British History

[Thibault]

The best war museum I have ever seen is at Caen (Le Memorial).  It deals with both World Wars and the events leading up to them.  The climax is a film of the Allied Landings - it uses a split screen, one side the Allies and the other the German response.  They eventually come together in the invasion itself.  The noise is tremendous and you feel part of the action.  What I found really emotional was the destruction of French towns by the incoming Allies as they fought to dislodge the Germans.

I would recommend it to anyone with an interest in France and the World Wars.

[HLG]

I second Thibault's suggestion above. It's a terrific museum - I wouldn't have thought so but it's worth the visit.

They have age-appropriate material for children and teens, too.

[Kitty]

I thought that Basil Fawlty told us not to mention the war...

[Quillan]

Try googling French Military History and selecting 'I'm Feeling Lucky'.

[Ernie]

Good to see that Brits abroad are getting slightly exercised about the need for British history. Something to do with links to the mother country and the like. How odd therefore that so many Brits at home find it objectionable that Jamaicans or Indians - or people with origins in those countries - should want to do the same.

[KathyC]

I don't think anyone on here has been advocating that British history should be taught in French schools, only that it was a good thing for parents to add in the home country perspective. That's not the same thing as Afro Caribbeans and Asians demanding (if they actually do, as opposed to the multiculturalism lobby) their history to be taught in British schools instead of British history.

[Ernie]

Caribbeans, as you call them, have discovered that their history is tied up with a side of British history that the Brits find very hard to confront unless they can say on the end of it that Wilberforce saved them. To say that Caribbeans are demanding something that isn't 'British' is like saying that egg white has got nothing to do with the yolk.

[Dick Smith]

Well said, Ernie.

To go further, learning about slavery is OK, but most Black kids are interested in how their grandparents/parents got to England and what happened when they did, how they have contributed to UK society. Slavery rarely seems to have any great emotional meaning to them. Asian kids a bit less interested, but that is growing. That's in my experience of teaching this stuff and talking to kids about what they want to learn...

We put in a relatively large unit on slavery in Year 8 in the same scheme of work as the Industrial Revolution. Civil Rights in the USA is covered in Year 9, and we bring in recent Black British history parallel to that. We are very aware that we need to do more on the recent making of the UK.

[KathyC]

[quote user="Ernie"]Caribbeans, as you call them, [/quote]

Afro - Caribbean is a perfectly respectable way of describing black Britons whose families came to Britain from the Caribbean rather than directly from Africa. Please don't post as if I've used some kind of racist name. Of course their history is tied up with mainstream British history and I didn't mean to give the impression that it wasn't. I'm all for the study of  history being as extensive as possible, but when 16% of children in the 12 - 16 age group think that Gandalf won the battle of Trafalgar, it strikes me that more work needs to be done on the mainstream of knowledge before branching off into interesting by ways.

[Tresco]

[quote user="KathyC"]

[quote user="Ernie"]Caribbeans, as you call them, [/quote]

Afro - Caribbean is a perfectly respectable way of describing black Britons whose families came to Britain from the Caribbean rather than directly from Africa. [/quote]

For what it's worth, I agree with that. I prefer African-Caribbean, but that's just me being me. [;-)]

Kathy, I missed the 'Afro', don't know why but I did. Perhaps Ernie did too?.

I think it's quite normal for a history to be biased in terms of country specific content, in favour of the country it is taught in.

Having taught subjects with a large element of history myself, I have to say it is  hard to do it well..really hard, for the reasons Dick and Ernie both mention. I thought it was worthwhile putting a lot of thought into it, but I never felt as though I had got it right.

I do think it's worth it, for parents, but I think you need to start when they are young, and that's only likely to happen if you are a history fiend. Tricky.

 

[Missy]

[quote user="Rob Roy"]    I have been doing some temping in primary schools in Brive for the past couple of months and it occurred to me that any British children being educated in France will obviously be given French history lessons. Do British parents make any sort of provision for teaching British history at home, or will these children grow up not knowing their mother country's history - or indeed does it matter or do they care? ......Personally I think it is a shame if they know nothing, or very little, of the rich history of Britain, but I would be interested to hear what others think.      [/quote]

I was taught history in France and to this day I still remember the book, where on page 1 it said emphatically : 'Nos ancêtres, les Gaulois....' and it went on through the primary schoolyears up to end of 1st WW.  Then in 6ème I was disappointed to be taught that before 'Nos ancêtres, les Gaulois' there were people like the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans and a country called 'Antiquité'... at the end of my 3ème the history book finished with the birth of 'La 5ème République' and De Gaulle(circa 1958/59).

When my children were taught history at their Welsh primary school, they started with Queen Elizabeth I and the Spanish Armada then went on Queen Victoria and the Industrial Revolution, then for some obscure reason went back to Henry VIII and on to the 2nd WW... Nothing about Welsh history, the Act of Union, Prince Llewelyn, the castles (Harlech, Caernavon etc...) or Owain Glyndwr... quite a snub really as our local town is the place of his First Parliament!

Whilst I found the material they were taught quite interesting, I was most bemused that they weren't taught any specific date for certain events, or any background as to why such events happened. When I remember that I had to learn by rote all the kings, their date of reign, all the wars and battles they had won, all their achievements, reforms, implications etc... ....

Edit-Sorry I had not finished writing but the machine decided otherwise....

As to my OH who was brought up in Rhodesia until aged 18, he remembers being taught all this Elizabethan time, Henry VIII, the Victorians and couldn't have cared less about it as it seemed so far away from where he lived. To this day he regrets not having anyone telling him how the Great Wall of Zimbabwe came about, what kind of people lived, how, who ruled them, how the settlers came just before Cecil Rhodes....     

[Thibault]

When I was at school in Australia, we learned the usual bits of British history - Romans, Angles, Saxons & Jutes, Tudors and Stuarts and the reforms of the 19th century etc all in chronological order.  We also learned about the discovery of Australia, the arrival of the first settlers, the relationships between the Aboriginals and the settlers, the various Governors and their ways of governing and all the various people involved in the exploration of  "inland" Australia etc.  We also learned a lot about the geography of Australia.

However, that was more years ago than I care to remember, so I am not sure what children are taught now.[:)]

[JSA Aude]

If back copies are available the series of 'Horrible Histories' comics/magazines were absolutely brilliant - great fun but also very informative.  When we moved here five years ago we just moved the subscription from the UK but, unfortunately, they have now finished.  The paperback books covering all of the subjects (anything from cannibals to the wars - you name it!) are available - a good adult read too!  Suffice to say our 14 yr old lad (not a boffin!!) now knows more history than his older brother who has just completed a history degree! Another cracking book is Our Island Story by H E Marshall.  

[Dick Smith]

I'm afraid I disagree about the Horrible Histories - they present a very old-fashioned and stereotyped point of view which, taken without a lot of extra reading, can lead to quite wrong conclusions. I did some work with Year 7 last term in which we looked at how reliable they were - this was mostly the DVDs - and they didn't come out too well. Fun, but not history.

[woolybanana (ex tag)]

I never really understood why Winston Churchill's A History of the English Speaking Peoples was not simplified and used in schools. The historical perspective he has is spot on.

[Dick Smith]

It's too expensive...

[Dick Smith]

Actually, no, that deserves a semi serious answer.

Schools have very little money for textbooks, so try to buy things that are, to an extent, multipurpose, or at least mixed ability. Publishers have, in recent years, tended to equate that with 'lots of pictures and colourful, short text, easy questions'. You can see how WSC's magnum opus doesn't quite fit the bill.

There is also a difficulty of finding texts which fit the National Curriculum, GCSE and A2/A level syllabi. Rightly now there is a world history perspective, especially at and after GCSE. Refer to first point - schools have very little money, and so look for compendium textbooks (if they use textbooks at all - I don't think I've used one for a couple of terms - I have used topic books) and short texts.

Then there is the problem of working in a society where few kids have much experience of extended reading of 'difficult' texts. In that sense history is a dinosaur, expecting both extended reading and writing.

[woolybanana (ex tag)]

But using a new eidtion of Winnies book would give a sound unitary perspective wouldn't it. And by long print runs is could be cheap.

I agree about the kids not being able to read anything more complex than a poster or business card in a telephone box but then why not change this.

Different volumes for different years.

[Dick Smith]

You mean you shout at the older ones?

[woolybanana (ex tag)]

Very loudly.

[Dick Smith]

Sensible advice.

Were you ever in teacher training?

[woolybanana (ex tag)]

Was actually. Then went into training teacher trainers. Then ............ well, it gets boring. Finally became and adviser. Doesn't it show.

[Dick Smith]

Sort of...

Did you never think of doing a Gervaise Phynn?

[JSA Aude]

I disagree with Dick Smith!  Anything that encourages a ten year old to read and acquire knowledge across a huge range of human history cannot be all bad.  If only all history teachers used the same formula to diseminate facts, an irreverant mixture of toilet humour and gore as employed by HH, a perfect counterpoint to the Boys Own fairy tales of  British derring-do contained in the "Our Island Story" a book which inspired generation of historians including Antonia Fraser.  Get the kids interested in history so that they learn the facts then when they have some maturity and life experience they can interpret the facts as they see fit.  Factually, I have been unable to find fault in any of the 80 editions of the Horrible Histories which I have read with my son other than a mispelling of "Palatinate" in a Habsburg family tree which is pinned to the wall of my study for ready reference.  

[Renaud]

Quiz question: Who was the last British king to lead his troops into battle?