July 10th 75 years ago today, The Battle of Britain

Open to wide interpretation? Only if you want it to be. :rolleyes: I’ll try be less ambiguous next time!

You don’t mention the Battle in your first paragraph. You mention ‘recent history’. That’s open to wide interpretation.

Your first paragraph broadly contradicts your second and third…

My first paragraph states the desirability of a knowledge of the Battle-of-Britain…

…the following paragraphs question the actual necessity of a knowledge of the Battle-of-Britain!

I’d replace the word fun with ‘interesting’.

John, do you spend much time with school age kids? Things do need to be bought alive for them. I’m lucky enough to be in a position to shoe them into the cockpit of a Spitfire should they want to. That seems to work. School visits to Hendon, Cosford, Kennington? I’m sure that would also be effective, coupled with a project of some sort. I remember clearly as a young lad having an actor come to the school as a historical character. Very impressive, bought it alive, made it interesting.

Dunbar,

There is nothing in your comment with which I would argue. I do not spend any time with school age kids but I have been thru’ teacher training and from that point I’m not a ‘new kid on the block’. I believe that ‘chalk n’ talk’ that accompanies the kind of experience you relate is a very sound combination.

If children – as I understand – are taught all about the Holocaust, then they should even more importantly be taught about the Battle and how this climactic event impacted upon the world.

That just under half of school age children know nothing about the Battle is scandalous and to be the butt – as I feel myself to be – of so much negative comment is equally bad because it betrays the memory of the very people to whom we should be eternally grateful.

Stop trying to misunderstand me… :rolleyes:

…I agree that it is desirable that all children that leave school should have a fundamental understanding of the recent history of their country; we clearly just disagree on the best way of achieving this!

OK, answer me this: why is it necessary for anybody to know anything about the Battle-of-Britain? Does having a knowledge of the Battle-of-Britain make somebody better at their job? Does it make them a better person? More intelligent? More trustworthy? Less likely to commit crime? More likely to give money to charity? More likely to join UKIP?

The truth of the matter is that millions of people have managed to get through their entire lives, useful, positive, productive lives, without having a clue what the Battle-of-Britain was even about…

…you may not like any of these people…..but that is fact of life in Britain today.

Yes, exactly! What is wrong with teaching history the fun way?

Because, at the end of the day, we want children to think history is fun; if it is fun they’ll stick with it for the rest of their lives and it won’t just become another boring thing that was drilled into them at school!

And, as many people have said on this thread, their interest in the Battle-of-Britain was not primarily brought about because it was taught to them at school; it was because of a fun thing that they did, such as visiting airshows or museums, reading comics or building Airfix kits!

CD,
Your thinking is muddled. Your first paragraph broadly contradicts your second and third. Your argument, if extended, questions if we need to teach history at all. Do we really need to know anything about the B of B ? Will it indeed make us a better person, will we be enabled to earn more ? Will we be more charitably inclined ? Etc. etc.

The answer to all that and most of the other questions you pose is of course, no, unless you are on a paid lecture circuit specialising in the Battle of Britain.

So, what then is the purpose of the teaching of history? Where the history in question is of a military nature and where the action in question is inextricably linked with the independence and future well being of this nation and its people, teaching of history is of paramount importance.

Apart from giving us a continual perspective on past events, enabling us to make useful comparisons, history in the particular context of our discussion, discloses how we managed to retain our national independence, including the means by which we organised our national defence and last but not the least, rightly eulogises the truly magnificent men and women in the frontline without whom you and I would not perhaps be holding this discussion.

If nothing else, it is this specific act of continual remembrance of just what extraordinary people achieved over three extraordinary months to keep this nation from enslavement that is the justification for the future teaching of the history of the Battle of Britain.

It is as well to remember the last time this country was invaded by a foreign aggressor. Centuries of intermittent laying waste, famine and genocide followed accompanied by centuries of military entanglement in Europe’s affairs.

Ok, i’m going to come out of my cave for this one…

I have to say that I agree with the idea of making learning history fun. Although the word fun does perhaps have some negative connotations for those of a more rigid viewpoint.

The comparison of comics and model kits to computer games is an entirely valid one in my humble opinion. Children have not fundamentally changed since the days when building Airfix models was the norm for school aged children. The medium for getting that hook into their minds, however, has. Technology has moved on, as have teaching methods- it is a simple case of adapt or die.

At 29, i’m aware that i’m of a different generation to most here, but that doesn’t mean that the spark that kicked off my journey into aviation was any different to those that took light in your minds. We’ve all got the same fires raging in our heads for this hobby of ours, and I firmly believe that the same kindling exists in the minds of modern kids. All we can do is try. If we don’t do that, we may as well look upon ourselves as the last of the mohicans.

Bit metaphor heavy perhaps, but you get the idea.

It isn’t an easy thing for me to say because sentimentally I WANT the history of the Battle, (among other things) to be taught. But, as Creaking Door says, it’s not necessarily necessary(!). God knows, I am aware of the debt we owe to those who served but the fact is, times have changed, we have moved on, (in no small measure because of events like the Battle) and I genuinely think that my own experience of the teaching of the Battle of Britain shows that most of us manage to muddle through without an intimate knowledge of these things. On this forum we are all to a degree enthusiasts and therefore our viewpoint is skewed in favour of the historical. To the majority (who still remain decent and law abiding despite the rantings of the Daily Fail), it’s all rather irrelevant.

I’d replace the word fun with ‘interesting’.

John, do you spend much time with school age kids? Things do need to be bought alive for them. I’m lucky enough to be in a position to shoe them into the cockpit of a Spitfire should they want to. That seems to work. School visits to Hendon, Cosford, Kennington? I’m sure that would also be effective, coupled with a project of some sort. I remember clearly as a young lad having an actor come to the school as a historical character. Very impressive, bought it alive, made it interesting.

Stop trying to misunderstand me… :rolleyes:

…I agree that it is desirable that all children that leave school should have a fundamental understanding of the recent history of their country; we clearly just disagree on the best way of achieving this!

OK, answer me this: why is it necessary for anybody to know anything about the Battle-of-Britain? Does having a knowledge of the Battle-of-Britain make somebody better at their job? Does it make them a better person? More intelligent? More trustworthy? Less likely to commit crime? More likely to give money to charity? More likely to join UKIP?

The truth of the matter is that millions of people have managed to get through their entire lives, useful, positive, productive lives, without having a clue what the Battle-of-Britain was even about…

…you may not like any of these people…..but that is fact of life in Britain today.

Learning about Hastings, the Civil War, the Anglo Dutch Wars, the Armada, Trafalgar, Waterloo should only occur provided it is FUN, presumably taught in a FUN way.

Yes, exactly! What is wrong with teaching history the fun way?

Because, at the end of the day, we want children to think history is fun; if it is fun they’ll stick with it for the rest of their lives and it won’t just become another boring thing that was drilled into them at school!

And, as many people have said on this thread, their interest in the Battle-of-Britain was not primarily brought about because it was taught to them at school; it was because of a fun thing that they did, such as visiting airshows or museums, reading comics or building Airfix kits!

I’m sorry. I did miss your point.

…”because it is fun…”

I now fully understand. Learning about Hastings, the Civil War, the Anglo Dutch Wars, the Armada, Trafalgar, Waterloo should only occur provided it is FUN, presumably taught in a FUN way.

You, and others who think the way that you do, are firmly linked with the shameful decline of State education in this country.

Why not mention video-games, comics and Airfix? I think you are missing the fundamental point of ‘educating’ children; children don’t develop a deep interest and understanding of the Battle-of-Britain, World War Two history or history in general because it is ‘important’ or because they will need this knowledge in later life. No, they develop an interest in, say, the Battle-of-Britain because it is fun…

…and for ‘school age’ children that means catching them young so video-games, comics and Airfix kits are entirely appropriate!

A truly great speech but not necessarily a statement of absolute fact…

…and Britain didn’t need to fight the Battle-of-Britain in 1940; all Britain needed to do was to avoid invasion and still be in a position that we could rejoin the war in 1941 to continue the fight against Nazi Germany.

Hitler was prepared to offer Britain peace terms in 1940, these, assuming they were acceptable to Britain, could have been accepted thus preventing invasion; in 1941 Britain could have simply torn-up the treaty.

You do, from time to time, spout some unrealistic nonsense ! No one knows if it was ‘not necessarily a statement of fact’. Fortunately, we the British, won; the statement was never tested.

No ‘peace’ terms presented by a victorious power to this country, could ever have been acceptable. They would have converted Britain into a client state of the Nazis. Existing by kind permission of Herr Hitler and his clique of gangsters.

Richard Gray’s quote of what is for me Churchill’s most magnificent speech, perfectly summarises the gravity of the time.

But, enough of that. How would you go about improving knowledge of the Battle in school age children ? Don’t mention ludicrous video games, comics and Airfix.

Exactly. Although in 1940 Churchill clearly made the right decision to fight the Battle-of-Britain.

A bit like the non aggression pact between Germany and Russia?

A truly great speech but not necessarily a statement of absolute fact…

…and Britain didn’t need to fight the Battle-of-Britain in 1940; all Britain needed to do was to avoid invasion and still be in a position that we could rejoin the war in 1941 to continue the fight against Nazi Germany.

Hitler was prepared to offer Britain peace terms in 1940, these, assuming they were acceptable to Britain, could have been accepted thus preventing invasion; in 1941 Britain could have simply torn-up the treaty.

Surely Churchill’s speech explains why this battle was the ultimate battle.

What General Weygand has called the Battle of France is over … the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilisation. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be freed and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands.

But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, This was their finest hour.

Not in 1940.

Surely the advent of ICBMs put paid to the original relevance of a nation’s control of its airspace.

That statement is perhaps key to understanding why it is that so many fail to understand the potentially disasterous sequence of events attendant upon the RAF losing control of the airspace over the British Isles.

The Battle of Britain is but one battle of a number of notable battles in just one war in this nation’s great history of conflicts won. I fail to understand the supreme significance it seems to have for some. If youngsters learn about it in the ways mentioned I cannot see anything but good in that.