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.

His wife's crown refers to one wife, his wives' fates refers to all the wives. When you understand the grammar (it's a bit Germanic) the references become much clearer. One is specific, and another embraces all six wives. Sorry, stick me in pedant's corner.

@XingMing it is a regressive tax that taxes the poor proportionately far more than the rich. That unfairness led to riots. And I suspect it would again. It was also very hard to collect.

When I was at school it was still going on, so it was talked about a lot!

I hadn’t realised that some U.K. people didn’t agree with sanctions, and weren’t wholeheartedly against it until I was grown up! My teachers always were thank goodness.

I was telling DS (7) about it recently - well this month for his homework - and he couldn’t believe it.

They wouldnt understand the joke in Only Fools and Horses about Mandela Tower.

^^
Yes it would make no sense to any one nowadays who hadn’t lived through that time - a joke about ridiculous the loony left Labour councils were, that they’d want to name anything after Nelson Mandela (although I guess the tower block in OFAH was a bit of a dubious honour)

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.

The Tudors and current UK/NI/ Ireland relationship are linked. Admittedly England interfering and invading in Ireland has an even longer history than that, but Henry VIII breaking away from the Catholic Church and the constant fluctuating tensions of Catholics/ Protestants depending on the monarch through the Tudors and into the Stewarts has a lot to do with how monarchs treated Irish Catholics in the following centuries (plus Cromwell in the interregnum). Then there's other factors like the Highland Clearences displacing Scottish Protestants to northern counties in Ireland hence Unionism and not all of the island of Ireland becoming independent a century ago.

I'm certainly no expert. I did learn the Tudors and English Civil War in school (1990s) and have gleaned patchy history from visits to Scotland and Ireland, but the different aspects of history do link up to affect a complex contemporary situation.

@GertrudePerkinsPaperyThing every university virtually had something called Mandela something and some local authorities as well. I don't see it as loony left, just tokenism. But it was very apt to call a crappy tower block where its residents were trapped in poverty, Mandela Towers.

@saraclara

I sometimes wonder if the internet is making people's range of knowledge narrower.

When there were just four channels on the TV, we watched pretty much anything, and so our knowledge, through news, documentaries, drama etc was expanded.
Now, with the internet and streaming, we pick and choose more. That might seem a good thing, but it probably means that we stay within our spheres of interest.

We google things that we're interested in, not things that we don't know that we don't know. FB sends us links to things we're interested in, not the things we know little about. And when faced with a multitude of channels, we stick with programming we know we're going to like/be interested in, or what our friends with the same spheres of interest recommend.

I agree with this.

In the 80s/ 90s I watched all kinds of documentary/open university/ general knowledge quizes because they were what was on TV at any moment.

DS1 is thirsty for knowledge but current media, fed by algorithms creates echo chambers and funnels down increasingly narrow focuses. It's very easy to lose breadth, especially when you don't know what you don't know.

I am sorry to be pedantic but it was Nelson Mandela House in Only Fools and Horses. It was part of the joke that they always gave the full name.

I've taught my children about it - they weren't taught at school.

I wonder when COVID-19 will be deemed to be “history” and taught in schools like the Black Death is. Obviously current day teens will have lived through it and won’t need to be “taught” but any child born in the last year or two will not remember it and any child born in the next decade or so will not automatically know unless their parents tell them I guess. I can’t see it on the national curriculum until at least 2050!

@BarkminsterBlue yes sorry you are right!!

@sashagabadon will it be on the curriculum? The 1918 pandemic isnt.

At 40, my knowledge of apartheid is cobbled together from current affairs. I was about 9 when there were news stories of sports boycotts (I hated sport anyway) and the release of Nelson Mandela. I wouldn't claim that my knowledge is well joined up or particularly thorough.

My DCs should recognise Nelson Mandela's name, I know he has been covered in school assemblies and DS2 brought a book about him home.

They recognised Rosa Park's story on Dr Who. There are parallels with segregation in the USA and apartheid.

There is often a gap between current affairs/ history. It was pretty alarming teaching y9 60s "history" of US civil liberties and the space race as although I'm younger than the 60s it felt rather fresh to be history!

Currently in the current affairs/ history gap is 9/11, Iraq, Afghanistan and they still affect a lot of contemporary attitudes and events in the world.

Maybe science rather than history Julia. I suspect it’ll come up in biology. We’re probably the most educated human beings ever in human history on viruses now!

@sashagabadon True. Lots of concepts like viral load were not understood by most of the population before the pandemic.

[quote julieca]@XingMing it is a regressive tax that taxes the poor proportionately far more than the rich. That unfairness led to riots. And I suspect it would again. It was also very hard to collect.[/quote]
Yes people move, property doesn't.

I'm not sure why some people think that you need to be 'taught at school' to have to know about a thing! If we all had that mentality, we'd know practically nothing and stop all learning post 16/18/21, which is incredibly sad (and quite scary!)

However, saying that, in this particular case the young person is only 16, so we can assume that school is where some (but hopefully not all!) of their knowledge would come from. Apartheid was not on my curriculum...but I did know about it at 16 as I was widely read...but maybe this young person isn't yet 🤷‍♀️ There's plenty of time...don't judge them, don't 'feign shock' when they don't know something! There's much I still don't know, and I'm nearly 60! I'd hate to be judged in this way...you know what you know, surely?

Especially in London where people frequently move across boroughs.

When I was a primary teacher I choose Nelson Mandela as the topic when teaching the year 6 literacy unit on biography and autobiography. I'm guessing it was the year he was 90. The head wasn't happy. He thought a footballer would be more 'engaging' for the children.
The children were interested, the LA senior advisor loved it. And it filled a box on the Ofsted form that otherwise he had nothing for. I think it was the one and only time he had to admit he was wrong. (I still treasure that moment)

I'm a similar age to you and never heard of it

It's also a way of depriving people of voting rights as those in temporary or short term accommodation often don't bother to register on the electoral roll. I know I didn't for over 20 years 1980s - 2000 and did not vote. i moved frequently and was always getting voting cards for different people, I suppose I could have voted in their names.

45 years old and never ever heard of it....just read up on Google about it.

I hated History at school but honestly don't ever remember doing about this or knowing about it since school.

I'm mid-late 30s and wasn't taught about this at school. Teen DD (15) has never heard of it either.

Incidentally, I only learned about it myself in my early 20s when I dated a South African man.

I'm 50 & wasn't taught it in school....

Mind you, it was all over the news & Spitting Image, so I had a good idea what it was about....