Originally Posted by
tdracer
That's simply an indictment of how crappy our schools are doing these days.
TD, the problem is not the lack of teaching but what is taught and that is to a set syllabus for national exams. As an aside my daughter was taught one history syllabus and examined on another!
There is so much history. From our side it might cover the Romans, the Vikings, kings and queens in primary. By the time we get to secondary it focusses on few aspects. I recall that we spent much time on the detail of road construction, landscape gardening and a few other topics that thrilled our history mistress and bored the rest of us. When I later did history with the university it covered the French Fronds, a complete blank until I did it, the English Civil Wars, and then women and slaves. We covered economy in 19th Century America and City development in UK with Leeds as the focus. As far as wars, WW1 topic was what historians considered was the cause of the war. By the time we reached WW2 we had 8 areas to study but actually only had to pick one of these; I chose propaganda. It was much more process learning rather than fact learning. The aim throughout was not to teach you history but perhaps encourage you to study a particular area that took your interest.
The failure therefore is failing to instil curiosity in the pupils to broaden their knowledge.
Roy