Lots! How much time do you have? I think history defines who we are, and all kinds of assumptions we make are derived from our shared history and we can't examine those assumptions (prejudices?) without knowing their source. That's wondrously pompous, isn't it? I suppose the usual charge levied against history is that it is irrelevant to the modern day, but of course that's bunk. Every lawyer, every day, deals in history (precedents), every doctor does (which is why it's called 'the patient's history'). History suffuses our life. It's probably impossible to understand what's happening in Iraq without comprehending British activity there in the early twentieth century. History is, in fact, a tool to understand modern times, but the strict usefulness of the tool only becomes apparent later in life. But we have to learn it so we know how to approach it. I'm wandering here, and you'll have to pick the bones out of the carcass - given a week and I could probably write something more useful. But I believe we are the product of our history - that all those stories add up to a national (or even planetary) identity and, just as a child learns the story of their family, so we all have to learn the stories of our wider communities to understand where we are in the tangled web. I don't like history taught as a means of thought-control, either as nationalist bombast or politically-correct guilt (which seems the prevailing fashion). History, at least in the early years of school, should be stories, because children like stories. They grow up in a society that has shared assumptions and I think it's impossible to be a full member of that society without knowing certain things - the underpinnings - and that includes religion, history and literature (leave the 2 + 2 stuff to other members of staff). It's background material - background to our lives - how can people grow up without knowing what Christianity is? Lots do, sadly, but Christianity, for better or worse, was an immense force in the making of Britain, America, and dozens of other countries. Not to know what it is is to wilfully misunderstand lots of current references and affairs. Sad. The same is true of history. The whole thing should, I think, be conveyed by osmosis. It isn't academic - it's story - stories will hook kids and some, a few, will go beyond story to understanding. These are errant, hasty thoughts, but I hope they make sense?