Notice they suggest she said no History, no Shakespeare – she actually said no to teaching ‘dates’ (and only dates) as history; no to making schoolchildren ‘learn by heart’ chunks of Shakespeare for no purpose.

Both of these were common in the UK back in the 1950.s – and are still common in some education systems now (including the Romanian one – although Shakespeare is replaced by Romanian poets).

The Mirror also has a political agenda – and Union bashing is firmly on it.

From the way it was worded it sounded like cutting out history and Shakespeare entirely would have pleased this person. I agree that just spouting dates and words isn’t much of an education, but an understanding has to be taught with the words and dates. It’s hard to have one without the other. Life skills is not something you can just teach either. I think a lot of life’s lessons come from studying history and literature.

This article annoyed me a little just because it said so little about it. “So and so said this.” The end. If more of a discussion had been shared I wouldn’t have been so peeved.

(Not the most reasoned or reasonable newspaper on the planet.)

And nothing very new in what the woman says: For years teachers in England have not been ‘teaching dates’ (apart from 1066) and have not been making students learn Shakespeare by heart.

Mind you – they are encouraged to take part in performances and to try to understand events and empathise with people from the past. England does put more emphasis on Shakespeare than any other country – that’s one reason 14 year old girls hate the work so much (See the Geek on that).

Not surprised either the Union in question (not a significant one) or the Newspaper in question are so out of date.