Just not cricket ... the exclusion of Winston Churchill is likely to leave traditionalists aghast. (File photo) (Reuters: Toby Melville)
Posted on 07/12/2007 11:42:03 PM PDT by Stoat
Posted
Updated
Just not cricket ... the exclusion of Winston Churchill is likely to leave traditionalists aghast. (File photo) (Reuters: Toby Melville)
Britain's World War II prime minister Winston Churchill has been cut from a list of key historical figures recommended for teaching in English secondary schools, a government agency says.
The radical overhaul of the school curriculum for 11- to 14-year-olds is designed to bring secondary education up to date and allow teachers more flexibility in the subjects they teach, the Government said.
But although Adolf Hitler, Mahatma Gandhi, Joseph Stalin and Martin Luther King have also been dropped from the detailed guidance accompanying the curriculum, Sir Winston's exclusion is likely to leave traditionalists aghast.
A spokesman for the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority said the new curriculum, to be taught from September 2008, does not prescribe to teachers what they must include.
But he added: "Teachers know that they need to mention these pivotal figures. They don't need to be instructed by law to mention them in every history class.
"Of course, good teachers will be teaching the history of Churchill as part of the history of Britain. The two are indivisible."
Sir Winston's grandson Nicholas Soames, also a Conservative Member of Parliament, described the move as "madness."
"It is absurd. I expect he wasn't New Labour enough for them ... this is a Government that is very careless of British history and always has been.
"The teaching of history is incredibly important," he added.
"If you're surprised that people do not seem to care that much about the country in which they live, the reason is that they don't know much about it."
The History Curriculum Association said it was "appalled" by the move, saying the new curriculum would "promote ignorance" and was pandering to a politically-correct agenda.
The Conservatives' schools spokesman Michael Gove added: "Winston Churchill is the towering figure of 20th century British history.
"His fight against fascism was Britain's finest hour. Our national story can't be told without Churchill at the centre."
Schools Secretary Ed Balls defended the move, saying a slimmed-down curriculum was overdue and traditional elements in all subjects had been protected.
Among the few named figures that stay in the new history curriculum are William Wilberforce, the British law maker who was instrumental in efforts to abolish the slave trade.
Sir Winston, who was British prime minister from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955, was famous for his defiance to the Nazis, stirring oratory and trademark cigar and "V for victory" sign.
In 2002, a BBC poll with more than one million votes saw him voted the Greatest Briton of all time.
Why don’t they drop Disraeli, Gladstone, Admiral Nelson, William Pitt, Richard the Lionheart, and the Magna Carta too? This is positively Orwellian! Erasing their own history....
Well, you chose a good Freep Handle...
I had a Freeper say that in our American politics, Churchill would be most comfortable with...get this...Pat Buchanan and Ron Paul!
More than a few Freepers inquired about what kind of non-tobacco product he was smoking...:)
It was my opinion that Churchill would have most in common with President Bush, like Buchanan only for his prickly personality, and would think Ron Paul was a dullard.
Our argument had to finally be settled by my saying it was fantasy anyway because Churchill has been dead for 42 years...
Don’t feel bad, its happening here too. It must be an insidious international plot.
...and I’m not really sure the Marines could help ya’ll. The way things are right now, the Democrats in Congress would probably declare it a “quagmire” before the Marines could even get off the boat!!
Don’t forget, as bad as you think England is, it could always be worse. You could be in FRANCE. Now that WOULD be the pits!! As an admitted and dedicated Anglophile, I’m pleased to make your acquaintance.
Sing!
Personally, having spent quite some time in both places (during my youth), I always thought the Germans were the weak minded ones (subject to brainwashing on a national scale) and the Brits pretty much had their stuff together. How disappointing.
I have heard Germans verbalize regarding their “starving babies” after WWI. At which point, I remind them that, thanks to Germany, after WWI there were “babies” starving all over the planet! They think they had to pay a lot of reparations? Look at the reparations they levied against France after the Franco Prussian War. Like Hitler, they’re delusional. Perhaps its part of the national character. I certainly didn’t think it part of the Brit “character” though!
Interesting comment.
Thank you :-)
I am a member of a British msn debate board. More than a few Brits in the group believe the US, UK, and France are responsible for starting WWII because the surrender terms imposed on Germany by the Allies after WWI led to conditions in which someone like Hitler could rise to power. Some of the Brits on the board view Churchill as a war criminal (the indiscriminate carpet bombing of German cities) and a racist. And they don`t view Neville Chamberlain as an appeaser. They argue that Chamberlain just tried to buy time so Britain could re-arm.
I had intended my comment as a tongue-in-cheek hyperbolic bit of silliness, never thinking that there are actually people who REALLY believe that sort of idiocy. I suppose this is because I don't spend much time around Leftists....but I applaud your inner strength and resolve which I'm not so sure I would be able to maintain while being reasonably congenial among such loons. It seems that no matter how ludicrous a premise one might construct, there will always be a leftist hysteric who believes it.
Even though I try to keep up on news and politics in the UK as well as the USA, I confess that I was shocked at a number of utter, raving idiots who posted comments after some of the posted source articles on this issue as well as elsewhere
"He shouldn't be a reveared figure. "
"He was a great public speaker, nothing more. There is much more relevent stuff to be tought in schools." (stoat comment: Ummmm...like SPELLING, perhaps? 'snicker')
'Since Hitler, Stalin and Churchill were responsible for the deaths of more than 25 million people between them it makes you wonder what you have to do to get in the history books!!"
"Churchill was a crypto-fascist who advocated the use of chemical warfare on "uncivilised tribes".
"Once again another tyrant adorned in the clothes of democracy and freedom."
This was just a TINY sample....it keeps going on and on and on and on......
No, sir, we do not have a national curriculum. We have several organizations/companies that supply suggestions for age appropriate curriculum materials. (”Core Knowledge” is one of my favorites.) It is up to teachers to decide what, specifically, to teach. Students do have to pass tests though, so it behooves one to be thorough.
I was accused of racism for using that expression in a predominately black setting. I was told I made them feel like I thought they were all criminals. All I wanted to know was who was the grown-up and therefore who was in charge? Certainly none of the people present were acting very adult or responsible.
I am quite certain Mr. Churchill won a Nobel Prize for Literature in the 50’s. He was a journalist, if you can believe that. Certainly no comparison to those who claim to be “journalists” these days.
You may be right, but I think it is the “whiners” that make the decisions these days.
LOL!
You have to wonder with what they teach nowadays...
How could we not hold him in the highest possible esteem? Apart from being the pivotal figure in the winning of the First Modern War for Western Civilization, Churchill -- as noted by the screenwriter for the film Patton -- was American on his mother's side.
His mom, Jennie Jerome, was the daughter of a Brooklyn businessman. And although Winston's fighting spirit may have come in part down the long line of his descent from the first Duke of Marlborough, it's nice to think that perhaps some of his blunt good sense came from her.
No one, but that doesn't mean students shouldn't learn how to do these things by hand.
“I smell a mooseslime demand to deep six him”
Some toads have been trying to deep-six Churchill in life and in death.
I guess I was really impressed when (as a youngster) I saw a PBS/Masterpiece
Theater series “The Wilderness Year” in which Churchill is very nearly the
lone voice saying “The Nazis are going to be real trouble!”.
And was basically labeled a paranoid in the late 1930s for his trouble...
especially when his sources in the British military/RAF told him how
dire their situation would be if the Nazis did go on the war-path.
(Churchill was well-played by the actor that was the senior veternarian
on “All Creatures Great And Small”)
In this day and age, just about anything one can say can be twisted by one of the 'victim groups' (Islamic Terrorists, Gays, Feminists, veggies, illegal immigrants, PETA, Jesse & Al Etc) to be racism...
Therefore, the Liberal Democrats... 
have declared their goal is...
No one may wear nor eat anything that was once living at any time, especially pork, have sexual relations with anyone of the opposite gender, pray to any deity but Allah, be a heterosexual male or vote anything but the straight Liberal Democratic ticket...
Take that you racist dog... 
not spay and neuter your goldfish, eh?
When that finally comes to pass, what non-inmates left will be quickly beheaded by Jessee and Al's lesbian, Islamic vegetarian offspring who slipped across the Rio Grande last night!
So, I suggest anyone who says you are racist for saying "The inmates have control of the asylum"
Well, they should be told... 
to go pound sand!
Is that a knock... 
on us Sandfolk?
Yes... 
racists as hell!
We... 
are so confused!
So am I... 
and so it my brother Darryl and my other brother Darryl
BTW are you any kin to Kaylee... 
of "Firefly"/Serenity fame?
If so... 
I'm having a little thing at my pad tonight. Nothing fancy, you see... Clothing optional...
Sounds like fun... 
I be there eightish!
But for Churchill’s doggedness, the Brits would be speaking German today. Not surprising though, considering the continual desire to ‘update’ textbooks, to keep them ‘fresh’. There are history texts in this country which give short shrift to the Founding Fathers, if they’re mentioned at all.
My thoughts exactly!
May be, but how many are ‘competent’ enough to want to spend the extra time required to create a lesson plan on their own that stresses Churchill?
Comments?
Winston Churchill is one of my heroes!!
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