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.

It's not really surprising. Apartheid is not talked about much these days since it ended, when we were young Nelson Mandela was all over the place, but not anymore.

I had to Google it

At 37 I have absolutely no idea what it is??? Though I've heard the word before

We all have glaring gaps in our knowledge no matter how well educated we are or how old we are. There is no shame in not knowing things about the wider world especially when you are only 16. And a school syllabus can't teach everything.

As I've often posted on here, when I was 22 I worked in a London office with warehouses in Billericay. For some reason I thought Billericay was a South Sea island and marvelled that people could do a site visit there one day and be back in London the following morning. When I was in my fifties I agreed to go to Patagonia with some friends. I then hung up the phone and googled Patagonia. Until that moment I had thought it was mythical like unicorns or Atlantis. So clearly my glaring blind spots are geographical. We all have them and you are never too old to learn.

I went to a play last week where the names Goebbels and Hitler were mentioned. At the evening performance there was a shocked gasp and then a nervous laugh from the mainly adult audience (it was meant to a funny line as well as shocking). At the matinee the following day the audience was mostly sixth formers from local schools and there was no audience reaction at all. Clearly those names held no resonance for them. They aren't at fault. They can't know everything and as inner London school kids they will know many things I don't.

@Gimlisaxe

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

In fairness, the wives of Henry VIII (Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn specifically) are a very important part of the history of this country, due to the split with Rome and the Pope.

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.

Yes, me too. I had never heard of the Armenian genocide until about ten years ago. I started investigating, I researched and read loads - it’s easy to do now everything is in the internet. I was appalled not just that I didn’t know about it, but that it is a largely hidden topic in the media. As I think Hitler said, “Who speaks today about the annihilation of the Armenians?” He got his idea that mass extermination of Jewish people would be possible from it.

I’m late 30s and an English teacher. I was never taught about apartheid in school but I remember Mandela’s release and his election as president.

I teach it to year 9 as context when we study Noughts and Crosses. We look at an extract from Trevor Noah’s memoir and look at the 1983 case of baby Elise, who was abandoned at birth because she was mixed race and had to leave the hospital she was in at three weeks old after a hair analysis concluded that she was ‘coloured’ and couldn’t be cared for in a whites-only hospital.

They always find it very shocking but the only child I’ve encountered with prior knowledge had family in SA and visited regularly. Many of them haven’t heard of Nelson Mandela.

@SickAndTiredAgain I agree that people should know about the Reformation. But you can learn to chant the name of monarchs without knowing about the Reformation.

Slightly off topic but if any one is near Manchester I thought Peoples History Museum was great for teens. It’s free entry and next to a railway station.

phm.org.uk/

I did have a moment where the display on the poll tax riots made me realise stuff that happened when I was at school is now in a museum.

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

That’s as it should be. Would you think a person’s English education was lacking if they read more books in adulthood than at school?

A very small amount of history is taught in schools, which is as it should be.

The study of history in schools is largely about learning the skills required to understand history, which is as it should be.

I campaigned against apartheid in the eighties but it wasn’t taught at school.

I was never taught to recite English monarchs in the 70s or 80s and my children were not taught to do so this century.

Nor were any of us taught that the British Empire was a good thing. My mum wasn’t taught that in the fifties and sixties!

People seem to assume that schools should be teaching kids every important event that has ever happened, which obviously schools can’t. Most adults probably can’t summarise important world events that have occurred in the last six months, or tell you which countries are at risk of genocide now, never mind tell you key events of the last 10,000 years.

They also seem to assume that what they were taught at school reflects teaching across the country as a whole.

[quote julieca]@SickAndTiredAgain I agree that people should know about the Reformation. But you can learn to chant the name of monarchs without knowing about the Reformation.[/quote]
Oh yes I know. My ability to list the names of monarchs has zero bearing on my understanding of events they were involved in. It’s useless. They’d have been much better selecting key points and teaching those, plenty of monarchs didn’t have much interesting going on (or they did but it’s not significant to history so in a squeezed curriculum you’d leave it out).
My history knowledge mainly comes from DM, who is a history teacher with a real passion for the subject, and dragged me to quite possibly every single castle and Roman wall in the country growing up.

Mine have been to different types of schools in UK and abroad but at some point were taught about apartheid. Often and especially primary schools this topic is ring fenced for BHM rather than a specific reoccurring topic like WW / RR/ Victorian / Edwardian etc. I think it also depends on school heads and how much resources they want to focus on particular topic of history especially primary schools. I know a friend's primary school who didn't cover BHM as Cameron had by then changed it to British Values. While a lot of other schools were and are still quite strong on it. As a family we happen to love history so learn most from outside school anyway, but school topics give us ideas we may not have considered. A pp said it should be taught at home - while I agree on this not all families have the capacity and some have more capacity than others so schools are really the only way children can learn and bounce their opinions and ideas off each other and of course come home to argue their case!

@Gimlisaxe

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

Hopefully you’ve also read more books as an adult than you studied in English lessons. It doesn’t follow that your education in literature must therefore have been lacking.

I’m 42 and def didn’t learn about it at school possibly because it hadn’t yet finished.
However I dimly remember it being on the news for years so obviously knew about it. I did very little history at school but there was always a lot of discussion about current affairs at home.

It doesn’t surprise me at all that a 16yo might not know about it. A 25yo I would expect to know about it.
While yes I think it’s important that young people should be taught about such things there are clearly lots of things that fall into that category and it would be practical to cover all of them in depth

Would NOT

I'm late 30s and don't know what it is. I just had to Google it.

@onelittlefrog

I'm in my 30's. When I was at school it was only touched on once and that was as part of English around context to a poem, and not in much depth.

I wouldn't be surprised if a 16 year old didn't know about it.

To those saying you should also learn things outside of school, children can only do this if their parents are inclined to introduce things to them, and also if the kids are receptive.

I think it should be on the national curriculum as compulsory learning along with slavery. I also think History should be a compulsory GCSE.

I coulnd't disagree more.

My son is really interested in history, politics, current affairs and issues and will discuss and debate with you all day but he cannot write an essay in the way you have to for GCSE history to save his life Getting through English Lit was bad enough. All making a subject like that compulsory would do for kids like him is put them off for life.

@Comefromaway

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.

Thinking further I know that my two know about apartheid because ds bought and read Trevor Noah's book when he was about 14/15 and I'm pretty sure dd read it too.

@daisypond

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.

Yes, me too. I had never heard of the Armenian genocide until about ten years ago. I started investigating, I researched and read loads - it’s easy to do now everything is in the internet. I was appalled not just that I didn’t know about it, but that it is a largely hidden topic in the media. As I think Hitler said, “Who speaks today about the annihilation of the Armenians?” He got his idea that mass extermination of Jewish people would be possible from it.

Nc'd for this as it's obviously outing.

Just last month I had to ask my DC's nursery to rethink some of the signs they had stuck on to the preschool name plates. Some had circles, some triangles, others squares.

Some had the Star of David stuck next to their names. As it happens I don't think there was anything sinister intended - none of the obviously Jewish names did, and I was told that it was to aid with organisation and learning to pick names out - but the symbolism was completely lost on the staff.

@saraclara I wonder the same, I watched all sorts of stuff growing up because there wasn't much other choice. Even if I didn't actively watch the news, if my parents were watching it you'd hear what was happening. Now if parents are reading the news on the internet you don't get that information passively.

This is a fascinating debate to me and I agree with the points made above about learning being a lifelong thing. I happen to be somebody who is interested in history as a topic and how we acquire knowledge cotentextually is becoming more interesting to me the older I get. There are many programmes on BBC4 but often late at night and most don't have the time. It is being discussed so much more now in context of reconnecting Black history to British history but again many will feel personally blamed . On one hand yes apartheid could be seen as a distant historical and geographical ideology but it brings up the question of why there was a white minority population taking extreme measures to exploit and control an African country. So I am now grateful for the seemingly interminable lessons I had on the causes of WW1 and the European struggle for Africa (which is also connected to the rise of Nazism in the '30s). I was bored to tears at the time. Now I look back and realise we covered a huge range of history in my O level in the 1970s and that I was also living through one of the most volatile periods which has repercussions still. Really we are all intimately connected through time and culture but a child or young student can only be beginning to realise there is a huge world out there and learning is endless. Surely the point of formal education is that it is laying the foundations for acquiring knowledge and skills in whatever areas you have interest and talents?

I think I learnt about apartheid when I was at primary school in the 1960s but I didn't learn it at school. We used to pass a large building site hoarding everyday and there was a large piece of graffiti scrawled across it that said 'Free Nelson Mandella". I asked my father who Nelson Mandella was and he explained it all to me. I was too young to understand very much but it must have made a big impression on me as I have never forgotten it.

cotentextually = contextually, I was trying to sum up the point that everybody's understanding of knowledge is dependent on their context. Age being one of the biggest as User269's post shows.

I'm 34 and as far as I can remember wasn't taught it at school but then I didn't take history as an option for GCSE's.