h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've said UK-centric, but this applies equally to any nation. For the moment, though, I'd like to restrict it to the UK because that's where I am.

So I'm assuming that GCSE History teaches how to compare sources and evaluate sources for bias. This is an important skill if you want to be a historian, I guess.

I don't want to be a historian. I don't want my children wasting their lives becoming historians. What I'd like to know is: what history was I NOT taught? I dropped history as soon as it was possible, so all I got was a lot of really boring stuff about the industrial revolution. Cartwright's spinning this and Arkwright's whittling that, dull, dull, dull, and in the detail so irrelevant it was painful.

What makes this country what it is? What history would make me sit up and say "HOW could my history teacher never have mentioned this?"

Given that kids in school have a very limited time and attention span, what should the history curriculum be?

"So I'm assuming that GCSE History teaches how to compare sources and evaluate sources for bias. This is an important skill if you want to be a historian, I guess."

It's an important skill if you want to do *anything*. Learning how to analyse text based on its source is a vital life skill. If more people were good at it, The Daily Mail's circulation figures would be a Hell of a lot lower. Or do you believe everything you read, regardless of source?

I said much the same not an hour ago: F19585?thread=7507713&post=96232314#p96232314

But the ability to do that isn't just taught through history (or at least it ought not be), and on its own as a skill, yeh its useful but becomes less useful the less 'stuff' you actually know'. Our entire history education seemed to consist of learning only that, and not actually learning any knowledge, and knowledge is actually quite useful; I'd prefer it or at least think it would be better, were there to be a greater empthesis placed on actual subject knowledge, alongside the learning how to deal and assess types of sources and information etc... Certainly I have foudn it was what my school education was missing entirely in history, and probably in some other subject areas too...

there should also be, maybe there is!, some consideration of bias *of* sources. Or events. It is quite possible to construct, for example, an entirely positive history of England (as English nationalists are wont to do) or an entirely negative one (as nationalists of most other countries that have had a long relationship with England are wont to do ). The truth, if such can be said to exist in any objective manner in history, is that both exist, often side by side.

To understand that history is life in review and that it is not binary (good/bad) and that even events that are seen as such are far murkier when investigated in more depth and in their context. Indeed, understanding the contexts of the events - the 'situatedness' of them - helps to understand why what happened, happened.

OTOH I read something the other day where the author was arguing for history as experience and not explanation. We shouldn't seek to 'explain' events since to do is to tacitly say we have understood them which, not being there and not being of that time it is very unlikely that we have. Admittedly this was in relation to things like the holocaust though and the fear seemed to be that in explaining we have tacitly accepted that there is a reason why these events occurred.

Yeah, Jack, what you wrote is what made me start this thread.

Thing is, critical thinking is all very well, and should probably be taught as a separate subject which works across science and the humanities.

But history, and in particular the history of this country (or any country) can reasonably be boiled down to a linear progression of things that happened. And my point is that we don't teach all of it, don't teach enough of it, and don't contextualise ANY of it (at least not when I was at school very long ago).

You could argue about the significance of some things (what was the effect of the dissolution of the monasterys?) and about the truth of others (did Robin Hood exist? did Jesus?), but there are many, many established facts of which I'm simply ignorant, things that, with hindsight, I think I should have been told about at school instead of a lot of the tedious rubbish I was doing.

Exactly.... and in order to contextualise information, weather that your being taught at school, or what you learn later on in life, you need a fair bit of knowledge, in order to contextualise any new information against it... Same is true of politics, history, science and well just what I guess you'd call general day to day stuff; How can anyone read an article in a paper, say on some new medical/science issue and be able to not just* understand it, but put it into context, and know how important or significent it is, unless they've got the background knowledge with which to contetualise the newer information
I got a grade 'A' at GCSE History, but still now the vast majority of my actual knowledge on history comes from watching Blackadder, and other TV stuff (which probably really isn't that accurate I'd imagine....)

"But history, and in particular the history of this country (or any country) can reasonably be boiled down to a linear progression of things that happened"

I'm not sure it can though. For any given end point there are multiple strands leading to it. Sometimes it might be one crucial thing one person said at a particular point. Other times it could just be a general mood. Or a chance event. What about, for example, the effects of the plague on the industrial revolution? Or any other set of events.

History, it seems to me, is a big messy can of worms with multiple inter-relations which stretch across both time and geography.

What I've learned from my own passion for history (which largely stemmed from me *not* being able to choose it for my O'levels) is that we shouldn't teach our (UK) history in isolation from the rest of the world.

Did you know that in 1066 we had wooden castles whereas the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople was alread 700 years old?

William the Conqueror visited the Pope in Rome to get papal approval for his invasion.

Harold Hardrada, the Viking leader who invaded in the same year had been part of the imperial (Varangian) guard of Constantinople and made his fame and fortune there before his attempt on the throne here.

Normans were invading Southern Italy as well as Southern England at that time and being more or less as successful.


Europe revolved around Rome and Constantinople back then and the Saracen threat was a major one, that didn't stop the Eastern and Western churches ruining everything for everyone though. The concerns of a minor Island on the edge of the old ruined roman empire was of little concern to most.


Of course, 5-600 years later it had all turned about and we were on the verge of dominating Europe and then the world.



British history is interesting but if we ignore the rest of the world we miss The Byzantine Empire, the Rise of Genghis Khan, Tamarlane, Imperial China, the Moghul Empire... as well as native americans and other fascinating and largely forgotten cultures...


We might have a bit more perspective about our place in the world if we were to see how much of a minor bit-part player we were for much of history.

>>
To understand that history is life in review and that it is not binary (good/bad) and that even events that are seen as such are far murkier when investigated in more depth and in their context. Indeed, understanding the contexts of the events - the 'situatedness' of them - helps to understand why what happened, happened.
<< Ictoan

Yes. And further to that, we need to understand history in the context of the history writers/recorders past and present. It's disturbing that people think history is factual devoid of the changes that happen to history over time and via the world views of the history takers.

Not to mention the lens each of us looks through.

Your over-complicating it.
All that* is very well and good, but if your starting from a point where you successfully passed your GCSE history (err actually I think it was called 'humanities' when I did it, and was a kind of 50/50 history/georgraphy, never quite sure why they were lumped together though),
And, you mention things like the industrial revolution... and I'm thinking , yeh, I've heard of that... err no idea when it was... 1500's? 1700's? I've really no idea... and the same goes for most other bits of history, without the basic knowledge its so hard to understand any other bits of history as your awash as to where and when they were, so are unable to put them into any kind of context... But it was exactly those kind of facts, like dates and stuff that were at least when I studied history, a real no no in terms of waht was being taught for some reason oversimplified some of it may be, but that is how a lot of learning needs to start as if you don't know the basics getting on to more complicated stuff can be tricky...

But historical knowledge/ critical thinking is not the same kind of knowledge as scientific fact, or even the Lit Crit of English. In fact, one of the problems history has is that people think it must only be about facts and what is objectively true (a la science subjects) or that it is all a matter of opinion (lit crit). History as a discipline isn't about evaluating sources, that's a means to an end, it's about learning to make judgements about the best explanation. Since this is neither the same as the true explanation or the explanation we want to be true/ feel like making on the day, no other subject teaches that skill, and yet it's a much more necessary one than either science or lit crit can teach us.

Anyway, I wrote an entry on the topic of what historical knowledge is, which isnt edited because I need to jazz it up a bit and make it less dry. I'm afraid that what history teachers are supposed to be doing nowadays is to focus on that than on facts facts facts names dates kings.

But I get the point about the topics chosen to teach the discipline could be better chosen. Would it help if the Industrial Revolution was taught in the context of deep time? Ie looking backwards and forwards at what makes a technological revolution and comparing it to others such as the beginning of tool use in pre-history? Because you'd have to look at impact then, and you'd be able to see why the industrial revolution is considered such a pivotal point in the UK's journey towards today. Plus you'd be able to bring in the computer age too, and speculate about possible futires, which might be fun.

That's the sort of thing that's supposed to be going on in schools now: not focusing on a patch of history in isolaiton but on themes and so on.

Blowing my own trumpet:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/A46433801

Although rereading it, it doesn't have much of a flow to it so I think it's ore than the highfalutin' language that needs sorting out. Still.

We could just chuck War and Peace at the kids, tell 'em to read it and then critique it

If nothing else it'd improve their fitness having to lug that around for a year or so!

we could all do a lot worse than look at the James Burke Connections series (and How The Universe Changed) which are - luckily - available on YouTube in their entirety.

And knock things like the History of Science (which is as much about history as science) into a cocked hat.

I learned a lot reading Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cylce trilogy. Yes, it's fiction, but he plays with a lot of historical figures, and though it's obstenstably about Newton and Liebniz he goes to great lengths to get the context right.

One of the minor points that he slips into the text is that all the royal houses of Europe are inter-related. Each family using marriage as a way of making and securing alliances.

It's well written too.


Geggs

Inter-related? And how! The shape of this family tree looks inverted, for instance. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Carlos_segundo80.png

To be honest, I can't complain too much about the syllabus available when I was at school, accepting that you'll never cover everything. There seemed to be a reasonable combination of the how-to, source skills that are so important; local/national history giving some idea of how we got where we are; and international events, particularly those whose impact on the world was/is massive (the Enlightenment/French Revolution/Russian Revolution/Middle East in the 20th Century, among others...).

So much history, so little time.....

On my essential list would be:

'How we used to live' (if anyone remembers the TV series) - social history from UK history and ancient history (perhaps Rome/Egypt/that kind of thing). Possibly at primary level or early secondary?

20th century world history - (or: why the world is the way it is today). Should include: both World Wars, Rise of Fascism, Cold War (and aftermath). Broad sweep narrative stuff.

Some focus on particular events or incidents in order to understand what happened and why: Cuban Missile Crisis, French/Russian revolution, Nazism/Holocaust, Congress of Vienna/Versailles Treaty etc. When studying history I found peace treaties and political crises really interesting - who wanted what and why, and what happened in the end.

I think it's important to strike a balance between ancient and modern, and British and international/other cultures. We do need to teach 'British' history and 'political' history, but I think there needs to be a balance of international/world/social history too.

Hmmm, from Otto's list of history essentials plus some of my own -

300 (Battle of Thermopylae)
Spartacus (Roman stuff)
Cleopatra (1963 version - Roman stuff)
A Man for All Seasons (Henry VIII stuff)
All Quiet on the Western Front (WWI)
Downfall (Nazism, Rise & Fall of)
Schindler's List (Nazism, evil of)
Dr Strangelove (Cold War)
One Day in the life of Ivan Denisovich (Soviet Union, evil of)
Thirteen Days (Cuban Missile)
The Black Book (French Revolution)
Dr Zhivago (Russian Revolution)
The Battleship Potemkin (Russian Revolution)
Captain Horatio Hornblower RN (Napoleonic Wars)
The Last Emperor (End of Chinese Emperors)

A good start to get people interested?