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.

Here is a link to the film o talked about

This is a bit embarrassing but I just had to Google what it was and I'm 38. I did history at school but like others have said it was just ww1,ww2 and medicine. We did a bit about Ireland too.

I think lots of people have things missing from their knowledge but don't know it.

@maddy68

If schools taught history every single lesson they would never cover everything

Of course. But it’s reasonable to critique the choice of topics that are covered. I mean, I can reliably list every monarch, in order, since William the Conqueror. This is not useful. I didn’t need to be taught that.

Schools dont have to cover all history of course. But I think there should be a unit looking very broadly at major historical events that covered things like this.

@blessedbethechocolate

This is a bit embarrassing but I just had to Google what it was and I'm 38. I did history at school but like others have said it was just ww1,ww2 and medicine. We did a bit about Ireland too.

I think lots of people have things missing from their knowledge but don't know it.

Nothing embarrassing about learning - no matter what, no matter when.

This is part of the "special sauce" that places some people above others. You can either stick your neck out, risk ridicule and learn. Or remain silent and become absorbed into the ignorant masses who ridicule those who learn.

Are you for us, or against us ?

I attended a Saturday School in London, in the 80’s for a period in my teens, in order to learn more about Black History.

The Saturday School took place in a Community Centre in the middle of the Council Estate I lived on. It was set up by parents as Black History was not being taught in schools.

I do think a lack of history means that young people sometimes have a very false idea of what older people lived through. I mean you cant understand some of the divisions in the community I live in if you know zero about Indian partition. Or the role of CND in this country and how scared people were of a nuclear war.Or how political sport became over apartheid.

@julieca

I think it is important to learn about apartheid as lots of British people lived in South Africa during it. There were lots of links between the two countries.

Ah yes, Thatcher extended the vote to not just British citizens in SA but also their children and grand children.

And lots of people boycotted SA, the entire world of sport and lots of individuals, I wasn't allowed to have soft fruit as a child, I didn't know until I was older that it was because it was from SA.

Anyone remember the Young Ones episode with the vampire played by Alexi Sayle, "you can't bite me, I'm South African"

I mean, I can reliably list every monarch, in order, since William the Conqueror. This is not useful. I didn’t need to be taught that

What should be taught, how and from what 'side' is subjective.

‘Nothing embarrassing about learning - no matter what, no matter when.’

^Exactly.

Just educate yourself by asking questions.
I can usually tell when people are afraid to admit that they have absolutely no clue of what you’re talking about. It’s okay to say so. It’s also okay to admit that you do not have a view on a particular topic/opinion, as you don’t know enough about it to comment. This is when you need to go away and read.
We’re continuously learning until we die.

It will likely be covered briefly in school, but these days all the focus is on GCSE topics and if it isn't one, it won't get much attention, sadly. Especially now that many schools now make their Year 8s select their GCSE subjects to start in Year 9, instead of picking in Year 9 to start in Year 10. Sad, really.

@sashh yes I remember that Young Ones episode.
Also why I would still never bank with Barclays Bank.

DD learned about it in primary during Black History Months and they also read a book in Y6 covering it (Journey to Jo'burg?).

Secondary - maybe again during BHM and in PSHCE but not as a main topic unless it comes up during Sociology now as a GCSE option she has.

We do talk about these topics at home if something comes up but I am sure there are tons of subjects you don't come across unless there is a reason to stumble across it.

Listing every monarch is useless knowledge. This is the kind of thing you can look upon easily enough.

I know about it because it was in the news a lot when I was growing up and there was a lot of anti-apartheid activism at the time. While schools can't possibly cover everything, I'd say it's significant enough that it probably should be covered.

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.

@julieca

Listing every monarch is useless knowledge. This is the kind of thing you can look upon easily enough.

But it's easy to mark.

I'm in my mid forties and although I was educated in Britain from 9 to 18 I distinctly remember that references to apartheid were fairly oblique and only ever in passing. It wasn't 'taught' per se.

I know a shitload about it because my family has close links to South Africa and in the mid Eighties considered refocusing our lives there seriously enough that we visited several schools there before settling on Britain instead.

As others have rightly pointed out there's only so much that school curricula can cover, and even then there's still a choice between a bit in depth, and a lot superficially. So when I dated an Armenian I was both disappointed and embarrassed, but not at all surprised, that I had reached my mid thirties before hearing about the Armenian Genocide for the first time.

Many Brits revel in their innumeracy and illiteracy, so it's hardly surprising that knowledge of domestic politics or history in Timbuktu or beyond is so lacking. What really jumps out at me about Britain though, is that there is also almost no longer any culture here of independent learning and gathering knowledge just for the sake of it, and little sense of curiosity or inquisitiveness about such things.

Anybody who follows international rugby, for example, should have realised that the national anthem of South Africa is comprised of two quite distinct pieces of music and five different languages. I wonder how many people try to find out why when they discover this for the first time?

Similarly, any cricket fan following the T20I World Cup currently running in the UAE will know that one South African player refused to be instructed to take the knee and deselected himself from a game. But who would take the trouble to understand why this is such an issue for South Africa? After all, anyone with eyes will see that the SA side is mixed race, and any serious fan will know about the politics of quotas and race-based selection in SA.

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.

In the end she turned out to be rather dim and shallow, so no big surprise she didn't know about anything that didn't directly affect her.

Yup. That sums it up.

My 16 year old knows about apartheid - because she can read and is interested in people/places.

I remember learning about apartheid from Blue Peter (I’m mid 30s), I can’t remember ever doing anything about it at school.

I'm 47 so apartheid was current affairs when I was at school.
I don't know if my kids have ever been taught about it. They have probably been taught more about segregation in the US than in south Africa. We are a very musical family and ds in particular loves 80's music including some which touches on themes of apartheid so I think they both have an awareness of the issues.

I can name every wife of King Henry 8th, there was something about Cromwell, how great the British Empire was (we went over and people just gave us their country, because we were so great)

Something about WW2 and how Britain won it and how brilliant we all were in the Blitz.

Near enough all my knowledge of history has come from me learning about it as an adult

Just asked my 15 year old and she did. One way to open topics is to watch films we did watch a lot of older stuff together in lockdown. I enjoyed Invictus with Morgan Freeman. Even if not historically accurate it at least introduces concepts. In a similar vein we enjoyed Derry girls set in NI during troubles and Green Mile racial segregation in Deep South.
To me in my 40s it’s unimaginable not to have heard of it but it was on news, free Nelson Mandela song, I walked across Nelson Mandela Park in Leicester etc. I can see how it’s not on a teens radar.

My DD (20's) hadn't heard of apartheid, but had heard that at one point the UK was refusing to buy produce from South Africa. She thought it was due to racism. I had to point out that actually we weren't buying goods from there because of the racism and apartheid in SA.

I’m mid 30s and never studied apartheid at school. In primary I think we did the usual topics - Romans, Egyptians etc. In secondary I only remember ww2, the peasants revolt, the slave trade and cotton mills. I did, however, learn how to find information and what reliable sources and propaganda are so I’ve been able to add a lot of history knowledge as an adult. And, tbh, I think that is more important.