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"Do we get taught enough British history in schools?"

Flicking through the History/Discovery channels recently, I've noticed that there is hardly a single programme about the history of the United Kingdom. All I could find was programmes about American Presidents and politics, the Space Race, travelling in Asia and America's involvement in World War 2. And then I realised that I hardly knew anything about this country and don't ever remember getting taught much about it in school. Do they teach anything along these lines now? No wonder this country is slowly becoming "America 2".

I did loads of history at A-Level and at degree level

Mostly at degree Level its Post-Roman-end of WW2 and then a little bit of modern history

A levels were ok but they taught you how to STUDY history rather than pure history (Historians call it Historicism)

I enjoy history. always have (is that odd?)

cookie monster wrote:
> Whitestripes DX wrote:
> Thankfully I had the sense to take Geography.
>
> Geography is a Snorefest.

As is history, but geography has a practical application other than tour guide and pub quiz.

I've learnt more history doing my Human geography degree than I ever learnt in god knows how many years of primary, secondary and college education.

I'm learning about the Norman conquest etc... Which is British and French (in a way)

Whitestripes DX wrote:
> Thankfully I had the sense to take Geography.

Geography is a Snorefest.

We mainly learnt British history at our school. And we did a few other European countries like the French Bastille, Romans etc.

Nothing American, although i'm sure the GCSE students did the civil war. Thankfully I had the sense to take Geography.

"okay class, today you're going to learn about the history of Britain. Ever since the 'discovery' of America - we didn't count the natives because they had different coloured skin - Britain joined in with France, Spain, Germany and Belgium in enslaving most of Africa and colonising America, interspersed with the odd war about territory which they'd stolen from others in the first place. Britain helped introduce new diseases to the places it colonised, killing off native people. Those lucky lucky people who weren't killed by our diseases, army, idiocy, were generally enslaved and put to work making goods or extracting materials for Europe, with many being sent abroad as slaves, who had this nasyy habit of dying prematurely....After about 400 odd years of this many of the places we had stolen\taken over,decided they actually hated our guts, and started rebelling and killing us. Britain, with an empty bank balance and lack of interest in places it couldn't afford to hang onto, decided it would give freedom to some places, but not others. Those it gave it to it did so in a way that thsoe places are even now in a state of trouble because of us and Europe, and those that didn't we tried bombing/shooting into submission, except then those nasty russians came along and gave them weapons, and we decided to b$gger off. Hence Britain and Europe laid the foundations for about every civil war, terrorist group, future conflict in the entire world today."

Ta Da ! It's not so much teaching the history, but the version we teach and why.

The relatively new station UK History has a lot of (obviously) UK based history programmes. Such as History of Britain though this had been shown before on BBC. Also on the same day they had a biography of Cromwell nd his role in the Civil War. There was also a programme about the Victorian period.

On Discovery Civilization there were many programmes on other cultures including Ancient Egypt and Byzantium. But you mentioned the reliance on U.S. History, which I agree with, much of it is around that. However, I have NEVER done U.S history at school, I don't know what your studies revolve around...US medicine!? I studied the Revolt of the Netherlands, British parliamentary reform and the Cold War lol. I think that history has always been a subject looked at and understood by few so the fact that hardly anyone of our generation is interested is probably irrelevent.

I guess you will have to read around if you want a broad spectrum. I certainly would'nt rely on what the school tells you, at least at GCSE level where it is such a rough picture your given, and the class often has many morons.

Yeah. The Mexicans rule the waves now...

Britain ruled the waves and the Falklands. Now we just rule the Falklands.