To be shocked that 16 year old didn't know about apartheid

[biddlybop]

Recently, I was having a conversation with a teen in the family and mentioned apartheid (think we were talking about films and books based on true events). They asked what apartheid was. I explained, and they had never heard of it.

I was genuinely shocked. We were taught about it in school - in both history, and English. I'm 30, so I wasn't educated decades ago.

Is this not in the curriculum anymore, or is it just her school? I think it's really important that young people are taught about these events, especially as racism is still such a problem.

Just been reading back to contributions from some history teachers. I do sympathise as it must be frustrating how little time you are given and the limitations of the curriculum. I think history is one of the most important and difficult subjects because of just how much there is and where to start and whose history is it anyway? Not to mention young students have little or no context to establish understanding. I had older parents and my family was very politically conscious, read newspapers and discussed/argued about events and I took things very personally. I mean that as human being I saw myself and eveyone else as responsible for the world's horrors so I felt I could not just shut it off as irrelevant. It has taken me most of my life to get over myself and take a more detached view.

I’m surprised - I don’t know what our kids are doing in school but I know that we talked to them
About Apartheid when they were 6/7and since. It comes up
Now and again in stuff about racism, or who Nelson Mandela was etc

I'm in my 70s so lived through some of the years of SA apartheid and USA troubles. No teaching about it at school, not unreasonably at that time, except an RE teacher who suggested we read Cry The Beloved Country. Also, during WW2 my Mum had a date with a South African and she remembered what he said, and I remember what she said when Voerwort (sorry if I mis-spelled) was shot. It's difficult to get everything into a history syllabus.

I don’t think you need to be specifically taught about things in school To know about them. Our kids know more than most about certain countries for cultural reasons. Reading books,
Fact and fiction is another source for kids. Personally I think the history curriculum taught in England is incredibly narrow.

I haven't read all the comment, but as a History teacher the lack of time we have is very frustrating. I taught Apartheid at GCSE for many years- I loved teaching it. A few years ago the GCSE changed and we are no longer able to teach it. It is a real shame. There is no time to teach it at KS3.

It’s incredibly common and seems almost a badge of pride, as though maths and numeracy is for geeks, not cool, not important enough for the likes of them

Perhaps you surround yourselves with like-minded people. I've not encountered this myself.

Otherpeople is on a mission to discredit the British it seems, but decided to come and live here anyway...

I mean that as human being I saw myself and everyone else as responsible for the world's horrors

Really?

I don't know about it and I'm 35.

@TheMoth

If you're late 30s/ early 40s then surely you just watched the news? I remember talking about apartheid in school with friends, after watching the news at the time. Think we read Jouney to Jo'Burg too.

Anyone who was in high school throughout the 2000s and did Aqa for English, would have probably studied Nothing's Changed. I remember a lot of students not knowing about apartheid when we did that. But now of course, we have Gove's choices. Anyone for Victorian poets followed by Victorian novelists?

I didn't watch the news until I was an adult. As a child I watched about an hour of tv a day and that was it.

I didn't watch the news until I was an adult. As a child I watched about an hour of tv a day and that was it.

We all have such different upbringings, don't we? Some earliest memories are seeing stuff about the fall of the Berlin War, collapse of the USSR, the Gulf War etc on TV. I remember stuff about apartheid because it was a huge talking point among the grownups in the early 90s.

That said, my kid is like you- I let my child watch the news as little as possible (because it's mostly global warming doom-mongering and corona-shrieking), so I suppose she isn't absorbing much in the way of current events at all.

It really hadn't occurred to me before.

29 and can’t say I’d even heard of the word till this thread. Most of history was Henry the 8th and such rubbish tbh.

My history was learnt from my mum, she was passionate about Soviet politics, dissidents etc...but also a great anti apartheid campaigner. She also taught me much about Ancient Egyptian life. We did walks around churches in London discovering tombs of knights templars.
I learnt sod all in history in school.

@Horst
Why Rubbish?

[quote Rubyupbeat]@Horst
Why Rubbish?[/quote]
I say rubbish because we didn’t cover important things. About wars, the holocaust etc we learned about Henry’s wife’s, oh the fire of London, a little about the Stone Age, the Saxons but nothing in-depth on the big things.

@mustlovegin

It’s incredibly common and seems almost a badge of pride, as though maths and numeracy is for geeks, not cool, not important enough for the likes of them

Perhaps you surround yourselves with like-minded people. I've not encountered this myself.

Otherpeople is on a mission to discredit the British it seems, but decided to come and live here anyway...

I’m talking about at work so didn’t think I did but can appreciate that other people’s experiences are different. I obviously don’t feel that way about numbers myself because I work in finance. I’m not trying to discredit the British, just giving my experience which is that numeracy isn’t taken as seriously as literacy.

Anyway I’m surprised at the number of people my age who don’t know what apartheid is. Have they never heard the word and googled to find out what it means? It’s a word I’ve heard as a descriptor in other contexts too, (e.g. “cultural apartheid”) and if I don’t know what something means I go and find out.

Perhaps you surround yourselves with like-minded people. I've not encountered this myself.

The "likeminded-people" were described as "intelligent." It's depressingly obvious that you don't surround yourself with them!

Well my kids learned a lot about US Civil Rights in the Scottish education system but no one seemed to bother to point out that the UK never had similar legislation. One of them naturally assumed it did, until I set him straight and actually showed him a US Military information film for black soldiers being stationed in the UK during WW2 which pointed out to them that in the UK they would have the same rights as everyone else, unlike back home in the USA.
Proper heartwarming to watch!

The internet and social media means there is so much 24 hour information out there, no one could keep up with it all even if they wanted to. Apartheid ended in South Africa in 1994 , so no I wouldn't expect it to be a familiar concept to every 16 year old living in the UK.
However I know exactly where I was, the moment Mandela was released as we were all watching on the tv.

History teaching in this country does seem focused on certain periods.
I was surprised the other day with a lack of knowledge. I was in a group of mums and i mentioned in response to a question that I grew up in the Soviet Union so my childhood experiences were quite different. Of the 5, all old enough to have been alive when the Berlin Wall came down, none had heard of the terms Soviet Union or USSR. I presumed they would have at least noted it on maps! It’s big and not that far…

I actually think it’s very true particularly in regard to numeracy. Do many people who say they can’t do maths, aren’t number people, etc with a wry smile. People seem to be barely able to calculate a percentage and think it’s funny rather than embarrassing.

Maybe true, but I also think lots of people use humour to disguise their embarrassment at being poor at maths- I certainly do! Mumsnet really seems to enjoy slating the UK and its inhabitants, when I bet lots of the same issues exist in other countries.

This has been an interesting thread though. I'm 33 and new what apartheid was, I knew who Nelson Mandela was. I didn't know lots about apartheid in any great detail. We didn't learn about it at school, nor do I think it's the job of school to teach everything.

I think we all end up learning about what we are interested in, or that the people around us know about. My daughter is 9 and probably knows a lot less about WW2 for example than I did at the same age. My grandad fought in WW2 and would tell us about it, and my mum was really interested in it and would take us to various museums etc growing up. With my grandad long gone, that direct link isn't there any more and DD is another generation removed.

Having said that, I have a real interest in medieval history, which contradicts what I've just said 😁

My dc's know all about apartheid and I imagine they learnt at school but I was an anti apartheid campaigner so perhaps it's from discussion at home and their own reading.

@Horst I'd have to respectfully disagree on Henry VIII being rubbish- England broke with Rome and the Catholic church all because Henry wanted to marry Anne Boleyn! It's had huge consequences ever since.

Some periods seem less important or less interesting and I suppose some were less eventful but to me it's all important. It's just layers upon layers and each one of those has led to the world being the way it is now. I love history though, it's fascinating to me.

Jesus threads like this ... you can carry on learning after you leave school, by reading, watching decent TT, newspapers, friends, quizzes you know - yet many of these posts seem to be saying well if it wasn't tonight at school I'm happy not to know about it. Show some bloody interest in the world! In history, places, life

@mustlovegin, yes because I am a human being and even as a young teenager realised that I must, like the historical characters I learned about, have the capacity for evil. One of my biggest moral shocks was overhearing the mother of a local girl who had learning difficulties and was friendly to everybody she met (the girl/young woman that is) and how she was taken advantage of by men driving her out into the country and having sex with her when she had the mentatlity of a child. So at 15 it was a shock men (plural) would do that, I went home and cried, but then I thought how it would be better if she didn't exist or carry on living as her mother had been saying to the other woman how worried she was for her future. Then I realised how my thought process was following what I'd learned about the Nazi social 'cleansing' programme of the disabled. So I realised with my whole being how easy it would be to get drawn into evil acts for 'good' reasons.

Many of the people taking part in the worst atrocities in history have considered themselves highly moral and been loving family members and good colleagues and friends and artistic and cultured. Even now at this minute there are people torturing and killing other human beings who will go home and kiss their wives and kids and sleep well at night. And as far as I know there has never been any society in history that has not has practised some form of vicious oppression against some other group. I would be happy to be corrected on that point.

Well my kids learned a lot about US Civil Rights in the Scottish education system but no one seemed to bother to point out that the UK never had similar legislation. One of them naturally assumed it did, until I set him straight and actually showed him a US Military information film for black soldiers being stationed in the UK during WW2 which pointed out to them that in the UK they would have the same rights as everyone else, unlike back home in the USA.
Proper heartwarming to watch!
Yes, dotoallasyouwouldbedoneby, but if you look into it more deeply you will find instances where British authorities collaborated in racial segregration for social or operational purposes. To keep the Americans and their money on side and because some of our leaders did not actually believe in racial equality themselves. The realisation that fighting for equality and freedom for all or saving Jews from annihiliation was not one of the (political) motivations for the Uk or USA fighting WW2 as freeing black slaves in the USA was not the purpose of the American Civil War were the kind of things that used to depress me as a younger person. I mean there were of course many individual humanitarians fighting for justice and freedom and even some politicians with egalitarian beliefs but those beliefs were not the cause of war. That's what I mean by previous comments that young students do not have the context to understand depth in historical studies but they must, or should be allowed, start somewhere.

The things is schools have to go so deep they can only pick a couple of topics. We did loads of Chaucer in history in y7.