How is British history taught in schools?

[mjw47]

69 plus 1 empires is just a totally spurious claim. By any standard, the United States counts as an empire same way as the Assyrian one did 4,500 years ago. That doesn't necessarily make it some kind of evil thing. You should be able to post this alleged Max Hastings article which for all we know you have just made up. All you have to do is type the headline into google, and up it will come.

 

May I make something perfectly clear to you callipo? I have no interest whatsoever in proving anything to you.

There was a perfectly amicable debate taking place on here as to the difficulty of teaching British history in todays world given the complexities of good verses bad in it's content.

At which stage you decided to jump in on a nitpicking point of no real relevance to the discussion.

You are now are requesting me to look up an article which I read over eight years ago in order to prove to you a point which no one is interested in accept you.

 

---------- Post added 08-05-2013 at 09:55 ----------

 

Oh & by the way callipo I can assure you that if we were holding this conversation face to face you would not be so quick to accuse me of making things up.

It's amazing how brave a keyboard makes some people.

[callippo]

even if you were not making it up, which you have done nothing at all to counter, and even if Max Hastings really does believe (which I doubt) that it is possible to count how many 'empires' there have been in 5,000 years plus years of history I would still call it up for being utter nonsense in any context face-to-face and not just on an internet forum. Even Hastings is capable of writing all sorts of tripe sometimes, the man might be an acclaimed author these days but he comes from a background of quick fire journalism, not historical scholarship. However you have given no sign that Hastings ever wrote any such thing. To say that he did without offering any kind of evidence that he did, is tantamount to slurring Hastings.

[fairyworld14]

One of my most hated people in history besides Hitler is General Haigh .He was the most stupid & dangerous idiot. Sat there drinking Port & eating fine food while he led millions of innocents to their slaughter & called it " collateral damage "

[mjw47]

even if you were not making it up, which you have done nothing at all to counter, and even if Max Hastings really does believe (which I doubt) that it is possible to count how many 'empires' there have been in 5,000 years plus years of history I would still call it up for being utter nonsense in any context face-to-face and not just on an internet forum. Even Hastings is capable of writing all sorts of tripe sometimes, however you have given no sign that he ever wrote any such thing. To say that he did without offering any kind of evidence that he did, is tantamount to slurring Hastings.

 

Slurring Hastings?:rolleyes:Really? And you claim he 'is capable of writing all sorts of tripe' & I'm the one slurring him? get over yourself callipo. As you're so good at advising people what to do in order to satisfy your nonsense why don't you take your own advice?

 

Google 'how many Empires have there been' or something similar & see what comes up.

There will be an extensive list. Now that list kind of proves that historians do believe it possible to count the number of Empires doesn't it?

 

Now, your attempt to derail the thread having failed, how do you think British history should be taught in schools?

[callippo]

Slurring Hastings?:rolleyes:Really? And you claim he 'is capable of writing all sorts of tripe' & I'm the one slurring him? :

 

even Hastings, with the sheer amount of deadlines that he has had to meet over the years would admit to having written all sorts of tripe on occasion, and also having approved of a whole lot of other tripe as editor that other people have written. Almost all journalists would. That is not slurring him. That is what Hastings is - a journalist. This does not make him a bad historian as clearly some of his books are very good - good enough to make me question whether he would ever write anything so silly as to suggest that there is a finite 'list' of empires.

[Man like me]

British history is good and bad in equal measure so education should reflect this.

[mjw47]

This is getting boring now callipo. As I've already stated I'm really not interested in this subject. You have picked up on a comment which has no real bearing on the discussion purely to start an argument which only you give a toss about.

How are you doing with your claim that it's not possible to count the number of Empires by the way?

Surprising how those lists even exist, given your insistence that it is not possible to compile one, isn't it?

Now that is definitely one of the stupidest remarks ever, even on this forum, where someone has started a thread titled 'what's so wrong about being racist'.

 

So, about that British history thing. Do you feel we should be careful not to glorify theft & murder whilst at the same time being proud of the likes of Shakespeare, Wren, Milton, Dickens, Darwin, Chaucer etc?

[callippo]

Surprising how those lists even exist, given your insistence that it is not possible to compile one, isn't it?

 

of course it is possible to compile a list. I could do it myself if I wanted. You could start by just listing the 37 times Jerusalem alone has fallen by force of arms, each of them by some sort of 'empire' or another. The trouble is, any such list would be totally nonsensical and inconsistent.

[Hillpig]

Are you sure it's a genuine gap in knowledge?

 

If you had shown them well known paintings of Henry and pictures of Churchill do you think they still wouldn't have known who they were? I think most people would know them. Montgomery you could maybe forgive. Although a hero and well-recognised person to people growing up any time between the 40s and 70s he's not so visible now.

 

There is a debate to be had though about how history is taught. There's loads of ways to do it.

 

You can teach a grand sweep of history emphasising key events and a few salient points about each. That's just like learning a list though. You just make it more difficult by having a bigger list. It's the kings, BBC queens and wars approach to history. It's limited.

 

Or you could pick a narrow period or targeted aspect of history and study it inside out. As an example I did modern business and economic history for my first degree. Knowing much about Henry VIII wasn't that important. Another example would be social history. Another the history of art. Another the history of medicine - not much need to know about Montgomery there. Although narrative is very important in all of these and that is maybe where the foundation in learning how to memorise narratives is important.

 

Or you could bring history to life - the BBC programme Horrible Histories is a great example for younger kids. It covers all kinds of subjects - the kings and queens, social conditions, medicine.

 

I'm not sure your Toby jug test really cuts the mustard to be honest. I wouldn't lose sleep over it.

 

Thanks for that, as usual a reasoned and sensible response. I suppose what troubled me was the seeming lack of any knowledge. It is many years ago that I had anything to do with education. I do think that way back then we obtained a broad brush, type of tuition as I remember starting with ancient Britons through Romans Angles Saxons and Jutes, Normans Tudors etc, etc up to modern times. We did not learn a great deal about the empire as, I guess, we still had one, it was shrinking but it was still there.

 

Obviously you specialized in a specific period, I just thought that kids who were not academic would benefit from the broad brush approach. I feel that it gave me a life long interest in history and as such made me aware of my country, its place in the world and, more importantly, a pointer to the future.

[mjw47]

that is the very funniest idiot thing, I have read online for a while. Empires are not anything anybody can even begin to count.

 

Can you see a little inconsistency there callico? Which is it? Can you compile a list which enumerates Empires past & present, you know, count how many there have been?

Or is it impossible to even begin such a task?

 

And, if such a task is impossible, how can it be that historians have in fact compiled such lists?

You now claim to be able to do such a thing yourself, which is somewhat of a departure from your above post.

 

Although I must say that I can not help but feel that you are approaching the matter in the wrong way.

The fall of Jerusalem 37 times only confuses matters.

Why don't you first of all define what you mean by Empire? Take into consideration geographic size, longevity & cultural influence for a start.

 

When you have done that, & discounted all the tin pot 'we thought we had an Empire but we lost it first time some nasty people turned up' you will have

compiled a list of real, generally accepted Empires.

 

My guess is at that point there will be roughly 69 plus America who are still in denial.