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?

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.

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

Sounds interesting. But would this include "English" resistance to it, because this is kind of the point I think I'm getting at. In a way

This sort of thing drives me mad too, Gertrude. I also teach English Civil War. In fact, between Y7 and Y13 I cover British and world history from 1066 to collapse of Soviet Union. Obviously I don't cover every single aspect of almost one thousand years of history...there are always people saying oh, schools should teach this...why don't you do that - I think it's important for children to do x?

People have very limited ideas and knowledge about what is taught. And some of the assumptions are irritating. Why not Google the KS3 National Curriculum for History if you are interested in what government suggests is covered instead of arguing about what teachers do or don't cover?

DCs were educated abroad (from 8 to 18 years). They remain astounded at lack of understanding of British history (in all its forms) by their peers - was an eye opener when they moved back to UK

What ‘English’ resistance to colonisation?

I've found this definition on the google machine
It's all seems a bit vague

Decolonization in an Educational Context. Decolonization is the process of undoing colonizing practices. Within the educational context, this means confronting and challenging the colonizing practices that have influenced education in the past, and which are still present today

I think all countries should teach their country's history before picking a few key topics from other countries. During lockdown I have been teaching DC 13 about India being split with Pakistan
He is cricket crazy and so I chose topic he would enjoy. That was after we studied the Romans for 3 weeks then Battle of Hastings, Queen Elizabeth, all on bite size.

@Greenleavesawash

DCs were educated abroad (from 8 to 18 years). They remain astounded at lack of understanding of British history (in all its forms) by their peers - was an eye opener when they moved back to UK

Maybe their friends aren't terribly academic?

My kids, and their peers, have a good understanding of British history. They weren't taught by me I hasten to add, so that's at least one more school in our area doing a decent job.

I do wish everyone would actually look at what is currently being taught before making ill informed proclamations.

By why bother doing that when you can start a thread in AIBU displaying your own ignorance.

What ‘English’ resistance to colonisation?

Norman Conquest (Harrying of the North especially)
Romans I suppose (the "English" are still descended from those iron age people)
A few other examples and in a broader sense I suppose Acts of Enclosure and even industrialisation?
Resistance to colonialism abroad by working class solidarity. Rise of the unions, Noncormists and the abolition movement are all connected

It seems the attitude now, with this Decolonise the Curriculum trend, is that the English were all some fat John Bull type character waving a union flag. Privileged well fed racist white coloniser narrative. I'm so tired of this

TheEmpressMatilda

If there’s an issue is that history teaching in this country is crap.

Are you actually blaming the History teachers or do you mean the curriculum?

By why bother doing that when you can start a thread in AIBU displaying your own ignorance.

If you could keep personal remarks out of this please

I think all countries should teach their country's history before picking a few key topics from other countries

Yes I agree with this

Again re industrialisation, the Norman Conquest (I don't know a child that I've taught in year 7 that couldn't tell you about the resistance to William's consolidation of power), the Romans, the matchstick girls of the 19th Century, the General Strike... We. Do!

DCs were educated abroad (from 8 to 18 years). They remain astounded at lack of understanding of British history (in all its forms) by their peers - was an eye opener when they moved back to UK

I found this with my own children. I tried to teach them more British history myself, trips to industrial museums, coal mines, castles etc . Talking about the places around us

The problem is that history isn't seen as a useful subject like English or maths, and so it has been squeezed out of the curriculum.

It seems that in response people are trying to find a reason for saying history is useful, and they have wrongly alighted on the idea using it to teach civics, ethics and morals and passing judgment on the past, or using it to explain the present or present injustices. This is entirely wrong. The point of history should simply be learning about the past and that's it. It should be about the study and the understanding of past societies, preferably ones with an association with the locality where it's taught. If the facts are harrowing, they should be allowed to speak for themselves. If the facts are packaged to support some kind of moral initiative, the result is propaganda, not history.

Society should absolutely support BLM. That's because it is an issue of injustice now and any reference to history should be taught in school as part of a civics class. The history curriculum should be left alone.

As for the OP, even if it is right that history be "relevant" in the sense that it affects modern times, I would suggest that the Wars of the Three Kingdoms is a hell of a lot more relevant than the American civil rights movement. The development of the UK legal system, constitution, and the modern states of the UK and Ireland depend on it, as does the British attitude to religion, attitudes to government.. I could go on and on.

I think you’re scraping the pot by trying to find many significant ‘English’ examples of resistance to colonisation. If what you mean is that you’re tired of being generally represented as the bad guys in the colonial enterprise, that’s an entirely different matter and will require sticking your fingers in your ears and singing ‘Lalala’ loudly.

I loved history in school, agreed that we did the tudors etc, and ww1 and quite a bit of the victorians. Yr10 onwards it got interesting as we covered USA contemporary history 1920-1970 which was great, included civil roght movement, womens rights, as well as the depression and new deal and the teapot scandal etc. Yrs 10-13 were heavily focused on Germany though, which of course we interesting but by y13 left us wanting to learn new things. Yr 10 was post ww1 Germany and the rise of Hitler, yr11 was nazi Germany and the holocaust, yr12 we looked more at the holocaust and the downfall of Hitler (which looked at things from a Russian perspective as well, than a British and German one) and yr13 we did the holocaust in detail. Yr 12 and 13 we did two sides of history- with 1 teacher it was the nazi side and with another it was more Britain based which was good. We looked at British politics from 1910-1980 which was surprisingly interesting, and we also looked at the social history of britain 1885-1985 I really enjoyed the second one, covering poverty and the start of a welfare state, the charitable movements driving change, votes for women, the wars, the pill, homosexuality, the depression, Thatcher, the miners strike. The miners strike was particularly poignant as I have relatives stil around which strikes, and listening to their experiences was heart breaking

BlessYourCottonSocks - this is nothing to do with academic ability but lack of focus in English (can’t comment on devolved administrations) curriculum. Nor is it a criticism of teachers. History and humanities teaching is all over the place with no context, timelines or critical thinking.

Blight (or the Famine) in Ireland;... the Scottish Clearances.

The bread riots in England, and the excess deaths at the time. The Acts of Enclosure, when English people were thrown of their land

I was taught both those things but I know for a fact they're not taught now in English schools, or only taught in passing in relation to something else

Because this is political I believe. History now is ironically being taught with even more bias and with less class perspective than it was in the 1970s

@Greenleavesawash

BlessYourCottonSocks - this is nothing to do with academic ability but lack of focus in English (can’t comment on devolved administrations) curriculum. Nor is it a criticism of teachers. History and humanities teaching is all over the place with no context, timelines or critical thinking.

But it's not all over the place and there is critical thinking. That's what we are trying to tell people. Certainly GCSE and A level focus heavily on evaluation skills and critical analysis of both primary sources and historian interpretations.

If what you mean is that you’re tired of being generally represented as the bad guys in the colonial enterprise, that’s an entirely different matter

Yes this is part of it and the reason I don't like it is because it isn't true. The vast majority of English or British people owned nothing, had no vote and gained nothing from colonialism. But the history taught now is leaning more toward that we, the people, did gain from it

and will require sticking your fingers in your ears and singing ‘Lalala’ loudly

Yes I'm afraid so

I think it's great that the curriculum is varied but I do think primary years and the first few years of secondary should focus on British history including slavery, colonialism, etc.
My DD learned about Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks (which I think is a great topic at an older age) in year 5. My issue is she learned about notable figures in African American history but nothing about British Afro-Caribbean history!
I do feel British children should be taught as much of British history (especially the last 300 years) as possible, which would form the basis for 20th/21st history and geo-politics today. It would help put a lot of today's issues (black movement, wars, etc) in a lot of context.
In primary school, topics seem very patchy and not chronological.

I feel like this thread might be the first time the history NC has been accused of not being British enough. 😂

Blessyourcottonsocks - you took the words right out of my mouth!

Please, have a gander through the magazine Teaching History before you tell history teachers that we are muddleheaded Gradgrinds ignoring critical thinking