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A big juicy education/political rant
Jun. 15th, 2006 10:28 amA brief political rant, if I may.
David Cameron, the schizophrenic leader of the Tories wants more history lessons for British pupils - apparently to connect us to British values (whatever they are) and British identity (whatever that is - It’s usually a code word for superior white people) presumable to encourage the young generation act like proper British nationals (we assume this will involve annexing India and going to war with France). At very least he thinks we should have compulsory history lessons to the age of 16 (GCSE level).
I disagree. Not, I might add, because history is not important - but because I DID take history to GCSE level. I got a shiny shiny A* in it as well, so I was good at it.. And what did my years of study gain me?
Lots of knowledge about the Spinning Jenny, James Watt and his steam engine, Stephenson and his trains. Power Looms and Flying Shuttles, Crop Rotation and animal husbandry, John McAdam’s roads and Brunel’s tracks. Puddling furnaces and ironmongers, trains, factories and new inventions, cottage industry falling towards urbanisation, coal mining and cotton mills.
Are we seeing a connection? Yes, year after year after bloody YEAR of the Industrial Revolution (with a nod to the agricultural revolution). I don’t think I ever studied a day of history that didn’t happen under Victoria’s rule - alright we did some pre-GCSE but the GCSEs themselves were entirely focused on the Industrial bloody Revolution - perhaps the single most BORING time of British history. No wars (WW1, WW2 and the civil war may as well not have happened) no empire (beyond a brief lick of colonial guilt), no Tudors, no Stewarts and certainly no world history. Our school trip wasn’t to Bosworth field or one of the castles - no, it was to Saltaire - a model village made in the Victorian era by a Victorian business owner for the workers in his Victorian mill.
And it’s all useless. Sure, kids need to know about the industrial revolution - but we needed to be taught “there were numerous inventions at this time that drastically increased production levels like the Spinning Jenny, the Power Loom and the Flying shuttle” then move on. NOT “this is the spinning Jenny, it did X, it was invented on X date, it worked by doing X, it was invented by X. Here is a drawing of it. Please waste an hour copying this drawing.” WE DIDN’T NEED TO KNOW WHO INVENTED THE BLOODY SPINNING JENNY! When it comes to top ten most useless pieces of knowledge you could ever know then the inventor of the spinning jenny has to be up there. It’s the kind of obscure knowledge that history professors who specialise in the Industrial revolution know (and they have to wear warnings signs to let everyone know that they are a terminally boring person) it is not something you need to force 15 year olds to memorise and then test them on it!
Forcing kids to study history until they are 16 will achieve nothing but make them hate history if you spend those extra 2 years ramming the industrial revolution down their throats. And it’s not the teachers’ fault - the teachers’ wanted to teach history but the test was entirely Industrial Revolution. They would have actually harmed our grades if they had covered the Magna Carta or Cromwell or the Peasants revolt or the Black Death (Huge, MAJOR social changes in the country).
So, to conclude, don’t force kids to learn more history - teach them BETTER history.
David Cameron, the schizophrenic leader of the Tories wants more history lessons for British pupils - apparently to connect us to British values (whatever they are) and British identity (whatever that is - It’s usually a code word for superior white people) presumable to encourage the young generation act like proper British nationals (we assume this will involve annexing India and going to war with France). At very least he thinks we should have compulsory history lessons to the age of 16 (GCSE level).
I disagree. Not, I might add, because history is not important - but because I DID take history to GCSE level. I got a shiny shiny A* in it as well, so I was good at it.. And what did my years of study gain me?
Lots of knowledge about the Spinning Jenny, James Watt and his steam engine, Stephenson and his trains. Power Looms and Flying Shuttles, Crop Rotation and animal husbandry, John McAdam’s roads and Brunel’s tracks. Puddling furnaces and ironmongers, trains, factories and new inventions, cottage industry falling towards urbanisation, coal mining and cotton mills.
Are we seeing a connection? Yes, year after year after bloody YEAR of the Industrial Revolution (with a nod to the agricultural revolution). I don’t think I ever studied a day of history that didn’t happen under Victoria’s rule - alright we did some pre-GCSE but the GCSEs themselves were entirely focused on the Industrial bloody Revolution - perhaps the single most BORING time of British history. No wars (WW1, WW2 and the civil war may as well not have happened) no empire (beyond a brief lick of colonial guilt), no Tudors, no Stewarts and certainly no world history. Our school trip wasn’t to Bosworth field or one of the castles - no, it was to Saltaire - a model village made in the Victorian era by a Victorian business owner for the workers in his Victorian mill.
And it’s all useless. Sure, kids need to know about the industrial revolution - but we needed to be taught “there were numerous inventions at this time that drastically increased production levels like the Spinning Jenny, the Power Loom and the Flying shuttle” then move on. NOT “this is the spinning Jenny, it did X, it was invented on X date, it worked by doing X, it was invented by X. Here is a drawing of it. Please waste an hour copying this drawing.” WE DIDN’T NEED TO KNOW WHO INVENTED THE BLOODY SPINNING JENNY! When it comes to top ten most useless pieces of knowledge you could ever know then the inventor of the spinning jenny has to be up there. It’s the kind of obscure knowledge that history professors who specialise in the Industrial revolution know (and they have to wear warnings signs to let everyone know that they are a terminally boring person) it is not something you need to force 15 year olds to memorise and then test them on it!
Forcing kids to study history until they are 16 will achieve nothing but make them hate history if you spend those extra 2 years ramming the industrial revolution down their throats. And it’s not the teachers’ fault - the teachers’ wanted to teach history but the test was entirely Industrial Revolution. They would have actually harmed our grades if they had covered the Magna Carta or Cromwell or the Peasants revolt or the Black Death (Huge, MAJOR social changes in the country).
So, to conclude, don’t force kids to learn more history - teach them BETTER history.