The role of history lessons in schools

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

This topic is currently under discussion by British politicians- the argument is that our traditional history lessons spend far too much time focussing on the Greeks, Romans and Medieval cultures, with the result that kids have very little understanding of why the modern world is the way it is.

Do you feel there should be a much greater emphasis on the past 100 years or so in schools, with the more distant past largely omitted?

[Proteus_MST]

In germany for everything concerning the third Reich we get at least three lessons during our school career.
Everything else is taught much less deeply.

For example I learned much more about ancient rome and greece during my language lessons in latin than from the history lessons at school.

I cannot judge your history lessons, but our history lessons IMHO center too much around the small timeframe that was made up by the third reich at the expense not only of the times before the 20th century but also at the expense of other important events of the last 100 years.

IMHO an important question for your politicians should be, what topics of the last 100 years they want to be covered more deeply. Just WW2 (and possibly WW1), or also other important things that happened thereafter.

[Kuciwalker]

Re: The role of history lessons in schools

Originally posted by Lazarus and the Gimp
This topic is currently under discussion by British politicians- the argument is that our traditional history lessons spend far too much time focussing on the Greeks, Romans and Medieval cultures, with the result that kids have very little understanding of why the modern world is the way it is.

Do you feel there should be a much greater emphasis on the past 100 years or so in schools, with the more distant past largely omitted?

1) History in primary and secondary schools is largely indoctrination, IMO.

2) I doubt any understanding you could convey to the majority of students would be worth much.

[Barnabas]

A historian here said that studying about sumerians, egyptians, phoenicians etc is a waste of time for pupils, and that those civilizations should be seen in very few classes, because only from the greeks on matters to westerners.

[DAVOUT]

I think that the role of History lessons is to build the perpective of the past of mankind, which cannot be reduced to thr last century. This is more easily remembered and understood if it includes a strong chonology. Unfortunately, for some reasons, here History lessons have lost any reference to the chronology; those who have been fascinated by the perfectly chronological approach of the first Civ knows the strenght of the time in the our curiosity for the past.

[Barnabas]

Here highschool is pretty much in chronological order

first years sumer, egypt, hebrews, phoenicians, greeks, persians, romans etc

second year, romans middle ages colonization of the americas + precolumbian american civs

third year colonial america + whatever happens in europe

fourth year independece from spain+ XIX century + whatever happens in europe

fifth year xx th century

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Re: Re: The role of history lessons in schools

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


1) History in primary and secondary schools is largely indoctrination, IMO.

2) I doubt any understanding you could convey to the majority of students would be worth much.

Your first point doesn't bear much resemblance to my own experience, unless there's some grand conspiracy to big up the Romans and Tudors.

Your second needs more explanation, because as it stands it looks more than a little objectionable.

[Kuciwalker]

On the second point, I'll admit I misread your OP, and didn't realize you wanted to cut away most pre-1900 history. At my school they tried to teach some sort of cohesive world history (with the theme of expanding global trade), but it didn't seem to work very well. (And this was at a school where all of the students were motivated.) I meant that a cohesive global history explaining how we got here is probably just beyond what you can teach to people who don't specialize in history.

[Traianvs]

We had this crappy system like Barnabas as well. First year prehistory etc, second year mainly classical times, then medieval times and so on.

What I find a bit stupid is that when you're a 12 or 13 year old, and teachers teach you about ancient Rome you are bound to have it taught to you in simplistic terms with few details. Only because you're not as old yet to handle more information or complicated affairs. I have to say, unfortunately I didn't learn **** in the later classes because we had a terrible teacher that barely said anything about what happened. All I knew back then was from books, documentaries etc.

All in all it's a bad system because like that it gives the impression that later history was much more important. I'm not sure how you people do it in England, but it can't be any worse.


PS: About the ancient history: I'm a bit biased since I'm an archaeologist interested in ancient times . But still now I know what it was all about it does indeed seem to me like Kuciwalker said that it's indoctrination and the matter being taught is usually hugely cliché, outdated or given without much critical thought.

[Barnabas]

I remember my teacher telling me egyptian men peed like women, and egyptian women peed like men.

Or something like that

[Agathon]

Re: The role of history lessons in schools

Originally posted by Lazarus and the Gimp
This topic is currently under discussion by British politicians- the argument is that our traditional history lessons spend far too much time focussing on the Greeks, Romans and Medieval cultures, with the result that kids have very little understanding of why the modern world is the way it is.

Do you feel there should be a much greater emphasis on the past 100 years or so in schools, with the more distant past largely omitted?

To understand the history (Gr. historia) of the Greeks and Romans is to understand the broadest features (L. factura)of why the world is the way it is. The fact (L. factum) that our language (L. lingua) is littered (L. orig lectus with their words, and that we basically (Gr. basis) have to use Latin or Greek words or derivations (L . derivatio) when we want to talk about anything important (L. from importare) is evidence (L. evidentia) of that.

These people limned (L. luminare) the way we think and express ourselves when we move into theorizing (Gr. theoria) about the way the world works. The way of thinking introduced by them is the characteristic (Gr. character) feature of our civilization.

Having said that, my own solution (L. solutio) would be to expand the history program (Gr. programma) and get rid of the more specialized (L. specialis) stuff that is of no use to the ordinary (L. ordinarius) citizen (L. civitas) in a politically (Gr. politike) democratic (Gr. demokratia) society (L. societas). Things like advanced math (Gr. mathematike) and specialized science (L. scientia), which are of no use to most people and which are best served (L. servire) as specializations.

[DAVOUT]

Re: Re: The role of history lessons in schools

Originally posted by Agathon


To understand the history (Gr. historia) of the Greeks and Romans is to understand the broadest features (L. factura)of why the world is the way it is. The fact (L. factum) that our language (L. lingua) is littered (L. orig lectus with their words, and that we basically (Gr. basis) have to use Latin or Greek words or derivations (L . derivatio) when we want to talk about anything important (L. from importare) is evidence (L. evidentia) of that.

These people limned (L. luminare) the way we think and express ourselves when we move into theorizing (Gr. theoria) about the way the world works. The way of thinking introduced by them is the characteristic (Gr. character) feature of our civilization.

Excellent.

[Apocalypse]

In the US it is typically
1. Ancient/Medieval
2. Modern
3. US
4. Gov/Econ
for high school.

I'd personally change it to
1. Before WWII
2. WWII-End of Cold War
3. 1990<
4. Gov/Econ

It won't change because of how things are set up in college though.

Edit: HTML got me

[Agathon]

In general, humanities education in schools is terrible. One problem is that students aren't really told why they are doing it. I remember doing English and students asking why we were reading these books, and we could never get a straight answer. I had to go to university before it became obvious why. I hated high school, and spent most of my time smoking weed, listening to records and having sex. Yet I ended up going much further in education than anyone in my year.

For the most part, you get what you put in to it. That means you get graduates who can do calculus and write after a fashion, but who are devoid of critical thinking skills. No-one seems to know what high school education is for, other than "preparing students to enter the workforce". As if most of the things we do have anything to do with the jobs we end up in.

Society would be much better served by working the students hard on English grammar and informal logic (what gets called critical reasoning). Along with that, a history program that is focused and attempts to explain why things are the way they are would be nice. The best teacher I ever had was my high school history teacher. But even he struggled with the ****ty curriculum we had. He was an oddity as well. Most of the good teachers were retiring and the government wasn't paying new teachers enough to encourage anyone but monkeys to take it up.

University isn't that much better either. The admissions scheme tends to cut out people who would actually bring some life to colleges and replaces them with shallow resumé stuffers.

[molly bloom]

Re: Re: The role of history lessons in schools

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


1) History in primary and secondary schools is largely indoctrination, IMO.

Funny, but in my Roman Catholic primary school I wasn't taught the Roman Catholic history of the world.

Some of the works used were even written by non-Catholics.

Similarly, in my grammar school we even discussed such matters as the 'Whig' approach to history, all without class pledges of allegiance to the state's view of what happened.


Any misguided attempts by British politicians to interfere YET AGAIN with education or how it's taught or what is taught (a recurring nightmare of teachers since the days of Kenneth Baker) can only lead to further disenchantment with teaching as a career and education as a principle.

It's funny how non-historian politicians can dismiss the Mediaeval world as being irrelevant or the Classical world as being remote- one might think there had never been vigorous beneficial interaction between the worlds of Islam, Christianity and Judaism in the Middle Ages, or concern about deforestation in Mediaeval England, or debates on faith and politics in Ancient Greece.