At Least They're Teaching Them Something

Conservative changes made by the Texas Board of Education to the state's history curriculum have stirred everyone else into a predictable frenzy this week. But at least the American education system actually teaches its kids (a version) of their own country's history.

I obtained my history GCSE at the age of sixteen without being publicly examined on any British history bar the Home Guard. That, frankly, is a disgrace. My classmates and I were given a whistle-stop tour of the history of the Isles from 1066 to Cromwell in the first two years of high school, then skipping a few centuries out altogether for 1914 and the Great War a year later. Then came a tedious two-year slog through those favourite subjects of the British school history curriculum: the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany.

A 2008 survey found that 45 per cent of the population had no idea what the Magna Carta was. This has to be related to the type of history that's taught in schools.

Solutions? How about a course called something like "The Evolution of British Democracy", going from 1215 to 1945, perhaps. It couldn't be a fully comprehensive take on the entire history of the nation, but by focusing on the instances in which democratic gains were made at the expense of the monarchy, students would at least get a sense of why the country they live in is as it is.

Constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy are our greatest achievements as a nation and they should form a key part of any compulsory history syllabus. There's more to British history than the Blitz and Dunkirk. Then we might be able to foster a genuine national identity without introducing the shudder-inducing "Britain Day" or any gaudy flag-waving.