Conversation
Notices
-
If I had archery or fencing or whatever at school I would have gotten 9 or 10 every trimester consistently, because those things are actually fun, unlike football or handball.
In a japanese school I would have been a member of a bunch of sports teams.Thursday, 23-Feb-17 09:57:50 UTC from web-
@sim Honestly I would have assumed in the UK it wouldn't be that rare, since the place has a long history with bows. Shows things really changed over time. Archery also would have the plus of teaching much more about responsibility than any ball sport can, since you have to be aware of where others are standing and you can't fool around with the bow, even if you're using practice arrows. The kind of responsible behaviour it'd teach would be a considerable help with building a society that's mature in the handling of weapons.
-
@nerthos
You would assume so... but it's so rare that it's not even covered. Maybe they don't have the teachers or facilities for it where I was. More likely, it's just not covered. Then again, you have to go to medieval festivals to see people that cover our long history with things like this... the general population doesn't seem to have much national pride, and I don't see that encouraged. People will get the flag out for football or the Olympics though. -
@sim Same as far as the national pride thing. I'm not a patriotic guy, and I actively scorn the bad parts of the history of my own country and others, but I think it's important to teach history, specially if the country has lots of it to tell. Here at school you'll see a very basic recap of the independence wars between 1800 and 1816, and some stuff about the 1880s, '40s and '70s. That's it. And Buenos Aires was first founded on 1534, and stands since 1580 after being destroyed once by it's inhabitants. Not to even go into pre-Spanish history. And this is still much younger than your place, of which there exists historical records from at least Roman times.
In a country like yours with a much longer history and thus full of interesting stuff, there should be much more covered and shown in school so that people have an idea of what has happened where they stand. -
@nerthos
Ah yes, history did cover various aspects... probably more basic. Towards the end, it was less about us and more US-centric though. It covered modern history, the world wars and civil rights movement... Though it was more interesting to cover Jack the Ripper... got a trip to London for that! -
@sim We didn't get the northern civil rights movement part here, haha. Women's vote was passed in the 40s without complications and the population is not too ethnically varied so those were non-issues.
World wars were barely touched, just a few pointers of WWII (which I hated as by that time I knew quite a bit of the topic and looked forward to easy points) and then mostly local politics were talked in the last few years. -
@nerthos
Lucky! It was dull. The opposite of what I wanted to cover history for. I was hoping to learn more about castles and ancient/medieval time period... got stuck with the world wars and civil rights for two years. What a way to dampen my excitement for history. -
@sim Haha, I wanted medieval history too but it was mostly overlooked, but that I could understand as it's ancient and not relevant where I live. I did hate that the world wars weren't touched in depth because it was more interesting than anything that was happening here at the time, plus the take on them would be more neutral here as the country was mostly neutral to them and took refugees from all sides.
-
@nerthos
That sucks. Can't have enough on ancient and medieval history! I do recall that we covered Henry the VIII in school early on... one of our famed King's because of how many wives he had, and what happened to them. A cautionary tale about what can happen when you are pressured to produce an heir. -
@sim Should have married a villera (our equivalent to chavs), those pump out babies like rabbits.
-
@nerthos
Haha... touche! But can you imagine one of them as Queen? Also, he was able to father a male bastard but that doesn't count in those times. Frowned upon, but he was king so he could get away with it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_Henry_VIII -
@sim Well, a hard enough dress, loads of makeup and a command to keep their mouth shut should have been enough to fool anyone xD
-
@nerthos
Haha... the trouble is, they would also need to behave like a Queen which requires knowing the right manners. -
@sim Claim an accident. "The coat of arms held over the bed did fall on her head, and with much sadness she lives crippled of the mind"
-
@sim It's done nowadays and medicine allows us to actually check with our own eyes if there's brain damage, so why not back then?
-
@nerthos
Yeah, I can't think of any reason. But she'd probably be kept away from public life as much as possible then.
