How are the campaigns of Napoleon taught in France?
How is the war of Italian Unification taught in Italy?
How is the Great Northern war taught in Sweden?
How is the Crimean war taught in Russia?
How are the campaigns of Shaka taught in South Africa?
etc etc bloody etc
These are rhetorical questions, I'm not expecting an answer. I'm just sick of these threads, because the bottom line is: wars are not taught in schools.
Oh yes I'm sure everyone outside of Germany can give me Himmler's favourite colour, but what about the start/end dates of the Indonesian war of Independence (off the top of your head, not wiki etc)? Very few people I'm guessing, I myself don't know, because that particular conflict wasn't discussed, even mentioned in passing, even given the slightest inclination that it even -happened-, in history lessons taught in the UK.
This is my impression of a typical English history course in secondary school: "blah blah world war 2, blah blah hitler, blah blah oh yeah, mussolini too, nearly forgot about him."
I'm under the (maybe deluded) impression that war is history and history is war, and there was and is no greater force acting on human history than that of armed conflict, for better and (more often than not) worse. The fact that nothing but world war bloody 2 is properly taught in schools still shocks me today, and I do worry about the effect this will have on our youth, as corny as it sounds.
Maybe it's just the whole 'obviously good vs obviously bad' thing that makes ww2 so appealing to teachers, maybe it's the only thing they're allowed to teach, but conflict is not that black and white, and if you grow up thinking it is, you'll end up waltzing into third world countries, claiming your here to protect these people from, oh I don't know, terror or something, then blow up their house.
If TL;DR, then here is the point of this thread: If you were a history teacher, what do you think the most important war is to teach to your students (for your country. Let's not delude ourselves, people can only easily identify with their own countrymen)? Also, if we actually have any history teachers here, I'd love to hear what they teach, and whether they have any control over what they can teach.
How is the war of Italian Unification taught in Italy?
How is the Great Northern war taught in Sweden?
How is the Crimean war taught in Russia?
How are the campaigns of Shaka taught in South Africa?
etc etc bloody etc
These are rhetorical questions, I'm not expecting an answer. I'm just sick of these threads, because the bottom line is: wars are not taught in schools.
Oh yes I'm sure everyone outside of Germany can give me Himmler's favourite colour, but what about the start/end dates of the Indonesian war of Independence (off the top of your head, not wiki etc)? Very few people I'm guessing, I myself don't know, because that particular conflict wasn't discussed, even mentioned in passing, even given the slightest inclination that it even -happened-, in history lessons taught in the UK.
This is my impression of a typical English history course in secondary school: "blah blah world war 2, blah blah hitler, blah blah oh yeah, mussolini too, nearly forgot about him."
I'm under the (maybe deluded) impression that war is history and history is war, and there was and is no greater force acting on human history than that of armed conflict, for better and (more often than not) worse. The fact that nothing but world war bloody 2 is properly taught in schools still shocks me today, and I do worry about the effect this will have on our youth, as corny as it sounds.
Maybe it's just the whole 'obviously good vs obviously bad' thing that makes ww2 so appealing to teachers, maybe it's the only thing they're allowed to teach, but conflict is not that black and white, and if you grow up thinking it is, you'll end up waltzing into third world countries, claiming your here to protect these people from, oh I don't know, terror or something, then blow up their house.
If TL;DR, then here is the point of this thread: If you were a history teacher, what do you think the most important war is to teach to your students (for your country. Let's not delude ourselves, people can only easily identify with their own countrymen)? Also, if we actually have any history teachers here, I'd love to hear what they teach, and whether they have any control over what they can teach.
