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.

I.e. that's why families need to discuss world event

@RobinPenguins

I work with a lot of intelligent people who will tell me they “can’t do” numbers in a way no one would ever say about literacy. I can’t imagine anyone saying “Oh you’ll have to sort that out for me, I’m terrible with words”.

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.

When I say I’m terrible at maths I’m telling the truth. I cannot get better at it, no matter how hard I try. I don’t see why I should have to hide the fact there is something I am bad at. (I suspect dyscalculia.)

that's why families need to discuss world event

Yes, and they can explain it how they see fit.

I'm 33 and we never learned about apartheid in school.

Primary school was Romans, Tudors, WW2, Egypt. High school I only did 3 years of history as I didn't take it as a GCSE but we did early American history, WW2 again, ancient Greece, Middle Ages, the Industrial Revolution.

I was saying the other day, it would be so much more useful to do recent history - I didn't learn about the Troubles, the Falklands, Poll Tax Riots, anything at school. Surely they're more relevant!

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

I rarely encounter people who say they are proud of not being able to tackle maths, no. I wouldn't consider them 'intelligent' if they said this to me

@BeautifulBirds Didn't learn about it in school, history was medicine and American Indians.

You mean native Americans, surely?

I'm 31 and we didn't cover it in school either.

@NotSoNewAndShiny I'm not sure you read the OP right, the child isn't mine, they are a relative, otherwise I'd have said they were my son or daughter rather than a teen in the family. Thanks for your comment though about things I have 'found out' about 'my child'...

*What I am shocked about is the constant references to apartheid on this thread as history.

It was only 30 years ago. It is contemporary and the repercussions are current.

Or I am getting old?*

It sort of popped up throughout a lot of my GCSEs...History I stopped at year 9, we didn't actually study apartheid but we did cover the slave trade, colonization, and naturally apartheid came up and was included as it was important at the time. We studied it in English because of poetry. We covered it in Ethics. So across 3 classes (2 of which were compulsory at GCSE), we learnt a lot.

People feel that way about maths, because there's no escaping it when you get an answer wrong. Years and years of being wrong in maths leads to people trying to make light of it, to protect their self esteem.

If you're bad at English it's not remotely as evident. Outside of a spelling test our answers are not always pointed out to be wrong. We can still express ourselves, peoplle know what we mean, even if it grammar is.Poor. We can get by. So there isn't the same need to hide our failings with a jokey response.

Wtf happened there?

People know what we mean even if our grammar is poor!

Swype is trying to make an idiot of me on my phone again.

More recent history is not necessarily more “relevant”. The Tudors aren’t integral to the history curriculum because Henry VIII had a busy marital life and Elizabeth didn’t get married. It’s because they ruled at a time when seismic shifts happened that shaped European and English history forever. At the end of the Tudor period England was a totally different place, with a totally different place in Europe than it was at the start. It’s a time of immense turmoil and change in Europe more generally.

@biddlybop My apologies OP. I read it wrong and thought it was your child. It's why I was surprised you'd just found out. I read most of the comments and still didn't realise it wasn't your child.

Besides that, there are no other 'things' I mentioned. Just gave an example about someone else.

I do apologise for the wrong information.

Mind you I've met young adults who didn't know who Hilter was... which I found rather shocking. I don't even remember when I learned about him - must've been very very young as I don't remember a time when I didn't know who he was.

This is really shocking! We first learnt about Hitler/the war/the blitz in year 3...so I'd have been...8? We watched a programme where families lived as a family in the war for a week, they had rations and every night the air raid sirens went off...obviously at age 8 we didn't learn about mass genocide or concentration camps. We covered WW2 pretty much every year or two up until year 8, which is when we were taught about the Holocaust, we watched videos footage from the camps, interviews with ex-nazis and survivors. Even if you didn't take history GCSE and did compulsory Ethics, we covered it then, too. So every year up until age 16.

I then also covered other areas of WW2 history when studying my A Levels - Kindertransport and Nicolas Winton when studying English Lit at A Level.

Absolutely amazed that there are people who have never heard of Hitler.

@NotSoNewAndShiny No problem.

I learnt the Tudors in school ( which I loved and that period certainly isn’t rubbish!) as did my kids 30 years later. But neither of us learnt anything about the Plantagenets. I have never even heard of them as a period/ dynasty until about 5 years ago when I was watching a TV show about them
But I know a fair abit about King Alfred and the Viking years as I’ve learnt more since adulthood.
There’s so much to possibly learn and you’ll never cover even a tiny percentage of it all so you have to concentrate on a small number of eras or particular people

And we never learnt about the wars in an 80’s comprehensive in London. We did the industrial revolution which I found boring, the corn laws and domesday book and a bit about the Irish troubles ( high Irish intake in school)

@MadameMinimes

More recent history is not necessarily more “relevant”. The Tudors aren’t integral to the history curriculum because Henry VIII had a busy marital life and Elizabeth didn’t get married. It’s because they ruled at a time when seismic shifts happened that shaped European and English history forever. At the end of the Tudor period England was a totally different place, with a totally different place in Europe than it was at the start. It’s a time of immense turmoil and change in Europe more generally.

Ah yes - I totally get why it's studied (and loved the Tudors - they're my specialist pub quiz subject!) But I wonder if knowing things like e.g. the background and what happened in the Troubles - when the Irish border is currently in the news etc - is more useful to kids who'll potentially encounter issues raised by more recent history in their life. Or at least should be covered as well.

I'm thinking specifically of that because I met an Irish girl at uni who talked about some really sad, awful stuff that happened where she lived when she was growing up, and her dad (ex-military) refused to ever come to England to visit her the whole time she was there. I, as a reasonably well read 18 year old, didn't really understand it, other than there was 'some stuff with the IRA?'. She was quite upset and angry that her childhood had been so affected and we English kids were largely oblivious to the severity of what had happened.

Parents are the first and main educators.

and the most shocking, have never seen star wars.

I'm 73 and I have what's called down at the pub quiz a dustbin mentality, but the only Star Wars I've seen is in the queue at Disney! I had to Whatsapp my grandchildren from the queue to find out who the golden figure was. On the other hand I never watch Sci-fi, except Quantum Leap, I wouldn't go to see Chariots of Fire when it first came oue, thought it was sci-fi!

@sashagabadon

I learnt the Tudors in school ( which I loved and that period certainly isn’t rubbish!) as did my kids 30 years later. But neither of us learnt anything about the Plantagenets. I have never even heard of them as a period/ dynasty until about 5 years ago when I was watching a TV show about them But I know a fair abit about King Alfred and the Viking years as I’ve learnt more since adulthood. There’s so much to possibly learn and you’ll never cover even a tiny percentage of it all so you have to concentrate on a small number of eras or particular people

I realised that I knew almost nothing of ENglish history between the Romans leaving and the Normans coming so I made a point of seeking out all the documentaries covering that time.

High school history is a bit of Romans and then just WW2 until you come close to not caring any more. Maybe a bit of Henry VIII so the class can laugh at women being murdered.

Learning history has to be self-driven these days, and not everyone's going to pick up a book.

@scarpa Poll tax - I saw someone on MN suggest the government introduce a per person tax instead of based on house valuation. Everyone went...mmm...they tried that and it did not turn out well.

The plural of wife is wives....

@Julieca, it's not a bad idea to levy local taxation per capita in theory, but in practice in the UK it ended in revolution and riot in the 14th century and again in the 20th.