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mairead

Scottish history to be taught

Saw on tonights news that Scottish history is now to be brought back as a main part of the history curriculum in schools, although British and world history will also be taught.
Aventinian

You make it sound regrettable that British and world history is to be taught...

Personally, I think Scottish history is probably taught too much at the present moment. Ask your average early primary school child who William Wallace and Robert the Bruce are, and they'll probably give you a good answer. Lord Nelson, the Duke of Wellington, Queen Boudica etc are more likely to draw blank stares.

Really, the only piece of British history that seems to be taught to the same level relates to the Second World War.
mairead

And ask their English counterparts, and most English adults, just about anything regarding Scottish history and you'll get only blank stares. Most Scottish schools teach more English and British history than they do Scottish.
It was only with the release of the Braveheart film, which was more of a romanticised version,  that any Scottish children, not to mention many adults, discovered they had a history of their own.
Everyone. no matter which country they hail from, should know who they are and from where they came, and that includes the English.
Why should the Scots be made more aware of Nelson, Wellington, English Kings and Queens and English battles than they are of those people who formed the history of their own country.
agentmancuso

mairead wrote:
And ask their English counterparts, and most English adults, just about anything regarding Scottish history and you'll get only blank stares.


I doubt many Scottish children know anything about pre-Union English history either.

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Most Scottish schools teach more English and British history than they do Scottish.


Scottish schools teach no English history whatsoever. Unless you think that 'English' and 'British' mean the same thing?  Shocked
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It was only with the release of the Braveheart film, which was more of a romanticised version,  that any Scottish children, not to mention many adults, discovered they had a history of their own.


I am surprised than any Scottish children discovered a history of their own  in Braveheart. Your own history begins the day you are born, not 800 years ago. In any case, if the average Scot is so pig-ignorant that he turns to Holywood blockbusters to discover anything then it's pointless discussing Scottish education at all.

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Everyone. no matter which country they hail from, should know who they are and from where they came,

All they have to do is look at their birth certificate.

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and that includes the English.

Even them?!?

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Why should the Scots be made more aware of Nelson, Wellington, English Kings and Queens and English battles than they are of those people who formed the history of their own country.

Nelson and Wellington are British figures. No Scottish child learns anything about any English king, queen or battle in school. Unfortunately.
Aventinian

mairead wrote:
It was only with the release of the Braveheart film, which was more of a romanticised version,  that any Scottish children, not to mention many adults, discovered they had a history of their own.


Really? Because I went to school before those days and I was taught about who William Wallace and Robert the Bruce were.

As for the rest, you appear to be confusing British history with English.

agentmancuso wrote:
Scottish schools teach no English history whatsoever. Unless you think that 'English' and 'British' mean the same thing?  Shocked


Agreed. Although admittedly English history is very tied in with Scottish: it'd be impossible to teach Scottish history without reference to Elizabeth I, Edward I and II etc.
mairead

Then you are both exceptions if you in fact went to Scottish schools.
My own history education was all English history, not even British. Magna Carta, Hastings, Henry 8th, King Alfred, Boadicea and the Romans in England etc etc..
No mention of Wallace, Bannockburn, King Alexander, king David, No Scottish battles mentioned.

As for your sarcastic, meant to be clever, comment about birth certificates Agent, that about sums up your intelligence I think.
Holebender

Nelson was a British figure? Really? How did that famous signal go again... oh yes... "England expects..."

My history education was more like Mairead's than Aventinian's or Agentmancuso's and I'd wager if you were to survey a cross-section of Scottish children you'd find more who could tell you what happened in 1066 and what the Magna Carta was than could tell you what happened in 1314 or what the Declaration of Arbroath was.

As usual, agent makes sweeping and untrue generalisations. How can you say no Scottish child learns about any English history? It is so easy to prove false as to be not worthy of further comment.
Aventinian

mairead wrote:
Boadicea and the Romans in England etc etc.


Well, considering England didn't exist back then...

Holebender wrote:
Nelson was a British figure? Really? How did that famous signal go again... oh yes... "England expects..."


Are you seriously suggesting that changes anything?
mairead

maybe not as such. I am well aware of the divided kingdoms of England but none the less it was of no interest to the Scots so why should they learn about it and not about their own divided Kingdom.
mairead

Holebender.
I would suggest that, like me, you are wasting your time trying to get the message across.
Obviously Aventinian is an English educated person who sees no further than what he was taught. He has a closed mind in which truth does not interfere with a good story..
Aventinian

mairead wrote:
Obviously Aventinian is an English educated person who sees no further than what he was taught. He has a closed mind in which truth does not interfere with a good story..


I have never been educated anywhere outside of Scotland, as I have made clear on this forum before. No doubt you'd like to demonise me as some sort of dirty foreign immigrant, but it's far from the truth.

Truth? Truth seems to be your rather odd assertions about Scottish education, which it appears are based on your own experience rather than anybody else's. It strikes me that you're also encouraging the politicisation of history, which is very dangerous and revolting indeed.

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maybe not as such. I am well aware of the divided kingdoms of England but none the less it was of no interest to the Scots so why should they learn about it and not about their own divided Kingdom.


The Scots didn't exist then either. Picts and Britons were about the extent of national groups that could be identified.

However, that's not the point - why shouldn't they learn about history elsewhere? Should children not be taught about the colonialisation of other countries, or the Holocaust, or the American Civil War? The Russian revolution maybe? It's a ridiculous and insular position to take.
Holebender

Aventinian wrote:
Truth? Truth seems to be your rather odd assertions about Scottish education, which it appears are based on your own experience rather than anybody else's.


Indeed.

Mr. Pot, I'd like to introduce you to Mr. Black!
agentmancuso

mairead wrote:
Then you are both exceptions if you in fact went to Scottish schools.


Well I had all my schooling in Paisley, for my sins.
Quote:

My own history education was all English history, not even British. Magna Carta, Hastings, Henry 8th, King Alfred, Boadicea and the Romans in England etc etc..


You must be pushing 90?
agentmancuso

Holebender wrote:
Nelson was a British figure? Really? How did that famous signal go again... oh yes... "England expects..."


And how does that make him any less a British figure?
Quote:

I'd wager if you were to survey a cross-section of Scottish children you'd find more who could tell you what happened in 1066 and what the Magna Carta was than could tell you what happened in 1314 or what the Declaration of Arbroath was.


I'd wager you'd be sorely disappointed in either case.

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How can you say no Scottish child learns about any English history?


Well the Standard grade and Higher curriculum makes no reference to anything that could be called 'English' history.

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It is so easy to prove false as to be not worthy of further comment.

Go on, give it a shot.
agentmancuso

mairead wrote:
maybe not as such. I am well aware of the divided kingdoms of England but none the less it was of no interest to the Scots so why should they learn about it and not about their own divided Kingdom.


Even by your standards that's pretty insular. In your future tartan paradise will all reference to the world beyond the Cheviots be banished completely?
mairead

What a bloody load of codswallop. I suggested no such thing, but I have noticed that is the sort of argument  which you and your friend Aventinian frequently bring up.
The point I was making was merely that it is good thing for Scottish children to learn about Scottish history.
Must you turn everything into an anti-English rant. I am not anti English but I am pro Scottish.
Furthermore, my opinions are as valid as yours or anyone else's. You don't have to share them, but that does not necessarily make me wrong and you always correct either. Obviously you have never been in a good debating society or you would have learned something about conducting debates and discussions...

PS.  I am nowhere near the ninety age, and if you think I am then show some respect for your elders, or is respect just another part of your education which is sorely lacking.
agentmancuso

mairead wrote:
I suggested no such thing


Pub quiz time - who said:
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it was of no interest to the Scots so why should they learn about it

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I am not anti English


That's right. And some of my best friends are bigoted nationalist rednecks.

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I am nowhere near the ninety age


85?
Holebender

agentmancuso wrote:

Quote:
How can you say no Scottish child learns about any English history?


Well the Standard grade and Higher curriculum makes no reference to anything that could be called 'English' history.

Quote:
It is so easy to prove false as to be not worthy of further comment.

Go on, give it a shot.


I just asked the 12-year-old boy who lives across the street if he knew about the Norman Conquest and if he had learned it in school. He told me he had.

There you are, the first Scottish child I asked learned some English history in school. Care to revise your statement?
mairead

As I am married to an lovely English gentleman, I think proves that I am not anti-English.
Yes I have no doubt that some of your friends are exactly as you describe.

Age insults don't bother me in the slightest by the way. Call me Methuslah if you like, but remember that wisdom comes with age, and someday you may even wisen up.
agentmancuso

mairead wrote:
As I am married to an lovely English gentleman, I think proves that I am not anti-English.

Laughing

Quote:
Age insults don't bother me in the slightest by the way. Call me Methuslah if you like, but remember that wisdom comes with age, and someday you may even wisen up.


I'm not sure why you think the suggestion that you're 90 is an insult. You said that:
Quote:

My own history education was all English history, not even British. Magna Carta, Hastings, Henry 8th, King Alfred, Boadicea and the Romans in England etc etc..


Which sounds like a reasonable summary of the sort of curriculum a 90 year old might have experienced in history don't you think?
agentmancuso

Holebender wrote:
I just asked the 12-year-old boy who lives across the street if he knew about the Norman Conquest and if he had learned it in school. He told me he had.


If, at the age of 12, I had been approached by a strange man waving a referendum petition, and speaking an unintelligible obsolete tongue, I would have agreed with whatever he said too, no matter how outlandish.
mairead

ERM. Exactlty where in Holebenders post did he say he was waving any such thing, and I doubt if the boy he spoke to was a total stranger either if he lived just across the road.
However, just to see what my grandchildren knew about English history, I rang three of them and asked the same question. They all knew the correct answer. Ages were 10, 11, and 13.
Holebender

The boy from across the street has been in and out of our house since he was born. After his parents split up a couple of years ago and his mother moved away he has come to our house every day after school and spent a couple of hours doing his homework and such until his father finishes work. And, even though he speaks Doric rather well he finds my English perfectly intelligible.

Why don't you just admit when you're wrong instead of trying to divert everyone's attention with your "humour"?
Aventinian

That venerable journal of all that is Right and Proper in this world, the Daily Telegraph, has an article which is in point.

Quote:
The next day, I travelled into Glasgow's East End to spend the morning at Eastbank Academy, a clean, optimistic, comprehensive school in the Shettleston area. From the window of one of the English classrooms I could see the Balbeggie flats, some high-rises where my aunt used to live on the 18th floor.

Once, researching a novel, I found some letters from post-war Glasgow tenement-dwellers, expressing their desire to get out of the slums and into those flats. The Future of Scotland, said posters advertising the new homes with inside bathrooms.

But local people no longer speak of the high-rises with affection. They are one of the symbols of a changing Glasgow. "Only immigrants into Britain would think those buildings any good," said an elderly man. "For everybody else they symbolise everything that's wrong with the UK."

In the class, there were 13 children aged around 12. I gave out a piece of paper and asked them to write their names under the column they felt best described their nationality - British or Scottish. One by one they wrote their names in the "Scottish" column, except for Stacy Saunders, who wrote her name in both columns, and one lone Britisher, Taylor Reid.

I asked them as a group to tell me what made being Scottish very different from being English. "Accent," said Stephen McPherson. "There's more violence in Scotland," said Chelsea McGill.

I asked them which country they felt had been recently fighting in Iraq and they all said, as one, "Britain". Half of them said they would be happy to see Scotland exist independently from the United Kingdom, but Heather Small said it would make Scotland too small as a country - "it is better to be part of a bigger country," she said.

We looked up the word "patriotic" in the dictionary and whilst I was flipping the pages some of the pupils gave their opinions of its meaning. "It means sticking up for your country," said James Paterson. "It means William Wallace," said another. "Robert the Bruce."

"It's a good thing to love your country." "Why?" "Because it's your home."

The Glasgow children went on naming Scottish heroes but they got stuck when I asked them to name British ones. "Princess Diana," said Heather Gemmell.



Link
Aventinian

Holebender wrote:
Aventinian wrote:
Truth? Truth seems to be your rather odd assertions about Scottish education, which it appears are based on your own experience rather than anybody else's.


Indeed.

Mr. Pot, I'd like to introduce you to Mr. Black!


Holebender wrote:
Why don't you just admit when you're wrong instead of trying to divert everyone's attention with your "humour"?


Mr Kettle is popping round for afternoon tea...
Aventinian

mairead wrote:
Obviously you have never been in a good debating society or you would have learned something about conducting debates and discussions...


I'm afraid I have to field this one. I've been around more debating societies in my time than most. I'm sure my name can be found engraved on things for it.

But all the same, we were not remotely civil, polite or charged with this rather modern ideal of pleasant discourse. Everything and anything was fair game, and the more outrageous the opinion (and, quite often, the more drunk your 4th prop/opp got as it went on) the better. We shouted 'shame', taunted those who dared to speak without a gown, slammed the table and generally acted like a bunch of idiots.  

I suppose you could say these were not particularly 'good', but they were certainly notable. Rhetoric is half the business there, as the ancients tell us.

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