How is Culloden and Prince Charles looked on and taught in Scotland?

[Fletch75]

Sir Daniel and Jack Daw,

I agree that we have too much history to teach in a small time frame ourselves as Americans. We Just get the basics but its scary how little people know about important things. You see it all the time on Leno and Letterman, when they ask questions to passersby about history.

As far as learning why things happen that is high school and college level stuff. Everything before that is usually just dates and names. And we all usually have our family stories of why our ancestors came to America which can't be put in a book or class.

Having access to native Scots and people in other countries I find it interesting what they learn about subjects, be it our History or their own.

Thanks,

Darin

[Jack Daw]

Sir Daniel and Jack Daw,

I agree that we have too much history to teach in a small time frame ourselves as Americans. We Just get the basics but its scary how little people know about important things. You see it all the time on Leno and Letterman, when they ask questions to passersby about history.

As far as learning why things happen that is high school and college level stuff. Everything before that is usually just dates and names. And we all usually have our family stories of why our ancestors came to America which can't be put in a book or class.

Having access to native Scots and people in other countries I find it interesting what they learn about subjects, be it our History or their own.

Thanks,

Darin

The details and differing POVs of history are available for those that want to learn it. Grousing that the common man on the street doesn't know his history is like a physician complaining that the regular Joe doesn't know the difference between a virus and bacteria.

[macwilkin]

The details and differing POVs of history are available for those that want to learn it. Grousing that the common man on the street doesn't know his history is like a physician complaining that the regular Joe doesn't know the difference between a virus and bacteria.

That is easy to say, but from my perspective as a history teacher, when your students do not have the basic knowledge for an entry-level survey class in American history, it makes it very difficult to teach a more expanded view of the subject.

T.

[Jack Daw]

That is easy to say, but from my perspective as a history teacher, when your students do not have the basic knowledge for an entry-level survey class in American history, it makes it very difficult to teach a more expanded view of the subject.

T.

I accept your point. So, is there a lack of incentive for a student to do well because the school systems fail to exact consequences for failing? Or, is the material just too watered down to be retained?

[macwilkin]

I accept your point. So, is there a lack of incentive for a student to do well because the school systems fail to exact consequences for failing? Or, is the material just too watered down to be retained?

History/social sciences are always the first victim of the ax in public schools when it comes to standardized testing.

T.

[Fletch75]

CajunScot,

I think you may be my new best friend. LOL. I think that sharing History with people is awesome. Once you really get into things, you understand why something happened not just what. then, like you said about Wolfe and Quebec, you can see that at Culloden his actions made made him who he was.

JackDaw.
, Cajun Scot beat me to it about trying to expand on things that the populus has little basic knowledge of makes it very difficult. Being in the military and an instructor I try to teach a little of the "Profession of Arms" to my students. It helps if they understand who/what went on before them. Not just "I came in for the college money." If they understand how our founding fathers came up with the Constitution and what they went through, what the Continental Army went through, it gives some understanding of the sacrifices (Even in the Air Force) we have to make today, to remain free and what the oath of enlistment really means.

Sorry, didn't mean to completely preach or anything. Thats just how I feel about History and my job as an NCO in the USAF.

Thanks,

Darin

[Phil]

I think the way this thread has been diverted from a question about Scottish attitudes to and the teaching of the history of Culloden and the whole Jacobite rebellion into a discussion of the American revolution and even the present day American military reveals a lot about people's perception of history as it affects them. One of the original questions was, in fact, about the American revolutionary war and whether it was taught in British schools and I think the direction of this discussion demonstrates perfectly the futility of teaching subjects which have no relevance or interest to those being taught. That is that they simply ignore the irrelevant and concentrate on their own interests and beliefs except where some aspect strikes a romantic chord. This may be valiant kilted highlanders charging to their deaths at Culloden or it may be Davy Crockett immortalised by John Wayne valiantly dying at the Alamo. The true nuts and bolts of history are a different matter altogether though, and it would be conceited of anyone to believe that someone of a different cultural background would have any real understanding or interest in that culture apart from those with a true academic purpose. What shaped various peoples and their lives today was not usually some cataclysmic event such as a battle or other catastrophe but rather an evolutionary series of events of which the battle or whatever was simply one. A knowledge of history allows one to put these events into some sort of rational perspective that is not coloured by a romantic view of events and helps you to understand how present day attitudes have been formed as a result.

[macwilkin]

I remember little or nothing beyond mention of the Boston Tea Party being taught about the American Revolution. There was something about General Wolfe and Quebec but this was earlier and nothing to do with the revolution.

Wolfe & Quebec actually have quite a bit to do with the Revolution, since the Seven Years/French & Indian Wars were indirectly responsible for it. Without going into one of my lectures, in 1763, with the defeat of the French, and the end of New France, the British government expected the colonists to pay for the war, at which the colonial assemblies balked. Add to the fact that Britain had promised her Indian allies that their lands west of the Appalachians would be protected from further settlement (tell that to the Scots-Irish), and the stage was set for the "unpleasantness" between the North American colonies and Britain.

Parliament saw nothing unreasonable about the Americans paying for the army and navy that had been defending them from the French, Spanish and their Indian allies since the late 1600s, and the American assemblies jealously guarded their right to raise revenues (even though the average Briton paid twice as much in taxes as an American colonist). Add to that the debate over who was supreme in power -- colonial assemblies or parliament, and there you have the spark that started the forest fire in 1775.

Regards,

Todd