

History studies should consider a range of topics; within those topics a range of sources; most high school students should be learning how to engage with primary and secondary sources, and from what I see, they could be doing with a heck of a lot more time focused on history skills as opposed to content.

I also think anyone who says gone too far probably also says they’re “not racist but....”

Accusing everyone you disagree with of being a racist is not helpful

I was taught history in a balanced and inclusive way. I went to school in the 1970s. Our school had many children of immigrants from Pakistan and the Caribbean. We learnt about child labour in the coal mines, we learnt about slavery, we learnt about India. It was balanced and inclusive. History was taught from a class perspective, as was the fashion back then. It was a good education

What went wrong? Why is history so obsessed with colonialism now?

Yes it should be taught, but it's as if every single topic has to relate to it in some way. As if every single white person in the past was a coloniser or supported the coloniser or benefited from colonialism. It's over the top

Which historical events are covered at KS 4/5 is pretty much defined by the themes being studied. There's a difference between history and general knowledge, although I recognize school pupils have tended to acquire very little of the latter over the past 30-40 years. Or, at least, if they do acquire it at primary school and in the first couple if years of secondary they quickly forget it.

Fwiw, in my country, there is a high school module on Freedoms and Rights, which has an option to teach 20th C civil rights movements across the globe.

It could do much better on teaching indigenous resistance to colonisation across the board.

It does not teach American history, because we - funnily enough - are not American.

Don't know why autocorrect consistently changes every if to of and every of to if.

The ECW isn’t really anything to do with colonialism though is it

Maybe that's why it isnt being taught anymore.

@GrumpyHoonMain

Children should be taught about the colonist history of the British Empire. The Troubles in Ireland and India (including Gandhism) would be a great start. Kids need to know that Gandhi was British when he helped started the movement to make India independant.

Ghandi was British? Source please.

It is being taught. I've taught it every year for the past 9 years and if you read Teaching History you will find a huge range of resources on how to teach the Civil War because... We. Do.

This sort of thing drives me insane. We teach about the Spanish Armada and the Civil War. I've taught in state secondaries about the Glorious Revolution. What we try to offer (and it is hard in two lessons or less a week) is the bits of history that children need to make sense of the world. Sometimes that's Cromwell and yes, sometimes that's civil rights in the USA.

I think what is taught is very patchy. I learned Romans, Tudors and Stewarts, and the Victorians (all mainly from a social perspective e.g. living conditions). We learned no 20th century, no foreign history, no politics. Learning about the causes of the wars and the European politics that followed would have been a priority I think. The decline of the British empire should also have been taught. To be honest geography was similarly useless. No facts just endless writing about how it would feel to live in a shanty town etc.

What is the purpose, to you, of teaching about the civil war? I don't mean at all to say it doesn't have one, but as people say the curriculum is full to burst already, and so I could see why more modern and immediately relevant topics such as the civil rights movement get given precedence. If history is taught to help us understand the world today, surely that's the correct priority?

(As an aside, as a tudors nut I get sad when people reduce that incredibly turbulent and remarkable time to wives*6. It's how I was taught as well and it's sooo missing the point).

Oh and count yourselves lucky because I spent literally 6 months of school history studying the bloody assassination of JFK...

That’s not really decolonising the curriculum though is it? I thought decolonising the curriculum was about doing away with the assumptions of colonialism and being a colonial power that centre the white British experience and ignore the experience of people from the British colonies.

What do you mean by "doing away with the assumptions of colonialism ..being colonial...white experience ..ignore the experience"

As I keep saying, i was taught in the 70s and don't recognise this as how colonialism was taught at all.

Okay the US was a colony once upon a time but I would think decolonising the curriculum would be more about balancing the curriculum so it included some of the negative things the U.K. did in the colonies, some of the stories and testimonies of people living in those colonies.

This is how I was taught in the 1970s

Eg my kids primary school did this when they learnt about early nursing. They learnt about Florence Nightingale and her inventive techniques and how she saved many lives. They also learnt about Mary Seacole, a contemporary Jamaican nurse who travelled to the Crimean war under her own steam after being rejected for Nightingale’s nursing crew despite her experience and opened a boarding house where she also nursed wounded soldiers back to health.

Fair enough but is Seacole more important than Winstanley are nurses more important than the Levellers. I don't think they they are

It’s not about ignoring British history but about getting a fuller picture - paying attention to BAME people’s voices to understand better what really happened especially when ‘history is written by the winners’.

Sorry I'm not fully understanding this point yet

I studied history all the way up to 6th year. We hardly covered any UK history. We did the French and Russian revolutions, other countries imperialism (bad) and Hitler's rise to power. Lots of European stuff mostly, Garibaldi, treaty of Vienna etc. The causes of the first world war from the perspective of everyone else involved. With regards to the UK we did Highland Clearances and the Suffragettes. I left school in 1995.

Literature taught me more about history than history at school did.