UK: "Don't teach children patriotism"

Yesterday I posted about the survey of British teens that showed that 23% of the respondents thought Winston Churchill was a myth. Churchill, who lead the British through its darkest hour, hasn't been dead for fifty years.

How does that ignorance come to be? One of the reasons might be found in this article (h/t No Pasaran), 'Don’t teach children patriotism'

Patriotism should be avoided in school lessons because British history is "morally ambiguous", a leading educational body recommends.

History and citizenship lessons should stick to the bare facts rather than encouraging loyalty to Britain when covering subjects such as the Second World War or the British Empire, the Institute of Education researchers said. Teachers should not instill pride in what they consider great moments of British history, as more shameful episodes could be downplayed or excluded.

Like leaving out Winston Churchill, along with Hitler, Gandhi, Stalin and Martin Luther King, perhaps?

At least someone's oferring some perspective,

However, 19 per cent of teachers and 16 per cent of teenagers thought schools should support patriotic views when expressed by pupils.The historian Tristram Hunt said of the institute's report: “I think it’s a very immature approach to the topic. The point is not whether history was right or wrong from a 21st Century liberal-left perspective. It's about teaching students to understand the mindset and context of our forebears.

“The real problem isn't that our children are being indoctrinated with patriotism, but that they don't know enough British history."

The slave trade, imperialism and 20th century wars should be taught as controversial issues while students are deciding how they feel about their country, the report says.

Labour is doing one grand job of educating this generation, indeed.



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