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I think this is a very good way to frame it. I really dislike the "silver lining" narrative that seems to be common, because—as you say—it doesn't matter, the core thing is still indefensible.

I'm British, and my education (up to GCSE History as it existed in 2007, I didn't take History at AS-level or above) just completely glossed over colonialism entirely. There was no “anti-colonialist message” because there was no message on colonialism at all.

I feel that the desire is more to sweep it under the rug, and while it is better than glorifying the past, I think it encourages people to this kind of mindset, as if it was that bad, surely they'd know more? (Parallels to Americans finding out about the Tulsa race massacre recently).

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The lack of coverage of colonialism in the British curriculum is really surprising to me.

It was much the same in western Canada 15 years ago for me. Learning the truth after school was genuinely difficult; it didn’t seem real at first. Even the colonization of western Canada had somehow been portrayed to me as positive all my life.

The First Nations here were subjected to overt genocide and then protracted, relentless cultural erosion in the form of systemic racism, resource/opportunity control, and the notorious residential school system. Somehow I made it into my late teens before finding out what really happened.

My kids are having a better experience, but I’ll have to wait until grade 7 or 8 to see how deep our education system is willing to dig into the atrocities that happened here. So far, at least, the school has been very positive and engaged in learning about and experiencing local First Nations culture. It’s an improvement.

I for one think that turning Tower into a British Colonialism's Crimes Museum and making the UK repent (and repay! All your City banks are belong to us) for the crimes of their distant ancestors for the next century or so is a fascinating idea, but that'd require, ah, quite a vigorous persuasion, so to speak.

i propose we start by drafting a "Comprehensive International Plan of Action" ("Comintern" for short) and invite the UNSC to join it.

P.S. There's a grain of joke in every joke.

The history curriculum in the UK is really all kinds of useless. It's not that it overlooks the Empire. When I was at high school it had nothing to say on anything international at all beyond World War 1 and 2. You could graduate high school having no idea whatsoever about the forces that shaped the 20th century. Stalin? Mao? JFK? The Apollo Programme? The Great Depression? None of it was mentioned.

I had history classes for years but the only stuff I remember is trivia about the industrial revolution. We were made to memorise vast quantities of detail on things like the exact dates of various Mines Acts (safety for coal miners), who invented some kinds of obsolete farming equipment, etc. There was a lot on medieval agricultural practices as well. It went far too deep on things that impart no wisdom or generalised lessons for the modern world.

There was also a lot of stuff on World War 1 and World War 2. Important, yes, but also incredibly well covered by popular culture.

I suspect the curriculum was designed to be as boring and non-controversial as possible, which is a pity. The only reason to study history is to learn lessons from it, which must inevitably mean drawing conclusions from the events of the past. Attempting to avoid that ends up reducing history to a list of kings and dates.

If I could rewrite the history curriculum, I'd give it a major renewed focus on both the British Empire and also the full history of the 20th century. It would be shallow but broad. And it would include the chaotic state of Britain between 1945 and 1990. Of course the reason it's not taught is that many teachers have very strong ideological views of their own on, in particular, Margaret Thatcher.

The point of history in schools is to teach doing history rather than memorising information about the past.

Colonialism probably should be one of the topics of the few but we can't teach students everything

This is true, but my experience was they taught us barely anything (basically just the world wars), and what they did teach us was just memorising information about the past.

You being British, I do have a question for you on this, do you view the Roman occupation of Britannia as an entirely bad thing? I ask because I think we tend to add emotion to more current events and look at event further away with the lens of history. I think many times we look at closer to current events with a filter of emotion and culture. I personally think Europe as a whole gained a lot from Roman occupation, while I don't look at it in it's entirety as a good thing, some good did come of it, and it did server to advance civilization in Western Europe. I don't think people within 200 years of that occupation saw it, in the same historical framing.

As someone else from the UK, we're so far removed from anything that the Romans did that I doubt anyone has an emotional response to it (as you point out). I wouldn't even consider it correct to say that we're ethnically or culturally the same people as those who were subjugated under the Roman empire considering the subsequent Anglo-Saxon and Norman conquests!

In fact, it's hard for me to name something explicitly that the Romans did in Britain other than lay the foundations for some towns and cities, and built some roads. All of this was over 1000 years ago, so I doubt (other than the exceptions that I can think of on the spot; some roads, towns and 'Roman Baths') that anyone from the UK is walking around and interpreting what they see as a result of Roman occupation.

On an objective level as someone who obviously never experienced true Roman Britain, sure, they built some things that were pretty cool at the time, but at the same time you can objectively look back and say "yeah, slavery is really bad, I wish the Romans didn't enslave people and use that slave labour to build the things that they did". I think the real layman answer is "who cares, it was over 1000 years ago, and I don't really understand how the people of the time relate to the world/culture I take part in".

Closer to two thousand years ago. That's how far removed it is.

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