FAMILY, FRIENDS & COUNTRYMEN, LEND ME YOUR EARS...

Many years ago, not long after I started this message board, I wrote an angry essay about the state of political affairs which was the result of seeing the inevitable success of Trump's television show 'The Apprentice'.

So called 'reality' TV has a lot to answer for but it succeeded in the main because it played upon the weakness of a viewing public that is largely uneducated, especially about history and prefers to nurse grievances and prejudice especially about other races.

In my school days we were taught about ancient history in some depth from ancient Mesopotamia through the rise and fall of various other civilisations from which the lessons to be learned were manifold and important.

There was definitely an imperial bias towards the virtues of discovery, exploration and trade which tended to leave one with the expectation that eventually one might be perhaps in charge of a plantation, factory or possibly a school whose purpose was to bring the benefits of same to illuminate darkest Africa perhaps or some other source of colonial prosperity.

Being born in 1947, I had what was an essentially Victorian education, because of spending my childhood attending a boarding school, followed by a grammar school until 1963. In which I was inculcated in Chemistry, Physics and of course Math, not forgetting Geography, History and English Lit. and Lang. Art, Woodwork and Music plus the usual array of sports and gym.

You may think these subjects weren't relevant but in fact the various subjects were well integrated. One might be expected to produce an accurate map of the Middle East in Geography or have at least a working knowledge of Turners art masterpieces, for example.

In any case I was fascinated with history and the way in which the pieces of the puzzle all fit together. One could hardly fail to see how the legacy of the Greeks affected the culture of the Roman Empire whose invasion of Britain left us with a rich record of their engineering works and possibly gave rise to later legends such as King Arthur?

One of my first impressions as a teacher of Craft, Design and Technology when I began my career in the USA, was the surprising ignorance of my students and colleagues which their curriculum made quite obvious - Social Studies, I ask you!

How can one expect a world power to have the slightest inkling about the other countries and their political influences without a basic understanding of their histories which are a rich tapestry of conquest and assimilation?

TO BE CONTINUED