On a recent episode of Deal or No Deal (UK), the contestant mentioned being sent to the UK in 1964 by his parents to get him away from the 'troubles' in Cyprus. My first thought was 'What troubles?' All I knew of Cyprus was that it's an island near Greece and a popular holiday spot for tourists. Now, thanks to the internet I have a very basic understanding of what was happening there in the 60s and 70s.
How come this wasn't discussed in school? Isn't more recent history just as important as covering the (yawn) Civil War four years in a row? I should ask my parents if they remember this. How much is happening today that we don't hear about on the news?
2 comments:
Good point. I don't know how it is now, but when we were in school the lessons were pretty USA centric. If USA wasn't involved it didn't get much classroom time. Most of the TV news was same then. They only had an hour a day to fill with news stories so a lot of interesting stuff only got a 15 or 20 second mention. And where we typically lived as kids, newspapers which probably covered more world news were harder to come by.
British schools are the same...they teach you ancient history...but what about present history...that's just as important. I sometimes think that a lot of what has happened recently will be forgotten about because it isn't documented as much as years ago. Our schools also seemed to have stopped teaching basic life skill such as cooking, cleaning and sewing...I think it is terrible that our kids are being brought up in a 'fast food' and 'throw it and buy another one' society!!
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