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.

[quote RedMarauder]@feelingsareweird if you point out to children other Empires that existed at the time e.g. French with the troubles that have stemmed from it and other Empires in history e g. Roman then how can children be turned against Britain?

The statement is illogical.[/quote]
Yes that’s my whole point, it’s illogical to get upset about teaching colonialism. But just look at the headlines and see all the frothing about decolonising the curriculum, museums etc!!

‘Of course, I agree with everything you’ve said, maybe I didn’t articulate it very well. But none of that comes under patriotism, surely?’

Yes, I think that is what patriotism is for most people. They care about the country they are part of and want to make it better.

Some people will therefore be cautious about viewing the past of a country too negatively because it makes people despondent about their society and not want to contribute to it.

Part of the reason why the narrative of how much ordinary British people have fought for their rights is promoted throughout society (and not through a few lessons) is so that left wing people can participate in patriotism. That’s part of why we commemorated Peterloo and the suffragettes.

@feelingsareweird Gove’s ideological obsession was a lot less to do with assembling a new national “narrative” in history and a lot more to do with support for a “knowledge rich” curriculum and a move away from the pedagogy of “discovery learning”. There is still significant flexibility for history departments around the country to choose what to teach within their history classrooms and academisation (I know not a Gove invention) meant huge numbers of schools where history departments were totally free to set their own curriculum for key stage 3. There is not a national narrative that schools are expected to teach. The English school system has typically given schools enormous flexibility in history, even at GCSE and A Level with a huge amount of optionality.

I’m not a Gove fan but I can’t say I’m sorry to see the back of smug, overly smiley trainers at INSET days wanging on about how I should be a “guide on the side” rather than a “sage on a stage”.

In what way are the British values nonsense?

They are democracy, rule of law, liberty and so on aren’t they?

They are not particularly delivered through history. Aren’t they taught through activities like school elections?

@Twelveshoes

‘Romans, tudors, wwii, Wwi, maybe wwii again.’

Neither me nor my kids did the Romans at school. DD and DS went to different schools. DD didn’t do WW1. I only did WW1 because I took GCSE modern world history, which was 30 people in a massive school.

DD did WW2 at GCSE and it was all about life in Germany. It didn’t cover the U.K. at all.

Politicians go on about history, English and PSE because it allows them to make nonsense speeches to the public which have nothing to do with reality and don’t involve them having to do anything.

We do the Tudors because the English reformation is really important. It isn’t anything to be proud of in particular unless you are very into some kind of religious sectarian group or like smashing up statues.

Obviously the exact modules differ but I’d be v surprised if many kids are finishing school having had no lessons ever about at least one of wwii home front, d-day, Wwi (especially since 2014) or the tudors!! The reformation is indeed important in understanding why Britain has developed as it has. Also in depicting Britain (England?!) as independent of Europe, able to branch out on its own. English exceptionalism. Plus the Spanish Armada - plucky Britain against the odds again!

Ask teachers if those speeches don’t involve anyone having to do anything - in my experience teachers have had to rewrite their curriculum materials several times in recent years as a result!

God, don't get me started on values. My child is at a "values based school" [sic] and every month has to do a perfectly moronic collage about a new "value."

How is "hope" a value, though? Are the hopeless then people lacking in moral fibre, or...?

It may change as the generations change, but given that my family members who made massive sacrifices in the Second World War have only died in the last couple of years, it would be pretty bad if we were not covering British experience of the Second World War. For one thing, it would deprive children of the opportunity to have listened to oral history of a huge event first hand.

Maybe in another twenty years we will be listening to a very different oral history from people’s elderly family members.

I think we can forget that recent history is about people who are still alive or have been alive within living memory, and we are talking about people’s loved ones. It takes four generations to forget.

@Twelveshoes

In what way are the British values nonsense?

They are democracy, rule of law, liberty and so on aren’t they?

They are not particularly delivered through history. Aren’t they taught through activities like school elections?

Ahh but are what you state are "British" values shared by everyone in Britain? Remember people in Britain aren't homogeneous.

And what do you mean by terms like "law" and "liberty"?

Basically it isn't as clear as people initially make out.

It's so hard, because there are so many lessons to be learned from history, but not enough lessons to teach it all in.

My A level seemed v dull when I did the Stewarts, but I really enjoyed the civil war. But actually, I can now see why the Stewart period was so important. It amazes me how many people don't know we had a civil war. Although to be fair, horrible histories has brought a lot more kids a lot of historical knowledge.

@WhiskyXray

God, don't get me started on values. My child is at a "values based school" [sic] and every month has to do a perfectly moronic collage about a new "value."

How is "hope" a value, though? Are the hopeless then people lacking in moral fibre, or...?

I remember Norman Tebbit's cricket test.

I was then amused to be told by a handful of people into their international cricket that they didn't support England at all or in certain matches with their varied reasons. These individuals were wealthy white middle class abled-bodied men.

The reasons they didn't support England were due to their "British" values.

I just asked my 16yo dd. She said that she would be really shocked if someone her age didn't know about this.

‘Ahh but are what you state are "British" values shared by everyone in Britain? Remember people in Britain aren't homogeneous.

And what do you mean by terms like "law" and "liberty"?

Basically it isn't as clear as people initially make out.’

British Values taught in schools are the ones the Government selected as the ones they wanted to promote. If everybody already shared them, there would be no need to promote them.

The rule of law has a specific meaning. Liberty as a British Value is individual Liberty - the right to vote, to not be illegally detained by the state etc.

It isn’t about what I personally mean about them. It is about the legal system that we participate in and the international context of those laws and the UN.

Also in depicting Britain (England?!) as independent of Europe, able to branch out on its own. English exceptionalism. Plus the Spanish Armada - plucky Britain against the odds again!

No - my daughter hasn’t done history GCSE and hasn’t studied WW2. My son did study WW2 but it was about German history. As I said before the point was to analyse different contemporary data sources and look at factors that influenced different events.

He also studied the Tudors, but as far as I remember there were no marks for describing the defeat of the Armada as plucky. That just isn’t the point of the GCSE.

I am sure you do find it easier to pick up on urban myths and tall tails as somebody who grew up in a different country, but the point of a history GCSE is to teach students how to study history.

@Twelveshoes there is more than one legal system in Britain.

The history of the monarchy isn't the same in the whole of Britain.

etc

The Tory and Unionist party have a habit of showing they forget this.

‘@Twelveshoes there is more than one legal system in Britain.’

I never suggested otherwise.

The rule of law and individual Liberty mean the same thing in all of them.

I don't really care very much about how Iraq and Peru, or Myanmar or Syria complain about their governments. They probably have good reason to complain. I also don't think them being unhappy with their governments means that it is a good idea for everyone who disagrees to think they should be allowed to move somewhere more to their liking, although I understand why it seems like a good idea personally.

Given that the UK, France, Germany etc had their existential crises/civil wars between 400 and 200 years ago, and have come through them with huge family rifts and divisive rows inevitably splitting opinion, a robust contradiction would say that it is the responsibility of the citizens of those countries to aim for the same level of measured political discussion that we are enjoying here.

My forebears were Huguenot refugees who fled France after the revocation of the edict of Nantes. Silk weavers: they brought their looms and moved into the East End, Coventry and Macclesfield.

@XingMing

Slavery was prohibited in England after 1807. I don't think many countries banned it earlier (but could be wrong); NZ had barely been discovered and was not fully explored then. The past was a much harder, nastier place than most of us can imagine now, and the rules we hold dear today just didn't apply.

Only according to colonial history. Maori arrived in NZ in 1200.

I didn't learn about the Tudors at school but I'm Scottish not English and the view from north of the border is that the English 'reformation' wasn't a real reformation. We spent a lot of time in history learning about the reformation but the important people were Luther, Calvin and Knox, not some English King who wanted to marry his mistress so broke with Rome and raided his monasteries for their riches but changed nothing in the way he worshipped God. I also know that very few Scots view themselves as 'British' so talk of 'British values' are meaningless. European values might make more sense, there's a shared history and culture across the continent.

Apartheid, British colonial history etc are not taught or glossed over but it is a committed effort by the establishment. An interesting program on the brutal repression of Mau Mau demanding independence in Kenya was shown yesterday on Channel 4. All the documents relating to the uprising and repression had been destroyed by the British establishment.

Only according to colonial history. Maori arrived in NZ in 1200.

Well, somewhere between 800 and 1300.

And the idea that NZ was unsettled before 1800 has never been taught, colonial history or not. Other spurious fantasies WERE taught to make it seem as though Māori weren't the first settlers, though- esp. "the Mori Ori were here first but the maoris [sic] et em (so the Crown can ignore its Treaty obligations, and the land grabs during the NZ wars were totes legit") but also later that bizarre idea that NZ was settled at the time of Christ by a tribe of white-skinned redheads. 🤷🏻‍♀️ (Oh, also that the Māori were a lost tribe of Israel, hence why the Māori word for the sun god is the same as the Egyptian word, "Ra"- I admit I always liked that theory.)

@WhiskyXray

Only according to colonial history. Maori arrived in NZ in 1200.

Well, somewhere between 800 and 1300.

And the idea that NZ was unsettled before 1800 has never been taught, colonial history or not. Other spurious fantasies WERE taught to make it seem as though Māori weren't the first settlers, though- esp. "the Mori Ori were here first but the maoris [sic] et em (so the Crown can ignore its Treaty obligations, and the land grabs during the NZ wars were totes legit") but also later that bizarre idea that NZ was settled at the time of Christ by a tribe of white-skinned redheads. 🤷🏻‍♀️ (Oh, also that the Māori were a lost tribe of Israel, hence why the Māori word for the sun god is the same as the Egyptian word, "Ra"- I admit I always liked that theory.)

The point is that Māori history wasn't taught, only European settlement/bastardisation. Still going on 😔

Definitely @50ShadesofCatholic but it's changing- thank goodness. Children in Christchurch are no longer taught, "And this is the bridle path up which the brave first four ship settlers dragged their horses, and beheld for the first time the wild swamplands that would be Christchurch.... unsettled but for them there marae-dwelling types." My nieces are learning so much about local iwi and traditions, and also to speak a lot of Māori at their mainstream primary. So different from how it was even in the 80s / 90s.

More concerning IMO is the blood that will be on the current government's hands having not put the vaccination programme in Māori hands from the get-go... but that's another issue.

@WhiskyXray
and that they call it Ōtautahi

and that they develop their own local history curriculum based on people and places of cultural significance. At last.

I won't get into the vaxxing... thoroughly sick of the subject 😂

sick of the subject

Amine to that.

@Twelveshoes
‘British values’ is a nonsensical concept because not only British people have them!
They are human values, if anything.