Rainshard wrote:Sidenote on bias in History class.
Year 7-9 (11-14) we were taught British history. Only the wars we won, only the glory of the country. We never learnt The American War of Independence or any humiliating moments like the losses they received from the Boer Wars (they also set up concentration camps during this war). It would all conflict this image of British glory.
History classes tend to only show the parts of history which support their ideals. It's practically propaganda.
I feel sorry for your History class. Our Scots break up our Nat 5 history into three topics, And a particular unit is picked for the course depending on the school, here's our class':
Scottish Topic: Migration and Empire
British Topic: Atlantic Slave trade
World Topic: Free at last? Civil rights in the USA
Migration and Empire: It looks at the contributions of various ethnic groups to Scotland, from places such as: Ireland, Lithuania, Italy and all over the place, even Russia. Along with the way the Scots took to them, especially in the case of the Irish it shows that we weren't very fond of foreigners and many times throughout it's expressed that Scots were the ones unwilling to do some of the less paid jobs and complained when Irish workers filled them up. It also looks at how the British Empire effected Scots, through the industry it brought in, to the increase in immigration and Emigration, and it looks at how we affected other countries. (Most notably it was the Scottish education which founded several schools and universities, along with national parks entirely on John Muir's part.) And it also looks at the negative aspects, especially in Australia via the persecution of aboriginal people, not much mention of America in the negatives.
Atlantic Slave Trade: An interesting point that I've learned so far is that the Ashante kingdom in Africa's version of slavery was much less cruel than what was practiced vastly in England and to a lesser degree in Scotland, it's not for the feint of heart indeed, it does say 'it did give benefits like this that and the next thing, but enslaved people suffered through -provides a huge list of things-'.
Free at last? Civil rights in the USA: We have not began that topic yet. But what it is to look at is the time of Martin Luther King Jr, Rosa Parks, the Ku Klux Klan, Malcom X, and that era in general.