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History in school's are being ruined?

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Reply 20

pinkpont

Original post by Bubbles2010

and a personal project in another (which i have chose 'The Fall of the Roman Empire")

Good choice from a historiographical perspective. Which school of thought do you side with?

Reply 21

TheGrandmaster

In my school we did medieval history almost exclusively in years 7 - 9, but GCSE was all 20thC history. At A level I am currently studying Nazi Germany and Tudor England. I feel I have had quite a good range of historical periods.

Reply 22

Bubbles2010

Original post by pinkpont

Good choice from a historiographical perspective. Which school of thought do you side with?

Thanks

um.. Annales probably :smile:

Reply 23

pinkpont

Original post by Bubbles2010

Thanks

um.. Annales probably :smile:

In which case, have you looked at Theodoric and the Ostrogothic Kingdom?

Reply 24

karateworm

I agree. My AS level in History was Votes for Women, Civil Rights in America and Russia 1882-1924.

Russia was very interesting, but Votes for Women and Civil Rights are essentially blips and not worth studying in any detail. What happened to the Civil War? Ancient History?

Meh.

Reply 25

abzy1234

"Whatever floats your boat"

Thats how it seems with most cases of the schools. Also, agreed with the fact that it does end up with your exam board.

Nevertheless, history is still an amazing subject :biggrin:

Reply 26

A.L. C-Brown

Umm, for GCSE I studied the American West (although this has since been changed to Elizabeth I) and Medicine Through Time, which obviously addressed many historical periods. For AS I did the reign of Henry VIII, Stalin's Russia, and Mao's China. For A2, I am studying Ancient Rome (the fall of the Republic) and Germany (1900-1945). So not all modern at all.

Reply 27

Mm_Minty

Because life's a bitch. That's why I'm doing classical studies at uni - the older the better :smile:

I have no idea why so many GCSE programs revolve around modern history, it would be nice if kids were given the chance to choose whether they did modern or ancient. Even at A level the furthest back you could go in history was the tudors, you have to do classics etc to go any older :/

Reply 28

nulli tertius

Original post by TheGrandmaster

I am not in any way getting at you but have a look at these three O level papers from 1962 for three syllabuses British and European History 1066-1688, 1485-1815 and 1688-1920.

http://www.oldbordenians.co.uk/down-memory-lane/back-to-the-60s-o-level-paper/

Clearly no-one was expected to be able to answer all the questions on the paper, the purpose of the paper was to provide a range of questions for students to answer depending on what they had been taught.

Five questions were to be answered in 21/2 hours.

However remember that for each syllabus this is only part of the exam. I imagine there was probably one other paper covering world history.

You can see the breadth of knowledge expected. The are 17 questions on the period 1485-1688 but only five of them could be attempted by someone with only a knowledge of the Tudors.

You are an A level student. Do you have enough knowledge to do any of these three O level papers?

Reply 29

Shippy

modern history is da bomb.

EDIT: although people should get a choice between modern and like ancient.

(edited 13 years ago)

Reply 30

sherlllll

Forget History mate, you need to complain about failing grammar in schools.

Reply 31

nulli tertius

Original post by sherlllll

Forget History mate, you need to complain about failing grammar in schools.

He wants to be a greengrocer.

Reply 32

theteenagecurse

For GCSE I did Cold War & USA civil rights for factual recall, WW2 & Vietnam for sources and then WW1 and Britain in the sixties for coursework and I absolutely loved it. I seem to be in the minority in this thread but I love modern history.
For AS I'm doing the origins of the American civil war and British foreign and imperial policy 1856-1914 (which is quite possibly the most boring thing I've ever done)
and then for A2 I'll be doing the Age of Roosevelt & the New Deal and American civil rights again but a broader topic etc...
and I'm going to be doing an EPQ on US civil rights as well...
It sounds like a pretty limited course and I suppose it is but I absolutely love it because I love American history. :smile:

It entirely depends on the course your school chooses and what you like doing I guess... :smile:

Reply 33

sherlllll

Original post by nulli tertius

He wants to be a greengrocer.

Can't argue with an aspiration of that nature. Good luck OP :biggrin:

Reply 34

Acerbic

It's probably a modern history GCSE

The more important point is: why are we not studying British history in more depth at school? The only British history I've studied at school has been post-WWII.

Reply 35

Laurah5498

For GCSE I did Castles, Northern Ireland, Medicine Through Time and Britain 1815-51.
A Level was James VI & I, Protestant Reformation, Charles I (excluding the Civi War) and Spain 1471-1700.

Rather random assortment of history there!

Reply 36

Lintu93

For GCSE I did WW1, WW2, the Cold War and pre-cold war Russia.

Before GCSE we did 1066 onwards, looking at the battle, Kings etc.

IMO, that was good. The more recent stuff is more relevant today - for example, the Cold War. We read so much stuff in the news which can be linked back to it, and I'm glad I did it at GCSE so I can understand more about current affairs. The stuff we did at GCSE we did in more depth than pre-GCSE stuff, which I think is good as it is more relevant.

Reply 37

BritishRose

Ah studying the Romans/Tudors/Ancient Greeks/Victorians was fun. :moon:

Reply 38

The Lyceum

I don't know, I think it's much more worrying how useless most history students are at critical thinking, dealing with logical proofs etc, things which I think should be taught a lot earlier in school. My field (Classics) suffers a lot from this actually, many of the assumptions and ideals we hold about antiquity just wouldn't arise had there been more awareness of such things in general.

It is important to make history important and engaging but instruction should be as much about imparting a functional toolset as it is about narrative.

Reply 39

Rob da Mop

20th century history is still relevant now. From the end of the first world war, through the league of nations, its failure, the second world war and, most importantly, the cold war you can see the back-story to most modern international politics, economics and British life. While I can see how lots of people would find Romans and Greeks interesting there's not much point in studying it, particularly at GCSE as people won't have started specialising maybe towards studying an ancient history degree. The only real purpose in studying ancient history is academia and knowing for the sake of knowing, which I agree is very important, but if you can teach a 15 year old about how the modern world works through history as well as some historical knowledge then shouldn't that be done?

There may be some element of it being easier to teach/study for or some silly thing like that, but even if ancient and medieval were easier then I still think modern history should be the one taught.

I suppose I should mention that I took history to GCSE and studied the suffragettes and women getting the vote through WW1, the rise of Hitler and the failure of the LoN, the great depression and various aspects of the cold war with emphasis on Vietnam and the Cuban Missile Crisis.