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A draft version of the new primary school curriculum has been criticised for leaving out key historical figures, like that woman who was queen for ages. And that bloke who did all those bridges.
According to a leaked version of the new curriculum seen by the Standard, the code makes no reference to the life and works of such famous citizens as Florence Nightingale, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Alexander Graham Bell or John Logie Baird.
Stephen Twigg, the shadow education secretary, couldn’t resist using these historical omissions as the base for a bit of tedious political point-scoring action, saying: “Parents will be flabbergasted that Michael Gove was planning to airbrush Queen Victoria from the history curriculum. The Tories used to claim to be the party of Victorian values, but now it seems they wanted to ignore this key part of our country’s past.”
Although aren’t we supposed to be teaching children how to program computers nowadays anyway? Who cares about some old black & white people if your kid can develop an app? [Standard]
Image credit: Queen Victoria from Shutterstock
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For a country with one of the most interesting histories in the world im amazed at how little they actually teach you in school!
Actually most of history is comprised of god-awful reigns of Kings and Queens and their associated wars, with memorising tons of dates in between. If there is anything designed to thoroughly kick out what fun there is in history to teenager, then the curriculum is it.
But I agree – there’s tons of good stuff in British history to cover, but never enough time to look at it all in detail.
I love History now Im an old fart, but it was boring as hell at school I think if they had made us sit down and watch the history channel for an hour I would have appreciated it and learned a lot more.
You’ve got to know your past to progress your future. It’s very important to be teaching kids about these kinds of people from history. Within their stories are lessons to be learnt.
Sure, some little dip shit could design an app, but they’d still be an unlighted dumb ass.
I’m not sure that IKB would be all that grateful for a summation of his life’s work as “the bloke who did all those bridges”, but I do agree that he should be a specific point of interest for all studying British history.
The same goes for Victoria and Nightingale, but to be honest Bell and Baird could be left to discuss in more specific subject classes, such as science/physics.
So in all the millenia of British history dating back to Palaeolithic times, you think that IKB should be held out as a special point of interest?
So which elements of the Neolithic and Bronze Age, 400-500 years of Roman Britain, millenium of Middle Ages, 300 years of Early Modern Britain, and couple of centuries of the Modern Age and the 20th Century should we just ignore so that we can put IKB on a pedestal?
I’m not suggesting we should ignore any of that. My point was that IKB has had a major impact on architecture and industrial design as we know it, and it’s through his work that we have such clear examples of Victorian engineering. Its impact on the modern world is significant, and should be covered in history lessons.
Hey, don’t be dissing Brunel. If everything else was removed from British History, Brunel would still make it interesting all by himself!
What a total non-story. The biggest problem with the current curriculum is that it distills millenia of British history into the Tudors, Stuarts and Victorians. History is about people, society and civilisation, not about whivh monarch ruled from one year to the next.
The quote from Twigg epitomises exactly what is wrong with politicans in general – the guy is clearly a idiot, otherwise he wouldn’t object to changing an outdated outmoded curriculum in favour of something that can actually teach children the fundamentals of what made Britian the country it is. Teaching kids about famous people of the past is just supplanting the current celebrity idolising culture retrospectively and offers nothing other than a generation of imbeciles who don’t know the basics of their own country’s past.
That is far from the problem the reason kids idolise celebrities and not great thinkers is because of the media. The media is totally at fault for this.
Teaching children about people who showed compassion, vision, strength and all the positive features of what made a small island great is extremely important. I agree with you on one side and that we need to change, as what is important is not the result it’s the motivation for doing such an act. I think history is misinterpreted because of how it is taught.
Sorry if that makes no sense, written in haste
How can history be misinterpreted? History only exists through interpretation. The problem arises when people project their own ideals and morals on history without understanding that it happened in a different time with different ideals and morals.
what bs….. so your saying teaching people about the monarch who led britain through the industrial revolution and made britain the super power that it was is the same as giving a lesson on brad pitt?
In the words of gannicus…. remove head from arse….
Would it not be better to teach them about the industrial revolution itself rather than the person who was monarch during that time?
surely they will teach them about both at the same time….. I know i was in school.
And they still will. This story seems to be because there isn’t a specific module relating explicitly to Victoria or IKB, which makes sense because they were merely part of an era, not the era itself.
Learning about the Idustrial Revolution will automatically lead to learning about the key figures within it. Learning about the key figures do not translate to learning about the era, the peoples, the changes and the developments of the time.
I’ll say it again (and reap the whirlwind no doubt), this country needs a benign dictatorship that will do what is best for this country and its citizens and won’t pander to every minority issue raised because some newspaper or special interest group raises a question.
There is barely any difference between the Conservatives, LibDems or Labour nowadays; they say we get the government we deserve, don’t we deserve better?
I totally agree – I’m not a monarchist in the slightest, but there is a lot of good to say about a monarch or leader who would just lead. If it’s in the right direction, it’ll continue, if it’s wrong – it will fail. The problem would be if the leader were some financially motivated automaton and not someone whose goals were ‘civilisation’ (happier people – not richer people). Viva la revolution!
yes, the wrong ones will fail, but it may take 30 years…cough Mugabe cough
Another Aye to the right from me. I’ve often thought dictatorships get a bad rap. Say what you will, but they do get s**t done, don’t they?
I think our sensationalist, alarmist and cynical media has skewed the very nature of democracy in this country. PMQs is a good example – it’s basically turned into a political slugfest over who can get the most 5 second soundbites onto the daily news.
I hate to say it, but at this point a little less democracy might actually be a good thing.
Centre ground politics is a good place to be but not centre left. The problem with our society is politicians spend all their time pandering to Unelected far left nutters in the media and the EU, who want us all to bend over and take up the arse apologising for bringing democracy to over a third of the world, in some perverse masochistic attempt to befriend the far right dictators of this world (who hate us anyway). What would the world be like today if it hadn’t been for the empire and queen Victoria probably a lot like one big Afghanistan I dare say.
Sure there are a lot of things we cant be proud of but unlike these countries the liberal fringe want to be best friends with, we actually acknowledge our wrong doing and go as far as to teach them in our schools, ironically enough.
These nutters know they can’t rewrite history so they’ve decided to erase great portions of it specifically anything we can be proud of, by not passing it on to our kids they want us to be anonymous, silent, apologetic, poor, so they can get their sainthoods and they want to reeducate our kids to think the same way. I say enough is enough the pendulum has swung too far to the left and its destroying our economy and our society. In these harsh economic times its not a good idea to tear up our branding and declare our selves evil. We are British and Im proud to be one of you !
I don’t think I was referring to left or right biased dictatorships – as I’m strictly in the camp of the leftist. Centre right politics in my mind is the most offensive of all middle ground politics as it is one sided, bigoted, corrupt and leads to complete failures – just like the government that we have at the moment and that we can’t shake off. Gove is the highlight of this: wandering off into the ether with some kind of sentimental dream about Victorian schooling (if not Victoria herself) with no actual grasp on reality.
The problem with politicians these days is that they ALL pander to soundbites and saying what is expected, they then scuttle off and do whatever they please (reference Gove/Osborne etc etc) What we need is more people who actually say what they actually think….In this respect we need more REAL people – the commons is full of professional politicians who are trained to talk bollocks at Eton – we need more union leaders telling it ho wit is.
Or a benign leftist dictatorship.
Sorry I wasn’t replying to you I was replying to Julian T unless that is your the same person. Im firmly on the centre ground of politics but Im not necessarily sure the same can be said for the politicians who currently reside there. I tend to see things in abstract (that might not mean the same thing to you as it does to me) and it seem pretty clear to me at least that the left wing are every bit as stupid, corrupt, bad and have as much blood on their hands as the right, that is of course if you study history. So it would seem logical would it not to compare the left with cold and the right with hot implying that the centre ground is in fact a warm positive place to be.
And as for wandering off subject I think its very much on subject what are Goves underlying motivations and drawing parallels with the motivations of a certain segment of our society is very much on subject. Sentimental dreaming ! no Im just proud of what our country has a achieved over the years and the people in it even if some of them did go to Eaton. whats wrong with that or would you prefer I walk down the street spitting on it and calling everyone scum. because the majority of people historically didn’t share my one sided leftist views.
And as for trade union leaders did they teach you about 1970′s Britain at school, basically it was a bunch of egotistical self evangelising twats who discovered if they told everyone what they wanted to hear i.e. rich people are scum money grows on trees and I will lead you to victory they would get the attention they always craved, forget basic economics forget basic phycology people are just queuing up to risk all their cash, working 364 days a year for 10 years setting up a business just to be called scum and be taxed 83%. at the end of it all, wheres the incentive to build a business or indeed for companies to set up here in the UK in that !!!! If its so easy why don’t these amazing trade union people you speak of start their own business, no because its far easier to stand on a soap box and point at others.
JulianT is my only presence here, I don’t use alternatives.
I didn’t think it was you, you don’t seem like the sort of mad obsessive who’d have two accounts and further more reply to your own posts in a contradictory manner, it does rather beg the question tho, who is My Pseudonym ? and why does he think he’s you, or is the clue in the name I think you’ve got a deranged stalker on your hands mate
I’m still here and I’m stalking no one – your post was talking of centre left politics being the wrong place in centrist politics to be – I was merely commenting that I think centre right is the worst place to be. It was also you who suggested that I was ‘purporting’ to be JulianT and not me. I was responding to you because you were part of the thread I had written in earlier. I apologise if I was interrupting your ‘private’ conversation with Julian, reading it back I did sound like I had started the convo….Although I think these public comment areas are for an exchange of ideas and not just 121? And without trying to put words in JulianT’s mouth I think he was referring to the fact that we just need some direction as opposed to the stagnant centre ground that we have now, which I agree with.
I really don’t know what you’re talking about with the left being cold and the right hot – and how this supports centrist politics I dont know.
My comment about gove wandering off into a world of his own was about his disconnection with the average person and that we need real people in politics – the reason Eton is such a bad place is that it underlines this disconnection as it is full of people who never have to try for anything and who will never understand how to run a country that has a majority of people who they are not like. My use of union leaders was a suggestion we also had normal (read non professional) politicians – these could be anyone – even picked at random if that’s your bag. But they have to be able to relate to living in this country as your average person would.
This world is not all about economics you know – it’s about people.
Apologies for feeding.
It wasn’t a private conversation but the fact is your post started with “I don’t think I was referring to” implying heavily you were talking on Julians behalf. Hot and cold is a metaphor a very simple one at that, so Im not sure what you don’t get.
As for Eton So what are you saying ? the average person doesn’t go to university the average person only has average intelligence, so therefor politicians shouldn’t seek higher education or have above average intelligence, because they aren’t your average person ? are you mental ? And you say its not about economics, well in that case you’d be a prime candidate.
Economics is just a fancy word for trade, or in monkey speak you scratch my back I’ll scratch yours, or shall we all just sit around doing nothing expecting others to do all the hard work running the hospitals and growing the food, its got everything to do with economics “errr I don’t know anything about economics I want to run the country” Labour tried that slogan and left us with a Trillion of debt and still want to keep on borrowing. I know you don’t know anything about economics but when you owe a lot of money and don’t pay it back, people tend to stop lending you money is that simple enough for you ?
Apologies for feeding !!!!! &_&
I admitted that I sounded like I replied for Julian.
If you want a cup of tea, when does warm water help? you need hot.
-Eton fees per year = £30k; 3 year degree = £90k …Summation = only the rich can afford to go.
-% of British people who are rich enough to afford it? Very small.
-Percentage of ‘normal’ people who are genius’ vs rich genius’ = the same.
-Likelihood of finding the next great leader from a reduced cross section of society? Small.
-Likelihood of finding the next great leader from the entire population? A lot higher (ie search from all universitys+workers etc etc)
-Percentage of MPs from Eton = 10% http://blogs.channel4.com/gary-gibbon-on-politics/the-old-etonians-who-still-run-britain/14474
-Is Eton an ‘old boys club’? Yes.
Labour actually reduced debt until the 2008 worldwide financial crisis:
http://blogs.channel4.com/factcheck/coalition-v-labour-fiscal-fables/4941
The tories are borrowing more than they predicted labour to:
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2011/11/borrow-19bn-labour-osborne
Due to the tories policies our growth is one of the lowest in the world:
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG?order=wbapi_data_value_2011+wbapi_data_value+wbapi_data_value-last&sort=asc
Spending gets you out of economic depression, not cutting spending:
http://www.rooseveltinstitute.org/new-roosevelt/real-lesson-great-depression-fiscal-policy-works
The real tory agenda is a neo-conservative agenda:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/03/david-cameron-neoconservative-cabinet
They. Are. Trying. To. Reduce. The. Size. Of. The. State. Not. Reduce. The. Deficit.
If there’s anything you don’t understand in there, do use the internet to look it up, you’ll find there’s a lot of interesting information out there.