Of course in US schools, the genocide of the indigenous inhabitants is usually whitewashed; the curriculum sort of leaves you with the impression that North America was some vast, sparsely-populated land the white folks were just looking for some "elbow room". But the European colonial period, here that's usually just colored blobs on the map. I'm curious as to how this is taught in European classrooms. Any sort of reflection at all on how evil this was?
In the UK at gcse level there is almost zero coverage of what occurred during the colonial period, instead what is actually covered is a focus on the monarchs themselves. Which kings and queens there were, what fashions they wore, what architecture they did. You can fill up the education time rather quickly by focusing on trivial stuff.
Oh and castles. Plenty about castles and their design.
out of interest (if it's not too personal), what year did you do your gcses? because i had the opposite experience in 2006