Our history
A friend posted this article today and asked for my opinion:
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/10/the-history-class-dilemma/411601/?utm_source=atlfb#.WxOXYR0_0pA.facebook
It's a good article and it raises a lot of points.
On the one hand, it's easy to look at what happens in some parts of the USA and wonder that US publishers could get away with offering such a biased view of their own history that they don't even name people kidnapped and transported from Africa as 'slaves' but call them 'workers.' I'm not reassured by another friend in the USA who defends McGraw Hill's slanting of history for the state of Texas by saying 'they have a business to run.'
But - and it's a big but - let's not get too smug.
In Scotland, the secondary school subjects that have shown the biggest decline in the past 20 years are history, geography, religious and moral education and modern foreign languages. You could say, and I do, that these subjects give students a wider view of the world and need to have a place in our schools so that our children know:
(1) where and who they come from
(2) where they live in the world and who their neighbours are
(3) what the environmental issues are for their country and the countries around them
(4) what ethical issues govern their countries and their lives - so that they
(5) have a better understanding of and respect for other people's languages and civilisations.
That way, we might raise a generation that is less narrow-minded, eurocentric and insular than we now have.
I tend to the view (because I am in favour of Scottish independence) that, since compulsory state education was set up here in 1872, we have been fed a diet of imperialistic nonsense through our history classes. At one point, almost the whole of Scottish history before 1707 was blanked out, apart from some couthy wee stories about Robert Bruce and the spider, Mary Queen o Scots and that woman who chucked a stool at a priest. No mention of the revolutions of 1715 and 1745, for example. It's as if Scots only existed after 1707 because we were subsumed into 'British' history. It's only recently that we've insisted that young people in Scotland should know something of their own history through the formal curriculum.
It seems to me that the British Empire is alive and well in the press and on TV. There are constant references to 'our' past, 'our' inheritance and the importance of 'our' history. On TV we are fed a diet of English history that seems to focus on the Tudors. It's not even very good history. Just schmaltz about the wives of Henry VIII and his daughter Elizabeth.
The BBC (I think it's them) are currently showing a programme about statues and asking whether more women should be represented. In my opinion, this isn't the question to ask: we should be asking what are statues for. Why should so many British conquerors and oppressors of African and Asian peoples be so lauded by the UK? South Africans are now tackling the statues of Cecil Rhodes who enslaved millions on behalf of the British crown. Pelting them with eggs and demanding they be taken down.
And it's not just foreign peoples in faraway places: why is there a statue to an oppressor of the Scottish people, the Duke of Sutherland (referred to disparagingly as 'the mannie' by the locals) looking down on the land from which he ordered the clearance of whole villages full of people?
Why are British people so proud of warmongers like the Duke of Wellington, Horatio Nelson, Earl Haig and Winston Churchill, despite the damage they caused to the fabric of societies right across Europe, as well as in the UK?
I wonder how many Scottish students know that in WW1, the huge number of Scottish casualties in the trenches was due to the fact that many more Scottish men joined the army than from other countries of the UK. They did it because they were living in abject poverty, many as penniless crofters, and the army paid a wage. Not much of a wage but better than starvation. These men paid for their wages with their lives.
Right now, there's to be a series on TV devoted to the Suffragettes. It will be interesting to see if the producers manage to get outside London and away from the very privileged Pankhursts, to focus on the many working class women right across the UK who stood up for votes for women. Who knows, the producers might even find time to look at the women social reformers who changed peoples' lives for the better in the early 20th century. Maybe Mary Barbour will get a mention...
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/10/the-history-class-dilemma/411601/?utm_source=atlfb#.WxOXYR0_0pA.facebook
It's a good article and it raises a lot of points.
On the one hand, it's easy to look at what happens in some parts of the USA and wonder that US publishers could get away with offering such a biased view of their own history that they don't even name people kidnapped and transported from Africa as 'slaves' but call them 'workers.' I'm not reassured by another friend in the USA who defends McGraw Hill's slanting of history for the state of Texas by saying 'they have a business to run.'
But - and it's a big but - let's not get too smug.
In Scotland, the secondary school subjects that have shown the biggest decline in the past 20 years are history, geography, religious and moral education and modern foreign languages. You could say, and I do, that these subjects give students a wider view of the world and need to have a place in our schools so that our children know:
(1) where and who they come from
(2) where they live in the world and who their neighbours are
(3) what the environmental issues are for their country and the countries around them
(4) what ethical issues govern their countries and their lives - so that they
(5) have a better understanding of and respect for other people's languages and civilisations.
That way, we might raise a generation that is less narrow-minded, eurocentric and insular than we now have.
I tend to the view (because I am in favour of Scottish independence) that, since compulsory state education was set up here in 1872, we have been fed a diet of imperialistic nonsense through our history classes. At one point, almost the whole of Scottish history before 1707 was blanked out, apart from some couthy wee stories about Robert Bruce and the spider, Mary Queen o Scots and that woman who chucked a stool at a priest. No mention of the revolutions of 1715 and 1745, for example. It's as if Scots only existed after 1707 because we were subsumed into 'British' history. It's only recently that we've insisted that young people in Scotland should know something of their own history through the formal curriculum.
It seems to me that the British Empire is alive and well in the press and on TV. There are constant references to 'our' past, 'our' inheritance and the importance of 'our' history. On TV we are fed a diet of English history that seems to focus on the Tudors. It's not even very good history. Just schmaltz about the wives of Henry VIII and his daughter Elizabeth.
The BBC (I think it's them) are currently showing a programme about statues and asking whether more women should be represented. In my opinion, this isn't the question to ask: we should be asking what are statues for. Why should so many British conquerors and oppressors of African and Asian peoples be so lauded by the UK? South Africans are now tackling the statues of Cecil Rhodes who enslaved millions on behalf of the British crown. Pelting them with eggs and demanding they be taken down.
And it's not just foreign peoples in faraway places: why is there a statue to an oppressor of the Scottish people, the Duke of Sutherland (referred to disparagingly as 'the mannie' by the locals) looking down on the land from which he ordered the clearance of whole villages full of people?
Why are British people so proud of warmongers like the Duke of Wellington, Horatio Nelson, Earl Haig and Winston Churchill, despite the damage they caused to the fabric of societies right across Europe, as well as in the UK?
I wonder how many Scottish students know that in WW1, the huge number of Scottish casualties in the trenches was due to the fact that many more Scottish men joined the army than from other countries of the UK. They did it because they were living in abject poverty, many as penniless crofters, and the army paid a wage. Not much of a wage but better than starvation. These men paid for their wages with their lives.
Right now, there's to be a series on TV devoted to the Suffragettes. It will be interesting to see if the producers manage to get outside London and away from the very privileged Pankhursts, to focus on the many working class women right across the UK who stood up for votes for women. Who knows, the producers might even find time to look at the women social reformers who changed peoples' lives for the better in the early 20th century. Maybe Mary Barbour will get a mention...
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