On 12/1/08 18:29, in article ,
"Martin" wrote:

On Sat, 12 Jan 2008 18:14:50 +0000, Sacha
wrote:

On 12/1/08 17:17, in article , "Bob
Hobden" wrote:


"Eddy" wrote ((SNIP))
This is off-topic but as other replies appear to have been allowed I
would like to add my view.

That is why I put OT in the subject line. However poppies are flowers (or
weeds). :-)

I used to be a teacher at a good number of schools (primary and
secondary) and universities, until a few years ago and I was, and am
still, appalled at how most young people have little knowledge of and
regard for the extraordinary sacrifice that was made for the freedom
from Nazi domination which we all enjoy today. (Let's not forget the
Nazis dominated Europe and got as far as invading and occupying our
Channel Islands and it is a miracle we managed to beat them back!)


You berate the young and middle aged for not understanding about Remembrance
Day and yet also tell us you were a Teacher for years.

snip


I suppose, to be fair, that teachers have to follow a curriculum. Are they
allowed - or were they - to go off onto their own chosen path of interest?
That's a genuine question - I know they have to toe a party line now but I
don't know if someone who has been teaching for 60 years would have been
able to choose topics about which they, personally, were passionate.
But I'm in accord with you, Bob, about the teaching, or lack of it, that
children get now with regard to history.

Schools don;t teach recent history " because it is open to different
interpretations"

50 odd years ago I did O level History 1815-1914

My kids did a bit more, but not WWII and later.

The result is that one used to spend half ones life filling in the gaps. TV
Channels like Discovery make it easier to catch up on wars.

If you don't learn from history,
you learn nothing and IMO, every single child in every single country in the
world should be taken to see the sites of war graves or e.g. Auschwitz so
that they learn what man can do to man if *they* don't put a stop to it in
each successive generation.

Maybe some of those nearer home - The Somme, Normandy, Arnhem ...?

Certainly but those aren't 'nearer home' for every child - and I do, most
truly, mean every child. One of the most moving things I've ever done was
visit the battle fields of Normandy and both the US and German cemeteries
there, closely followed by the memorial at Pearl Harbour.
But until all children, worldwide, learn that war means bullets or bombs and
certain death for thousands, war will not stop. I think it's probably not
in human nature not to fight, actually but I do think that some historical
knowledge might at the very least, stop people fighting over trivial things
in terms of human existence.


--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
(remove weeds from address)
'We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our
children.'