Blog: Teaching history without the interesting bits
Thursday 21st October 2010, 6:19AM BST.
1830, John Doherty.
In school, I had the misfortune to do Trade Union and Social History of the 19th century.
My memories of it are hazy. There was a chap called Feargus O’Connor. There were also the Tolpuddle Martyrs.
And we came up with “1830, John Doherty” so we could remember him for exams.
Apart from the rhyme, I recall absolutely nothing about his contribution.
Today is Trafalgar Day, the anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar, when the Royal Navy, under Admiral Lord Nelson, defeated the combined fleets of Spain and France.
Researchers who questioned 2,000 English schoolchildren about key events in maritime history discovered to their horror that many believe that the Spanish Armada is a tapas-style cuisine and that Nelson was a French footballer.
A French footballer! Ha, ha!
Nelson was far worse than that.
He was monstrously cruel to his wife, openly having an affair with Emma Hamilton. Homosexuals in his fleet were hanged.
And he was a vain man. Bizarrely, one of his favourite hats had a clockwork mechanism which made the decorations on it revolve.
As for the Spanish Armada, that was defeated by the English navy, wasn’t it?
Actually, not a single Spanish ship was sunk by the English in battle. Not one!
The fact that English schoolchildren are ignorant of Nelson may be an indication that they are thick. But I doubt it.
I suspect, like me, they are being taught about dull-but-worthy historical figures, and not those who really fire the imagination of schoolboys – those who went round blowing things up.
By Toby Neal
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I too recall history lessons as being dull – just learning fact after fact by rote and I can recall the day when we had a change of teacher who said something along the lines of ‘Well you’ll pass exams, but only just, with names and dates. You really need to be able to consider what these facts *meant*, why these things happened, what the consequences were…”.
The clouds lifted that day.
So, just saying that someone blew something up on such a date is all well and good, but fire up schoolboys imaginations with getting them to think about the ‘whys’ and the ‘what might have happened nexts’.
All that said, clockwork hats are a subject that everyone can get into !
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