Kirsty Williams is right - there is no such thing as one Welsh history

When I started secondary education, over sixty years ago now, the teaching approach to history was linear: I recall that we eleven and twelve year-olds began with the story of humanity, as far as we know it, in the old stone age, and then went forward from there. I've never thought that was a bad approach, because it set the scene for us in terms of the human story. But maybe the local might have been better still. Because the approach to geography in that long-ago first year in secondary was very much the one that Aled Gwyn Williams describes. We were all south Manchester lads attending a local authority boys' grammar school in south Manchester, and rather than adopting a lofty global perspective, our geography study kicked off with studying the reasons why, in terms of climate and geography, Manchester had evolved from a modest market town into a large metropolis, and how it had come to be considerably surrounded by a ring of smaller but still populous neighbouring towns. Which was, of course, largely the story of the cotton trade. That teaching approach made geography live for me because it started where I was and related to places that I knew and recognized. My interest in the subject was engaged, and I never lost it afterwards.

An excellent outline of how our history could be taught. Although I live in the old mining area and went to Lewis School our history seemed to disappear after the Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages when the Romans then Anglo-Saxons, Normans etc take centre stage . I learnt more local history from writers of fiction like Alexander Cordell, this made me look at histories of Wales by historians like Gwyn Alf Williams. Starting locally would be good for history teaching anywhere in Britain.

This article to me is defending the unionist mindset and is perfectly suited to the narrative of the unionists. The UK isn't made up of history but histories (but let's just concentrate on one bit). With the history of Cymru/Wales let's forget about the whole and just concentrate on your little corner. Children will learn more about their local area from family than they ever will from school. The first thing teachers will do is set a project and get them grab info from mothers, fathers, grandparents, aunties, uncles, the older generation etc. What they will most definitely miss out on, like the vast majority of us, is the broader picture of Cymru/Wales, The Princes of Wales, the Last War of Independence, Rebecca Riots, Industrial revolution, Welsh coal powering the world, Tryweryn, Welsh slate roofing the world etc.

Of course Kirsty Williams is right, as is Aled Gwynn Williams also right to point out that she left herself open to misinterpretation. As important as it is for people (not just children) to have some idea of their local history, they should also have some idea of their family story. Pill is still one of the poorest parts of Newport, as it was when my maternal grandfather was born there in 1873. Like quite a lot of children he was illegitimate, almost certainly because his mother was raped by someone in her employers family. Like many children he started crying part-time (30/35hours a week) around school hours at the age of nine and left school when he was twelve. Despite (or because of) his start in life he became leader of one of the biggest Trade Unions of his time, and an MP and a Cabinet Minister. My paternal grandfather was the youngest son of a very rich family. He went to Eton and Oxford and was leading academic theologian before he was thirty. My grandmother came from another rich family, but brought her husband's career to a shuddering halt when she went off with another woman the day before he was offered a bishopric.

I agree with everything and nothing Aled Gwyn Williams says. Nations which don't value and transmit their culture and a unified sense of who they are lost. Nations are their history. Local history : an indulgence. People are no longer born, schooled, live and die in the same place. We pass through the physical world and connect through the virtual world. If the state system can't compete with private education's old boy networks, then it must make every classroom hour count, develop life skills and teach how to locate and pull the levers of power.

Diolch yn fawr. An excellent, considered response to the multitude of fiery responses to the minister’s reported comments. By the end of her tenure KW will have presided over significant change in the Welsh education landscape and its positioning in the mainstream of progressive international education systems. It will have moved finally out of the limiting historical England & Wales paradigm that has failed us so badly. It’s been depressing seeing the criticisms levelled against her on the basis of one turn of phrase that could be read either way. Good that the record is being put straight here. As we move onwards, our schools and future learners have everything to play for. We’d be wise to challenge each other to make our History the best it can be in every school, but let’s not lose sight of the fact that across the whole new curriculum schools will have to work hard to deploy their local autonomy cleverly to provide the best for our learners across that curriculum. For that to be achieved it will take a whole community to educate the child, and many schools will need to transform their whole outlook to make best use of local knowledge and expertise. We do not currently have many of the civic structures in place to make it easy for schools to know where to turn. Maybe that will be the next challenge for us keyboard warriors: to form enough credible fora for teachers to be able to access to bring an entirely new Welsh curriculum to life - Welsh scientists, Welsh literati, Welsh business leaders .etc The English publishing houses and press won’t do it for us as they did in 1988 (for England and Wales and NI) If we could harness our small nation energies, we might just help our children to seriously re-write our national story.

"There is no such thing as a Welsh history, - There are Welsh histories ....” Surely the sum of these Welsh Histories amount to a distinct and unique Welsh History . Or perhaps KW thinks that Welsh Histories are just parts that go into the British Histories collection.

When I was in school the main thing was drilled into me was not to forget the "historical context". Understanding the cause and effect of how actions can invite reactions and where that can lead is really what learning history is all about. For example the greed that led to the financial crash in America, mixed with the Treaty of Versailles and how those two things led to the rise of Nazism in Germany. Of course there would also be ramifications on the local level as well with cities being bombed and loss both at home and abroad. The question is however: Should the wider context be taught before the local? Does the wider context offer more information and understanding of what was happening locally then if the local history was taught before the wider context? In our case... think of Kenfig Castle. It's impossible to really talk about what it is and why it's there or any part of its history without covering the wider context of Welsh history. It just wouldn't make sense doing it from a local perspective first.

The teaching of Welsh history is as much of a political issue as language, water, and second homes. Kirsty Williams was on a hiding to nothing when she took on the task of overseeing a new approach to that history, and whichever side of the fence she chose was bound to either frighten British unionists or anger Welsh patriots. But it seems self-evident to me that there is only one national history of Wales, and that to particularise local topics as fit subjects of historical study before providing a grounding in the bigger picture will produce a different interpretation of that national history in different parts of the country. That, to me, is just wrong, and goes against what I always considered to be standard practice. I then have to ask myself if there is an agenda here to bowdlerise that national history for political reasons. Forget the "no such thing as Welsh history" slip-up; it was ill-considered and unwittingly offensive (smacked of "For Wales, see England"), but the "many Welsh histories" approach will not get Welsh children very far in terms of an understanding of their country's overall history, at least not for a long time in their school careers. The whole issue centres around historiography, children's learning, and current Welsh and British politics.

Fe ddywedodd KW beth y dywedodd ac roedd hi'n gwybod yn iawn beth a ddywedodd. Gallwch chi ddim cyfiawnhau geiriau rhywun trwy eu newid. Mae'r erthygl yn gwrthddweud ei hun gan ei fod yn mynd ymlaen i sôn am bwysigrwydd hanes y genedl. Rhaid cofio fod KW yn aelod o blaid uniolaethol gref iawn sydd yn gweld Prydain fel "cenedl" gyda Chymru yn rhanbarth ac mae'r polisi hwn yn hybu hynny. Rhaid i ni ddysgu plant a phobl ifanc i werthfawrogi eu hanes personol a lleol ond hefyd i weld y pictwr mawr fel eu bod yn gallu gweld trwy'r twyll sy'n cael ei gyflwyno gan wleidyddion uniolaethol.

In 1960, as a first year student at Saint Asaph Grammar School our text was a book entitled "They Lived in Flintshire" (Later Enwogion y Syr Fflint- when Welsh language secondary started) by Huw Williams. Through the lives of a dozen or so characters who through time had influenced or been influenced by living in the area ( I seem to recall Robert of Rhuddlan, a Norman invader, Daniel Owen, H.M.Stanley...) and through that book get an overview of changing times and location we were introduced to school history. Nothing new then. There are as many histories as there are writers of History if we are to believe EH Carr.

Waffle all ye may, but for most of us Cymru IS locally! Ein Gwlad!!

I'm glad we don't let politicians decide on Physics, otherwise we might be fearing the consequences of the Law of Gravity (Repeal) Act (2020) on Friday evening. What I'd worry about is there may be a great switcheroo done, with a bit of local history initially, but when it comes to more serious study back to a British-centred presentation.

I do not agree that there is not one history of Cymru, the fact that those over the boarder poo poo our ancient writers, heaving no idea how Folk lore plays a vast part of our Oral tradition, could not be understood by the academics. England's History is one History also made up of untruths and perpetuated lies! I believe it is an attempt to keep our history fragmented, and so keeping people in the Union with a beliefe that they are some how British but not good enough to be English!

The one subject that is not discussed is Arthur ap Meurig ap Tewdrig, Chris Barber David Pykett have a fantastic argument that is not infallible but a goo d attempt at the subject, now you could put it to the children and by doing so introduce them to our ancient literature Y Mabinogi. The four branches are great stories and adds credence to our cultures written history, that is totally ignored! If you want to pit the English version against the real history of Cymru then this would be a great discussion to have with the children. We teach Silurian History to children in Gwent so that they know they are Celts, which most of them did not know and how are ancestors fought the Romans, so that they get a whole story not just one of conquest continually. Throw a spear at a Celt they shout from the Museum in Caerleon? So when I explained what that meant the kids were horrified! So we teach Y Fari Lwyd now with char actors from the Mabinogi to Gwentian children instead of Victorian ones and hopefully we make them think about our identity? Why after a petition of a thousand people from Gwent to have a bespoke Silure Museum, the promise came that Caerleon Roman museum would share the museum with a Silurian one after building the round house in Saint Ffagans, it has just reopened with out any mention of the Silures and what they achieved in a 25 year war against one of the most powerful peoples the world has ever seen and not having civitas status for 130 years after conquest, meaning they did not go quietly into that good night! Where is the museums to tell this. To me it is a massive British construct to spend countless millions on Roman ruins and using the Romans to show us we are a conquered people instead of the truth where we were one of the most powerful tribes or confederacy of defensible cartrefi and Caerau in the world having beaten them twice in a toe to toe battles. Some school of thought say they may have been paid to stop fighting?