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The lack of coverage of colonialism in the British curriculum is really surprising to me.

steve_adams_86 6y ago
It was much the same in western Canada 15 years ago for me. Learning the truth after school was genuinely difficult; it didn’t seem real at first. Even the colonization of western Canada had somehow been portrayed to me as positive all my life. The First Nations here were subjected to overt genocide and then protracted, relentless cultural erosion in the form of systemic racism, resource/opportunity control, and the notorious residential school system. Somehow I made it into my late teens before finding out what really happened. My kids are having a better experience, but I’ll have to wait until grade 7 or 8 to see how deep our education system is willing to dig into the atrocities that happened here. So far, at least, the school has been very positive and engaged in learning about and experiencing local First Nations culture. It’s an improvement.
Joker_vD 6y ago
I for one think that turning Tower into a British Colonialism's Crimes Museum and making the UK repent (and repay! All your City banks are belong to us) for the crimes of their distant ancestors for the next century or so is a fascinating idea, but that'd require, ah, quite a vigorous persuasion, so to speak. i propose we start by drafting a "Comprehensive International Plan of Action" ("Comintern" for short) and invite the UNSC to join it. P.S. There's a grain of joke in every joke.
thu2111 6y ago
The history curriculum in the UK is really all kinds of useless. It's not that it overlooks the Empire. When I was at high school it had nothing to say on anything international at all beyond World War 1 and 2. You could graduate high school having no idea whatsoever about the forces that shaped the 20th century. Stalin? Mao? JFK? The Apollo Programme? The Great Depression? None of it was mentioned. I had history classes for years but the only stuff I remember is trivia about the industrial revolution. We were made to memorise vast quantities of detail on things like the exact dates of various Mines Acts (safety for coal miners), who invented some kinds of obsolete farming equipment, etc. There was a lot on medieval agricultural practices as well. It went far too deep on things that impart no wisdom or generalised lessons for the modern world. There was also a lot of stuff on World War 1 and World War 2. Important, yes, but also incredibly well covered by popular culture. I suspect the curriculum was designed to be as boring and non-controversial as possible, which is a pity. The only reason to study history is to learn lessons from it, which must inevitably mean drawing conclusions from the events of the past. Attempting to avoid that ends up reducing history to a list of kings and dates. If I could rewrite the history curriculum, I'd give it a major renewed focus on both the British Empire and also the full history of the 20th century. It would be shallow but broad. And it would include the chaotic state of Britain between 1945 and 1990. Of course the reason it's not taught is that many teachers have very strong ideological views of their own on, in particular, Margaret Thatcher.
mhh__ 6y ago
The point of history in schools is to teach doing history rather than memorising information about the past. Colonialism probably should be one of the topics of the few but we can't teach students everything
- Latty 6y ago
  This is true, but my experience was they taught us barely anything (basically just the world wars), and what they did teach us was just memorising information about the past.

It was much the same in western Canada 15 years ago for me. Learning the truth after school was genuinely difficult; it didn’t seem real at first. Even the colonization of western Canada had somehow been portrayed to me as positive all my life. The First Nations here were subjected to overt genocide and then protracted, relentless cultural erosion in the form of systemic racism, resource/opportunity control, and the notorious residential school system. Somehow I made it into my late teens before finding out what really happened. My kids are having a better experience, but I’ll have to wait until grade 7 or 8 to see how deep our education system is willing to dig into the atrocities that happened here. So far, at least, the school has been very positive and engaged in learning about and experiencing local First Nations culture. It’s an improvement.

Joker_vD 6y ago

I for one think that turning Tower into a British Colonialism's Crimes Museum and making the UK repent (and repay! All your City banks are belong to us) for the crimes of their distant ancestors for the next century or so is a fascinating idea, but that'd require, ah, quite a vigorous persuasion, so to speak. i propose we start by drafting a "Comprehensive International Plan of Action" ("Comintern" for short) and invite the UNSC to join it. P.S. There's a grain of joke in every joke.

thu2111 6y ago

The history curriculum in the UK is really all kinds of useless. It's not that it overlooks the Empire. When I was at high school it had nothing to say on anything international at all beyond World War 1 and 2. You could graduate high school having no idea whatsoever about the forces that shaped the 20th century. Stalin? Mao? JFK? The Apollo Programme? The Great Depression? None of it was mentioned. I had history classes for years but the only stuff I remember is trivia about the industrial revolution. We were made to memorise vast quantities of detail on things like the exact dates of various Mines Acts (safety for coal miners), who invented some kinds of obsolete farming equipment, etc. There was a lot on medieval agricultural practices as well. It went far too deep on things that impart no wisdom or generalised lessons for the modern world. There was also a lot of stuff on World War 1 and World War 2. Important, yes, but also incredibly well covered by popular culture. I suspect the curriculum was designed to be as boring and non-controversial as possible, which is a pity. The only reason to study history is to learn lessons from it, which must inevitably mean drawing conclusions from the events of the past. Attempting to avoid that ends up reducing history to a list of kings and dates. If I could rewrite the history curriculum, I'd give it a major renewed focus on both the British Empire and also the full history of the 20th century. It would be shallow but broad. And it would include the chaotic state of Britain between 1945 and 1990. Of course the reason it's not taught is that many teachers have very strong ideological views of their own on, in particular, Margaret Thatcher.

mhh__ 6y ago

The point of history in schools is to teach doing history rather than memorising information about the past. Colonialism probably should be one of the topics of the few but we can't teach students everything

Latty 6y ago
This is true, but my experience was they taught us barely anything (basically just the world wars), and what they did teach us was just memorising information about the past.