Cristopher Colombia in primary school curriculum

[Donotfitin]

So the school just sent the curriculum
for my DS year (Y1). They called him a “significant explorer”. I immediately queried it, because as a Latin American he’s seen as a very divisive figure who brought rape, disease, and genocide. In my country (Mexico) we’ve completely removed that date from
our calendar, and the statues, etc… have now been removed.

I‘m not against it, but I just want a nuanced approach. So AIBU?

And of course you can't discover inhabited places.

It's pretty standard for all times.

It's so long since I was at primary school that I can't remember how much detail but I knew he had a ship called the Santa Maria. Just having a look at his Wikipedia entry, a lot of it wouldn't be suitable for 10 and unders.

It was our history, so that’s why we went into a lot of detail.

but we studied (and I was 10) the caste system, the conquest, and viceroyalty.

we went to the presidential palace to the atudy the murals by Diego Rivera (Frida’s husband).

I wonder in future English history books, will the scandal and downfall of Prince Andrew be taught.

Probably not!

So if someone told you that they discovered a great new resteraunt you'd tell them that they couldn't possibly have discovered it because other people had already been there?

Seems a bit weird.

@Appleday11 what you’ve written on this thread is what historians would call an Irish Nationalist interpretation. That doesn’t make you wrong, and lots of fine
historians have written excellent books with similar perspectives. It’s a perfectly valid point of view. But I hope you and everybody else can see that it’s a partisan interpretation. I could write a version of the same events from an English Tory perspective which would be very different. As long as we both get our facts right, both would be equally “true.”

I fully agree with you that in the case of most old hatreds the productive thing to do is to focus on living in harmony, while discussing and acknowledging our shared and contested histories.

I dont have an Irish nationalist point of view. I was born in England.

I have an Irish mother and an English father. I have lived in both Ireland and England.

I have a neutral point of view.

I have also seen the Irish/ UK conflict written about by non Irish authors in books not printed in Ireland. Every one of those books said that the UK were wrong, and caused huge destruction in Ireland

sure Elizabeth Bathory was a really nice lady.... just one example

Almost certainly, the abdication is the subject of many a book and documentary - the Andrew affair will go down in the annals of history without doubt.

The abdication - the King was with an adult women.

Prince andrew was rumoured to be with under age women and to be part of a child trafficking ring. I dont know if they will put that in school history books for children to read.

He was a significant explorer but also a person of his time, which was not exactly full of glory for colonial powers searching for riches in the distant lands. Hopefully his significance will be explained in modern terms and not glorified. These people did do amazing voyages into the unknown, but after that it was pretty much a disaster.

But that's history shaping you,

I have a good friend who is a history teacher, he's a proud Jamaican, a black Jamaican, who points out that without the slave trade, he'd not be a Jamaican at all.

History moves people about, mixes people up, for all sorts of reasons, good and bad, and shapes their futures.

For example most certainly the war in Ukraine and the spread of refugees will have lead to children being born here, as brits, in 300 years time their descendants will probably have no more link to Ukraine than a Ukrainian surname - but a bad event will have brought about generations, hopefully of productive happiness.

The module went right back to the 17th century examining the causes of Anglo-Irish conflict, and it didn't 'spare' the English. At the time, for example, Gerry Adams was being dubbed by an actor on British news reports, so it was quite a groundbreaking module in the voice it gave to Republicanism. The name of the module came from the Lloyd George era and partition, so pre-dating Hitler.

Such things are discussed in secondary school - so its quite possible to be on the history syllabus years down the line.

What amazing parents!

I don’t know you personally or what your views are. But what you have written on this thread is undoubtedly an Irish Nationalisf interpretation of history. You could take it to the most senior professor of history at Trinity College Dublin and he or she would say “this is an Irish Nationalist interpretation.” It’s not at all neutral.

But that’s the whole point of this thread. Often we think of our own perspectives on history as the “neutral” or “unbiased” perspective. If you study history (and especially historiography) at university, and maybe even A-level, you learn that such a thing does not exist.

Yes, and my mother is a published historian, and my father was a philosophy academic. As much as yes that’s what shaped us, we also tried to delete our indigenous past (and it’s quite clearly seen in Mexican media) but, it’s time to be proud of our indigenous past and present. And to be proud, we have to be honest about the role of Europeans and the way they did things, even if it was 500 years ago.

Of course my opinion is neutral.

Any neutral person could say "Germamy invaded Poland and caused destruction in Poland."

That is fact. Poland didn't invade Germany. Germany invaded Poland. Any neutral obsever of history can see that.

Firstly you didn't just state neutral facts, you made statements that are clearly not neutral because many historians would disagree with them. To be neutral, there would have to be a widespread consensus that they are true.

Secondly, all but the most basic of facts often are contended. Historians may not debate whether Germany invaded Poland, but disagree significantly about the causes of the invasion, for example.

To an extent that has even been tried in the UK, there was a concerted effort to remove the Gaelic languages and traditions completely - thankfully that trend has very much been reversed.

You should absolutely be equally as proud of your indigenous roots as your European ones, acknowledging wrongs that were done as well, and, hopefully then we all learn from history - and don't repeat its mistakes.

Hate to burst your MN anti-men balloon but many of those 'male humans' were in the service of some female rulers!

My point above though is that it wasn't "voyages into the unknown" - that is the romaniticised, sanitised framing of them as brave explorers. They explicitly set out to find alternative routes to known territories, in order to enrich themselves by conquering, exploiting and Christianising them. The intention was more like the Norman conquest than the moon landings (and even those had a political motivation). It wasn't like they went out just to advance European knowledge, and then some dodgy people decided to colonise the lands they stumbled upon - colonisation was always the plan.

I wrote that:

Ireland fought for its independence last century.
That there was a rise of Independence - which resulted in the UK killing the independence leaders.
The UK would not give Northern Ireland back, which caused the Irish civil war.
And which later caused the northern ireland troubles.

Those are all facts which can be observed by amy neutral observer of history

Can you point out which one of those things are inaccurate?

I'm 46, and have always known that, it was taught that way at school. Exploration to search for quicker shipping routs, to discover new commodities, pillage valuables and colonise - it was never a peaceful exercise.