Kids are finally being told the truth, of course they're not proud of UK history (2024)

A study has found that the number of people proud to be British has fallen sharply over the last decade.

Less than half the nation say they’d rather be a British citizen than any other country and there has been a 22% drop in people saying they’re proud of Britain’s history.

And honestly, I can’t say these results surprise me.

Young people today – both my agemates in our twenties and thirties, but also the teenagers I work with as a secondary school teacher – simply don’t share the idealistic (and often unrealistic) view of Britishness that was more common in previous decades.

If you ask me, that’s a good thing.

Whereas nationalistic, flag-waving pride might have been a hallmark of our parents’ and grandparents’ generations, possibly influenced by postwar nostalgia and a more rose-tinted portrayal of Britain’s role in the world in education and popular culture, today things look very different.

No doubt there will be those loud voices on the right who will lament this decline in patriotism as an indication of the erosion of British values and another front in the culture wars.

Nigel Farage released a video in which he bemoaned the results of the study, saying that children are being ‘taught to hate the UK.’

Are they? Or are they just being taught more honestly?

In my view, these findings are a sign of how far we have come as a society.

Thanks to a push to decolonise the curriculum and a change in the attitudes of the education sector, there is a greater focus now on teaching children an unbiased, accurate version of British history.

My pupils learn about Britain’s role in the slave trade, about colonialism, and world wars in a way that doesn’t perpetually cast the UK as the world’s saviour – something that even my own schooling just a couple of decades ago completely missed.

In my own subject, English, we no longer perpetuate the idea that the only voices of worth are those that are white, wealthy and from Western countries.

Children are exposed to different worldviews from the minute they step into a classroom and that can only be a net positive.

But as those on the right would accuse me and my fellow teachers of wokeism and radicalising British children against their home nation – this change in attitudes is not all down to school.

The young people I teach are more connected than ever to the world around them – and that’s not just about what goes on in the classroom.

Social media means that today’s teenagers can see the repercussions of British policy in real time, whether it’s Britain’s role in current conflicts like Gaza, or the legacy of colonialism.

While there’s always the danger of misinformation, social media has been a transformative force in allowing this generation to learn about complex concepts in a way that even schools can’t compete with.

I’ve had interesting conversations in my classroom about eurocentric beauty standards, about the role of the monarchy, about democracy – and they’ve all been inspired by things my students have learned about online.

This generation’s understanding of Britishness is more nuanced than ever because they are able to balance the idyllic view still clung to by some against the reality of what they see around them.

So if you ask me, a decline in national pride is a worthy price to pay for a generation more aware of the reality of the world they live in than ever before.

But it’s not just about the past – but the present.

Look around us. Is the Britain we see today something worthy of pride? This summer alone has shown us a vision of Britishness that is fraught with tension and has revealed nationalism to be a divisive and dangerous force.

This summer’s riots show me just how certain parts of the establishment have corrupted the concept of Britishness, turning it into something polarising and myopic.

For myself and for many of my students – especially those of us who come from non-white ethnic backgrounds – British patriotism has become inextricably linked with racism, islamophobia and thuggery.

So when it comes to being proud of Britain, it is hard to share that sense of pride when it runs contrary to my own experiences of racism and islamophobia in the country that I call home.

The Britain that younger generations are growing up in feels bleaker than ever before. I think of my students and their entire lives have been shaped by austerity, by isolationist policies like Brexit, lying politicians and seeing the impact of war whenever they open their phones.

When Britishness has come to mean spending millions on coronations and funerals for an insanely wealthy family that is linked to colonialism while being unable to feed kids in the poorest homes, closing borders and attacking those who come to these shores for safety, it doesn’t seem like something to be proud of.

So this fall in pride for Britain’s history is not a conspiracy, or a crisis, or a sign of woke indoctrination – it’s a sign that our children are finally getting a sense of the real world.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing Ross.Mccafferty@metro.co.uk.

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