History of Empire should be taught in schools?

I don't know about you, but History of our Empire was hardly touched on in my time at school. Largely I suspect because it has some very dubious aspects like slavery etc.

This contrasts with my father's time, when Britain and it's Empire was still seen as a brilliant achievement, and all the nasty bits were left out.

Personally I think it's about time a balanced approach was taught in schools. I think it's a major part of our history, and explains a lot about us and our attitudes today.

What do people think?

I don't know about you, but History of our Empire was hardly touched on in my time at school. Largely I suspect because it has some very dubious aspects like slavery etc.

 

This contrasts with my father's time, when Britain and it's Empire was still seen as a brilliant achievement, and all the nasty bits were left out.

 

Personally I think it's about time a balanced approach was taught in schools. I think it's a major part of our history, and explains a lot about us and our attitudes today.

 

What do people think?

It is taught in schools, in a balanced way.

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/13/michael-goves-claims-about-history-teaching-are-false-says-research

“But a paper by Prof Terry Haydn of the University of East Anglia found that the study of the British empire was an “integral” part of the national curriculum in England, which stipulates that pupils should be taught about “ideas, political power, industry and empire: Britain, 1745-1901”.

All of our history should be taught in schools including our Empire history, there's to many people trying to erase or apologise for our forebears actions, slavery was a thing of the time, I don't agree with it, in fact it was a terrible event in our history but people only think it was the English that was involved in the slave trade, it wasn't, African and Arab slavers were the ones who captured the poor natives but when did you read, see or hear anyone calling for them to apologise for their ancestors actions, it seems to be all blamed on the English and removing statues of prominent people who made money on the selling of slaves among other things is wrong, it's history and you can't change history.

All of our history should be taught in schools including our Empire history, there's to many people trying to erase or apologise for our forebears actions, slavery was a thing of the time, I don't agree with it, in fact it was a terrible event in our history but people only think it was the English that was involved in the slave trade, it wasn't, African and Arab slavers were the ones who captured the poor natives but when did you read, see or hear anyone calling for them to apologise for their ancestors actions, it seems to be all blamed on the English and removing statues of prominent people who made money on the selling of slaves among other things is wrong, it's history and you can't change history.

I don't think these sorts of protests just happens here. But we are talking about it happening in the context of British history along with other rather shameful events which tend to be glossed over.

Maybe we can start by teaching them about the forgotten 400,000 Muslim soldiers that fought in the Great War trenches for Great Britain = https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/forgotten-army-400000-muslim-soldiers-10325190

I don't know about you, but History of our Empire was hardly touched on in my time at school. Largely I suspect because it has some very dubious aspects like slavery etc.

 

This contrasts with my father's time, when Britain and it's Empire was still seen as a brilliant achievement, and all the nasty bits were left out.

 

Personally I think it's about time a balanced approach was taught in schools. I think it's a major part of our history, and explains a lot about us and our attitudes today.

 

What do people think?

I think we would have been much better off without an Empire , we are suffering the after effects now .

Perhaps we should have just kept America:hihi:

---------- Post added 11-10-2018 at 14:05 ----------

Maybe we can start by teaching them about the forgotten 400,000 Muslim soldiers that fought in the Great War trenches for Great Britain = https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/forgotten-army-400000-muslim-soldiers-10325190

Or the Buddists, Jews, Sikhs,Mormons, Catholics, Atheists, Rastafariens, non conformists and a caste of millions .

By the way they were not just fighting for Great Britain they were fighting for World freedom so people could live their lives without prejudice and practice any religion they choose without being in fear of being persecuted due to those beliefs .

Maybe we can start by teaching them about the forgotten 400,000 Muslim soldiers that fought in the Great War trenches for Great Britain = https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/forgotten-army-400000-muslim-soldiers-10325190

Maybe we could start about 850 years earlier in 1066. When England was incorporated into the Norman lands as a vassel state.

Then proceed in a logical way up to the present day and taught by historians who do not have such an obvious 'agenda'.

Maybe we can start by teaching them about the forgotten 400,000 Muslim soldiers that fought in the Great War trenches for Great Britain = https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/forgotten-army-400000-muslim-soldiers-10325190

Intersting, prompted me to search.

The figure is actually much higher. That 400k is jus muslims in the Indian army. Totals from other countries bring it higher.

And excluding religion, there were 1.5million Indian army soldiers fighting.

I think we would have been much better off without an Empire , we are suffering the after effects now .

Perhaps we should have just kept America:hihi:

I don't think there's much doubt that we are fiscally better off having had an Empire. It funded a great deal of change in Britain, a lot of it good.

I think the Queen has done a good job holding much of it together as a Commonwealth of Nations.

As for having kept America, we didn't have a choice. We lost it in the American War of Independence in 1783.

 

As for having kept America, we didn't have a choice. We lost it in the American War of Independence.

No you're getting muddled, like them.

Whenever I speak to American customers, around 4th July, I always ask why they celebrate the date we expelled them from the Commonwealth

I have offered an olive branch and said they might be accepted back, if they buck their ideas up.

Maybe we can start by teaching them about the forgotten 400,000 Muslim soldiers that fought in the Great War trenches for Great Britain = https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/forgotten-army-400000-muslim-soldiers-10325190

I actually posted the above not because of some agenda but because I only found out about this a bit back and I wasn’t ever taught about it during history lessons in schools. I’m 45 yrs old by the way and yes there were other ethnicities who fought for the British but for some reasons we are only shown pictures of white soldiers during history lessons in schools.

I don't think there's much doubt that we are fiscally better off having had an Empire. It funded a great deal of change in Britain, a lot of it good.

I think the Queen has done a good job holding much of it together as a Commonwealth of Nations.

 

As for having kept America, we didn't have a choice. We lost it in the American War of Independence in 1783.

We had a lot on our plate at the time wot wiv the Corsican rampaging about Europe.

Like when New Zealand seemed to be up for grabs. We wanted to get in before the French. But, we didn't fight the first settlers, the Maori. They agreed to sign The Treaty of Waitangi which forty Māori chiefs signed plus another 450+ later. A better way to interact with other nations? Maybe, dispute over the true meaning of the Treaty and the intent of either party remains an issue.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_New_Zealand

NB - What has the Queen actually done?