History is a joke

[ScatterKitty]

AIBU to wish History lessons focused less on Henry VIII (or British monarchy in general) and more on the history which led to current conflicts and issues which affect current affairs?

Was anyone taught about the Israel/Palestine situation? Or the history of India or Pakistan? Or even Windrush and UK Black history?

How am I meant to explain to my kids what's going on in the world when we were never taught and all they learn about is British monarchy, Romans etc?

I've been trying to find a decent explanation online with no luck. Can anyone help?

We also did a subject back in the day called "Integrated Humanities" and in that we did religious conflict worldwide, political themes etc (we studied the right, the left, dictatorships, communism, fascism etc)

So yes, OP, some of us did.

other topics covered in history

first world war
arctic exploration and government

I don’t think you would want your children taught about The Windrush Arrival in history, because the facts are very different from the current narrative. ( see Hansard for further details).

Good god, they aren't still teaching the same syllabus as we were taught in the late 1960's, it sounds like they are.

I don't know if it's still the same but in Scotland there are two distinct subjects. History and Modern Studies. Obviously there was a bit of of blurring but generally history is up to the Vietnam War and Modern Studies after that.

Schools are tied by what they can teach. Why don't you read the curriculum for your child's age and decide what's missing?

You are allowed to educate your own child outside of school you know. You can't put the entire blame on the school system if your child doesn't know things you want them to know!

I suspect that, as the subjects you mention can be contentious, schools, particularly primary schools, and the department of education, realise that teaching them would be very very difficult. I wouldn’t want to be a history teacher in central London teaching a mixed Muslim and Jewish class about Palestine with children who may be too young to understand the complexities. It’s setting them up for conflict with the parents who may feel very strongly one way or the other.

The Tudors, Romans and Vikings are long enough ago that emotions just don’t run high with them and things like the holocaust and ww2 have a narrative that pretty much everyone agrees on so they make sense as the starting points for learning the basic skills of history.

The November issue of BBC History magazine has a really well written article on the end of the British Empire, focusing on the events of 1923. I've got a History degree but I learnt new things from that article.

There was a terrific Channel 4 drama about 10 years ago, maybe a bit longer, called The Key, which was an excellent primer on the post WW2 history of the Middle East.

Failing that, you could do worse than start with Horrible Histories...

If you genuinely want to learn yourself, the New Statesman and the Economist are good for current affairs.

My daughter is now in the UK doing Politics & IR and because she went to school in Italy, where history lessons start at year 0 and you get 1 page on each "fact" she subscribed to both of these for the last 2 years of school.

My late grandmother born in, I think 1916, was invited in to a local primary school history lesson for the children to ask her questions about her life.

She was in her 80s and loved it.

Whoops no, The Promise, that was it. It did have an important key in it though!

BTW, we did study the history of Ireland when I was at school, although I am getting on now! The point is we have 2000 years of recorded history, what do we leave out? The Romans were important , as were all of the invasions from continental Europe, there are really so many turning points in the history of this small island it's impossible to think what should be omitted.

They weren't in the 80s, but maybe they've reverted back.

Each exam board offered a different period to be studied in depth then. My school did modern, my roommate at university knew all about Oliver Cromwell.

This was before the National Curriculum though, so guess everything is standard now? (Am not in the UK)

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Promise_(2011_TV_serial) I don't know if it's still available but hopefully it's knocking around somewhere. I learnt a lot from it.

In 2005 ish I was taught about Israel / Palestinian conflict as well as modern Middle Eastern history from the 40’s to 2001, dissolution of colonies and outcome eg India / Palestine, South Africa. We also studied the Cold War and the impact of the breakdown of the USSR.

In y8/9 we were taught about the potato famine in Ireland, slave trade, but we didn’t study anything pre 1830 from Y10 onwards, it was all relatively modern and political history that impacts our world today. I think it depends which curriculum your school chooses.

This was an amazing series - my grandfather did his national service in Bethlehem!

Windrush is on our y2 curriculum - given the heritage of our children it would be wrong not to include it. All children also do a weekly news lesson, may be similar to the one linked up thread. But as others have said, schools are ridiculously busy, we cannot fit in the choices of everyone into all parts of the curriculum.

Look as adults you are responsible for educating yourselves. You are grown ups with the ability to read, watch the news and documentaries. Take some responsibility.

education shouldn't start at adulthood though

I grew up in Denmark so my history learning was very different to what my children received here in the UK.

Dh often said to me "How do you know that" answer was I was taught at school. While we were taught of Danish history we were also taught wider history and in my teen years we covered current events (in the 80s)

Dh was more up to date with British history something that has been hugely highlighted right now where I am prepping ofr my life in Britain test. He keeps going g 1066 at me and I'm like. "Listen dude I've no fecking idea what 1066 is and you constantly repeating 1066 at me simply wont help!" (Please do not take this as an invite to teach me I am capable of self learning)

Oddly as I've always had a keen interest I. Royal female history I know most of the Royal history questions. However I was not taught about Henry 8th in school..

So you’re saying you’re completely unaware of origins of the Israel/Palestine conflict? Or just this latest outbreak?

I sat GCSE History in 1990 and we did the Arab Israeli conflict, Gandhi and the fight for Indian independence and partition and The Cold War.

We also did both World Wars and Roosevelt and the New Deal.

At A level, we did British and European History, so, from memory, we did Gladstone and Disraeli, Imperialism, the fight for universal suffrage, the Russian Revolution, Bismarck and the unification of Germany, the Italian civil war and the unification of Italy, the lead up to both world wars…all fairly modern stuff.

I don’t ever remember learning about Henry VIII. More’s the pity, I love Tudor history these days.

I think the point of education is to excite you about learning. 15-18 years in school/uni is never going to cover everything. I didn't do history but I'm interested in the world around me so I can do my own reading about stuff happening now.

On a separate note, when I homeschooled my kids there was a history curriculum I loved. It studied by theme e.g water. Do history of housing, history of canals, impact of drought abroad. It made for far more joined up thinking.

Lastly whilst I think we should know about other countries, I think our own understanding of our history is appalling. As a Welsh person I was never taught my own history. It was all English kings.

Oh yes, we did Ireland as well.

Schools teach what they teach, dictated by the Government. Good History teaching will include use of resources- where to access information, how to trust information you find etc. This should set you in good stead for plugging the gaps yourself. If you want to understand recent conflicts read books by reputable authors, read decent newspapers, listen to a range of podcasts eg. The Rest is History, The Rest is Politics, The News Agents, Andrew Marr on LBC etc. You can't expect to be spoon fed everything you need to know before you leave school and then survive in a diet of Daily Mail, conspiracy theories & populist politics.

I remember:
the fuel crisis
Vietnam
The Gulf war
Watergate
Northern Ireland
Joining the EEC

These weren't history when I was doing history O level. They were current affairs.

When I was helping DD revise for history GCSE I learned about Vietnam properly and in an easily digestible format from her revision books.