Public school history

[Danny McG]

I equate history at school much like the french I had to learn. It hasn't come in very useful in my life since then.

And yes, before I get any "if there was no history then you wouldn't have blah blah" posts, I appreciate a lot of interesting things happened , but personally I haven't found much use for this knowledge that was compulsorily crammed into my head as a kid.

Ditto for learning French "oh but you'll find it very useful as you get older young man"
53 years since I was learning it and I still haven't found any use for it in my life.

 

[paranoid marvin]

C'est la vie.

 

[Extollager]

I believe the original post suggested comments about UK and other non-US schooling, but in any event it's been interesting to hear from everyone.

There's an omission I'm curious about that seems to be true of everyone, namely nothing or almost nothing about Jews and Jewish history. My impression is that, here in the United States, students arriving at university have heard a little bit about the Holocaust and the 6 million, and that's about all they know. My memories from more than 50 years ago suggest that in high school some of us saw some minutes of a film about the Holocaust that had the St. Matthew Passion as soundtrack music, and that's about all. I lived at the time in southern Oregon where there was almost no sense, for me anyway, of a Jewish presence.

I think this is a pity and a curious situation. To start with, here you have a people with more than 3,000 years of continuous history -- I italicize to emphasize that I'm not referring to material that many would assume is just myth or legend. If something has to have no "supernatural" elements, then a remarkably high percentage of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament narratives should qualify. I've been reading about Samuel, David, Solomon &c. and am impressed by how, though to be sure there's a theme of God's providence, so much is unquestionably datable history. There's rather a lot of history too about the Assyrians, Babylonians, etc. that exists that's of interest in its own right and also relevant to learning about the Hebrew people. I should think there could be a built-in interest factor about a people who have experienced repeated deportation, the Diaspora experience, etc. that would be teachable and potentially interesting to youngsters. And of course the contribution of Jewish individuals to Western culture is manifold and profuse. Shouldn't it be a matter of common knowledge, to know some things about the Jews after the first century AD? I mean, for example, anyone should know something about the difference between Sephardim and Ashkenazi, but you didn't get that in school -- did you?

So what's the deal? Is it that Gentile (like me) curriculum designers think that a course or long unit on Jewish history would provoke student resentment or parent annoyance (What about our Swedish/Irish/French/whatever history?). But basically to ignore the Jews till one gets to Hitler is surely a big failure. It seems to me a huge gap in government-sponsored education. Can anyone shed light on this? Was your experience different from mine?

 

[beccabear67]

My boyfriend went to school in the U.S. (Washington State) in the '70s-'80s roughly the same grades I did at the same time in Canada, and he said they read Diary Of Anne Frank circa age 12/Grade 7-8. I however honestly can't remember anything much about the holocaust being taught in Canadian schools except around Remembrance Day and it's ceremonies/assemblies, and what we did get shown that I recall was still B&W photos and Canadian soldiers' testimonies of liberating a camp. I can't say if our school libraries even had Anne Frank, I didn't read her book myself until much later as an adult. It's possible a lot to do with things would have been seen as too adult for 18 and unders?

I did go to a 'Christian' school for part of Grade 9 and then 10 but I don't recall anything much being put before us there either. So no denials but not much detail either and among the numbers you would get along with how many Russians, Allied etc. died.

 

[Parson]

I believe the original post suggested comments about UK and other non-US schooling, but in any event it's been interesting to hear from everyone.

There's an omission I'm curious about that seems to be true of everyone, namely nothing or almost nothing about Jews and Jewish history. My impression is that, here in the United States, students arriving at university have heard a little bit about the Holocaust and the 6 million, and that's about all they know. My memories from more than 50 years ago suggest that in high school some of us saw some minutes of a film about the Holocaust that had the St. Matthew Passion as soundtrack music, and that's about all. I lived at the time in southern Oregon where there was almost no sense, for me anyway, of a Jewish presence.

I think this is a pity and a curious situation. To start with, here you have a people with more than 3,000 years of continuous history -- I italicize to emphasize that I'm not referring to material that many would assume is just myth or legend. If something has to have no "supernatural" elements, then a remarkably high percentage of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament narratives should qualify. I've been reading about Samuel, David, Solomon &c. and am impressed by how, though to be sure there's a theme of God's providence, so much is unquestionably datable history. There's rather a lot of history too about the Assyrians, Babylonians, etc. that exists that's of interest in its own right and also relevant to learning about the Hebrew people. I should think there could be a built-in interest factor about a people who have experienced repeated deportation, the Diaspora experience, etc. that would be teachable and potentially interesting to youngsters. And of course the contribution of Jewish individuals to Western culture is manifold and profuse. Shouldn't it be a matter of common knowledge, to know some things about the Jews after the first century AD? I mean, for example, anyone should know something about the difference between Sephardim and Ashkenazi, but you didn't get that in school -- did you?

So what's the deal? Is it that Gentile (like me) curriculum designers think that a course or long unit on Jewish history would provoke student resentment or parent annoyance (What about our Swedish/Irish/French/whatever history?). But basically to ignore the Jews till one gets to Hitler is surely a big failure. It seems to me a huge gap in government-sponsored education. Can anyone shed light on this? Was your experience different from mine?

I am not a writer of textbooks, so I can't actually answer for them but I was a history major in college and I taught history in high school. For myself I can say that specifically "Jewish" history did not cross my radar except in blips about the treatment of Jews in Europe from the fall of Jerusalem onward, and most especially about the holocaust. My suspicion is that for most of that history the lack of a secular/official "Jewish" history falls to two things. First, there is the religious angle. To some degree being a Jew is about being a follower of Judaism more than about ancestry. Jewish ancestry is more varied than many would suppose because there have always been at least a few converts into the Jewish camp. So to some "Jewish" history would be about the same as "Church History" interesting perhaps, but only for Christians. Second, although Jewish contributions to the general society have always punched considerably above their weight it would be hard to say that they were more deserving of a specific place in world history than say, the Romani (gypsies). World history is a history about "everyone" but to get some in depth history of smaller groups out you need to look to specialized history and there is an abundance of Jewish historical documents written by Jews.

I think a bigger criticism of the Western telling of world history is the paupicy of its history about China, India, and the Muslim world.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I was eleven or twelve at the time of the trial of Adolf Eichmann, and as that was a current event we did learn quite a bit about what that revealed about the holocaust, through news stories and magazine articles we were assigned to read in social studies. A few years later The Diary of Anne Frank was assigned reading, and as I recall we not only read the book but were taught some of the historical context leading up to the time when Anne and her family went into hiding. So I feel like students my age did get a pretty vivid picture of the Final Solution and the concentration camps. Of the Jewish people before and after that era, I believe everything I learned either came from Sunday School classes and Vacation Bible School which I attended sporadically (and both of which, of course, concentrated on biblical figures), or my extra-curricular reading of medieval history. And through fiction, for instance, when the novel Exodus came out and I read that.

And that was it. I don't believe my education glossed over the Holocaust at all. And of course in the 50s and 60s there were a lot of friends parents and grandparents who remembered it all vividly, and who lost relatives to concentration camps. (In my neighborhood there were many Jewish families.) They didn't talk about it much, but associating it with real people that I knew made it all feel very concrete.

But as far as my schooling went, the Jewish people might have come into existence during WWII and disappeared soon after, for all that we learned about them. But we didn't learn much about other religious or ethnic groups either. I mean, there were the Pilgrims and the Puritans and the Quakers during the colonial period, because they played a roll in founding the country, but who they actually were and what they actually believed I picked up what scant information I had from other sources. We studied the California missions in fourth grade, and Father Junipero Serra walking the length of California on El Camino Real, which gave us a vague understanding about the names of places that surrounded us on every side in the state where we lived. And Protestants and Catholics fighting it out at various historical periods, but again, next to nothing about their actual religious beliefs or why they were so horribly at odds with each other when their beliefs seemed so similar. In short, public schools in California had little to say about religion, any religion, except in the most superficial way.

 

[KGeo777]

I was in Canada--I can't remember getting much on ancient times. I think because religion was taboo they couldn't really talk much about Greece or Rome. I don't remember anything.

I know we had lessons on Medieval Europe at some point and then we got into North America exploration focusing a lot on Canada's side obviously.
Oh god, it was so boring.

I recall we did a semester about India. Canada started to push "multiculturalism" as a slogan in the 1980s--I still don't understand what it means in practice--you have a distinct culture and then smaller ones alongside it? Especially problematic in English Canada. We had to learn French when the country became bilingual but seems pointless when no one speaks it on the West coast.

I remember we did cover WW 1 and 2--and my grade 11 teacher mentioned that during WW 2, Stalin was affectionately called "Uncle Joe" in the Western media.

English Literature also had some history lessons on Europe since we had to get the background on it.
We read a little of Paradise Lost so we did have some religious content. We read Beowulf I remember, and one of the Austin or Bronte books.

Then we had Canadian Literature.
Canadian History was dull, but the fiction literature-- zero fantasy options.

 

[hitmouse]

@Parson’s point about there being a lot of history and limited time is very relevant. One has to be selective, especially for younger children, who will probably not get much benefit from dry analyses. Medieval crime and punishment is just a bit more engaging than discussion of the morality of the East India Company.

We did stuff on WW1 at school. Mainly things about life in the trenches, Interestingly, we did nothing at all on WWII. In 1970s Britain it was the lived experience of a lot of people of working age, and bomb sites were still being filled in.

 

[Dave]

I think a bigger criticism of the Western telling of world history is the paucity of its history about China, India, and the Muslim world.

I agree. When I was about 14-years-old I went with my father and his friend on a weekend residential course about Ancient Chinese Astronomers. There is no way that I would have learnt in school any of what I learned that weekend, and of course, China had gunpowder and other discoveries long before the West. Yet, at that time, my history in school was still taught from a very Western perspective, and I don't think it has really changed that much, given the number of people that don't realise that we use Arabic numerals.

One has to be selective, especially for younger children, who will probably not get much benefit from dry analyses. Medieval crime and punishment is just a bit more engaging than discussion of the morality of the East India Company.

When I complained about my primary school history being mostly untrue, obviously you do need to teach to very young children using stories, and you have to pick the best stories, and embellish those stories somewhat to make them more exciting. Therefore, it is always going to be very selective unless you want to bore them senseless. It is just that some of those first impressions stay with people their whole lives, if they never do any further history and have them corrected.

On the other hand, that is really no different in any other subject, such as the idea of an atom being electrons spinning around a nucleus which you then need to unlearn later.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

So this evening I happened to be watching an old episode of Midsomer Murders, which my husband has been binging for a while. This episode revolved around a village that held an annual recreation of the Battle of Naseby. And at one point the young policeman said, "The Civil War. Whenever that was."

A week or so ago, I would have been astounded. (Like Professor Kirk I'd have been exclaiming, "What do they teach them in the schools?") Or thought it was a bad bit of scriptwriting. Because even though, over the years,the puzzle pieces have gradually been coming together (via books and movies and television shows) to reveal that most people in the UK are apparently as ignorant of their own history as most people in the US are of ours*, I would have thought a reasonably educated English adult would at least have a pretty good idea of when something as important as the English Civil War took place, though not the exact dates. But thanks to this thread I took it in stride.

The things one can learn here at the Chrons. Even if one of those things is that people don't know the kind of things one might take for granted that they do know.

_______
*And it's getting worse, thanks to books and movies and television shows, that deliberately distort history, largely in order to pander to modern tastes, and lowest common denominator audiences. I suspect that children and teenagers today will grow up knowing little and understanding less than ever about history—but the worst of it is that they, unlike that young policeman character, will believe that they do know.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

China had gunpowder and other discoveries long before the West. Yet, at that time, my history in school was still taught from a very Western perspective, and I don't think it has really changed that much, given the number of people that don't realise that we use Arabic numerals.

When I was in school, history was most definitely taught from a Western perspective, but at least I do remember that those particular facts were taught. I wonder if they still are in our local schools now. I do know there are people in some parts of the country who get exercised by the idea of Arabic numerals (What's next? Sharia Law!), not realizing they've been using them all along, but I don't know how broadly that ignorance has spread. Ha! Where would billionaires be without all those Arabic zeroes to help them count their money?

 

[Dave]

And at one point the young policeman said, "The Civil War. Whenever that was."

I'd say that was the ignorance of the scriptwriter themselves appearing rather than the character, although I've only seen Midsomer Murders a couple of times and he didn't seem to be educated to the Inspector Morse level.

However, what I really wanted to say that while most people in the UK would know that the "English" Civil War happened sometime in the 1640's, they wouldn't know that it actually went on until 1651, after Cromwell took power, nor would they know about the wars in Wales, in Ireland and in Scotland. At school I was only taught about the English battles and taught that it was a very two-sided affair between King and Parliament, but it was far more complicated, and much like Brexit, it split up families. But as I said earlier, you need to keep things more simple for children. The problem is that is all anyone is taught.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I'd say that was the ignorance of the scriptwriter themselves appearing rather than the character,

Yes, but who was the scriptwriter if not a British adult? I'd expect the scriptwriter (or scriptwriters) to know that sort of thing. Or do you think the scriptwriter was being a bit classist, assuming ignorance on the part of that character that perhaps would not be there?

 

[Dave]

Probably the latter, however there will be people who were not taught, or people who just forget dates easily. Learning historical dates is incredibly boring too. No wonder people like Danny didn't find History interesting if all they ever learned was 1066, 1642, 1666 and 1815. The interesting part is surely the story behind the events, the why? and the how?

 

[paranoid marvin]

Pretty much everyone in the UK knows the year 1066: it's the year our monarchs are dated from. Apart from that it's anyone's guess who knows what. You only have to watch younger contestants (under say 30) on a quiz programme to see that many know nothing about anything that happened before they were born.

Of course, the 'English Civil War' was only one of a number we have had; but there are many, many untruths/part truths/misconceptions that English people have about their own history that are based on an embellished, rudimentary teaching of History, and have become into the public conciousness as irrefutable fact.

 

[Montero]

Re-enactment friends of mine do demo sessions at schools - they turn up in period costume, with period items, and demonstrate how to do things, from making shoes to knitting, to weaving braid. Not sure if they get as far as pole lathes as not that portable, but they also do weekend event demos where you can have a full on blacksmith's forge, pewter casting, pole lathes and all the ways we used to make stuff - not to mention charcoal burning and smelting. (They are primarily Tudor period - can do most Tudor dates and into Elizabethan.)

 

[Dave]

there are many, many untruths/part truths/misconceptions that English people have about their own history that are based on an embellished, rudimentary teaching of History, and have become into the public conciousness as irrefutable fact.

Completely true, but how does one ever change that from becoming a never-ending cycle? If scriptwriters (and even News broadcasts) perpetuate those things (possibly because they don't know themselves, possibly because of sheer laziness with regards to research, possibly because of artistic license and the making for a better story) then those "alternative facts" just carry on.

Some science fiction TV shows had a science advisor on staff. They still made up stuff, but it was at least a little more plausible bad science.

 

[paranoid marvin]

Re-enactment friends of mine do demo sessions at schools - they turn up in period costume, with period items, and demonstrate how to do things, from making shoes to knitting, to weaving braid. Not sure if they get as far as pole lathes as not that portable, but they also do weekend event demos where you can have a full on blacksmith's forge, pewter casting, pole lathes and all the ways we used to make stuff - not to mention charcoal burning and smelting. (They are primarily Tudor period - can do most Tudor dates and into Elizabethan.)

These are the best think about re-enactment events. The actual 'fighting' in the battle - which is the main purpose of the event - feels contrived, especially when cavalrymen charge up to lines of troops and then have to pull back. And of course the 'pike push' which is competitively done, but doesn't feel at all realistic.

Of course any fighting has to be altered, because we can't have piles of corpses littering the battlefield. But we can and do have are the camps, with various activities of the time such as armour repair/fitting, food cooking, clothing repairing etc. going on. Thesefeel like tge 'real deal', are fascinating to watch, and are reenacted by people who vlearly love what they are doing.

 

[paranoid marvin]

Completely true, but how does one ever change that from becoming a never-ending cycle? If scriptwriters (and even News broadcasts) perpetuate those things (possibly because they don't know themselves, possibly because of sheer laziness with regards to research, possibly because of artistic license and the making for a better story) then those "alternative facts" just carry on.

Some science fiction TV shows had a science advisor on staff. They still made up stuff, but it was at least a little more plausible bad science.

Well, it never changes. And for most people that doesn't matter. If people think that the 'English Civil War' is the only one we had, or that the 'Glorious Revolution' was anything but 'glorious' or a 'revolution', or that Oliver Cromwell was a championof Democracy, or that the only thing worth remembering about Henry VIII is that he had six wives, then it's a shame but it's the way things are.

I have little interest in Geography and found out recently with some surprise/amazement that Madrid is further West than London.

 

[Danny McG]

I have little interest in Geography and found out recently with some surprise/amazement that Madrid is further West than London

Yay!
We've moved on from history and got to something that I found slightly more useful.

However the geography I learned was about tripe like counting contours on Ordnance Survey maps, instead of useful stuff like how to use a motorists road atlas of Great Britain to navigate your way across the country by 'A' roads.