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.
How would you teach WWII WITHOUT teaching about HITLER? This is remarkable. England, one of the countries with the richest history in the world, has opted to “shorten” their history by leaving out half of it?? Remarkable.
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."
He's saying that a competent teacher of history should be trusted to cover key figures like Churchill as a matter of course, and doesn't need a government edict to instruct him to do so. This seems to me be entirely reasonable and a welcome change. Most who have posted about this seem to have been influenced by the tendentious tone of the article into believing that teachers have been instructed not to teach about Churchill. This, if true, would be a very different matter and indeed alarming: but as far as I can see there's nothing at all to suggest this is the case.
“No doubt ‘they’ will soon remove all the greats from American history in the US too.”
This is one of the main reasons why we homeschool our children. It is already happening in U.S. schools. This is what a “national” curriculum will lead to...just a matter of time if Hillary, Obama, et. al. (socialists/communists) take the White House, though the Repubs are no better along these lines. Government indoctrination of our youth at taxpayer expense. We are forced to pay (regardless of whether we send the children to government schools or not) Caesar’s tribute to have the children brainwashed with nonsensical PC crap, while ignoring the true history of our nation (warts and all).
Because Winston Churchill was not involved in World War eleven.
What I find more revealing and disturbing is what they are required to teach about..."...Instead they will be taught about “relevant” issues such as global warming and drug dangers..."
Too bad that Churchill quote won’t fit into a tagline.
Well...I am no mathematician, but I would think that while nobody would want or need to do those things by hand calculation, they must know how to do them by hand in order to understand them intimately enough to use them appropriately.
You sound like a mathematician...how do you feel about that aspect of it?
The Brits are DOOMED!
England is a nation of neutered pygmies that dont deserve to even breathe the air of the once mighty country that Sir Winston led through the darkness. Winston Churchill is still the towering figure of the 20th century.
Just damn. If this is happening, can I then assume that Lord Nelson is long gone from British elementary school history curricula?
The old Labour Party vilified him for his actions as a pre-WWI Home Secretary to keep the peace during a labor dispute. They ignored the fact that he always sympathized with efforts to make sure that all workers were treated fairly.
He was vilified by extreme reactionary Tories for his his Liberal Party alliance with the Radical firebrand David Lloyd George. This despite the fact that Churchill only wanted reform which preserved the English system, not revolutionary change.
The Conservative Party establishment in the 1930s vilified Churchill for his strong stand against Hitler and his realization that appeasement and hoping Hitler and Stalin would destroy each other was not good policy. There are still proponents of this criticism today in people like author John Charmley whose criticism of Churchill includes an undercurrent of anti-Americanism. Charmley gives the impression that the UK being a "junior partner" to America is as bad as being subservient to Hitler. And anti-Churchillism is associated with anti-Americanism by critics on both the English right and left
And in today's PC world Churchill is downgraded because he is too much of a reminder of the old heroic greatness of the British people. If people are taught too much about how only 67 years ago their ancestors stood up to the fearsome juggernaut, they may see an alternative to the limp-wristed cultural surrender so prized by todays PC elites.
Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.'
Winston Churchill - June 18, 1940
One of the finest orations in the history of mankind. It gave me chills just to read it again.
These people ought to be ashamed of themselves.
Next thing you know, they’ll dump Nelson.
“My guess would be that any remaining ‘instruction’ pertaining to WW2 would be couched in the notion that Great Britain was a co-aggressor and was ultimately responsible for the conflict,”
Interesting comment. 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.
Looks like a stealth homosexual agenda and one world government educational update to me.
They can now concentrate on that great statesman Neville Chamberlain!
/sarcasm>
“As a young man he made this observation.........”
And therein lies the reason he is being dropped from the curriculum. The PC Crowd can’t handle the truth.
“Schools Secretary Ed Balls defended the move”
Make that Ed “No Balls” Balls.
I am a great admirer of Mr. Churchill and a student of WWII military history. I would very much like to write Mr. Soames. What is the proper way to address him in the e-mail? Sir? Mr.?
Thanks,
AR
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