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.
Supposing some of them are not, is the right way to correct that a Government directive? Is that the way educational standards are improved in the USA? I suspect not.
I have a copy of somewhere in that back Fibber McGee closet of mine, but I do recall one part of it: “Ever striving to get firsthand into the fight, Winnie was kept from landing with his forces at Normandy on D-Day, but he did cross the Rhine with his troops.”
He was a great man with flaws and vices, but his true greatness was his single-mindedness that kept Britain in the war against the Nazis when a negotiated settlement would have been easy to arrange and easy to pass off as the convenient thing to do... Winston Churchill did the 'right' thing.
One of the things I still admire about President Bush is his single-mindedness to defeat the Islamic Terrorists even when the liberal dogs and even a few GOP sumbitches are nipping at his heels. I believe W will do the right thing in the War on Terror.
One of my favorite stories about Winnie was when he was once at a party and drinking to excess. A woman there really took him to task, finally calling him a drunkard. "Correct, madam," Winston replied, "However, in the morning light, I shall be sober while you shall still be ugly."
Thanks for that information, Stoat. These new languages to be taught in UK schools all point to the only Arabic word I know: dhimmitude.
We are in agreement on your observations and conclusions.
I remember hearing that party put down, good for him!
Thanks to the appeasers in the world, we are doomed to relive history, but maybe the outcome won’t be quite as pretty. Pray for a little divine intervention.
Another example.....
Lady A: Mr Churchill, if I were your wife I would put arsenic in your tea.
Mr Churchill: Madam, if I were your husband I would drink it!
Well, my children will most cerinly be taught about the great man!!!
Well, my children will most certainly be taught about the great man!!!
“Winnie died when I was a Senior at Robert E. Lee High in Houston in 1965”
In a bit of relevant irony. I wonder is the name of your former high school still the same?
I have no doubt that you will see to it that they are taught the important things. The sad fact is, however, that for every family like yours there are perhaps a thousand or more that either don't know or don't particularly care. Also, taking Sir Winston off of the required syllabus removes a very important imprimatur of societal regard and weight that has historically been given him. Now when children in Government schools are taught that 'global warming' is a man-made fact and it's due entirely to 'Western excesses', they will give that perspective a far heavier regard than some 'old dead white man' who was removed from their syllabus because he's not particularly politically fashionable anymore.
There are some in this thread who argue that it's all of no particular concern and we should all trust the teachers to continue in the excellent works that they do regardless of what the Government's requirements are.
I would suggest that it is indeed a great concern because although some teachers are indeed good and will likely try, for a few years, to maintain some semblance of academic standards, they are all faced with a limited amount of time to cover the Required syllabus items, and little time is left for anything else regardless of the personal convictions of the remaining excellent teachers.
Your... In a bit of relevant irony. I wonder is the name of your former high school still the same?
Sadly, no... As per http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_High_School_(Houston,_Texas) my dear old alma mater is not something I would care to see again. They do not even have an 'American' football team any more. I prefer my old memories.
Go Generals!
Thank you very much for the extremely generous and welcome support you sent me about my grandfather.
It is always a source of immense satisfaction that so many of your fellow countrymen cherish his memory and I can assure you that we, his family, are deeply grateful.
Thank you again very much.
With warm best wishes.
Nicholas Soames
House of Commons
London
SW1A 0AA
Oh my goodness....what a wonderful gift from across the pond!
This is something to proudly hand down in the generations of your family for all time to come....such a gracious, friendly and kind letter from the grandson of Winston Churchill himself.
One can see his warm smile and feel his friendly handshake with these words.
Thank you so much for sharing it with us :-)
One suggestion....there are ways to prolong the life of important paper documents that reduce the yellowing and visible aging that comes with the passage of time. I am not an expert in this field, but I know that there is a wealth of information pertaining to this on the internet, and it may be something that you might wish to consider investigating in order to help insure as long a life as possible for such a treasure and family heirloom.....as well as a copy of the letter that you sent him.
Search keywords and phrases might include "document archiving", "archival document storage", ."document conservation", etc. etc.
re: saving docs.
Sitting here on my shelf is a can of "Preserve It!" by Krylon.
I am an artist and a writer - preserve things for my kids and grandkids - just, finally, sprayed a sketch I did back in the 60's of Wally Schirra, one of the original 7 Astronauts. My brother was in the space industry then, in the 'wee hours' of it, and we lived in Cocoa Beach - at the time, a sleepy little town with only 1 or 2 hotel/motels.
The one the Mercury guys stayed at when in town was the Ramada Inn, where my mother worked as a hostess. Often, when I went to pick her up, I would wait for her in the bar/lounge. Wally Schirra was there often and I got to 'visit' with him. One day, when we were chatting, someone at the bar produced a piece of note paper and, knowing I did portraits, suggested I do a sketch. Someone else produced a ball point pen - red, of all things, - and I did a quick sketch, which he signed for me.
I just yesterday dug it out to frame and take to one of my sons, this week in Cocoa Beach. He works on the shuttle program.
I have many such "Preserve It!" memorabilia as I have lived all the states and seemed to be where things 'were happening"...
Maybe now they’ll hire Churchill, as in Ward Churchill.
He had come to power because he had seen through Hitler from the very beginning--but not, ironically, because his inner light, the source of that insight, was understood by Englishmen.Churchill's star was invisible to the public and even to most of his peers. But a few saw it. One of them wrote afterward that although Winston knew the world was complex and in constant flux, to him "the great things, races, and peoples, and morality were eternal."
Isaiah Berlin, the Oxford philosopher, later observed that the Churchill of 1940 was neither "a sensitive lens, which absorbs and concentrates and reflects...the sentiments of others," nor a politician who played "on public opinion like an instrument."
Instead Berlin saw him as a leader who imposed his "imagination and his will upon his countrymen," idealizing them "with such intensity that in the end they approached his ideal and began to see themselves as he saw them." In doing so he "transformed cowards into brave men, and so fulfilled the purpose of shining armour."
Reagan had that same quality.
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