Backing up what others have said the answer is “most kids will know very little about it”. Long time since I was at school but neither of my children - who did history until age 16 - did anything significant about it. Lots of children will have given up history at 14 and know even less. Most of their time was on 20th century history, e.g. the two world wars and the Cold War with very little narrative glue to put thewm in context.
This is not a slight on the importance of the United States - it’s a reflection of how narrow history teaching in English schools has become. Never mind not knowing the 13 colonies were part of the British Empire, if it was left to school history kids would not know India was part of the Empire! In fact they may not even hear that Britain had an Empire…
I never took history at GCSE, having dropped it in Year 9, but from what I remember, America was only mentioned in reference to our studies on WW1 (and even then, more or less in a throw away “America were our allies” manner, as the focus was on the causes of the war, specifically the naval rivalry between the UK and Germany, extensive alliances, Franz Ferdinand’s assassination etc.)
We studied:
Roman Britain,
The Wars of the Roses,
Late Anglo-Saxon rule and the Norman conquest,
Enclosyu
the Tudors,
the Luddites, and the start of the Industrial Revolution,
some WW1 history.
If the Tudors were so damned important to British students, perhaps I should attempt to learn a little about that era myself. For the sake of knowledge and all that.
I was taught it as part of the seemingly neverending (and more important) war with the French. The American colonies weren’t missed much, to the extent that trade continued, and in the skirmishes with the French, I seem to remember Britain taking much of the Carribean. Swapping the American colonies for sugar producing islands (mmmm rum) was seen as a pretty good deal by some. I do remember something about there being political backlash over the loss of the colonies, but all in all, it wasn’t a major threat to the British Empire.
I should add that the next chapter starts “Soon after America had ceased to be memorable…”
The sad thing about *1066 and All That *is that, to work, it assumes the reader knows what the real history was. Probably not true for most kids these days!
I will add that on the American side, the quality of education varies greatly by school, so whether you understand anything or not will vary considerably from school to school, or at least state to state. Middle-america states probably are better on the balance, because urban-core schools in American tend to be rather poor, although suburbs around big-city schools are often high-quality.
Here is what is posted in the Guards Museum in London. It’s focussed on just the Guards troops, but still gives some idea of the British take on the subject.
When I took American history, I decided it was a bunch of wealthy guys who didn’t want to pay their taxes who talked the little guys into dying for the idea, while they stayed home and counted their money.
In state school I wasn’t tought about the British Empire full stop, and I’d wager I was taught more history than most; look it up to GCSE and A-Level.
The usual topics of history covered in the UK in my experience are;
The Egyptians, Greeks, Romans.
Massive gap, then 1066.
Massive gap, then the Rennaisance.
Then the Tudors. Occaisional the gap is somewhat filled by the Wars of the Roses.
Then the English Civil War.
I vaguely remember being taught about the Battle of Culloden, which was the sum total of knowledge imparted about the 18th century.
Then the Victorians.
Then WWII. Occaisionally WWI.
At GCSE and A-level you study a wider variety of stuff, I did the Russian Revolution, Vietnam and U.S. Civil Rights movement of the top of my head. The big ones are in bold.
If you got World History before the college level (university level, my British friends), then you went to a remarkable school. I was AP all the way, baby, and we never got beyond American History and American Government (two different classes). World history was of the “in 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue” variety, which really was more American history than otherwise anyway.
I would think that, matters of patriotism aside, the circumstances of the birth of the world’s most powerful nation - and holder of that distinction for the last 60 years at the very least - would be an intrinsically worthwhile topic.
Powerful, for all of 60 years? We’re supposed to be impressed? Victoria reigned for longer than that (Liz ain’t far off it, either…)
Edit: maybe I’m being too flippant…
…understanding why countries become powerful is very different from placing a particular emphasis on the current holder of the greatest power just because it holds that status, prioritising the status quo and implicitly suggesting that the present will also be the future. Understanding why great powers emerged in the past, and also why they declined, is educational. Being told that America is powerful isn’t.
It is a worthwhile topic, but perhaps only as an option in higher level history classes. The United States is different to earlier superpowers in that it is largely benign, what with it being a modern democracy and all. On the whole, it leaves other countries alone, certainly compared to the great imperial powers of old. And that kind of civilised behaviour just doesn’t fill the pages of history books quite like Napoleon and the Romans do :).
(Liz ain’t far off it, either…)