| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Are our State shools allowed to teach history? | |
| Posted by: | Justin Stephenson | |
| Date/Time: | 24/06/20 13:53:00 |
| The first problem with teaching history is that it is a vast subject with many of the basic themes spanning centuries and many different countries. It is a hard subject, but one I have always loved. The second problem is that people keep wanting to view it through the eyes of "modern" views. Trying to understand for example Cecil Rhodes using only modern views is both a pointless and fundamentally misleading reading of history. Actually Rhodes is a great example of how people are now trying to impose modern views onto historical figures. Rhodes was not involved in slavery, he was a white supremacist at any time when that view was the prevalent position through society right across Europe. Yet when you look at his creation of the Rhodes scholarship fund it is obvious that his views on race by his death were more nuanced than is normally credited to him. I am all in favour of expanding the history curriculum at schools, British history is full of good and bad bits and you cannot understand any part of our history without being taught both. |