Prejudice in Education
My interest in history came upon me like a lightening strike when I was 11.
I was so looking forward to learning history at my new big school, but I went to a secondary modern school. I just had no idea about the 11 plus exam. It made no sense to me at all, so I failed it
I sat eagerly in my first history lesson, double period. The teacher got up and said (I can still remember it word for word) “You British are a mongrel race! Heinz 57 varieties!” She had the good grace to go red and look down and ashamed! She was also English. I have wondered to this day who told her to say that?
So we spent the whole double period drawing cave men dragging woman around by their hair, and the next week we started our history education proper, from 1828AD onwards! No mention of what happened in between!
I have spent the rest of my life since then with my nose in a history book. I was frankly appalled, even at age 11 I knew that ‘mongrel‘ was a term of abuse! I knew this was wrong, I knew this was insulting. At the time, I didn’t know why, but my back went ramrod straight and I was grossly offended!
I have just put the phone down after a conversation with a friend who went to a grammar school. She is five years younger than me. “Oh yes!” She said. “We learnt all about the Phoenicians, the Romans, the Marsh Arabs….” she continued listing all the different peoples and periods of history she had been taught about at school.
I said, “I bet they didn’t teach you about the Celts?”
She went silent, thinking. Of course they hadn’t!
I watched Boris Johnson’s programme about reconstituting Europe, the modern European Union, recently. His point is the Romans did this so very well, why can’t we? Well Boris, Europe was not united under the Romans, point one. They did not conquer Germany or the Baltic states, arguable most of the European continent. Theirs was a Mediterranean culture!
Point two, it was the Celts who united Europe, from the Iberian Peninsula to modern day Turkey and all the land in between, north of Greece and Macedonia, and probably extending into the Steppes, where apparently they travelled all the way to the Takla Makan desert in about 1000BCE, where their mummies have been found still wearing tartan woven clothes made from Northern European wool, 6 foot tall red haired Caucasians, looking for all the world like Celts!
I was also interested, but not surprised, to find that Alexander the Great met with the Celtic tribes in 325BCE on the Danube river where they made a peace treaty before Alexander turned east on his great conquests. Alexander met with them as equals after the Celts had occupied Northern Italy in 490BCE, defeated the Etruscans in 474BCE and defeated the Romans in 390BCE when they sacked Rome itself. Celtic mercenaries were fighting for the Spartans against Thebes in 366BCE and were a great power in the region. Even Alexander acknowledged this.
Of course there is no mention of this in any recent history of Alexander the Great. How come they have been excised from the history books of British grammar schools by the 1950s?
How come Boris cannot bring himself to mention them, even now?
Oh yes! I will continue to root around in the history books! I will never forget my rude awakening to educational prejudice! I have been fascinated by the Celts ever since.
Of course, at the age of 11 I only had to wander out into the local countryside to see the traces of my ancestors, but I was never allowed to mention them! The landscape of Britain was sculpted by them in the most obvious ways. Once you start to notice all the hill forts and high places, all the hills crowned with trees and listen to all the local myths and legends, they are still all around us, but we must never mention their name, must we!
Mongrels indeed!
I prefer to use this term in its correct use, which is for a dog, and they are most wonderful!
