History HubΒ permalink
The Right Kind of History
This discussion has been closed.
-
Message 1.Β
Posted by somewhatsilly (U14315357) on Tuesday, 22nd November 2011
I heard about this project on 'Today' this morning and of course thought about you Cass!
It did make me wonder though about what other people remember about their experience of History lessons at school, I honestly remember very little, any interest I have or had was largely generated by reading outwith school, both factual and fictional.
I suppose the other question I have is, where did other people's interest spring from? Was it at school or from some other source - a book, a visit to a historic site or from someone else who 'infected' you? -
Message 2
Posted by Caro (U1691443) on Tuesday, 22nd November 2011
Definitely school for me. I had to take history when I stopped enjoying maths, and the school wouldn't let me do typing. Wonderful, wonderful school - I can't thank them enough. We had a great teacher for history and I loved it. I went straight and confusingly to the top of the class. Had no idea what I did right, but it left me with a love of history. (My father, who left school at 12, always said history was his favourite subject and did give me little quizzes which mostly were battle dates and capital cities. Nothing about the war he took part in himself though.)
But over the years I have become more interested in NZ history and that wasn't touched on in the two or three years I did history at school and varsity.
Cheers, Caro. -
Message 3
Posted by Priscilla (U14315550) on Tuesday, 22nd November 2011
School engended my interest,- from the age of six. At the time I had a problem sorting geography from history but got that just about cleared up - some time last year, I think.
Interesting teachers of course are important and perhaps living in an ancient town and old house with a family interested in history helped. Then there were the swash buckling film stuff, and Robin Hood. There were also more chilldren's history books on the shelves - including Woolworths - where I bought cheap books of tiny B/W sketches of 'everything' to do with say, the Tudors.
Good exposure, then, ferval.
Yesterday I read in the D. Mail - where else - beneath a heading that many Universities were reducing 'Soft option degrees'. that one of them was drroping History and Philososphy.
That set the tone for my day and I bored friends with irate phone calls.
Regards, P -
Message 4
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Tuesday, 22nd November 2011
ferval
Sorry that you can not even get away from me on Radio 4..
I suppose when you end up doing the one thing that I thought I did not want to do- that is go back into school after university in order to teach history- you probably stir-up memories from the depths rather more than is the case with most people.. Moreover I wrote something about the signficance of my schooldays - and history within it- in my first "book" so I am perhaps more connected than I might otherwise have been.
But History had already become "my thing" in the last year at Primary School when facing the 11+ and trying to work out the implications of perhaps getting to grammar school.
By that time I had a sense of belonging to the countryside around Oxford- a countryside rooted in the Middle Ages. But suddenly the University with its repository of knowledge going as far back assumed a new significance. The countryside could teach me certain things. The University offered much more detail much more widely in time and space. History would be my key to understanding the world.
But grammar school history suffered in my eyes because the Old School had been set up in the 1880's to bridge the gap between Town and Gown, but "like much Victorian education) that meant providing a "ladder of opportunity" for Townees to join the "meritocratic elite". And so much of the history curriculum was really about the work and attitudes of governing elites- starting off with Classical antiquity and all those "marvellous" things produced in societies/economies based upon slave labour.
And it did not help that we often had very old and dates text-books and teachers who were not historians and never knew more than the text-book said. Moreover this was the mid-Fifties and I believe that in various ways the teachers were war-damaged.
This was especially the case with the form teacher who taught us history in the first year. His subject was English and he could be sadistic- as when he publically humilated me in front of the whole class in the first few weeks. But we all knew that we had to make allowances- He had been in the RAF and had spent c4 years in the hands of he Gestapo.
In 1999 on my birthday I met an old-boy who confirmed these fading memories. He himself had become head of the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ World Service and told me that this teacher had taught him A Level German. So in his early days at the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ he had volunteered to interview some Germans. Two days running he started the interviews only to have the interviewee run out in tears. The third day he found his "boss" waiting for him. His German was "Gestapo German" , full of unbearable associations for the people he was due to interview.
The one real specialist Historian in the school had been the link to the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ because he had worked on the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ as the original "Uncle Mac". He had lied about his age in order to enlist in the First World War and ten years later had suffered a collapsed lung as the result of being gassed in the trenches. In many ways he was my salvation. But he retired during my Sixth Form.
It was perhaps therefore not surprising that at O Level History was the only subject that I failed- with only 4 people in a class of 28 passing. By that time I was committed to two History A Levels- and had to fight off pressure to get me to give up at least one and take English. "Old George" the historian made a key intervention suggesting (off the top of his head) that I wanted to be an archaeologist.
Anyway-- "enough, enough and more than enough" to quote Louis McNiece's play "Christopher Columbus".
Cass -
Message 5
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Tuesday, 22nd November 2011
Priscilla
I still have my old collection of those Cairn books.. In fact when I started teaching you could still get them in Woolworth's.
They were a godsend in the age of photocopying.. They also encouraged me in black ink drawing and I was short listed in the eighties as a potential illustrationist for an ILEA project to produce photocopyable material for Multi-Ethnic teaching- and commissioned to submit trial pieces. The project then changed direction- I was later told that they linked up with an Art College.
Cass -
Message 6
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Wednesday, 23rd November 2011
Priscilla
Correction- not Cairn.. but C.W. Airne
The publisher was Thomas Hope & Sankey Hudson
There were six volumes
Britain's Story
Prehistoric and Roman Britain
Saxon and Norman Britain
Medieval Britain
Tudor and Stuart Britain
Hanoverian Britain
Cass -
Message 7
Posted by Patrick Wallace (U196685) on Wednesday, 23rd November 2011
I enjoyed school history, but I recognised the truth in David Cannadine's recent comments that in the supposed golden age of teaching, even those of us who were getting the best teaching were ploughing through the Franco-Prussian war rather than learning anything potentially controversial about British society at home or imperialism abroad.
-
Message 8
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Wednesday, 23rd November 2011
Patrick
My "salvation" was that when I was 16+ I started on A Level English Social and Economic History from the Norman Conquest to 1914, and in a subsequent Economics A level I had to cover British Economic History from 1900 to c1960.
Cass -
Message 9
Posted by Jak (U1158529) on Thursday, 24th November 2011
Hi Cass -
These sound like the little paperbacks I collected (avidly) as a child. Most pages had several small b&w drawings, with an occasional full-page showing a suit of armour (or some such thing) with all the components named.
I think there were at least two more - maybe "Victorian & Modern Britain" and one that covered America, for I remember looking at a drawing of two chaps shooting at each other and wondering who Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton were.
These books certainly fired my interest in history, perhaps because many things weren't explained, so I had to ask. Often without getting an answer - my Dad had no idea who Aaron Burr was either.
The author's name C. W. Airne doesn't ring any bells; I thought there were two authors, the second being "M. A. Cantab." But I was only about 10 at the time. -
Message 10
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Thursday, 24th November 2011
Jak
What I particularly appreciated was that Mr. Airne- if indeed he did all the drawings- did so in that tradition of draughtsmanship that was the mark of the pre-Raphaelites (when they were not painting fairies).
Each piece of their paintings is crafted like the component of a large construction, and it always seemed to be that those Airne drawings revealed more than just the appearance of the artefacts.. They truly belonged to a World that was 'Made in Britain' with an interest in engineering which the present Government is trying to revive..EG. The Business Secretary visiting an exhibition in Bristol today.
Cass
About this Board
The History message boards are now closed. They remain visible as a matter of record but the opportunity to add new comments or open new threads is no longer available. Thank you all for your valued contributions over many years.
or Β to take part in a discussion.
The message board is currently closed for posting.
The message board is closed for posting.
This messageboard is .
Find out more about this board's
Search this Board
Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ iD
Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ navigation
Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ links
Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Β© 2014 The Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read more.
This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets (CSS) enabled. While you will be able to view the content of this page in your current browser, you will not be able to get the full visual experience. Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets (CSS) if you are able to do so.