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Another thread discussion made me curious about a bit of your education.

How much of it is centered on things like the American Colonies, the Revolutionary War, and the eventual War of 1812? Given your nations rather long history, I'm sure they don't receive the same emphasis that they get on this side of the pond, but something I just saw kinda surprised me and made me curious.

Not much. When I was in school 15-20 years ago, history lessons focussed on early British history (1066) and the Tudor period. When I sat my GCSE exam at 16 , my history exam was on WW1 and WW2.

Out of the general sweep of history, the American portion of it gets very little focus I think.

The curriculum is likely different now than when I was at school 20+ years ago! but my recollection is hardly anything.

As you rightly point out, as an expansionist nation with many, many hundreds of years of history, it's almost a footnote from a British perspective.

As I'm sure is similar in the US though, education gets increasingly more specialist as you progress through the levels, so those who carried History as a subject later into their educations may have a different experience.

Our focus was mainly industrial revolution and WWII IIRC, but I didn't study it beyond the age of 14.

Strangely enough I was just thinking about this same thing.

In main stream education the American Revolutionary War isn't covered. I'm not sure if it's changed now, but I don't think so.

Certainly the topics ranged from WW2, Women's suffrage, The Russian Revolution, Spanish Civil War and various Scottish bits and pieces. I think the Emphasis is mostly on Europe when it comes to history beyond our borders. Certainly Colonial History wasn't a thing, which is a bit of a shame.

I'd imagine there is a bit of a drift to The First World War and perhaps more Scottish History what with upcoming events.

 Medium of Death wrote:
Strangely enough I was just thinking about this same thing.

In main stream education the American Revolutionary War isn't covered. I'm not sure if it's changed now, but I don't think so.

Certainly the topics ranged from WW2, Women's suffrage, The Russian Revolution, Spanish Civil War and various Scottish bits and pieces. I think the Emphasis is mostly on Europe when it comes to history beyond our borders. Certainly Colonial History wasn't a thing, which is a bit of a shame.

I'd imagine there is a bit of a drift to The First World War and perhaps more Scottish History what with upcoming events.

Your question regarding it was was caught me off guard. Lexington and Concord is pretty much general knowledge among people in the US, but your question made me realize you didn't know anything about it.

Yeah, it's not really covered very much until higher education as far as I'm aware.

This might sound a bit condescending, but if you think about it, even though for the US it was the formation of their country, for the UK it was basically just more 'trouble in the colonies', so it's not going to get all that much attention.

If you don't specialise in history pretty much none,

and even if you do you may have no exposure to it in class (I didn't and I studied history up until the final year I left school, my major bits were the industrial revolution, WWI & the social change relating to it and crusades)

but to an extent it used to depend on your school, they would tailor their teaching to whatever the exam board they used wanted

 djones520 wrote:

 Medium of Death wrote:
Strangely enough I was just thinking about this same thing.

In main stream education the American Revolutionary War isn't covered. I'm not sure if it's changed now, but I don't think so.

Certainly the topics ranged from WW2, Women's suffrage, The Russian Revolution, Spanish Civil War and various Scottish bits and pieces. I think the Emphasis is mostly on Europe when it comes to history beyond our borders. Certainly Colonial History wasn't a thing, which is a bit of a shame.

I'd imagine there is a bit of a drift to The First World War and perhaps more Scottish History what with upcoming events.

Your question regarding it was was caught me off guard. Lexington and Concord is pretty much general knowledge among people in the US, but your question made me realize you didn't know anything about it.

I think knowing more might cause us to have animosity to our treacherous European neighbours!

Recommend any, relatively light, books on the subject?

In the GCSE history course (last year of secondary school), the topics that we do are are WWI aftermaths, the great depression in america, vietnam, and britain in the 20th century.
Prior to that, we do medieval history, for example invasion of 1066 etc

We've had this subject before.

While to the USA, the creation of the USA is a topic of central importance, to the UK, it's one in a long series of important historical events.

By definition, everything prior to the AWI is shared history.

 Goliath wrote:
Yeah, it's not really covered very much until higher education as far as I'm aware.

This might sound a bit condescending, but if you think about it, even though for the US it was the formation of their country, for the UK it was basically just more 'trouble in the colonies', so it's not going to get all that much attention.

It was hardly more then just trouble in the colonies. Britain put out much more military might in the Revolutionary War then they did in the 7 Year War (French and Indian, for observing Americans), and you guys (and us) were duking it out with another world spanning Empire in that one.

Like I said originally, I figured it wouldn't be that covered, but I'm honestly amazed that it wasn't really even touched on at all, especially given what came from the whole affair.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Medium of Death wrote:

 djones520 wrote:

 Medium of Death wrote:
Strangely enough I was just thinking about this same thing.

In main stream education the American Revolutionary War isn't covered. I'm not sure if it's changed now, but I don't think so.

Certainly the topics ranged from WW2, Women's suffrage, The Russian Revolution, Spanish Civil War and various Scottish bits and pieces. I think the Emphasis is mostly on Europe when it comes to history beyond our borders. Certainly Colonial History wasn't a thing, which is a bit of a shame.

I'd imagine there is a bit of a drift to The First World War and perhaps more Scottish History what with upcoming events.

Your question regarding it was was caught me off guard. Lexington and Concord is pretty much general knowledge among people in the US, but your question made me realize you didn't know anything about it.

I think knowing more might cause us to have animosity to our treacherous European neighbours!

Recommend any, relatively light, books on the subject?

Light books? Not really. 1776 would be a great read though if you wanted to get a lot of the meat and potato's behind the beginning of it all. Most books that I'm aware of are going to be written regarding the American POV though.

I think it must kinda be a sore subject for some people

The colonisation of America was an option for students in their last year of secondary school a few years before my time IRC. From what I studied though in fifth, America didn't receive much more than a brief mentions like "The US entered the war, the end". Given that in Scotland the current discussion is about whether we should be dropping more of the British history elements for Scottish ones (ie they're nonexistant), I doubt America will be seeing much more focus. As for foreign countries which are studied I remember the Russian revolution, founding of Germany and Spanish civil war being part of the curriculum, but little outside of the immediate area of Europe (bar with the WWI/ WWII parts).

My friends studying history at university are studying the US though as modules. McCarthyism seems to be a popular one.

You need to look at the UK history teaching as split two, possibly three ways.

1. Technical 'academies' often remove history from the curriculum, though whether this is to disestablish the Brtiish identity or to concentrate on other subjects is open to debate. If so it blends into the second case.

2. Most state schools teach a very watered down and often highly dogmatised history. School pupils who have not heard of Churchill are a minority, there are still worrisome moves particularly in schools staffed by the far left, which is a sufficiently large proportion sadly enough to sideline history for reasons of either pandering to the rise in balkanisation of British society or to disenfranchise established values in favour of long term changes of the political dialectic.
New Labour was big on this, and as a rule history was considered something from the past that should remain in the past. It was useful on a party political level, but appalling for lasting social cohesion.

3. Independent schools still teach history. Some focus on more modern history others offer a broader curriculum stretching from the Roman invasion through to the 20th century.
As a rule of thumb quality schools teach a broad history in shallow detail to younger pupils and switch to modern history for the GCSE exams at 16. Late teens taking History as an elect course for 'A' Levels tend to specialise in modern or medieval European and British/English history.

Those covering the 18th century and Napoleonic Era will likely cover the US War of Independence.
One point to note is that the Era is known in the UK mainly as the Napoleonic era or the Regency depending on whether we are discussing world or UK history respectively.
Rebellion in the American colonies was not really too big an issue compared to the horrors of Madame Guillotine or the rise of Bonaparte. Thus British history still looks at things this way.

The other point is the US is right to keep teaching their people their history proudly, and don't let anyone tell you its 'jingoistic' to do so. Keep flying the flag in school rooms, and let no one tell you its 'fascist' to do so. Lest you suffer our fate and have your past undermined, as history is the foundation of society.

Australia is sort of similar to Britain, right? Here I remember covering the American civil war more than I remember covering the revolutionary one. It's been a while, though, so maybe I've just forgotten about it. Anything I learned about the revolutionary war in history class has probably been inextricably mixed with what I learned from Sid Meier's Colonization. I did pick up that your post in that other thread was about the revolutionary war, though.

The other main piece of American history I remember covering is the Mai Lai Massacre, and I guess the bits of WW2 that took place in Asia.

Very little

History teaching is normally very fragmented around specific periods - Romans, Tudors, Victorian, WWII with some lee way to teach other stuff.

 Orlanth wrote:

2. Most state schools teach a very watered down and often highly dogmatised history. School pupils who have not heard of Churchill are a minority, there are still worrisome moves particularly in schools staffed by the far left, .

State schools staffed by the far left? WTF? Its high time you took your tin foil hat off before it rots your brain.

Colonial history just isn't that important given the relatively small amount of time available to teach secondary school history. If it was it would be India, not the Americas given the importance that the Raj had to the British Empire and by extension British history.

I did standard and higher history (which took 3 years) and we covered the Crusades, the Chartists, the Plantagent kings (no idea why), the Wiemar republic, the origins of WWI and thats all I can remember. The scant Scottish history that I was taught (Malcome Canmore, Bannockburn and a bit about the Black Douglas IIRC)was in S1 and 2 so it wasn't even included in our exams. This was in the mid/late 90's though so things may have improved since then.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
We've had this subject before.

While to the USA, the creation of the USA is a topic of central importance, to the UK, it's one in a long series of important historical events.

By definition, everything prior to the AWI is shared history.

I think we can narrow this down. At least from the perspective of exchange history teachers who taught in my school, and the experiences of Americans I knew from uni.

As a broad but roughly accurate standard. UK history between the Pilgrim fathers and the beginning of the Revolution is firmly centered on what happened in the UK, US history places far more emphasis on the early colonies. US history starts with the Mayflower, events prior to that are usually seen through eyes of English history. Though this varies with local ethnic mix, New York state, for example, has/(?had?) an slanted medieval history curriculum which has been remarked upon in the US press due to its heavy bias towards discredited and heavily politically loaded study of Anglo-Irish history in particular, its the main reason for the proliferation of 'plastic paddies'.

The impression I get is that the curriculum is more concerned with teaching how to analyse sources, identify trends and actually interpret history than giving accounts of what happened- it seems to be assumed that you can wiki that if you're so inclined

It was shocking to me how ignorant most of the schoolkids were about the shared history of Ireland and Great Britain, but when I thought about it, it revealed more about our obsession with our relationship with the UK than anything else. Could do with a paragraph on the potato famine to prevent so many rude comments and jokes though.

This really helps me understand a bit of our differences in thinking on certain topics now.

I think there's an assumption of shared culture due to shared language between all the anglophone countries, but there's often these funny differences under the surface.

We learned a little about the American Revolution in school though. (In Ireland).

What's interesting to me is that History is not really a mandatory subject in many UK schools. If you do take it as an option though, I think it's a better curriculum than the one I studied- much less biased for one.

I didn't continue on with History as a subject at school 10 years ago in Scotland, picking Geography instead for my standard grades.

However, in the 3 years I did take it...

We started off with the Scottish Wars for Independence (aka Braveheart)

Then we did the events around The Battle of Flodden

Then, we stopped talking about fighting the English for a while, moving on to political intrigue, with a focus surrounding Mary, Queen of Scots, Lord Darnley and all that sort of hijinks.

That brought us up to the Union of The Crowns. We then had a light touch on Oliver Cromwell, and the Glorious Revolution, but didn't go into too much detail at all. (It happened.)

That brought us onto the Jacobite Rebellion again, which, the way we were taught, wasn't particularly about the Scots fighting the English, but more about the different Kings with a mix of Catholics V Protestants.

We then had a particular focus on the Massacre of Glencoe, the Battle of Prestonpans and finally The Battle of Culloden.

Then, we sort of stepped away from full scale battles, but funnily enough, not violence, as we looked at The Highland Clearances along with historical life in the isles.

The last major module of my history class was a surprisingly down to earth, and, to be honest, pretty heartwarming focus on the Industrial Age as demonstrated by life in New Lanark, which we visited.

As my last year in history drew to a close, they were beginning lessons about World War 1 and, particularly Archduke Ferdinand.


One would be forgiven for thinking that Scottish history is particularly violent...

 Palindrome wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:

2. Most state schools teach a very watered down and often highly dogmatised history. School pupils who have not heard of Churchill are a minority, there are still worrisome moves particularly in schools staffed by the far left, .

State schools staffed by the far left? WTF? Its high time you took your tin foil hat off before it rots your brain.

There are plenty of state schools staffed by the far left. It's the elephant in the room.
I could give you recent anecdotes from both schools where kids of friends of mine attend but it would only be written off as hearsay by the closed minded, even though similar stories are heard nationwide.

Part of the problem is that kids are told left wing bs and anyone who has a problem with that is labeled either tin foil, or far right. Its those who apply such labels who are the problem, not those who wish to challenge the way kids are taught.

This shows from two perspectives there is enough of a case to not be dismissed rashly:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/10565264/Left-wing-thinking-still-prevails-in-schools.html
http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/joseph-richardson/history-according-to-gove-what-is-england-teaching-its-children
... and no Daily Mail or Daily Express quotes either.

We sort of covered the final bits of it. Our A level history course covered the period 1805-1900. So we did some learning on the backstory at the end of the 1700s.


We did cover America from 1945-1990, which was rather boring to be completely honest, your nation didn't really get up to much apart from take part in several different wars with second world countries. (At least that is what they told us, I know you got up to more, but our exam boards don't really care)

But mostly, we leave America to one side.

The Civil Rights Movement is pretty interesting and also covered I believe, I certainly remember covering it or I think I do.

I definitely remember covering an aspect of it in an English class when looking at the "I Have a Dream" speech.

Thinking of the old English department and speaking of "The Left" in British schools, there were quite a few lefties in there and I certainly remember in the final two years of Secondary School topics being discussed in relation to texts we were studying.

Capital punishment, Israel, Nuclear weapons etc etc.

Everybody could voice their opinion and it really helped in starting on the path to having your own political opinion and being more politically aware.

Certainly I helped out with organising/fund raising things for Amnesty International after that.

The only time the US was studied in History when I was at school was the Great Depression and Race Relations. They were probably mentioned in topics on the World Wars, but I don't specifically remember, I remember it all being more about the 'home front'.

I think the key thing is that History isn't just learning to recite events and dates, but the study on how major events serve as catalysts for political or social change, and in those terms, the AWI just isn't all that interesting or relevant from the British perspective.

War of 1812? I would imagine less than 1 in 100 British people have even heard the term, let alone could tell you a thing about it (including the belligerents).

I think I'll run an experiment tomorrow, the two guys in my office are reasonably intelligent but have no particular historical interest. I'll ask them to list as many things as possible about these things as they know. Names, years, places, battles etc. See what comes up.

 Compel wrote:

One would be forgiven for thinking that Scottish history is particularly violent...

Everyones history is violent. I'm glad to see some actual Scottish history being taught in Scottish schools though.

 Orlanth wrote:

... and no Daily Mail or Daily Express quotes either.

Not exactly convincing evidence of the teaching profession being riddled with the 'far left' though are they.

I'm not a Brit, but I remember that back in school, my history teacher spent exactly one lesson (i.e. 50 minutes) on the history of the USA, beginning with the Mayflower and ending with the Revolutionary War.

Even back then I thought it was ridiculous to basically ignore the single most influential nation of the west, but I guess my teacher reckoned looking at every battle fought in the Napoleonic Wars in depth gave you a better understanding of the world.

 Goliath wrote:
This might sound a bit condescending, but if you think about it, even though for the US it was the formation of their country, for the UK it was basically just more 'trouble in the colonies', so it's not going to get all that much attention.

Don't you know how exceptional we are!

So out of interest how does Australia fare in British history classes. I'd imagine it's just the same as the Yanks but since we are the youngest child maybe we get some love and attention?