Mintball wrote:One could equally ask how many on this board have ever actually used what they were taught in history once they left school.
Well "use" is probably the wrong word but I did it to A level and both the British and European history I studied was really informative as to why certain things in modern society ended up the way they are. Things like the Papacy and how Europe evolved into its (more or less as today) different countries. We had an enlightened history teacher who didn't do the traditional syllabus which for British history was usually the Tudors but instead taught the period 1066-1271 and in Europe from the end of Carolingian Empire in 888 to around the early 1500's.
His view was if you understood this period you would understand what followed pretty easily if you went on to study this at Univeristy. I wonder under Gove's "he knows best attitude" if teachers would be allowed to exercise their judgement in this way these days?
Quote:Personally, I'm not a fan of education as being strictly utilitarian, although it's certainly what big business would prefer, given its comments in recent years about young people leaving education without, say, being experts with customers.
Me either. I think it leads to a basic ignorance of the wider world. In my travels it always used to amaze me how insular American's were and how little knowledge of the world outside of the USA many of them showed. These days I find it rather alarming that kids are leaving school in this country with a similar level of ignorance. Well that is my perception anyway.
