I have not heard of this, but then again I'm not on the inside track for this kind of info.

I do know that the state of Texas has some pretty serious editing and rewriting of history books to make it more ammenable to the various school boards' ways of thinking. It is a matter of adjusting facts to suit the image they prefer to be taught.

Neat and tidy editorial version of " my way or the highway."

Bowdlerization is nothing new to me. It's been around at least since Thomas Bowdler (1754-1825) who famously lent his name to this type of expurgation. He did it with Shakespeare's works. This app is just the electronic-age form.

From what I understand from the article linked to by Vee, the creators of this app wanted some way to allow their daughter to read more challenging books without exposing her to words they didn't approve of. The app doesn't permanently change any actual words as they were originally published and because of this might not be copyright infringement. The authors of the original books can squall all they want and rant in blogs, but they probably can't block parents from bowdlerizing books for what they think is the sake of their children. I recall a friend's mother going through Huckleberry Finn (before the age of the Internet) and blacking out all the words she thought were offensive. I thought at first she was nuts, but later decided she had sincere reasoning for doing so.

The idea doesn't appeal to me, but I'm not going to fault other people who use this app or those who might want to use it. As usual, there are good arguments, pro and con.

Maybe it is partly because we, over here, are fairly laid back about these sort of things that it is considered if not 'over the top' then at least strange. Poor Ned Flanders comes to mind in these situations!
I think maybe if a book is so full of expletives/unsuitable language that it would be better if a child was discouraged from reading it at all. Though usually banning something is a surefire way of making sales rise . . .thinking of the Lady Chatterley trial in the early '60's . . . it went on to sell millions of copies; an over-rated book if ever there was one.
Re yoyo's mention of re-writing history. I suppose all peoples give a slant to their own views/opinions. I heard a talk on the BBC by a Harvard professor on the subject of US history (after independence) and how it was heavily 'altered' to suite what the Founding Fathers felt gave more gravitas to the whys and wherefores. I know from studying English history that the only battles we read about are the ones we won!

If you ban all the "offensive" terms from a book like Huckleberry Finn, you fundamentally change the book, the power of its message and whitewash the past. And, that may be part of what people who use this app want to do for children. It's certainly what a lot of Texas school boards want to do.

But, of course parents should be allowed to parent in their own way. So, though I don't think I would ever have need of such an app, I can understand other parents wanting to use it.

And I agree that banning a book is a sure fire way to get kids to read it. When I was in middle school, Flowers for Algernon was part of the English curriculum until a parent complained about it. As soon as we all learned we weren't allowed to read it, the waiting list for it at the library became a mile long. I thinks it was the only book the whole class actually read. And it's the only book I can still remember reading from that class.

I also find it curious that sex and bad language tend to be deemed more offensive than violence. Reading a murder mystery or war novel seems to be ok, as long as there's no sex or bad words.

Vee, there's something odd going on at The Independent site with the article you linked to. I went to reread it, but it's not the same as when I read it yesterday. Today it ends abruptly and doesn't get to the punch line, which I recall included the f-word. Do me a favor, please: go to the article to see if it has changed for you as well.

No Frieda, no change in my version. Still ends in an expletive. And on the theme of bad words I read on another thread at GW someone (US) wrote that they could never bring themselves to say God Lord or Hell (for eg) but were quite OK with four-letter words. I suppose it is just our cultural differences. I know I can write what I consider to be a perfectly innocent word here only to find I've been tossed into the fiery pit of inexcusable bad language.
Merry I agree about the violence. Even those old Dick Francis whodunnits are full of beatings, torn-apart limbs, broken ribs, kicked-in teeth . . . thank goodness the 'goodies' take so little time to recover.

When I know that certain people are sensitive about particular words, I do my best not to offend and don't use those words, either spoken or written, to them. To me, it seems the courteous thing to do. Here at RP, I deliberately refrain from using some of my more colorful speech, partly because Spike used to send me to Disney frequently and I know that some posters don't like bad language just like some can't abide violence or anything sexually explicit or graphic. (I'm not sure about the present company of RP posters, but there have been some in the past.)

Thanks, Vee, for checking the site. I did too, and I still see the truncated version. It's a mystery.

I think it's censorship, and a horrible idea.

Frieda, re treating people with courtesy here at RP, when I used the G-d H-ll etc words I didn't even realise that some US people might think them offensive! I now find that even
darn is enough to set off Great Aunt Mildred's hives.
I'm sure none of us at RP want to upset/insult other people here, in much the same way as we wouldn't chew gum in church, spit on the floor (anywhere) or get drunk and maudlin in company, but as far as books go this 'clean app' thing makes for a very wishy-washy, anodyne reading experience.
Found this article from a reading related US 'earnest' blog on the same theme.

Clean Reading

Surely the best thing to do with authors who write books you are uncomfortable with is avoid them!
The thing that I dislike when reading Golden Age mysteries (which I enjoy) is the patronising of the "lower classes" and casual racism. I have to grit my teeth and think "Ah well, that was how people thought back in those days." Then get on with reading the story. My choice!

Choice, Annpan, as you say, is the keyword in this whole debate. Having an app to clean up words that some readers find offensive is just another choice for them. It doesn't mean that I have to use it, and thus because its use is voluntary and the 'cleaning up' is only temporary I don't see it as a form of censorship. Joanne Harris thinks changing authors' original words puts society on a 'slippery slope' to intolerance, such as with ISIS destroying ancient artworks. Her correlation of the two seems a bit 'over the top' to me. Besides that, she doesn't seem to realize that her own desire to block parents from protecting their children from certain words because they have a particular "Christian bias" is a form of bias in itself. She is just as much wanting to control what they can say, do, and think as what she is accusing them of wanting to do.

Vee, I agree that for me the app would make for a very wishy-washy, anodyne reading experience. But apparently that's exactly what some readers want.

Yes, words are a cultural mine field. I recall being told in the UK that I was making a fool of myself for using the word 'fanny', which to me was either a girl's name or slang for buttocks, not the female pudenda.

I think Ian Rankin got it right. Treat it with humor.

I have some sympathy for Joanne Harris's point of view. An author chooses what to write. If it offends you, don't read it. If you want to protect your children from certain words, with a Christian bias or not, choose books without those words. There are thousands to pick from.

It's not so much just the changing of the words to satisfy some readers' preferences, it's the fact that this app may well change the meaning of the sentence, and thus alter the book. Calling someone a jerk when you mean he's an illegitimate offspring changes meaning. Writing 'bottom' when you mean genitalia changes meaning. Breast and chest are not the same, and surely breast isn't a word to be avoided anyway. I think an author deserves to have his or her work read with original meaning, not some sanitised and possibly different version.

Frieda, you are right that it is about choice. I think, though, that the choice should be to read or not to read a work as it stands.

Kath, my choice would be the same as yours. I can see both sides, though. Yes, changing words can change meaning, but I can understand parents choosing to bowdlerize while their precocious children are young. The child can read the original version later. I'm sure that's what happened to me. When I was a kid I read a lot of those Junior Classic books (expurgated versions) and the Reader's Digest condensed versions of books, as well as magazine condensations of books. Hell, I read comic book versions. I read lots of the original works, too. My parents didn't restrict me from reading anything. I read whatever was in my reach. As far as I can tell, I was able to sort out the real meanings of the original books, once I read them, well enough. :-)

It was my parents' choice to allow me to read whatever I wanted. They got some flak about it, too; told they were bad parents, blah, blah, blah. Everybody seems to like to tell everybody else what they should do and think. Frankly, I'm glad that everybody doesn't think and do everything alike.

I am against censorship. I am also against changing the terminology in literary works to sanitize and please those who would be protective or politically correct. I would not change, for example, "Little Black Sambo" nor "Huckleberry Finn." However offensive the terminology might be to the modern ear, it is part of the history of the times. I don't want my history cleaned up or prettified.

As a child, my parents had a large library. I was allowed to read whatever was on the shelves. I remember delving into GWTW when I was about 9, because I had heard so much about it, living in Atlanta, where the film had premiered. I remember some of the terms went way over my head, but I had an unmitigated curiosity that only grew, as time went on.

Frieda, you say your parents let you read 'unchecked' which led to complaints presumably from busybodies. Did these folk see you reading stuff of which they disapproved? Were you a child on bus/park bench/school yard engrossed in Lady C or Steamy Tales of a Nympho and an over-concerned parent/teacher contacted your parents? How would they have dealt with the situation?
The only time this happened to me (and not book/reading related) was when a parent of my daughter's school friend, who I had never met, phoned me up about some weekend outing the girls were going on and asked if I minded C spending long lunch hours in the pub when everyone else was at school!
Needless to say I had no idea my usually very hard-working and brightish daughter was anywhere than in the classroom or dining room or where ever they spent their breaks, but was slightly loath to admit to this failing on my part. In the brief time available to answer her, I did wonder if I should say "Well she is eighteen years old and apparently outside actual lesson time the school authorities cannot keep them in the building and we welcome the opportunity for her to enrich her young life with new experiences and I'm sure she is only drinking pop" . . . none of which I believed.
I think I said C had palled up with an 'unsuitable' friend (who we still refer to as Bad Emma) and thanked the woman for letting me know and breathed terrible vengeance on my daughter, not so much for her misdeeds, as for embarrassing me. '-( I'm probably a terrible parent.
Nothing compared with the boy at DH's school who fell off his bike while cycling back from 'lunch' which had consisted of half a bottle of Scotch and required a visit to A&E and a stomach pump.
Or the school nurse who was found to be drunk 'on duty'.
Or the science teacher who crashed her car on the way to work one morning and was well 'over-the-limit' after downing several brandies for Dutch Courage.
Or the History teacher who was given a lift to work each day and when the car arrived he was sitting in the gutter outside his house, where he had spent the night, covered in dirt and slobber, smelling to High Heaven of booze; almost a daily event.
And that is just a school in a semi-rural area. Goodness knows what the more 'modern' problems of drugs has added to the worry of parents.

I read anything available, too, including Tobacco Road at about 10. My mother said later she didn't know which would be worse--my reading it, or her telling me I shouldn't. She didn't say anything to me at the time, and the only thing I took away from the book was the terrible poverty.

Vee, I was usually informed upon by well-meaning teachers who were concerned that my parents might not have known what I was reading. Circa 1961 when I was ten or eleven I showed up in class with To Kill a Mockingbird (published the previous year). I wanted to do a book report on it, but teacher told me she thought it was inappropriate for my age group. She asked me if my mother knew I was reading it, to which I replied callowly, "I don't know. Why?"

Of course teacher wrote a note to give to mama for her to sign and for me to return. Mama wrote, "It's all right. I know." I remember Mrs. T pursing her lips when she read that. She set the note aside and then proceeded to explain that she couldn't allow me to make an oral book report, but I could make a written one. Mama and I figured that Mrs. T didn't want the rest of the class exposed to TKaM, probably because she might have gotten complaints from hostile parents. A teacher can't be too cautious. It was just a few years later, though, that TKaM became a set text, albeit for students a few years older than I was then.

Another time, when I was about twelve, a girlfriend's mother let my mother know that I was reading Forever Amber, or maybe it was Peyton Place. This woman asked me not to read it while I was at her house because she didn't want her daughter (my friend) to read it. She thought I was a bad influence. See, it had never occurred to me to ask my mother's permission to read anything because she had never required me to do so.

The worst tattletale was an aunt by marriage. She had not adjusted to our family's low-key attitudes. She thought my parents were too lax and didn't really care about us kids. One day she dropped by our house to ask mama, "Dorrie, do you know that Frieda is on the roof of your house reading a book? I saw her when I drove by on the way to the store and when I passed by again after getting the groceries, she was still there. Do you think she's stuck?"

Mama said, "Probably not. It's a good place to read." But she dutifully went outside, stood in the yard, and yelled up at me, "Come down Frieda and say hello to your aunt." I did as told, with the book I was reading still in hand. It was Mickey Spillane's I, the Jury. We heard later via the grapevine that Dorrie was letting Frieda read pornography.

Vee, I recognize the behavior you related, perhaps too well!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I suppose it's inculcation of being trained for high school and college debate teams, that makes it hard for me to see things, as others so assuredly do, as completely black or white. In debate classes, our teachers/coaches would ask us which side we stood on an issue, then assign us to present the other side as convincingly as we could (our grade depended on it). It was surprising -- or maybe not so surprising -- that many of us wound up changing our minds about which side we really favored once we had tried on the other shoes. :-)

Vee, you might find this interesting: This morning I've been talking to two of my mother's visiting friends about this thread. These ladies -- one in her mid-eighties and the other in her late-eighties ("spring chickens," mama says, compared to her age of ninety-three) -- are savvy about electronic readers and have their own. However, they didn't know about the Clean Reader app. (The following is my reconstruction of their words. I wrote them in shorthand as I recalled them, after the ladies left, because I learned something and I want to remember the conversation.)

One expressed interest in acquiring the app for herself, as she says, "I'm tired of being assaulted by smutty words every time I buy an e-book by modern authors. I can't find very many who respect readers enough to not bombard them with strings of invective."

The other shrugged, "I'm tired of authors who think it's compulsory, too. They are unimaginative and have deficits in their vocabulary. But I'm my own filter. When I come to the garbage words, I skip them and skim until I find stuff that is more readable. If there are too few readable parts, I delete the whole thing."

So much for authors deserving to have their works read just as they wrote them.* Readers are hard to control!

These women despite their savvy, and without any obvious religious bias, formed their reading tastes in a gentler time and still prefer older courtesies. I had been thinking about the app as a tool of choice for parents of precocious readers, just as the article dwelt on, but its appeal might be much broader. That's sure to disgruntle the politically correct thinkers even more.

*Nod to Kath who expressed this very worthy idea so well.

This is not surprising. Our town is known as the "buckle of the bible belt" and so we have whole businesses dedicated to editing out unacceptable words and scenes out of both movies and videos for the Christian crowd here. And people will buy them. However, to balance this out, all the unedited items out there are widely available (and in fact, are more to the norm for the average person). If someone does want that specialized editing service, then it's available, but they have to go and search for it. (It's not like the old film Footloose here, although that would have been accurate a few decades ago.) I don't object to that service being available for those who are willing to search it out and pay for it, but don't get me started on the Texas school text books..... :-}

I think that we should assume that writers use the words they do for a reason.

There is a line in "The Sea" by John Banville, which is shocking because it just appears quite unexpectedly (particularly so when I first read it - it happened to appear at the top of a new page). It's a line of dialogue by a wife to her husband (I think). "You c---. You f---ing c---." (See, you all know what it actually says, but I feel better writing it like that!) The sudden, visceral anger that emanates from the page when you read the words is remarkable. If it were written as I wrote it, it would lose a lot of impact. If it were "cleaned up" ("You bottom. You flipping bottom") it would just be funny.

Frieda, interesting ideas expressed by your Mother's friends.
Getting away from whether they are necessary for children's reading . . . and what is SO terrible to be found in Huckleberry Finn? . . . As an adult I think I would find it a distraction to have these little addendums over-lying the original words however unsightly they might be.
Thinking about it I think I read almost no books with much swearing/sexual content, but then I read very little modern fiction. Writers from earlier generations seemed to get their 'message' over with little need for foul language or gymnastic sex.

Vee, Mark Twain used a lot of dialect that included the frequent use of the n-word. The black man, a runaway slave named Jim (adult, married and a father), whom Huckleberry Finn accompanied on the raft voyage down the Mississippi River, was portrayed as childish and possibly not very bright. Jim deferred to Huck, although Huck was about twelve (or thirteen, I can't remember exactly) because Huck was white. And Huck accepted -- at first -- that he was the superior of Jim.

Huck and Jim met up with two frauds who made up titles for themselves, the Duke and the Dauphin -- white men who decided to lord it over both Huck and Jim. There's some bawdy language in those passages. In one part, the Duke and the Dauphin decide to impersonate the long-separated brothers of a dead man whose heirs were his three daughters (?, maybe nieces instead). The frauds detected money and thought up a scheme to acquire it from the young heiresses. One of the young women had a cleft lip so she was distastefully (to modern sensibilities) referred to as "Harelip" or "The Harelip."

That's probably enough examples of the tenor of Twain's story. Much of it is hilarious, sometimes poignant, but most of all it's ironic -- which is something that a lot of Americans do not understand. Also, too many people have the mistaken notion that because the protagonist is a child, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was written for children. It can be bowdlerized for children and still be entertaining, but as many have pointed out, then Twain's intended meaning is lost. Unfortunately, some of the people who should perhaps most appreciate Twain's effort are adamant that it's a bad book because of Twain's characterizations of blacks and people with disabilities. He's not very complimentary of white folk either -- the villains are white -- but that's often overlooked.

Frieda, sorry I didn't get back sooner to thank you for the 'Huckleberry Finn' info. I have a copy of it (and 'Tom Sawyer') given as presents to my late Mother and her brother by their US grandmother in about 1918. I never realised that HF was not written for children.
Modern sensibilities have much to answer for.

Will someone please explain the 'Texas school book' thing. Is it the literary equivalent of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre?

Vee, I was hoping someone besides me would jump in and explain the 'Texas Textbook Controversy', but since no one has yet, I'll make a stab at it for you.

You can do a search on it, of course. Unfortunately you will have to wade through a lot of anything-but-unbiased reportage and a lot of screaming editorials and opinion pieces from both sides of the debate.

Here are some of the basics:

I'll have to be rather dry or my own bias might soak through.

The U.S.A. does not yet have a national standard for what is taught to American children in the public (state-run) schools. This is left to the individual states. Many people don't want the federal government to control the curricula but there are other people who very much want the federal government to be the ultimate overseer. The states have school districts that are controlled by elected school-board members who get together to decide (besides other things) the curricula and the adoption of the textbooks.

The State of Texas has the largest number of school districts in all the fifty states. Because of this, Texas purchases more textbooks than any other. The textbook publishers tend to cater to their best customer and will edit the textbooks to suit the desires of the Texas school-board members. The school boards tend to be conservative and are willing to include in Texas curricula -- particularly in science and history -- views that may be different from the views of people in other states. Or they may omit things that others think should be included. A few of the most contentious inclusions and omissions:

The inclusion of "Intelligent Design" (Creationism) along with Evolution in the science curriculum.

The omission of some historical persons and events, such as the playing down of the Civil War and the role of Texas in it or perhaps giving more attention to Sam Houston than Thomas Jefferson. Not giving equal value to the Mexican view to that of the Texans and the United States during the Mexican-American War. That sort of thing.

This ethnocentrism would perhaps not be so controversial if it was not seen as giving Texas undue influence over what's in/what's not in the textbooks of other states who don't have as much influence.

That's just a taste. I won't go into more detail since I'd have to write a book to do it. :-)

Hooray for the 'net so that interested students can look into facts for themselves!

Vee, haven't there been similar debates in the UK to the Texas Textbook thing in the U.S.? I know that Scotland controls its school curricula separate from that of England. Wales too? Was there as much rancor before things were settled, or is there still dissatisfaction?

Frieda, thank you for that excellent summation. I was thinking about replying, but my bias would have definitely been showing ;)

Ditto what Sheri wrote. Frieda, you did a fine job of summing up the situation. It's going on in other states, as well. I must stop, as I feel my blood pressure rising....

As a former Texas teacher, I will tell you that in my district, I served on textbook committees for years. When a book would come up for adoption, publishers would send out their sample textbooks and teaching materials. We usually received five or six samples from the various publishers. Then, the textbook committee would examine the textbooks and then make the selection. Textbooks are kept in adoption anywhere from five to ten years.

Frieda, many thanks for the detailed information. We had a brief power-outage today which left the computer 'on the blink' for several hours. There is a queue forming behind me as I write so will try and answer your questions tomorrow if that is OK.

Mary, you're right about it happening with other states, too. In Hawai'i the biggest complaints are not about Texas but rather the "Californication of education."

I probably should have mentioned above that not all Texans are happy with what's in the textbooks adopted, either.

Glitter, my brother is a retired Texas teacher, as well, and he still subs just about every day. He served on textbook committees in his district until he got tired of the almost constant arguing during the meetings. But, as he recalls, selecting textbooks wasn't so difficult back in the 1970s and '80s; it was only in the '90s and particularly after 2000 that things got nasty.

When I view a TV program presented by people like Sir David Attenborough who mentions about the formation of planet features occurring many millions of years ago, I wonder how the people, who for various reasons, refute the length of time involved, deal with this. Do they not watch these programs at all?

Annpan, not so long ago a BBC radio journalist did an 'item' about visiting a state-of-the-art museum just about to be opened by a group of Creationists somewhere in Middle America. He described being shown round the place by a charming and seemingly intelligent graduate student and how impressive was the $$$'s that must have gone into building it.
I don't know how it was laid out . . . maybe 'Day One' darkness turns to light Day Two . . . what ever the Bible tells us happened next and so on. At the end of the tour he said to the student in a slightly jocular way "Well this is all most impressive but surely no-one seriously believes all this stuff (ha ha)?" This bright girl just stared at him just not getting what he was saying to her.

I read the pertinent part of one of the biology textbooks adopted by the State of Texas. Evolution is covered in the usual scientific way over several pages. At the end of that part, a single sentence reads: An alternative to the theory just presented is the theory of Intelligent Design. No elucidation, nothing. Basically just a footnote. But there, it's said. Intelligent Design was included, a sop. I doubt that those who want more are satisfied with that. On the other hand, those who think any mention of Intelligent Design, ever, in a publicly funded school should be prohibited, are probably seething as well.

I've been reading additional articles about the controversy. Some of them say that Texas is the largest purchaser of textbooks in the U.S., but others say that it is the second largest, after California. Whichever, Texas still has great influence, as does California. The other most influential states are New York (mainly because of New York City) and Florida. Those four states impose their views and biases on most of the other forty-six states and probably all the U.S. territories.

Frieda, I've been thinking about the book and asking John what he knows about it (far more than me) and can say definitely we don't have text book committees over here.
Schools choose which books to use over the coming so-many years firstly by how much money each department has to spend and then by how good the spiel from the publishing house rep is!
Of course if the information in the book doesn't coincide with the exam curriculum they wont sell many copies.

I think you must be thinking of the National Curriculum fuss.
It goes back to possibly the '80's after some Govt dept. found that the English school results were worse than in Ethiopia/Europe/the Known World . . . anyway not good enough. It is true that many schools had been 'marking time' and not stretching their pupils. In fact is some areas among folk of particular political persuasions it was considered quite wrong to put any pressure on kids with much talk about letting them 'learn at their own pace' 'explore the world around them' eg play in the sand all day or stare out of the window.
After much discussion/meetings/think tanks a National Curriculum was drawn up that decided at what age students should have acquired a certain amount of knowledge by reaching Levels of Attainment and 'passing' a series of tests in that subject/s.
This is before the students take their main exams of GCSE's (ages 15 - 16) and A levels (17 -18).
The results are now made public enabling everyone in the community to see how well the local schools 'perform'. (except in Wales where they don't share this info)
This 'new' system was criticised as it was felt, with some justification, that teachers were dinning the syllabus into the kids so they reached the expected levels at the expense of other less cerebral subjects . . . art, music, sports etc.
As you said Scotland has a different educational system.

I hope this makes a bit of sense.

Vee, yes, I was thinking partly about the National Curriculum debate and the flap it caused. There were a couple of other controversies that had people all worked up, but I can't seem to bring them to mind now.

The U.S. has a similar "teaching to the test" disposition, with exams as the ultimate 'qualifiers of knowledge'. Educators, parents, and students can't seem to find an alternative, workable solution. As it is, the students learn enough -- usually by rote -- to 'pass' the test and then afterward promptly forget most of what they learned. Instead of instilling the love of acquiring knowledge, 'education' usually -- or too often anyway -- fails to do this. I don't know why. I suspect it has more to do with the individual student, since some students in the barest of circumstances can learn just as much or more than those supplied with the richest materials and environment.

We get reminded quite frequently by the media and various government social program study-takers that American students rank very poorly compared to First World counterparts and in some areas not much better than those in the Third World. Much of this is alarmism which has been going on at least since the launch of Sputnik by the Soviets.

But back to the content of curricula: England has such a long history, so chock-full of events and people, that it must be a challenge for educators to extract the 'most important' parts. The importance of some things may be apparent -- 1066 and Magna Carta, for instance, and perhaps Henry VIII and his family problems -- but is there much else that is inarguable? The U.S. doesn't have half the history of England or anywhere outside the New World and we still have trouble agreeing on what is important and what can be safely flushed (if anything).

And how does the English educational system get around the particularly sticky problem of religion when so much of history is about religion of various types? Or is religion not avoided in the UK? The politically correct crowd in the U.S. would like to deny any place to religion, citing 'the separation of church and state' as the main reason.

First, the 'long' history' thing. In Junior schools (up to 11 years) history used to be a bit hit-and-miss. One term kids might have studied the Egyptians, the next the Tudors, then the Vikings! All giving little sense of a time line.
I think it is 'better connected ' these days, with much emphasis on 'social' stuff, what people wore/ate/jobs they did and so on.
By secondary education the subject might start with the outline of the Greeks and Romans, followed by English history . . . Anglo Saxons, Normans, Middle Ages . . . Leading up to exams, usually two years work. Whatever period is taught will be in much greater detail, with more emphasis on politics rather than Kings and Queens. With the odd date thrown in.
'A level' (top two years at school) is similar in approach but much more 'thoughtful'.
Modern history has become much more popular partly because the syllabus requires some study of 'evidence based' stuff ie using maps, copies of old documents etc.
The part that various religions/beliefs/denominations played throughout history is taught (hopefully) evenly. So for eg the Crusades will not be shown as a thoroughly good thing and the Reformation lessons will give an all-round view of what led to the growth of the Protestant movements in Europe, clash of Crown and Pope . .. and so on.
As students have to write several long essays on various topics which are then sent away to be marked any obvious bias in the teaching would quickly become apparent and presumably they would fail the exam . . . which doesn't look good for the school who have to publish their results.
I do remember one girl at College who studied history and claimed the only thing of importance was the Trade Union Movement. I don't know if she went on to become a teacher but if she did her pupils were soon have been bored rigid.

OT. My Uncle was sent to the US to complete his education in the early '30's as his parents packed up in the UK and moved to the Philippines. He marvelled at the detail with which US history was taught and claimed it was because there was so little of it, it had to be stretched to fill the time available.

'Religious Education' was (and I suppose still is) on every English school curriculum and can be studied up to exam level. Must see if I can find a copy of a syllabus somewhere.

Friedag, your mention of the student learning well even under difficult circumstances rang a bell with me. I studied maths in a cold room, huddled in bed, for hours, struggling to make sense of it. Would I have done better in a warm room with a proper desk? I doubt it. A personal tutor might have helped though!
In spite of study difficulties, I did well in other subjects like History and English Literature. They interested me, which one could say was the key to the door of the "wanting to learn" room. Cold or otherwise!

I was discussing something like this with my elder son the other day. He works with me and on Monday at lunch we do the crossword from the weekend newspaper. The clue was 'small arboreal mammal' and he questioned arboreal. I said 'lives in a tree, didn't you learn that at school from Arbor Day?' then realised that Arbor Day ended years ago. So I questioned him about his knowledge of the Nullabor Plain in Australia - from Latin for 'no trees' - which was always mentioned on Arbor Day. Of course, he had missed out on this too.

The point of this rambling is that I learnt a lot of 'stuff' at primary school. In Year 4 we studied Australia, in Year 6 it was Commonwealth countries (UK, India, NZ, South Africa), and in Year 7 (last year of primary school) it was the USSR, the USA, Japan and China. Most of what we learnt was geographical rather than historical. My kids didn't get any of this.

Surprisingly, at high school we had Geography but not History. My knowledge of history outside Australia is pretty much what I have read for myself as an adult.

We have national testing in schools and there is a lot of talk of teachers having to 'teach to the test', however the tests are not on specific topics so I don't know how they manage this.

Vee, thank you for your rundown of typical things taught to English students in the history curriculum. Something that jumps out to me is the length of time spent on instruction before the exam is given: 'usually 2 years'. In the U.S. (most of it that I know about) exams are given yearly (the school year is about ten months). But not only is there a yearly exam, there is at least one pre-test, and sometimes a series of pre-tests, supposedly to help the students learn how to take the 'big' exam to score well on it. The results: the actual instruction of any subject is greatly diminished. That's the rationale for sticking to just what's going to be on the test and nothing more in-depth or of wider interest is included.

I just remembered one of the controversies that I heard about in England: the north of the country feels that they and their contributions to history, literature, etc. are neglected or treated perfunctorily. The south of England and especially London is the big bully in determining what's in/what's out of the National Curriculum. I've heard that the NC writers have tried to be more inclusive of the outside-London regions in recent years, but that displeases the London and south of England people because they know their region's contributions have been greater. Sounds like New York City and the northeast part of the country running the show in the U.S., which for many years is exactly what happened until other parts of the country woke up and wanted their contributions recognized in their children's education.

Frieda, 'internal' tests/exams are taken yearly or even termly over here and now SAT's have been added (before my or my children's time) so it all makes more work for the staff. The big players are the GCSE's and the A levels although it is claimed the syllabus has been 'dumbed-down' in the last few years. A language teacher I know claims it is only necessary to know about five verbs and a handful of 'vocab' to pass these days!

Re the North-South divide. I have never heard of it in educational terms but there are always mutterings from anywhere North of London that not enough attention is paid to the rest of the Country. There was much disquiet when the BBC spent £££ millions on building new studios at Salford, something of an industrial wasteland West of Manchester, with many execs' refusing to re-locate.
I always felt there was a fair amount of literature coming out of the North from the '60's onwards, all that gritty writing about working class lads
/trouble at t' Mill stuff Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner , A Kind of Loving etc.

I took the GCE O level aged 16 in 1953 and obtained six passes, which was "average" but years later when I mentioned my score was surprised to find it had become a "good" score! We reserved that accolade for girls who scored eight or nine subjects, which would have included maths and science exams.
The only success I noticed in life after school didn't come to one of those with the best scores. A classmate who was featured in a magazine was given a special kind of dictation machine by her parents and earned a top wage working in the Court system.
I never joined the "Old Girls Association" so never found out what happened to other classmates in later life.

Annpan, these days kids take a much wider range of subjects than in the old GCE 'O' Level days, some as many as a dozen and each year the number of 'A' grades goes up and up. Can they really be so much cleverer than we were back in the day?!
Rather than take the exams in 'one sitting' they are spread over time so one part is taken possibly months before another. If the pupil fails that segment of the exam they are then allowed to re-sit, sometimes several times. It all helps the school keep its pass rate up. ;-(
It is now possible to take subjects ending in the word studies ie film studies, art studies, social studies, classical studies etc. The same has happened with some courses at 'lesser' universities. Badly advised young people seldom realise these courses will not help them find a job. I know university is meant to be about producing 'well-rounded' characters and should be far more than starting a career, but in these difficult times and with huge debts hanging over them finding work has to be a priority.

I remember that in Australia in the seventies even, it was hard to find work. We started a business intending that we would have places for our children to have a career later but that didn't work out for us. We reluctantly abandoned the idea and went back to "working for the man" and a regular wage!
It seems no better now for some people as there are bitter Letters to the Editor from qualified teachers etc who can't find work.
Even the mining boom has died down and the local bus drivers who disappeared to work for high wages up North as FIFO (Fly In Fly Out) workers have flown back to roost in their old jobs.