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?

Many would say monarchy and roman history is also important.
Is there a particular reason why you, as a parent, can't teach them about some of the issues you feel are missing.
Or are you one of those parents that say it's not my job?

History lessons cannot cover everything but if you think your DCs need educating on something not covered in the curriculum do it yourself. I was shocked that my kids had not had any lessons on WW1 and WW2 when they were in top juniors so I did myself.

I did O Level in 1983, we did British and European history between certain date, I can't remember but it included Daniel O'Conner in Ireland, the French revolution, the 'British' bit seemed to be loads of corn laws.

My brother is 2 years older, he did WW2 at his school.

The school pics a syllabus and exam board and often within that they have more than one spec.

I learned about WWII from watching, "world at war" which I was honestly too young for.

Sorry to be a pedant; but you mean Daniel O'Connell ' The Liberator'.

Trying to find it online may be your mistake. You'll get simplistic polarised "explanations" which will not help you or your children.
Rather than expect every potential world conflict to be covered in school history lessons (impossible), surely helping children to understand that conflicts arise from issues of past history,nationalist feelings (themselves relatively recent) and political manipulation and that it is not about soundbites would be a better start?

Just came back to praise my year 9 History teacher circa 1987. He had a lesson spare at the end of term so he did a crash course on The Troubles.

As a 14 year old growing up in Kent, bewildered about why there were bombs in London, it was extremely enlightening.

My parents never spoke to us aboyr politics that I remember. The miners' strike also passed us by.

Andy Beckett's books When The Lights Went Out and Promised You A Miracle are very helpful on 70s and 80s history.

I don’t think learning the discipline is really so much about ‘the history’ to be honest. It should be about developing the skills of critical thinking, assessing complex and conflicting evidence and putting forward a coherent argument.

Those things (knowledge and critical thinking) aren't mutually exclusive though. In fact there is quite a lot of research suggesting you can't have critical thinking skills without a good body of factual knowledge.

I remember one student in my class was studying history A level & was going on to do history at university. She'd never heard of the English civil war or Oliver Cromwell. That's crazy.

We did Israel/Palestine in secondary school in 1996. DD is doing world war 2 in year 6

I don't know if they still do this but I did GCSE history in 2001 and it went through both World Wars and the Great Depression right up to the Cuban Missile Crisis.

And me

Current events and things that happened in the modern era (after world war 2) wouldn't be covered in History. Me and DCs love learning history together. It covers so many different topics. Being able to visit different historical sites and museums that actually relate to what you're learning about, is a huge advantage. So teaching Vikings, Romans and the Tudors etc is a good way of engaging kids, because they can go see these places for themselves
It's good that you are taking an interest and wanting to have these discussions with them. You do have to get a baseline knowledge on things yourself, then just explore different resources together. The one thing you can't do, is rely on the National curriculum to teach them everything about world conflicts and world history. It just won't happen.

Ermmm......
I think you may have to go back study that bit of history again as you don't know the link between the UK and Palestine. Which has been pretty directly linked with the current issues. As with most of the ME.

That's not true. I haven't taught secondary history for a while but when I did, one of the options for sixth form was the Rwandan genocide...

Sorry, that was a reply to @Fionaville.

The series I recommended up thread The Promise, is strong on explaining the links between the Holocaust, Britain and Palestine.

My experience in the 1980s:

We studied a GCSE module called 'The Irish Question' which covered the history of The Troubles going back as far as the 17th Century, through to the present day. This was about ten years before the Good Friday Agreement, in the days when Gerry Adams was still being dubbed by an actor on the news, so extremely topical and relevant - by far the most interesting of the modules we studied. My school was in southern England, so my only knowledge of the Troubles previously had been from the news.

The others were a local history module (we looked at the relationship between our town and the main industry which had been responsible for its growth, so again, very relevant); 'The History of Medicine' which was another 'sweeping topic' going up to the present day, and finally 'The American West' (stuff about Custer) which I did find a bit boring and irrelevant.

But overall, not a bad mix and very far removed from Kings and Queens.

O Level History 1986 - I studied the 'Arab - Israeli conflict' History of Native Americans in the between 1700 up to Custer, Romans and the Industrial Revolution

I wish it did cover more modern topics but one area I think is neglected both in GCSE and more widely is The English Civil War - endless TV programs about bloody Henry VIII but it's barely covered and it was/is important!

Ok I'll bite... it's important to learn British History when in the Uk to understand the following:
Formation of democracy
Migration of peoples and how they have added to modern times
Significant events that have shaped society and impact today
To learn the mistakes of the past.
To understand the atrocities of the Holocaust (only legally required topic)
To understand local history and impact on today.
To understand the spread and influence of religion and it's decline.

All of these elements are crucial to understanding modern society and current affairs. Events influence modern society from the Celts onwards (earlier really) and the national curriculum reflect this. Students learn in a chronological order in most schools again an important historical skill not taught in most subjects.

In addition to this vital life skills of debate, using evidence, putting forward an argument, understanding the usefulness of evidence, cause and consequence, long and short term impacts, extended writing, understanding interpretations and their origins, analysis, evaluation, synthesis. All of which are critical work place skills and enables students to access further and higher education.

As for you examples every single one is covered by most schools. Other examples include: LGBTQ rights, civil rights, Cold War, in depth studies of particular decades/ countries.

History is definitely not just about acquiring knowledge, it's about being able to acquire key skills, understand the world and how history links to modern affairs and local history too.

It's definitely not about irrelevant content, pub quiz facts, dates and Henry's wives!!!!!

I meant that it focuses primarily on events that happens on uk soil. And is heavily skewed towards events and people who are interesting and memorable.
History is a difficult concept for young children, so is the idea of other countries or any form of politics.
most 6 year olds can’t tell you why they tripped up Sammy in the playground or remember what they had for breakfast. A week is an age to them. Expecting them to have an understanding of the motives for war in the middle east is a little optimistic.

Oh, and also helps if it’s relatable to them. So it’s a lot of comparing historical lives with their own.

Bet you did Agriculture - crop rotation, the horse drawn seed drill...

Can't remember what exams board it was though - can you?

The other topic was Britain 1815-51.

According to my GCSE certificate it was SEG.

There is so much history that no one can study it all, and what is important would have as many different opinions as people in the room.

What I think is important to teach with history is people's bias. That one person's account whereas may be perfectly true in their eyes, will have their own bias put into it. It's a good look at critical thinking, which many people don't do.
That's what I would like history teaching to really focus on. If you look at AIBU here, then you can see how many people take the OP as total truth, and people look at reports like that. That's why the media is able to manipulate people's opinions too.

But also what I studied in history at school, I can't really remember much about. I can remember what has interested me since.
For example, I know we talked about The Princes in the Tower in year 7 or 8. Can't remember anything about it other than a rather sad picture of two very young children in the history textbook. What I could tell you about it comes far more from Josephine Tey's book "The Daughter of Time".

We also did a lot about the Industrial Revolution in year 8. We even had to do a project on it. What I remember about that was me and a friend went to a local library to do research together, and did lots of photocopying for pictures for both of us. When she handed in her project she'd coloured the (b/w) photocopies (she was a very talented artist) and they looked amazing in comparison to mine.

I'm a primary history lead. We do have to follow the curriculum and each year we look at a period in British history and a period in another part of the world. We do look at things like Windrush as part of Black History month and we make sure to look at diverse figures. We also look at issues affecting the world today in PHSE and also we do something called Picture News which looks at world events and promotes discussion. There is also a version for uks2. In high school again there is a curriculum but I know such events are looked at for example my daughter has been learning about the refugee crisis in English. In my degree we studied the Crusades but also compared this to more recent events. Schools do as much as they can but are also having to work with parents who do not always want their children exposed to things and battling a curriculum that is packed.

I was a come and go kid as far as school in England went. There seemed to be little continuity and progression in so many areas because of that. With History I kept getting 'haven't we done this before?' feelings.

Hitler's Rise To Power, Hitler, Holocaust, Origins and Consequences of W W One, Slavery, Israel, Hitler's Rise To Power, Hitler...

I coloured in a dinosaur and a pyramid at some point but that might have been in another country. I certainly coloured in pre and post 1967 Israel borders.

More time would need to be allocated to History as a subject to satisfy most people.