Friday, July 13, 2007
Say it ain't so
Laura who muses reports on an Australian news service article that says Winston Churchill is being dropped from basic history courses about World War II for ages 11-14 in the U.K. The news item says that "traditionalists" will be "aghast" but, to me, it's appalling to read that "Adolf Hitler, Mahatma Gandhi, Joseph Stalin and Martin Luther King have also been dropped from the detailed guidance accompanying the curriculum." Please tell me how one learns about the twentieth century without these figures??
A few years ago I read an article in my local (fairly small town) newspaper about D-Day that included the phrase "Adolf Hitler, Chancellor of Germany during World War II." I remember thinking that was absolutely absurd. I went around for several days saying things like "Adolf Hitler? Would that be the dry cleaner or the ice cream truck driver or the programmer or the Chancellor of Germany" and cracking myself up because of course one needn't explain who HE is. Shows what I know, apparently. I guess the world should expect a whole generation, soon, who don't know fundamental facts. So what IS taught about the twentieth century if it doesn't include major figures? It happened. That's that. Quick and easy.
A few years ago I read an article in my local (fairly small town) newspaper about D-Day that included the phrase "Adolf Hitler, Chancellor of Germany during World War II." I remember thinking that was absolutely absurd. I went around for several days saying things like "Adolf Hitler? Would that be the dry cleaner or the ice cream truck driver or the programmer or the Chancellor of Germany" and cracking myself up because of course one needn't explain who HE is. Shows what I know, apparently. I guess the world should expect a whole generation, soon, who don't know fundamental facts. So what IS taught about the twentieth century if it doesn't include major figures? It happened. That's that. Quick and easy.
Permalink | 
| posted by jau at 11:40 AM
jau — at 1:56 PM, July 13, 2007:
— at 10:12 PM, July 13, 2007:
| posted by jau at 11:40 AM
3 more:
jau — at 1:56 PM, July 13, 2007:
I hope that's not meant to be comforting!!! Boy it's a scary world. If we don't know things, how can we do what we need to do, let alone do it well?
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— at 10:12 PM, July 13, 2007:
Just when you think the education system can't get any worse, they come up with this. What a bunch of simpletons. No wonder home schooling is taking off.
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