It isn't taught, history tends to focus more on the 20th century, whenever it gets earlier than that it will usually be about the Saxons, the Normans, medieval Britain, Tudors or the Victorians.
How is the American War for Independance taught in the UK?
- Thread starter spectrenihlus
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We have thousands of years of history and it doesn't register next to some more significant events. It's a shame but schools can only teach so much. How much are Americans taught about the Wars of the Roses?
I got taught about India but I don't know about the rest of them. I shall go read to cover my ignorance because it is kind of shameful.blaize2010 said:
Twenty two pages long..im not sure anyones even going to read what i have to say, but here goes.
When i read the title of this thread the first thing that came to my mind was that the person who set this thread up was of the mind set that america is great, that gaining independance was one of the things that made it geat and that if the U.K didnt teach their childeren about it then We are all still in denial, that the wound is still sore, that we dont want to admit defeat..the list goes on.
A person with that mindset would probably be posting something like this so that they could prove this to themeslves, or whoever might listen, and by doing so chalk up another reason they think ths US is better than the UK.
Thats why i was initially irritated. The UK ought to be able to be proud of itself without (and this is why i think someone called you arrogent) someone comming along and poking holes in that pride, rather than bothering to understand or realise their own flaws.
We were a major factor in the shaping of the modern world, thats something to be proud of, even if some people want to expose the imperfections of our combined achievements.
After a while i decided to give you the benifit of the doubt and assume it was purely out of curiosity about another..group of people.
Anyway
I dont remember studying American history at all in primary school. We made a life size paper sarchophagus and painted it with hyrogliphics one year, learned about the romans and..did mythology. Probably learned about Florance nightingale at some point too, and visited a castle the next village over.
I dont think i did GCSE history so if it was covered during that time i wouldnt know and i think at least one year between 7(11 year olds) and year 9 was spent doing world war one and two, we visited a holocaust center and read/wrote poems..i think..
another topic was the slave trade, triangular trade thing.
I didnt do A-level history but my sister did so maybe i can ask her if it ever came up.
When i read the title of this thread the first thing that came to my mind was that the person who set this thread up was of the mind set that america is great, that gaining independance was one of the things that made it geat and that if the U.K didnt teach their childeren about it then We are all still in denial, that the wound is still sore, that we dont want to admit defeat..the list goes on.
A person with that mindset would probably be posting something like this so that they could prove this to themeslves, or whoever might listen, and by doing so chalk up another reason they think ths US is better than the UK.
Thats why i was initially irritated. The UK ought to be able to be proud of itself without (and this is why i think someone called you arrogent) someone comming along and poking holes in that pride, rather than bothering to understand or realise their own flaws.
We were a major factor in the shaping of the modern world, thats something to be proud of, even if some people want to expose the imperfections of our combined achievements.
After a while i decided to give you the benifit of the doubt and assume it was purely out of curiosity about another..group of people.
Anyway
I dont remember studying American history at all in primary school. We made a life size paper sarchophagus and painted it with hyrogliphics one year, learned about the romans and..did mythology. Probably learned about Florance nightingale at some point too, and visited a castle the next village over.
I dont think i did GCSE history so if it was covered during that time i wouldnt know and i think at least one year between 7(11 year olds) and year 9 was spent doing world war one and two, we visited a holocaust center and read/wrote poems..i think..
another topic was the slave trade, triangular trade thing.
I didnt do A-level history but my sister did so maybe i can ask her if it ever came up.
Of course the entrenched powers were resistant. When has this ever not been the case? Are we surprised that the people benefiting the most from a system are the least apt to want to get rid of it? Or that the people most vocal about getting rid of it are people who don't have money tied up in it (or worse, the people who've already made their money from it)?Country_Bumpkin said:
The great thing about this country, though, is that entrenched powers can't guarantee that they'll stay entrenched. A mid-term election could sway the balance of power toward the more progressive-minded, allowing legislation to start passing that begins the process.
Again, I'm not saying it would have been an easy fight, or a fast one. I'm saying there's a possibility that a gradual phasing-out of slavery would have allowed a smoother transition for both the South's economy and for those people being freed.
it is kind of good to see that america isn't the only semi ignorant country. also, australia was primarily something like a prison colony, if i remember right.T.Kirkness-Little said:
Yes, on a more serious note. Here in Australia they make sure to teach us all about the Stolen Generation and how the White settlers generally went around systematically wiping out the native culture. As far as I know they learn all about their history in Germany. Some of the best films about that piece of history have come from Germany (See. Downfall).R4GNOR0K said:
Well, as mentioned America doesn't have as much history to cover compaired to the british. So as England had a lot of other colonies they lost, it may warrant a mention. But probably would not take as much of the lessons. I think it is very important moment for American history, but not nearly as important in the UK's lesson.
Then again I wouldn't know
As a Danish person my history lessons was about vikings, and medievil kings and the like.
Then again I wouldn't know
As a Danish person my history lessons was about vikings, and medievil kings and the like.
Every country has its nationalistic slant on history in education, if only slightly in some places. It's part of any extreme right-wing government's agenda after all.
I'm unsurprised that the American War of Independence isn't covered in the UK, but then, at the same time, kids do have a lot of wars to learn about, especially in British history, so you can't cover everything, and I'm sure there are others missing from American history (which is a lot shorter, being a younger nation).
Here in Australia, we tend to learn about wars about Britain and America since we often participated in the same wars once we gained our own substantial military forces. Though, we started out as part of the "British" regiments, often considered convict cannon fodder by the officers and sent unnecessarily to death when otherwise we could have been more useful. And perhaps due to our even younger status as a nation, and our proximity to Asia, we are I'd guess a little more likely to learn histories not related to the West at all, which I consider a very good thing.
But even we have historically had some arrogance in controlling what facts are given to our children. For a long time, the truth of the Stolen Generation of indigenous Australians was swept under the rug, alongside many other facts regarding who has the true rights to this land. I'm sure it was much the same in America regarding the native Americans.
The imperialism of old Britain wasn't killed in the War of Independence, it simply transferred into the new paradigms. Killing imperialism with war is a case of trying to kill murder and rape away molestation, to wash away water and to dry off fire. So let's not use this debate to pretend any of our countries are superior to the others, they aren't - every one of them has horrors and tragedies to their name. It's what we do with them now that matters most.
I'm unsurprised that the American War of Independence isn't covered in the UK, but then, at the same time, kids do have a lot of wars to learn about, especially in British history, so you can't cover everything, and I'm sure there are others missing from American history (which is a lot shorter, being a younger nation).
Here in Australia, we tend to learn about wars about Britain and America since we often participated in the same wars once we gained our own substantial military forces. Though, we started out as part of the "British" regiments, often considered convict cannon fodder by the officers and sent unnecessarily to death when otherwise we could have been more useful. And perhaps due to our even younger status as a nation, and our proximity to Asia, we are I'd guess a little more likely to learn histories not related to the West at all, which I consider a very good thing.
But even we have historically had some arrogance in controlling what facts are given to our children. For a long time, the truth of the Stolen Generation of indigenous Australians was swept under the rug, alongside many other facts regarding who has the true rights to this land. I'm sure it was much the same in America regarding the native Americans.
The imperialism of old Britain wasn't killed in the War of Independence, it simply transferred into the new paradigms. Killing imperialism with war is a case of trying to kill murder and rape away molestation, to wash away water and to dry off fire. So let's not use this debate to pretend any of our countries are superior to the others, they aren't - every one of them has horrors and tragedies to their name. It's what we do with them now that matters most.
I also wonder how America treats the mexican and native american wars. Wait they glorify it and make it seem like the europeans that came here were doing these guys a great justice. So if my own country won't tell me the truth then I'm pretty sure the war of independence isn't really that covered either in Great Britain or the UK or whatever. Countries wan't to have you blindly follow them and instill great patriotism, so when they mess up you'll just overlook it and when they do great you celebrate the death of Osama Bin Laden.
My education of the details of the American civil war has stemmed almost entirely from movies (e.g. Gettysburg), video games(Gettysburg, North and South, Empire: TW) and wikipedia. Maybe the odd history channel coverage. In class, it's briefly covered, but only in a very broad sense.
You have to be careful with things like that.MisterShine said:
Most standard world maps aren't equal area projection maps, so different parts of the world appear to have areas that are bigger or smaller than they should be.
Even so, you seem to have a map that follows equal area projections, so I guess it's a viable map to do something like that with...