[xit2050]

Auschwitz was a Second World War theme park

the Holocaust was a celebration at the end of the war

Adolf Hitler was a German football coach, say one in 20 children - Telegraph

[Moosh]

Originally Posted by xit2050

Adolf Hitler was a German football coach, say one in 20 children - Telegraph

That is just

Cheers
Moosh

[adbrad]

Shocking

But that is one of the most eye catching thread titles i've seen

[lucasisking]

The pupils asked were between the ages of 9 and 15- which is a pretty broad spectrum! The report doesn't say what age the 5% were.

If they were 9 or 10, then WWII may not have even been covered yet in their history lessons, and unless their families talk frequently about Hitler, why would they know about him? The holocaust isnt exactly a playground topic- whereas football is.

On the other hand, if by the age of 14 or 15 they still havent learned about WWII and the holocaust, then this would indeed be a shocking failure of our education system.

[Kebabhead]

Is History a compulsory subject to learn these days?

[BamBamMickey]

Of course Hitler was a football coach................he only had one ball......

[adbrad]

Originally Posted by Kebabhead

Is History a compulsory subject to learn these days?

history is still compulsary as far as im aware.

Originally Posted by Trey4Life

Of course Hitler was a football coach................he only had one ball......

Do you think that each match lasted 1000 years.

[bodoman]

Originally Posted by Trey4Life

Of course Hitler was a football coach................he only had one ball......

I believe Himmler had one similar, but poor ole Goebels had none at all

[krish]

Originally Posted by lucasisking

The pupils asked were between the ages of 9 and 15- which is a pretty broad spectrum! The report doesn't say what age the 5% were.

If they were 9 or 10, then WWII may not have even been covered yet in their history lessons, and unless their families talk frequently about Hitler, why would they know about him? The holocaust isnt exactly a playground topic- whereas football is.

On the other hand, if by the age of 14 or 15 they still havent learned about WWII and the holocaust, then this would indeed be a shocking failure of our education system.

Exactly, this "1 in 20" headline is absolute balls without context

But, would the the statement "5% of the population aint too bright" really be a surprise to anyone in any country?

[Noggin1980]

Originally Posted by xit2050

Adolf Hitler was a German football coach, say one in 20 children - Telegraph

I think 5% of children chosing the silly and funny option on a questionairre is actually lower than I'd expect and really tells very little at all other than more than the vast majority of children DO know who adolf hitler was.

I can belive that alot of the children didn't know the date of Remembrance day though especially if it was asked before poppy season started. You can easily go through your life without ever needing that information to hand and still buy a poppy when you see them and still observe the minutes silence when everyone else does.

[Wild Weasel]

Originally Posted by lucasisking

The pupils asked were between the ages of 9 and 15- which is a pretty broad spectrum! The report doesn't say what age the 5% were.

If they were 9 or 10, then WWII may not have even been covered yet in their history lessons, and unless their families talk frequently about Hitler, why would they know about him? The holocaust isnt exactly a playground topic- whereas football is.

On the other hand, if by the age of 14 or 15 they still havent learned about WWII and the holocaust, then this would indeed be a shocking failure of our education system.

Surely kids aren't expected to learn everything at school. It's general knowledge stuff they should pick up themselves.

I didn't do WW2 even at secondary school, but I'm damn sure I would have known every one of those questions at 9 years old.

[RPupkin]

Originally Posted by adbrad

history is still compulsary as far as im aware.

It is still compulsory until GCSE but I have read that History is becoming less and less popular (or unfortunately seen as necessary) after that.

[nwgarratt]

I remember reading years ago that some kids in the US thought Hitler was the British Prime Minister.

I never did WW1 or WW2 at school either. It was all old stuff like medieval, Tudors etc.

[nheather]

I didn't do WW2 even at secondary school, but I'm damn sure I would have known every one of those questions at 9 years old.

I never did WW1 or WW2 at school either. It was all old stuff like medieval, Tudors etc.

Neither did I. But I can vouch that 'The Blitz' is part of the national syllabus for primary schools - and they do it in quite some detail.

But I was really surprised the other day when watching TV. When the adverts came on there was an advert for a compilation CD of wartime favourite songs - my 11yo daughter started singing along to Vera Lynn etc.

I would maintain that history is still taught surprising well at UK schools and I would stand by the fact that 5% of the UK's population are just unimaginately thick.

You could have asked that same 5% about any common knowledge and I doubt they would have a clue.

Cheers,

Nigel

[xit2050]

Originally Posted by nheather

I would maintain that history is still taught surprising well at UK schools

Based on your answer and that of others on here, I have to disagree.

Originally Posted by nwgarratt

I never did WW1 or WW2 at school either

Originally Posted by Wild Weasel

I didn't do WW2 even at secondary school

Originally Posted by nheather

Neither did I.

[IronGiant]

I think you will find that WW2 has only recently been deemed to be far enough back to be historical and enter the curriculum as part of History. Before then it was more likely to be part of Sociology. This is why many of our adult members probably don't remember being taught it at school. I believe it is now currently taught in History to year sixes (ie eleven year olds) at my children's school.

Dave

[yatesDELTA]

History is still taught at schools. i am currently studying it for A Level at school. In primary school WWII is pretty much the main subject in history taught (at least for me, only 5/6 years ago) and i'm sure most people knew what remembrance was about.
However in secondary school history topics become more broad. Cant remember them all but we never actually learned about remembrance or the second world war in any real detail. For example in the GCSE years we learnt about medicine through time, the American west, American civil rights and the Vietnam war. In my opinion this is far to americanised, but thats a diferent debate.
Now we are learning in my A level class about the rise of Hitler.

I personally think it is vital the everyone learns about the second world war from a young age and extremely important to pay respects for those who fought in any wars defending our nation. I take rememberance seriously and believe in charities helping soldiers etc. Unfortunatly this does not seem to be an opinion reflected by most of my age group (16/17) and some of my friends seemed to find my opinions on this quite funny, and these are reasonable educated people.
Now if people my age have such poor understanding of the importance of the soldiers sacrifice and knowledge of what went on then in years to come the national respect for this issue will surely be eroded? Something i find tragic and something we NEED to avoid.
Afterall those who cannot learn from history are destined to repeat it.

Thanks for reading my rant xD

[xit2050]

Originally Posted by IronGiant

I think you will find that WW2 has only recently been deemed to be far enough back to be historical and enter the curriculum as part of History.

I'm sorry, but that is retarded (the principle, not you).
When I was in school in the 70's-80's we covered everything in history class.
The determining factor which subjects have to be covered should be the importance of the event, not how far in the past it happened.

[lucasisking]

Originally Posted by IronGiant

I think you will find that WW2 has only recently been deemed to be far enough back to be historical and enter the curriculum as part of History. Before then it was more likely to be part of Sociology. This is why many of our adult members probably don't remember being taught it at school. I believe it is now currently taught in History to year sixes (ie eleven year olds) at my children's school.

Dave

Exactly. And since the survey included 9 & 10 year olds (perhaps more than the 5% of the survey?), it should be little or no surprise that some of these kids aren't as clued up on the subject as we seem to expect.

Does anyone here actually remember how and when they learned about Hitler and WWII? I sure don't, although it may possibly have been watching Dad's army.

Another factor is that we are now separated from WWII by 60-70 years. As time goes on there will be less and less reference to it in popular culture, and the current generation of grandads and grandmas will have been too young to remember it- unlike ours.

[Billo]

I always remember the local radio phone in quiz
Q. what was Hitler's first name?
A. Heil

I was constantly amused that these fine people from my city could have actually managed to dial a phone on thier own!
Hold your Plumbs

[Duncan G]

I learned more about ww2 in the 70's by watching the history series World at War than I did at school.

[nheather]

@xit2050

You can remove my quote from your evidence.

True I didn't do WWII to any degree at school.

But that was between 1968 and 1980 - hardly a reflection of education today.

WWII was pretty recent when I was at school - look at it this way, when I started school, WWII was about as recent as the Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait is now.

I grew up in a time of Commando magazines, watching war films, playing 'WWII' in the front street, watching World at War.

I now consider myself quite expert at WWII history, geography, tactics, equipment, politics etc, but didn't do any of it at school.

But I can confirm that 'The Blitz' is DEFINITELY in the National Curriculum now - year 4 or 5 as I recall. I've made gas mask boxes for my children, see them go into school dressed as evacuees. Seen paintings on the school wall of the London skyline in flames. Helped them with home work to produce a timeline of events in WII - IT IS TAUGHT TODAY.

Cheers,

Nigel

[Noggin1980]

Originally Posted by xit2050

Based on your answer and that of others on here, I have to disagree.

Thats pretty damn selective quoting when one of those people said a word or two after their quote that the blitz is part of the primary school national curriculum. very amusing though that you tried to disagree with someones opinion by using their own opinion to prove them wrong, did you not notice the names were the same?

Edit - a minute too late with my responce, beaten by the person I was refering too :-)

[IronGiant]

Originally Posted by xit2050

I'm sorry, but that is retarded (the principle, not you).
When I was in school in the 70's-80's we covered everything in history class.
The determining factor which subjects have to be covered should be the importance of the event, not how far in the past it happened.

You seem to have had a much more balanced overview of history in Belgium (I assume you were educated there) . At ages up to 11 when I was at school the determining factor seemed to be whether it was interesting and engaging and especially old, so we did lots about Egyptians, Romans, Elizabethans, and Tudors but the closer we got to Modern History the less we did and I don't remember even getting as far as the Victorians In fact I think we even studied dinosaurs as part of History.

In contrast children at my sons school have most definitely studied ww2 and there has been a school trip to Poland to visit some of the concentration camps.

Dave

[xit2050]

Originally Posted by nheather

@xit2050

You can remove my quote from your evidence.

True I didn't do WWII to any degree at school.

But that was between 1968 and 1980 - hardly a reflection of education today.

WWII was pretty recent when I was at school - look at it this way, when I started school, WWII was about as recent as the Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait is now.

For me it was from 1976-1988.
Not that much later than you and we covered everything up to Nixon and the oil crisis in the beginning of the seventies.

[xit2050]

Originally Posted by IronGiant

You seem to have had a much more balanced overview of history in Belgium (I assume you were educated there) . At ages up to 11 when I was at school the determining factor seemed to be whether it was interesting and engaging and especially old, so we did lots about Egyptians, Romans, Elizabethans, and Tudors but the closer we got to Modern History the less we did and I don't remember even getting as far as the Victorians In fact I think we even studied dinosaurs as part of History.

Yes, I was.
In history we covered everything from the big bang up to the lastest major events (vietnam, moon landing, oil crisis).
In secondary school certain periods and events were studied more in depth than others.

[nheather]

n history we covered everything from the big bang up to the lastest major events (vietnam, moon landing, oil crisis).

That must have been a pretty whirlwind trip - what did you do, spend 2 minutes on each event.

In my opinion there just isn't time to cover the whole of history in school lessons unless you are just paying each event lip-service.

My daughter is doing the Battle of Hastings in Year 7 (1st year secondary) and I'm amazed at the detail they are going into.

She has been doing it for the last 3 or 4 weeks now. I thought I knew about the Battle of Hastings but the research and detail to which they are going is fantastic - it's not just Harold (Godwin) and William that I knew about, but Hardrada, Gurth Leofwin, the Fyrd, detail tactics of the batter, the leadership, the luck, the view and influence of the Pope - way more detail than I knew.

Obviously, there is a question of whether spending so much time one one subject at the absence of others is a good thing. But I think it's great - it's give the children the tools to reseach and analyse for themselves - not to just learn the subject by rote.

Cheers,

Nigel

[pandemic]

Originally Posted by xit2050

Yes, I was.
In history we covered everything from the big bang up to the lastest major events (vietnam, moon landing, oil crisis).
In secondary school certain periods and events were studied more in depth than others.

Since when was the "Big Bang" considered to be a part of history? The big bang is a scientific theory, it has no place in history lessons but instead the science lessons.
One of the main things taught in history is the availability of sources, since nobody was around for the big bang there can be no sources, hence cannot appear in a history lesson.

[nwgarratt]

I do wonder that because I did GCSE's when they first came out (1998-1990), perhaps WW2 was just too recent being only 45 years previously. Would stuff that happened in the 1980's be taught in History nowadays?

I hadn't heard the word Holocaust until I was at college and that was from a friend who just mentioned it. I was about 20 and Schindlers List had just come out the year before. I still cannot watch that film.

[Dony]

I'd be quite happy if only 1 in 20 think Hitler was a football coach, but the other 19 new exactly who he was.



I honestly can't remember what my History syllabus was. I do remember learning about Arch Duke Ferdinand etc, so we obviously covered the wars at some stage. I also can remember that Harold got an arrow in the eye, the right eye I think, so that was the Battle of Hastings covered !!!

As far as Irish History is concerned, we only went up to the 1916 rising. My sister in law is a history teacher in ROI and apparently they now teach about the modern troubles, right up to the cease fires and the signing of the peace agreement. I've underpants older than some of the things she's now teaching in History class!!