The scots educational curriculum is sufficiently different to the English that I had significant difficulty at (an English) University, because of assumptions about what was learned.
Also, time changes things. I did school during a period where school history was in ferment and the teacher said at some points we were learning a new curriculum which rejected "great men of history" theory and focussed on mass movements. I suspect after Thatcher this was revised, it was almost overtly marxist. The textbooks on post colonialism were pretty clear.
I hasten to add I had no problem with this, and I read "the 18th Brumaire of Louis Buonaparte" as revision for the history exam in the library, with much pleasure. This was because we'd done a lot on the revolutions across Europe in 1848. Strangely we did very little on Chartism. When I went to uni I found out this was a really active field of study, especially in the midlands because so many Chartist pamphlets are held by places like Leeds university, the working class towns. Maybe thats why Scots History ignored it: it was a south of the border story! If they'd done the emergence of the British Labour party I bet we'd have had a lot given the origins of Labour in Scotland, and the Red Clyde story. That was probably done in year 12 and I left school early to go work in a Marine Biology lab.
I probably remember this because I enjoyed it. A lot of history doesn't excite everyone, perhaps I was lucky. I am buggered if I can remember the Maths, which isn't very helpful given I work in CS. Like Arnold Rimmer in "Red Dwarf" I am acceptably meh at colouring in the crinkly bits in Geography but not much else.
Also, time changes things. I did school during a period where school history was in ferment and the teacher said at some points we were learning a new curriculum which rejected "great men of history" theory and focussed on mass movements. I suspect after Thatcher this was revised, it was almost overtly marxist. The textbooks on post colonialism were pretty clear.
I hasten to add I had no problem with this, and I read "the 18th Brumaire of Louis Buonaparte" as revision for the history exam in the library, with much pleasure. This was because we'd done a lot on the revolutions across Europe in 1848. Strangely we did very little on Chartism. When I went to uni I found out this was a really active field of study, especially in the midlands because so many Chartist pamphlets are held by places like Leeds university, the working class towns. Maybe thats why Scots History ignored it: it was a south of the border story! If they'd done the emergence of the British Labour party I bet we'd have had a lot given the origins of Labour in Scotland, and the Red Clyde story. That was probably done in year 12 and I left school early to go work in a Marine Biology lab.
I probably remember this because I enjoyed it. A lot of history doesn't excite everyone, perhaps I was lucky. I am buggered if I can remember the Maths, which isn't very helpful given I work in CS. Like Arnold Rimmer in "Red Dwarf" I am acceptably meh at colouring in the crinkly bits in Geography but not much else.