secondary school teachers - history

[Tortington]

my son and friends were home today inbetween mocks and some of his friends were revising history ( i was at work) dh ( who has history degree) said he sat at the computer chuckling as they were reciting their notes saying things like " the americans won the second world war"

dh didn't say anything as he said to me that they have to regurgitate what they have been taught to pass the exam - astonished i can't believe he let it go - as it is a partic bug bear of his.

anyway was wondering - your not really teaching that are you?

Not a secondary teacher but also have a history degree.

We were basically taught that American money helped British strategists to win the war.

Don't know if thats any help. Our 20th century lecturer held same views as your DH.

But then, according to Hollywood, the Americans cracked the Enigma code too. I guess Bletchly wasn't glam enough as a Hollywood setting!

told dh the theory you were taught homemamma he nearly had heartattack screaching "the russians won the war dammit!"

very funny

history is so subjective. Am glad my children arent doing it in the UK, as can't stand the official versions.

Oh yes! We were given the talk on how the Russian winter beat the Nazis.

So;
American money
British strategists
Russian weather
A good team effort then!

As NN says, it's so subjective. In our lectures, it was always thrown in at every opportunity how weak the French were. I was nearly thrown out once for suggesting that we would likely have done the same under the circumstances!

i'm not a historian, si i'll be happy to be corrected. but i think that it is reasonble to say that the americans won the war in the pacific?

Or are we faling into the trap of being Eurocentric ?

That is very true, MB!

There is a rumour banded about by many historians that Churchill had prior intelligence that the Pearl Harbour bombings were going to take place. Apparently, he didn't warn the Americans because he knew we needed them to become involved in the war.

a lot of teaching is reversed if you go on to further study in maths and science as well, there is rarely consensus but there has to be to have an exam system at a level of gcse

One thing that I do know is that Churchill had information , via the Enigma decodes about convoys, which could not be acted on for fear that the Nazis could twig that the codes had been broken.

Interesting to ponder on Churchils prefered move, up through the Dardenelles (sp?) thatmight have resulted in much of Eastern Europe not being invaded by the Russians. The Americans apparaently regected it because it was seen as proping up Britain's empire aspitrations. Will take correction on this one too!

In much of the science taught at GCSE there is a fair degree of consensus tho, even if we do simplify things somewhat.

With more able classes I always give them the more detailed answer, prefaced by 'In the exam you answer 'this', but in actual fact it may be 'This way'