History taught in our schools

[anotheoldgit]

Why do most children leave school now without very much knowledge of history. When I was at school many years ago, we were taught history from the ancient Brits to the present time. This took us through all the Kings & Queens of England, the period they lived through, along with dates of historic events and famous people of the times. Now they seem to only focus on one or two periods of our vast history.

[luckyeight]

I agree with your observation. It's a lot to do with dumbed down syllabi - in the same way, school kids don't read novels any more; they read 'extracts' in booklets called 'anthologies' !! I find this quite incredible. Also teaching styles have changed - less to do with learning facts by rotes and more to do with interpreting historical documents, historiography etc. Seems to be a lot of emphasis on foreign history too rather than British history. Kids now don't even know the dates of the two world wars, let alone anything about the history of them. I find it quite scary because if new generations don't learn from our history they are liable to make the same mistakes.

[jake-the-peg]

I guess it rather depends on what benefit you think they should be able to derive from history.

It sounds better to me that by studying a couple of eras in depth they'd gain more from things like looking at the reliability of sources, underlying causes of historical events and changes in social conditions concerning "average people".

Does knowing that Queen Victoria ruled from 1837 to 1901 or that Agincourt was fought in 1415 actually give you anything unless you know about improvements in social conditions in the Victorian age or the Plantagent claim to the French Crown?

[jake-the-peg]

Hmm Lucky eight - can you give me an example of where our current leaders (with their superior historical educations) have sucessfully learned from history?

I'm having real trouble thinking of one

[Octavius]

I think David Starkey would agree with you.

Personally when I was at school I found history extremely boring as it evolved around - as you say - snapshots of historical events through time focussing on one particular topic (War of the Roses is one I remember) with no chronological or background understanding. I doubt that I would have found it an interesting topic anyway, but now I am older I can't get enough.

I agree with you that the curriculum today seems to be majorly focussed on medieval history and (I note from my niece) the emergence of Islam, which are both topical, but too narrow in the broader scheme of history.

I think that primary school history can be made more interesting by focussing on ancient history such as school projects building model pyramids and stonehenges, and visist to good castles with re-enactments, to sow the seed of interest at an early age. But at that age, even that can be boooorrrrring!

[dawkins]

Yes. I agree with Jake

I think it highlights the improvements in teaching methods since you were at school. Knowing the dates of when a particular King or Queen reigned may be useful to an antique dealer but it is not a very transferable skill. Having a stab at interpreting an event or critically evaluating sources help develop core skills such as writing and reasoning. Studying fewer events in greater detail is more interesting and useful than remembering a bland succession of facts. In addition it could be argued that easy access to information on-line has reduced the need for us to carry around this information in our heads.

[anotheoldgit]

I still maintain it is much better to possess a wide knowledge of a subject rather than focus on only one part of it. Take geography for instance, it is no good learning all about the economical & political struture of a country if one does not know where the location of that country is on the globe.

[jake-the-peg]

Which is of course a flawed analogy.

Knowing that Uraguay is in South America is potentially useful in today's world. Knowing that Richard the Lionheart ruled from 1189-1199 is not.

Of course if you'd spent more time learning how to analyse a historical arguement and less learning dates you'd probably have spotted the flaw in that argument ;c)

[dawkins]

I'm having a bit of difficulty follow the logic of your argument. You think children would be better prepared for life by learning the location of countries on a map than by learning about political and economic structures?

[noxlumos]

I think you're all mad to be arguing over it as niether way is the stand alone right way to teach history. History taught properly is a fascinating subject and can be studied broadly and in depth. I left school (I'm 46) with a very clear idea of social and political history through the ages of Gt Britain, there was no "either -or" argument. We studied history properly, understanding why things took place and what the outcomes of things were for the nation, it's people across the classes and the ramifications abroad of that event and how events abroad impacted on the UK. There was no learning dates by rote without back up info and no worthless "snapshots", it was taught sensibly, chronologically and correctly. Not so hard to do surely?

[samuel23]

I have to agree that the range of subjects on offer isn't always adequate. In one of the schools I attended, the extent of the history taught for nearly a year whilst I was there consisted entirely of the life and times of the Tudors and Stuarts. The next school decided on industrial and economic history from 1776 until the end of the Victorian era. Neither school gave balanced views or offered further discussion. I enjoyed history and did a lot of personal studying outside of school hours, and I was encouraged by my parents and grandparents. I joined local groups and found like minded children and we went off on visits to castles, ancient sites, museums etc. All of this helped me gain my 'O' and 'A' level history passes. Other children found the exams really difficult because there were questions on the papers that they hadn't studied in depth or had missed out on altogether.

[jno]

modern students go for depth rather than breadth - studying a few topics in detail (Hitler and Henry VIII seem popular). I'm not sure that this is any more helpful than learning dates parrot-fashion; you really need to have a much wider view to put individual eras into perspective... to learn history, in other words. But there are only so many hours in the school timetable and kids now have to learn about computers and things that I didn't, so inevitably other things will get squeezed.

[JustSia]

Back at my school we had several history subjects � ancient, modern, general and our country�s history. Ancient was fascinating as the teacher combined it with Literature studies and we had a ball studying mythology. It was great as it required a lot of imagination and we definitely learned how to use it during those lessons. Modern taught us about modern societies and where we were in the great scheme of things it made us more aware of the scale of life outside of our own. General was more to do with dates and tests and the required school curriculum it�s the one we disliked the most but it put everything in order. I might not remember any of the dates or names but should I hear the subject discussed I am able to pull up at least some references to know what�s going on.

I don�t think history is all about dates. It is one of those subjects that can develop child�s imagination, logic, teach about consequences, the scale of a single mistake. It will show you real people and their strengths and weaknesses as well as the power of numbers. But in the end history is only as good as its teacher. Nowadays I find that not only kids lost their interest in it, teachers seem to have bigger things to worry about.