A Scot's view of how little Scots are taught of their own history

[The Q]

Starting from the point of view of Outlander has very little to do with history....

As someone who was educated in Northern Ireland, England and Scotland with a Scottish certificate of education higher level in history. It doesn't matter which you were in, official history education in my time at school (1962-1975) was outline only for national history education.

Do you teach of heroic Jacobites verses the nasty English royalty and army.
Or
Do you teach of the army of the elected British government fighting a bunch of rebels lead by an Italian( Charles Edward Louis John Casimir Sylvester Severino Maria Stuart ) supported by a foreign power ( France).

Most of my certificated history education was European history ( including Britain's role) roughly from 1800 to 1950. Though the history books went right up to 1970..

Sadly most drop history as soon as they can, media studies is seen as an easier subject.
Today history education is more about how people felt about things, rather than what actually happened. They are supposedly taught how to find things out, rather than to know things. But with a lack of genuine teaching of the history, they have no interest and never go to find out the facts.

Most learn their history from rubbish films like Braveheart. Much of British history has been mangled by hollywood., Their TV series are now adding to the problem.

[jhockin]

Starting from the point of view of Outlander has very little to do with history....

As someone who was educated in Northern Ireland, England and Scotland with a Scottish certificate of education higher level in history. It doesn't matter which you were in, official history education in my time at school (1962-1975) was outline only for national history education.

Do you teach of heroic Jacobites verses the nasty English royalty and army.
Or
Do you teach of the army of the elected British government fighting a bunch of rebels lead by an Italian( Charles Edward Louis John Casimir Sylvester Severino Maria Stuart ) supported by a foreign power ( France)..

I wonder if you are referring solely to the "Outlander" TV series, or include the books? IMHO, the books are much better. Either way, the blog poster speaks about how "Outlander" sparked his interest in finding out more about the historical background of the story. Ms. Gabaldon did do a substantial amount of historical research, and that shows. However, she does also point out that she did, sometimes, alter some small details ( ex.: timing) in the interest of the plot. Nevertheless, the basics of historical facts remain in the storyline. I felt that the bloggers main point, that very little of Scottish was taught to Scots, was interesting ( and it seems, many here seem to feel that the same was true in their own schooling, wherever that may have been. What wasn't taught is also interesting, whatever the reasons.)

[kingandrew]

Regarding the well-founded frustration that "Braveheart" is the most widely-seen source of Scottish "history:"

It is certainly true that Mel Gibson's film is a lousy history text. He makes all sorts of distortions, fabrications, and anachronisms.

However, the same can also be said for all the really popular Hollywood films about American history, from "Birth of a Nation" to "Gone With the Wind" through the great John Wayne Westerns and on to "Dances with Wolves" and "Forrest Gump." They all offer cockeyed, biased, and frequently inaccurate portrayals of events and people. We can include Mr. Gibson's "The Patriot" in this list, too.

That said, these movies were all quite entertaining to audiences and great vehicles for furthering the careers of their stars. And this is the problem: Hollywood's goals are telling entertaining stories and promoting stars that will help sell tickets to their next movie. Professional historians and serious students of history are seen as a small niche audience, best served by PBS documentaries.

But it is still frustrating to see the myths and distortions of Hollywood entertainments absorbed as facts by the public. As a teacher, I often found that ridiculous parodies like "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" or "Blazing Saddles" did a better job of highlighting certain historical issues and themes than the costume blockbusters.

What we can all hope is that seeing a story or era brought to life on the big screen will inspire some portion of the audience to learn more. Which certainly does happen from time to time.

Andrew