Ask HN: Did you learn civics at school?

I went to school in the 1970s and 1980s in the UK. From the age of 5 to 18 I learned a lot about many topics. But I don't remember ever being taught anything about how the country I live in actually works in that 14 years. Nothing about: elections, how the houses of parliament work, how taxes are collected and spent, how political parties are funded, what our constitution is, how local government works, what my rights are etc. It seems to me that it would have been worth skipping a few lessons on the vikings or Shakespeare to learn this stuff. The cynical view is that UK political class would rather that their inferiors are kept in the dark about these topics.

Did other people growing up in the UK have a different experience?

If you aren't in the UK, were you taught civics in your country?

We learnt a lot about the Romans and Viking, which I found interesting. But why was that more important than civics?

Also, osmosis is a crap way to learn a complex topic IMO. I think if you ask UK people basic civics questions (such as 'does the UK have a written constitution' or 'what are the rights of asylum seekers') the majority won't know. And this means that political discourse is at a much lower level than it could be.

I specifically remember during a morning assembly with our head of year a brief mention of politics during the run up to a general election, and her advice (instruction?) was that in polite society, people do not discuss their political views. This was around the ages of 9/10 y/o, I believe.

Recent events make me think this may have been a better approach to the state we have devolved to currently. But the internet happened, people started waking up and talking more, so now you have the opposite approach which is an endless torrent of bipartisan squabbling hypercharged by social and traditional media, and everything in between. This has resulted in low turnouts and a level of general disinterest in local and national politics. People now have stronger opinions about things happening in far away places than their own (crumbling) local towns and cities, because it's just too tiring to care about things which at best won't care about you, and at worst will actively try to harm you.

That said, what was interesting is that some years later there was discussion about opening up the vote to 16 year olds, and most of the discussion/pressure/focus was on the 6th formers who stayed on at high school, as it was assumed the dropouts and academically un-serious college-goers would have little interest in such things. There is certainly a pre-political class present in these institutions and their societies, leading to the public (read private) school system providing the majority of our politcal representation, with sadly no change in sight for the forseeable future.

My opinion is that the cynics were/are correct, politics is a class based business/sport/game depending on where you should happen to find yourself within the socio-economic strata of the UK.

Also, we share our horribly broken voting system with one other country in the world. That country would be Belarus. I haven't visited Belarus, so can't comment on how it's working out for them. But in this country, it has driven mediocrity in our representation and leadership much to our detriment. And a party called ReformUK (previously known as UKIP then the Brexit Party) may not be the panacea some people expect it to be. So you now have a choice between the joke of a party in power, and the joke of a party in opposition.

-The thoughts and opinions comprising this comment were generated by a human being using hardware and energy paid for by a human being. I would like to thank the internet and the HN website for enabling them to be published to the wider population for general consumption.

>Also, we share our horribly broken voting system with one other country in the world. That country would be Belarus.

Apparently there are only 2 countries in the world where clergy automatically get seats in government, the UK (bishops in the house of Lords) and Iran.

Belarus and Iran. Not the greatest of company to keep.

Yes. And geography. USA (California) 1966-78. Catholic school (Jesuit) then public school.

Apparently no longer taught at all. One of the reasons we homeschooled our kids.