To think this was an inappropriate school task

[Lalalabrador]

My year 8 daughter was asked to write an essay today on the question How did India benefit from colonialism and how was it harmed by it? I’m pretty gobsmacked. I’m a professional historian and sad that something so intellectually bankrupt is being taught to young people.

Why on earth would anyone be terrified by the prospect of free thought and free expression?

I don't know but this is increasingly the case.

@Lalalabrador

My year 8 daughter was asked to write an essay today on the question How did India benefit from colonialism and how was it harmed by it? I’m pretty gobsmacked. I’m a professional historian and sad that something so intellectually bankrupt is being taught to young people.

WTF?

I am gobsmacked by this and more gobsmacked there are people who think you're unreasonable.

Asking loaded, propagandist questions is not history. I'm really disgusted by this.

Seems reasonable as it is an opportunity to provide one’s own analysis to an open ended subject matter. Can there be just one agreed and correct “answer”? Surely as with most in daily life and historically there are forever “winners and losers” and a spectrum of variations in between. It’s a debate not scientific undisputed fact.

Balanced means taking all sides into account, not neccessarily giving the same weight to them.

I don't often question people's credentials on MN and generally find it rude, but in this case, I am a little. How can you come to a logical or compelling conclusion without acknowledging all sides? The oldest templates for rhetoric are based on argument and counter-arguement, acknowledging the other perspective, but ultimately refuting it.

History is facinating. Should scotland, wales and NI become independent? The oppression of these areas and the impacts dont twnd to be considered. I never understood friends who talked about wanting indepedance in the past. But my Historical knowledge has grown through interest as ive aged.
Much of what we think is ingrained and takes time to unpick and reason and debate. to see all sides of the dice.
Nothing in History is clear cut. I remember an elderly relative discussing the WW2 when i was young. They were pondering if britain should have allied with Hilter earlier on rather than oppose. I remember this as we had covered it from a very British saviour angle at school. I asked why because germany had done all these awful things. He wondered if allied if Britian could have focused Hilter away from the holacast and attacking west and concentrated on Russia which would have prevented Russia becoming the threat they later became. Who knows what effect a single butterfly in history change would have caused.... beyter or worse.

Debate and discussion and weighing up all sides allows us to learn and hopefully not make the same mistakes over and over.

Should we send our forces into areas on internal conflict or stay away and not interfer. Should we aid those escaping conflict or be wary of threats from incoming people of unknown intent.

Historically things happened that wouldnt be accepted today.

I’m not anguished
You can’t frame it into ‘good’ and ‘bad’, when the original intent was reprehensible.

@Newyorkyork

OP, I sorry but I think this is totally too much for an 8 yr old. A balanced argument??? At 8 yrs of age!! I can't get past the first question, not to mind the analysis (bear in mind I m not British so don't know if 8 yr olds are educated on British history regarding colonies as such a young age) She 8, not 18. Yes, google will provide an answer which her follow students will automatically copy.

Yes, it would be a lot for an 8 year old.

But she is in year 8 (so about 12) - and that's still a young age to discuss any version of this question

@burblish How would you phrase it for 12/13 year old?

And I'm
Also curious about the OPs new book!

It's a bit leading, I guess, in that it seems to assume that there were benefits of colonialism rather than asking if they think there were any and if so what they were?

In that case it's also leading about the negatives. Were there any negatives and if so what were they?

Personally I think that Empire was wrong, of course, but as teacher of history it is not my place to put moral arguments or judgements... It is my place to encourage children to look at primary sources, historians interpretations, to discuss and make their own judgements.

This thread is so going to end up in the Daily Mail.

And I can think of what their views would be,

I don't think you can be a very good historian, OP, if you aren't able to contemplate beginning to answer this question.

Exactly, this is a textbook npc subject about how India was robbed via colonialism, ignoring history about the bengali famine and putting some absurd number on how much the british (which funnily enough included large amount of scottish) stole from them.

It is tiered Reddit bad history/twitter hot take post, disguised under a different banner. It would hold some water if it didn't follow the same standard procedure that has been demonstrated online for the past few years, especially when people are trying to point out the nuances of history.

It's simple english hating bait that has now come onto MN after years of not gaining attraction on sites like 4chan/twitter/reddit

Providing your dd has been taught about this topic prior to being set the essay and has not just been given an essay title and left to research it all on their own I really don't see a problem.

@SleeplessWB

Personally I think that Empire was wrong, of course, but as teacher of history it is not my place to put moral arguments or judgements... It is my place to encourage children to look at primary sources, historians interpretations, to discuss and make their own judgements.

That's really sad. Do you think students are incapable of distinguishing between your perspective and absolute truth? If it's the latter, then perhaps you need to teach them a little more about investigating bias.

This thread brings to mind this quote:

"All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?"

I mean, it's a bit much to have the descendants of an oppressive regime making claims about what the benefits were. Ooh the railways, the education system! Our culture is so wondrous.

Yes its distasteful. Obviously there are benefits to pretty much everything and.anything. But interesting the way Britain tries to wriggle around its problematic history... But, but, but look...... there were Benefits! to our war mongering and conquest too!! Because we're British, you see....The simple existnxistance of the question as a topic for school discussion speaks volumes about Britain's schizophrenia. Imagine reaction to Chinese children discussing the pros and cons of repressing ethnic minoritirs. Or Japanese children discussing the intended pros and cons of their murderous rampage across China.

I’m white English. I don’t hate myself or other English people. But the question is completely inappropriate, you could discuss the consequences of colonialism, but the benefits?
Really?

It's like asking what are the benefits of having your house burgled.

Asking loaded, propagandist questions is not history. I'm really disgusted by this.

Exactly. It's a loaded question which we'd laugh/be horrified at if it were directed to a French child discussing Africa.. or a Chinese child discussing Tibet.. or an Australian child discussing the infrastructure the European settlers brought to the natives. Etc etc. But we are British. So we're different. Apparently.

I wouldn't think that's inappropriate. You have to look back on history and question it.

How is it appropriate @AnnaSW1?

@Lalalabrador I am with you. You can't escape this Marxist oversimplification in state or private. I speak as someone who grew up in a Communist country. Nothing to do with balance, and your daughter will be marked down if she expresses the "wrong view". I feel bad for her. The best you can do is teach her your own way.

@SarahandQuack what's sad about it? We learn about sources and their reliability all the time, it is one of the key skills. I am not saying that I never share my views, of course I do, but there seems to be a perception that learning history is about morals.... I don't see it like that and wouldn't make moral judgements on the actions of those in the past as part of my teaching ... It is an academic discipline and should be taught as such.

[quote LynetteScavo]@burblish How would you phrase it for 12/13 year old? [/quote]
I wouldn’t use terminology such as “benefits”. In my view, the question could have been phrased so as to ask about the impact of colonialism (maybe even to ask them to explore/explain the perspectives of different groups of people who were involved in or affected by it), but without using loaded terms such as “benefit”.