I know the kings of England

What is the recent debate on the nature of school history initiated by our beloved PM all about?Personally I am always suspicious when he is deflected away from his preferred comfort zone of economic policy and utters infallibilities on matters which are bound to cause community controversy. Looks like a smokescreen is being prepared!!!Any way, back to history. I have a relatively good grounding in history even if I have a poor head for dates. And this has stood me in fairly good stead, an accuracy within +/- 50 years has never seemed to get me into trouble.Let me test myself....when did Henry VIII become king? Without peeking and simply guessing I'm saying 1510... now let me pause to check on Google and the answer is 1509....the minor error doesn't usually make any difference.Dates are very secondary and yet for many school students being examined they became the prime focus...what a waste of energy.The general sweep of history is important but what is more important is what happened and what it meant
I was impressed this year at the nature of the project my 12 year old did on the 1st World War
The events, the dates, the locations, the issues...I remember an importnat conversation when she realised that war is a game that old men play with the lives of boys!!
I some how doubt that when Mr Howard is talking about the teaching of history that he is talking about the sort of stuff that these girls confronted. No better by far to recite dates by rote!!