New curriculum

[ladyofastolat]

I've posted before about how children's non-fiction publishing is almost entirely based around the school curriculum. "Leisure interest" books such as Scary Animals With Teeth!, HUGE trucks, Ahhh!they'resocuuuuuteandfurries and football are exempt, but history and science books, in particular, are published entirely with the curriculum in mind. Tudors are done in year 4, where they do Henry VIII and Rich & Poor in Tudor England, so there are no books on Tudors for 5 year olds or 12 year olds, and nothing for anyone at all on Elizabeth I.

Obviously, this is all very unfortunate for the 6 year old child who conceives a mad, burning enthusiasm for Tudors. It is also very unfortunate for schools and libraries when the curriculum goes and changes, and you find yourself staring at 450 books on Tudors for 9 year olds, when Tudors Aren't Done now, and all everyone wants is books on the Stone Age for 6 year olds.

Yes, the Stone Age. Primary School children now start history at the Stone Age, and work through the Bronze Age and the Iron Age until they finally reach Vikings by 11 - although they do depart from this chronology to do certain other themes and projects along the way. Unfortunately, the Stone Age hasn't been done in school for years, and there are literally NO BOOKS on it. Despite the fact that the new curriculum was announced a good while back, and went live in September, there are still NO BOOKS on it. This is causing considerable angst and despair in all quarters.

Personally, I can't really see what They were thinking to start the children off on the Stone Age. The previous curriculum started them off gently by introducing the concept of the past, and the fact that Things Were Sometimes Different Then, focusing on things like toys, houses, clothes etc.

But now children have to launch straight in to what is, in my opinion, a very hard period to understand. I still remember the shock of going from 19th century history for A-level (which is not at all my favourite, but it's what I was landed with, since apparently only Bad Boys did my preferred choice of the Renaissance) to the Anglo-Saxon invasions in my first term at Oxford. It was so hard to go from a period where documentary evidence abounds, to a period when we know so very little, and have to piece it together from archaeological finds and dubious documentary sources. Each new archaeological find could potentially overturn everything we thought we knew. How on earth do you teach this to 5 year olds?

Comments

[bookwormsarah.livejournal.com]

I have ranted and raved about this at length - I am still livid. What a ridiculous idea to start children off with a period which is hard to get to grips with (and be excited about) at an academic level. We will be left with either a generation of children who find history dull, or who spent lots of time borrowing fake fur to be 'cave men' in a very Just William way. Or possibly both.

I loved primary school history lessons - they showed me how wide and varied the world was. I particularly remember watching How We Used to Live which took us through from 1954 to 1970. There was a real flash of understanding as I realised how events affected each other, and I could ask my family about things, see newspapers and carry out easy primary research. It was really exciting.

By losing the more recent centuries from history lessons children are losing much of the history of ordinary people. Oral history? Gone. Working class history? Certainly harder to find. It affects museums too. So many face cuts from local authorities and desperately need the funds they receive from school visits. However, these they may not get because they many don't cover the sections of the curriculum primary schools need - pre 1066. Right, I'll jump off my horse.

TL:DR Arrrgh.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

Oh, I can rant and rave a lot more than I just did!

Different children are enthused by different things. Personally, I wasn't that interested in modern history, ordinary person history etc (or at least I wasn't until I started doing family history research at 11) but from a very young age, I loved medieval history and castles, and I had a huge English Civil War craze at 10. So I think the primary school curriculum should include a wide variety of different things, to maximise the chances of children discovering that bit of history that sparks their interest.

I'm awaiting future terms' requests with interest, but although we did get a lot of requests for Stone Age and Anglo-Saxons this term, we did get quite a few for Victorians and local history, so there's clearly at least some flexibility in there.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you mentioned the different enthusiasms. The history of Ordinary Things and Recent People is something that I am now able to appreciate as an adult, but if I'm honest, Small Bunn found all of that about as killingly boring as it is possible to imagine.

I spent most of my school years thinking WHY DOES HISTORY NEVER COVER THE COOL STUFF OUT OF ROSEMARY SUTCLIFF??? and then when I got to Oxford and the FIRST TERM was basically 'Cool stuff out of Rosemary Sutcliff, and also, all your school teachers were probably way too certain about EVERYTHING? That was awesome. AWESOME.

Give me a gentleman whittling a tiny delicate blade from a piece of flint and using it to slay a deer, or ladies feeding their families by gathering fruits and nuts, or a lord with his magnificent pattern-welded sword and hall decked with storied tapestries - that would have me glued. GLUED. But the Life of Joe Bloggs, Tragic Victim of Mining Disaster and those fine ladies, the junior Blogses, tragically confined to a workhouse? No.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

...I know my taste for history is unusual. That short period I taught GCSE history, I had to cover American history and was woeful and baffled to discover that none of my students were at all interested in any of the fascinating incidental bits I tried to weave in about Native American history and cultures that I thought was top stuff. :-D

[bunn.livejournal.com]

... although if you had 450 books about Victorians for Fiveyearolds and you are now going to have to bin those and buy 450 books about The Stone Age for Fiveyearolds, I can definitely see that no matter the potential the stone age could be made for that agegroup, that's still really annoying.

Maybe there could be space for the Stone Age at some point in the curriculum though? I mean, I have a recipe here that describes itself as a 'paleolithic raspberry and coconut microwave mug cake', without a shadow of irony. :-D

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

But I thought everybody knew that the Beaker People were so called because they went round selling mugs to Ancient Men, specifically for them to make raspberry and coconut mug cakes in?

[bunn.livejournal.com]

The invention of flaked tools led naturally to the microwave oven, although we don't yet know if the first microwaves were already in use during the middle Paleolithic period or if this vital survival tool was developed during the burst of technological innovation which characterised the Upper Paleolithic. It was certainly widely in use by the start of the Mesolithic period.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

These first microwave ovens may have been carried in woven slings, adapted from those created for carrying babies, but this is hotly debated, since woven materials do not survive well.

See "The Culture of the Middle Paleolithic/Middle Stone Age" Clark, J. Desmond, "Ovens of the Middle Paleolithic/Middle Stone Age" Clark, "Ovens and Oven-carriers" J. Desmond and of course Clark "Why Oven-carriers Never Existed" - Clark.

It is sad to see such a successful academic cooperation break up so acrimoniously.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

I would love to be able to reply in a suitably witty form, but I can't match this, so all I will say is :-D

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

...although I'm suddenly struck with the image of a poor Early Man being persuaded to buy 200 mugs from a doorstep Beaker Person, who smoothly assures him that they are just perfect for making raspberry and coconut microwave mug cakes and impressing the neighbours at dinner parties. How proud he feels, as the Beaker Person smarms away, leaving Stig to admire his beautiful, shiny purchases! How delighted Mrs Stig will be when she sees them!

But slowly, slowly, realisation dawns. Microwave ovens haven't been invented yet, and what on earth are coconuts? Oh, woe, woe, etc!

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

My Favourite History has always been the sort of history that you could imagine Errol Flynn appearing in. Basically, it has to include men with cloaks and swords, wildly galloping over moorlands. And I prefer to know at least some of the names, faces, personalities and voices of said gallopers, hence preferring Medieval Stuff to the Really Old Stuff.

I've never been a fan of Joe Bloggs the tragic miner, either. The only element of Joe Bloggs' life that really interests me is his folklore, his calendar customs, and the songs that he sings. But I don't imagine that the school curriculum - or indeed most university history courses - ever cover that.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Poor Joe has grown on me as an adult, although I'm still not particularly likely to seek him out. But Small Bunn would have little interest with him, he would have seemed far too contemporary, relevant and therefore dull.

I am not particularly concerned with names and faces: I love periods of history where there is lots of space around the known facts, and if I'm honest, I kind of like archaeology better than documents. :-D

[leesa_perrie]

This sounds like madness! Who decided to teach little ones about one of the most difficult periods of history to get to grips with, due to lack of oral/written history? Not a teacher, I suspect!

Book publishers are probably struggling to find anyone able to write a Stone Age book for 6 year olds!

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

I think the rationale behind it is the belief that children need to have an overview of British history done in order, so events make sense, rather than dipping in and out - doing Romans one term, Tudors the next, then World War 2, and ending up - allegedly - with no conception of how they all fit together. Although I'd have thought that a simple timeline on the classroom wall could have dealt with any confusion that resulted. But what do I know?

[themis1.livejournal.com]

Why do I suspect someone, somewhere thought dinosaurs were what small children wanted to know about? (Please don't tell me I'm in the wrong period, I'm not the person who made this idiotic decision!)

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

When searching for picture books that contained Stone Age men the other week, I found very few, but over half the ones I did find showed them co-existing with dinosaurs.

[kargicq.livejournal.com]

Ladybird books. Even more awesome than I thought now I realise they haven't been replaced with a modern equivalent.

[mific.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking clips from The Flintstones may get a lot of play! (what d'you mean it's not historically accurate?)