Festival of History

Today we went to Kelmarch Hall in Northamptonshire (you know, M5, M42, M6, A14) and saw lots of battles. The tagline was "One weekend, 2000 years in the making". If this event was anything to go by, history consists mostly of wars. We saw a Roman battle, an Anglo-Scottish "Battle of the Standard", a battle from the English Civil War, a battle from the Napoleonic wars, a Boer War re-enactment, a scene from World War I trenches, and D-Day airborne display from World War II. But it was quite interesting - especially all the commentary providing the context.

While in Australia we may learn about all of these events, it seems to be very dry and abstract - no matter how hard teachers try to engage students. But here, you can go and see the places where it happened, and there's so much evidence around the place: it's hard to ignore - it seems so much more real, as though it actually happened. Still, it doesn't seem to have engaged our children to any degree...