How does britain teach the american revolution

Our emails are made to shine in your inbox, with something fresh every morning, afternoon, and weekend. The American Revolutionary War is an intensely proud moment in history for most Americans perhaps too proud. Along with the Civil War, it fills up more pages in history textbooks than any other event in American history. But how is the American Revolution taught in the UK and in other countries around the world? Quartz crowdsourced answers from people on Reddit and Quora to get a sense of how this seminal event in the American historical ethos is taught to everyone else.

We touched on it in A level history UK. Almost all of the history I do remember in school was based around Tudors, Edwardians, Victorians, and the two World Wars. We are taught about the history of potatoes and the Cold War. Brit here. Studied history all through school, university and up to MA level. In more modern times, emphasis is put on issues such as industrialization, colonialism and the post-colonization era, the events during the World Wars, and internal reforms. British imperialism, for example in Africa, is of course addressed.

So why not focus on the American War of Independence and the birth of one of the most influential nations in modern history? It seems that the lack of details when teaching about American independence is not due to shame, envy or part of a continuous effort to hide their colonial past, as say, the case might be in Japan.

The U. That would amount to on average one independence day celebration of a country every week in a given school year. A phlegmatic English answer regarding this issue would be that they have better things to do than to focus on each one of these separately. So the American Revolution is equated with other similar events, and it is rather addressed as an armed uprising of an important, but distant rural populace against taxes.

Hardly unique in history. The importance of ideas such as enlightenment, freedom and democratic values, are viewed by Americans on the basis of their revolution as one prime example thereof.

But the schools in the UK, similar to most European countries, focus on other incidents. Some of them are closer to home and widely acknowledged as shaping history, such as the French Revolution. Another example is the post-colonialism era in Asia and Africa as one of the main facets of world history. These, rather than American Independence, are considered to provide the historical depth necessary for such discussions in UK classrooms.

Thus, the War of American Independence will mostly come up as an addendum, providing context when dealing with the French Revolution or with trade regulations within the British Empire, as an example of a taxation policy gone wrong. It can also be related to the long term effects of the Seven Years War, which may be considered one of the causes that would eventually lead to the higher taxation that in turn ignited the revolutionary actions in the Americas.

Of course that does not mean that American history is shunned from British schools. Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here. Friends are in your life for 'a reason, a season, or a time' Reddit user 'Jojosiwasbadussy' asked:. A good chunk of us will read through these answers and see situations we recognize. Some of us will see situations we tolerated, or made a different choice in.

We're going to talk about your experiences at the end, first it's time for Reddit to get all red-flaggy. What are you talking about? Stayed with them 3 years. Realized that I was always the one initiating. What hurt most is they never reached out to ask where I was or why I never hung out with them anymore.

Then I sat in on a conversation of them talking about how they'd been sharing a toothbrush between them for weeks there was 3 of them - they were arguing about whose it actually was. They were underage, had guns illegally, and they lied so much it was just cringy. They kept acting hard and tough, saying I was soft.

Those guys were plain ridiculous and really dangerous, just not in the way they thought. I socialize with several actual narcos, and if there is one thing they would never do it is disrespect a mom's birthday like that. Nobody I had met before besides her. Dude's roommate comes home and he's obviously a bit imbalanced, which the other occupant had sorta warned us about.

We weren't even loud at all, just chilling and having a drink and chatting. Walked like 10 miles back home in the middle of the night. Happy to have dodged that whole scene. I just said, 'this would be a bad thing for me' out loud and walked to the other side of the room.

Instead everyone got crazy drunk. I think Bill Murray's a great actor and did a great job in 'Lost in Translation. He refused to clean it up and the mutual friends said I was blowing it out of proportion and should just leave it.

I was going to be the DD since they had already all been drinking, but I had no desire to put up with this behavior for the rest of the night. I just couldn't associate myself with her or treat her with any semblance of respect anymore.

She just outright stopped being human in my head. They were low on the totem pole trying to 'break into the scene. I would have never ever gone through with it and the fact they wanted to rob something is what made me decide to leave my group of child hood friends forever. And your insurance plan of not getting caught is for me to hide out in my car down the street and look for police??? Each one of them has a drug problem, a few of them have gone to jail, luckily nobody is dead.

By far the greatest decision I made was realizing I grew out of these friends and moving on with my life at the age of You guys just want a cheap trip to Hawaii, I'm not going to let you come stay with me when you haven't talked to me in months! Went back to the US on a vacation with my family a couple years later, and I made plans to visit and old childhood friend.

Hung out several times a week after school. He was a really friendly, kind and funny kid. Starts off a perfectly normal and pleasant night. Mostly people were just asking me questions about myself and my life in Denmark.

Seemed like a friendly group of folks There was not a single person there who wasn't incredibly eager to contribute to the cascade of racial epithets, stereotypes and ignorant hate-remarks being thrown out at a staggering velocity. Apparently most of them had at least one prior or pending assault charge for beating up a black person. Now that you've read through the Reddit Red Flag parade, it's your turn to share. Want to "know" more? Never miss another big, odd, funny or heartbreaking moment again.

Humans are not always hard-wired to accept the lessons they can learn softly. Humans may need to have a seriously difficult learning experience to recognize a life lesson. Whereas if you'd just listened to someone's advice beforehand, you may have avoided making this mistake—but on the other hand, the issue being dealt with would certainly not leave as great an impression upon you.

Up to age thirteen, most schools in England follow a national curriculum where pupils might briefly encounter it as one of nine suggested case studies within a unit on Britain from through that is generally covered in just a few weeks in the middle of Year 9 ages thirteen-fourteen.

After that, History is an optional subject. Those who choose it tend to be taught modules or units of history in greater depth, rather than follow a broad chronological course like the AP History syllabi in the United States. Different examination boards offer different selections of modules that schools can choose from.

Very few students learn anything about the American Revolution. I taught in one school that did devote a lot of time to it in Year 9. Every year, nearly all the pupils would argue that King and his ministers were to blame. I was confused and surprised. Was there a lack of critical thinking behind this? Each year, I tried to belabor the other side of the debate in our lessons. Surely, I thought, English pupils would want to blame the colonists a little bit for the outbreak of hostilities.

After all, they tarred, feathered, and intimidated British officials. They broke onto a ship and threw large amounts of private property into Boston Harbor. The Proclamation of that angered the colonists so was actually an attempt to avoid sending large numbers of British troops to America by preventing Indian wars.

Unruly colonists established militias and built stockpiles of weapons. Would the pupils not wish to point out that the British had good reason to go to Lexington and Concord to disrupt them? But each year the verdict was pretty unanimous. George and his ministers were behaving as unbearable tyrants—taxing the colonies without giving representation, sending troops, forcing colonists to quarter them in their homes, and passing laws without consulting them.

Granted, this school was in a part of London Hampstead that has traditionally been left-wing in outlook with a reputation for champagne-socialism. Finding anyone willing to defend the Empire there was unlikely.

But I have seen similar reactions in other parts of England as well. I recently interviewed a Year 8 boy who had covered the American Revolution at another school.