Emminent Victorians dropped from history curriculum in Gove U-turn

[FlyingJesus]

The history of Africa (barring the north) in pre-colonial times is, and i'm a history buff, rather dull. Africa (apart from the north) has produced nothing like the achievements that great civilisations such as Britain, France, America, China, the Ottoman Empire, Egypt, Japan and India have - and to even pretend that it is on the same level of historical interest is an insult.

Some civilisations are better than others, lets face it rather than pretend otherwise.

If the only thing you want to learn in history is the big events in powerful places then you're not a history buff, you're a spectacle lover. Bantu history, Khoisan migrations, and the fact that some of the very oldest human architectural and other hominid finds have been in what's now South Africa says that your vision of dull isn't the same thing as nonexistant.

No it wouldn't have - anybody who knows anything about Primary history and early secondary school history knows that it is very broad points and at the moment, and this is the major problem, it has no structure meaning one minute children are learning about the Zulu Kingdom, then Red China, then the Cold War, then World War II, then World War I and then the Tsars. The proposed course would have had the following benefits, that (a) it would have been based in British history which would give many a sense of identity - something that is badly needed in areas that have been flooded by mass immigration & (b) it would have been in chronological order which, anybody who wants to learn the history of the British nation needs to understand, is vital for understanding say why we fought the Nazis in WWII; it wasn't "for democracy" as schools teach - it was over the balance of power in Europe (a historical foreign policy of England and later Britain) along with our liberties which differ greatly from the continent.

Congratulations on missing the entire point of the piece you quoted. I wasn't simply saying DON'T LEARN ENGLAND IT BAD, I was saying that attempting to put several million years of history into 48 bulletpoints is ludicrous. Neither of your attempts at making a point here have anything to do with that, although you come close when you say that school history is taught in a very broad way - it's just that you then manage to completely fail to recognise that if that's the case when one period of history is being taught, expanding it to be across all of human tool-using history is simply going to make things worse.

But I only know of that (despite having done WW1 & 2) because I have a keen interest in history - by leaving out vast swathes of the history of these islands we leave our children open to both misinformation and outright lies to peddle an agenda.

What agenda? well take the example i've provided. Children are taught that we simply fought the National Socialists to preserve democracy - which is wrong. And we heard the same arguments being put forward in favour of the Iraq war, that unless we took down the undemocratic Saddam Hussein we were essentially allowing another Hitler to remain in power. Many fell for this, because they wrongly linked it to WWII when it's a non-comparison.

Absolutely hilarious. You say that it's bad to leave out details (which is exactly what I've been saying) yet are speaking in favour of a teaching method which would be forced to do that about a huge number of topics. Misinformation and lies seem to be your forte since I've never heard of a class where it's been taught that we fought the Nazis just for democracy without any background. It's brilliant that you follow this with:

I fail to see why it would leave out great swathes

Which clearly shows that you haven't been paying attention. Let me make it very simple for you: teaching one era or event in detail means that you learn that topic in detail, whereas teaching 3 and a half millions years of history all in one go means that (unless you have Hermione Granger's time turner) you cannot go into any sort of detail and are not going to get the whole picture. Why you can't work that out by yourself is beyond me.

Which generalisations would I want taught? I haven't argued for any specific ideology to be taught and want the bad bits taught.

You're doing a fine job of not responding to things that I've actually said. I didn't say that you specifically argued for any generalisations, but as you can see from literally everything I've said so far (since I'm only making one point that you're somehow missing) a vast number of generalisations would have to come about if you wanted to teach all of British history in one sitting - even a sitting that lasted for 4 years. It simply cannot be done without missing out on details. It's wonderful that you're SAYING you want people to learn the good and the bad, but what you're SUPPORTING is a curriculum which wouldn't do that at all.

[GommeInc]

I don't mind World History provided it's relevant and useful. I think it's strange to abolish key British history seeing as the country in which these children are being educated and live in is the United Kingdom/Great Britain. History about Nelson Mandela seems irrelevant and some what useless. It seems like the sort of subject you would learn about in Sixth Form or for a few weeks in Secondary School as part of a World History module - not something you should be assessed critically or take an examination on, unless you so choose. I guess the problem is that teachers need to mark work and teach children the same topic, rather than pick and mix what they teach.

[FlyingJesus]

Note: nothing is being removed, dropped, abolished, or any other such word. The story is that an idea for a mandatory curriculum was put forth for no reason whatsoever and it was crap so it's being reworked

[Chippiewill]

Note: nothing is being removed, dropped, abolished, or any other such word

I wasn't entirely sure until now. But this makes Dan's title downright hypocritical.

[FlyingJesus]

Yeah it's been cleverly hidden by making almost no reference to the fact that the new curriculum hasn't actually gone forward yet anyway because it doesn't sound as exciting to say "Gove messed up again so he's trying something else"

[-:Undertaker:-]

If the only thing you want to learn in history is the big events in powerful places then you're not a history buff, you're a spectacle lover. Bantu history, Khoisan migrations, and the fact that some of the very oldest human architectural and other hominid finds have been in what's now South Africa says that your vision of dull isn't the same thing as nonexistant.

The early movements of mankind in areas such as Africa aren't exactly 'African' history just as early human movements into Europe I wouldn't include under 'French' or 'German' history - that sort of stuff doesn't really fit into much at all other than the beginning of time, and I personally have never heard of it being taught in any school because the history following it doesn't relate all that much to it.

My point is simple - rather than teaching of Mandela and South Africa, teach children the Industrial Revolution. British history for British children, not African history for British children. Oh, and let's have balance.

Congratulations on missing the entire point of the piece you quoted. I wasn't simply saying DON'T LEARN ENGLAND IT BAD, I was saying that attempting to put several million years of history into 48 bulletpoints is ludicrous. Neither of your attempts at making a point here have anything to do with that, although you come close when you say that school history is taught in a very broad way - it's just that you then manage to completely fail to recognise that if that's the case when one period of history is being taught, expanding it to be across all of human tool-using history is simply going to make things worse.

History lessons have to be generalised, but my point is that if we're going to teach history we should focus on the history of these islands and teach our children about our values, traditions and figureheads rather than those of other civilisations who have little relevence to us and who would never teach say our history over their own.

Absolutely hilarious. You say that it's bad to leave out details (which is exactly what I've been saying) yet are speaking in favour of a teaching method which would be forced to do that about a huge number of topics. Misinformation and lies seem to be your forte since I've never heard of a class where it's been taught that we fought the Nazis just for democracy without any background. It's brilliant that you follow this with:

I learnt about Nazi Germany right through school and all the textbooks and general mantra that was given was 'we fought for democracy' along with the fact that we declared war on Germany (a fact also barely mentioned) - not the other way around.

Which clearly shows that you haven't been paying attention. Let me make it very simple for you: teaching one era or event in detail means that you learn that topic in detail, whereas teaching 3 and a half millions years of history all in one go means that (unless you have Hermione Granger's time turner) you cannot go into any sort of detail and are not going to get the whole picture. Why you can't work that out by yourself is beyond me.

The topics would be taught in detail, well certain ones. So for example I would expect the earlier Stone Age and petty Kingdoms of the British Isles to be taught more broadly than say the Industrial Revolution or British Empire were. Indeed this is the model that is already used now - more modern history is given more space and time to be taught because there are more details and evidence readily at hand.

You're doing a fine job of not responding to things that I've actually said. I didn't say that you specifically argued for any generalisations, but as you can see from literally everything I've said so far (since I'm only making one point that you're somehow missing) a vast number of generalisations would have to come about if you wanted to teach all of British history in one sitting - even a sitting that lasted for 4 years. It simply cannot be done without missing out on details. It's wonderful that you're SAYING you want people to learn the good and the bad, but what you're SUPPORTING is a curriculum which wouldn't do that at all.

No, you don't understand. At all.

Obviously certain topics need more detail - it would be stupid for example to simply teach WW2 broadly in the same way that you might with the Stone Age. But my point is this - that children should be taught the background of the history in broad points as they progress chronologically to the more detailed topics.

So that when you come to say WW2, children would understand that when its said 'British defended her values' or w/e, they think back to the Magna Carta, Bill of Rights and Acts of Union rather than the vague notion of 'democracy' and giving women the vote - two topics which are shadowed in importance by the ones I mentioned previously.