The Battle of Culloden
The Scottish government is to offer school children subsidised trips to Bannockburn and Culloden, raising fears pupils will be indoctrinated with a 'narrow nationalist' view of Scots history.
Historians and opposition politicians have warned against teaching pupils a 'tabloid' version of history that could fuel anti-English sentiment. What absolute nonsense.
Ministers have given a sum of public money to the National Trust for Scotland which will supervise the trips to the battlefields and Burns Heritage Museum in Alloway, Ayrshire, but reval politicians said pupils might receive a skewed account of the past that fails to grasp that Scots fought both with the government as well as the Jacobites at Culloden.
What an insult to our history teachers and also those who from the NTS who will supervise the outings. Do they honestly think history teachers are incapable of teaching the history of Culloden and Bannockburn?
I'm rather pleased to hear of this innovation because I am of a generation which was taught only English or Empire history and the history of my own country was omitted from the curriculum.
Labour initiated trips to Auschwitz for school children and many, including myself, objected on the grounds that children were too young to cope with the raw emotion which is still evident there, so why are the unionists complaining about school children visiting Scottish battlefields?
As Huntly loon comments on the Scotsman article:
Surely the Unionists would be welcoming a proper interpretation of our history or is it that they would rather have it concealed or expunged.
Tom Devine, Professor of Scottish History at Edinburgh University sought to quell the unionists' doubts:
"If this is under supervision and organisation of both the schools and the NTS, I would certainly trust them to be responsible."
Source: Scotsman
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