‘Facts’ of history From Mr Martin Auton Sir, Following the recent brouhaha concerning the National Curriculum history report it might prove instructive to consider the ‘Peterloo massacre’. Was it ‘a fact’ that a large gathering threatened law and order and property, necessitating prompt preventative action by the authorities, or was it ‘a fact’ that the agents of repressive government ‘massacred’ a crowd of innocent people manifesting a genuine grievance? History seems to have inclined to the latter interpretation, raising it to the status of ‘a fact’. Perhaps Mrs Thatcher would ponder on this, not least so soon after the recent poll tax-related events in central London. Your faithfully Martin Auton Minster Court Myrtle Street Liverpool 7. (The Times, 14 April 1990)
History teaching From Major-General H. G. Woods Sir, Those concerned about the history curriculum, and the public discussion about the degree of future emphasis, whether on understanding or knowledge, are grateful to your Education Editor (report, April 4) for the summary of the National Curriculum history working group report. However a much more serious flaw is revealed in ‘The Purposes of School History’. The omission of more specific references to the impact of technology on history is a grave and fundamental weakness. It underlines the lack of real understanding about the impact of technology in the adult world, and may perpetuate it in schools. It is extraordinary that these purposes appear to ignore three very well-known examples of the links between technology and history: The stirrup and the wheel, first on warfare and then economic development. The deep plough, the development of agriculture and the great cathedrals built in the 12th century. The technological advances which caused and affected the first Industrial Revolution. Those concerned with the development of the history curriculum must therefore be strongly urged to do much more than mention technology en passant in the three key stages. The impact of technology must be given its proper place in the purposes and the history study units; failure to do so will have the most serious consequences for future generations, and encourage the present lack of understanding about technology to continue and grow worse. I am, yours etc. H. G. Woods (Secretary) St William’s Foundation 5 College Street York (The Times , 25 April 1990)
Dragging phantoms into the history debate I am afraid that Norman Stone has taken your readers to the wrong road junction, since he has been navigating with an out-of-date map (News Review, last week). None of us seriously involved in history teaching now spend any time debating ‘knowledge’ versus ‘skills’, or ‘facts’ versus ‘empathy’. That debate never had much substance. What is left of it are phantoms in the imaginations of Professor Stone (‘educationalists that devise examinations where you have a pass-mark for hurt feelings), or of Nick Seaton, the chairman of the Campaign for Real Education (’the so-called “new” historians who intend to hijack the national curriculum as a means to promote outdated socialist ideology’ - Letters, last week). Who are these demons? I never meet them. The kind of history most teachers want is not dissimilar to Professor Stone’s, including ‘the basic elements of the naional past’ which is ‘interestingly presented and ought to be fun’. Such history is best learned and tested if knowledge and understanding are continuously linked together so that pupils always consider facts in contexts which help them to appreciate their significance. This is the approach which is recommended by the national curriculum working group whose report was published on April 3. I am surprised that Professor Stone did not mention it, since it represents the latest stage of the history-in-schools debate. The real issues of the debate are much more interesting and important than ‘knowledge’ versus ‘empathy’. In the 1990s, what should be the proportions of British, European and work hsitory which our pupils study? What should constitute the significant landmarks of British history? How much should be the study of ‘top people’ and how much history from below? What degree of flexibility should history teachers have, and in the last resort, with whom should the rest the final decision about the details of so politically controversial a school subject as history? With the secretary of state or, say, with a more independent body akin to the BBC board of directors? We shall be debating these issues and others in the next few weeks in 14 regional conferences, to which your readers are most welcome. Martin Roberts Chairman of the Education Committee The Historical Association (The Sunday Times, 15 April 1990)
The Historical Association is not in the business of encouraging blinkered British nationalism. It is in the business of encouraging national self-awareness through the education of our children. The Historical Association is not saying that only recent history is ‘relevant’ history. It is saying that recent history can be made doubly relevant for all pupils in school. (Donald Read, President of the Historical Association, The Times Educational Supplement, 29 August 1986)
I will mention one subject which is causing me growing concern, as I learn more about what pupils are actually being taught. That subject is history. There are many reasons why schools should teach it. One of them is its contribution to preparing pupils for the responsibilities of adult status. They cannot play their full part in operating and improving the institutions of our society or in preserving, constructively criticizing and adapting its values, unless they have a well developed sense of our national past. They need to have some feelings for the flow of events that have led to where we are, how our present political and social fabric and attitudes have their roots in the English Reformation, the Reform Bills, the Tolpuddle Martyrs and the Suffragette Movement, and how our national security, our place in the world, was shaped by Waterloo and El Alamein. For Britain's past includes her relations with other countries so that we need some understanding of their past also. It was Kipling who said, ‘And what should they know of England who only England know?’ It also includes the contributions made over the centuries by those who have settled here from other lands. There is far more history that deserves to be taught in our schools than there is likely to be time to teach. So the selection is crucial. My concern is that so much of the selection is unbalanced and that pupils leave school without an adequate mental map of those things which have led us to where we are now and without the wherewithal to form even a preliminary judgment on what was good, bad, glorious or inglorious. (Kenneth Baker, Secretary of State for Education, speech to the Society of Education Officers, 23 January 1987)
If British history includes Cecil Rhodes and his dream of populating Africa with Englishmen, then it must include King William Dappa Pepple Bonny V and his wife Queen Annie, who lived in Tottenham in 1857–1861, seeking reinstatement to their thrones in Nigeria, having been expelled from their homeland by the British. (Sylvia Collicott, Senior Lecturer in History, North London Polytechnic, Journal of the Assistant Masters’ and Mistresses’ Association, 1987)
‘Teachers should focus on the national history of their pupils’ own country.’
‘Teachers should teach the history of the whole world.’
The Fate of the Plains Indians | Russian Women bring out their own Newspapers |
Coal – the Basis of Wealth | Food Producers in Defoe's Time |
The left-out Millions | The Rise of the Labour Party |
The Decline of Religion | Migration and Multicultural Britain |
The Village Wheelwright | The War in the Desert |
The Cold War and Korea | Nationalism and the Unification of Germany |
Bismarck's Early Life | The Right and Left in European Politics |
Great Britain – an island Empire | Austria-Hungary – a Patchwork Empire |
Women Criminals | Having Children in the Middle Ages |
Pioneers go to the Far West | Was the Battle of Little Big Horn really a victory for the Indians? |
Without understanding, history is reduced to parrot-learning, and assessment to a parlour memory game. In the case of the French Revolution, the answer to the question, ‘What was the date of Louis XVI's execution?’ may tell us something about the pupils’ powers of recollection, but nothing about their understanding of the great issues of social conflict, social change and the effect of the revolution outside France. (National Curriculum History Working Group, 1990)
A | B |
---|---|
threatened law and order and property | manifesting a genuine grievance |
prompt preventative action | ‘massacred’ |
the authorities | the agents of repressive government |
Names, dates and places will be at the root of all history teaching in the national curriculum to be introduced into schools next September. It comes after a fierce debate between traditionalists and the progressive educationalists, who had argued that understanding was more important than simply learning facts. … Duncan Graham, the [National Curriculum] council's chairman and chief executive, said: ‘Attainment will be firmly based on learning historical information. Pupils will need to acquire precise knowledge about key events, people and dates from each of the periods studied. The teaching of history has been the subject of intense debate for the last 18 months. This report provides the means of raising expectations and standards and establishes a balance between the knowledge all pupils should have and the skills they need to use it…’ … After criticism that the original curriculum concentrated too heavily on English history, the council now recommends ‘a broad and balanced history curriculum, based on the British Isles but with substantial attention to the rest of Europe and the world’. From age five to seven children will learn from their own experience and family about events more distant in time and place. From seven to 11, lessons will be based on key events and everyday life during important periods in British history, though all children will have to study ancient Greece, local history, long-term themes such as ships and seafarers, and life in a society outside Europe. From 11 to 14, they will move on to the Roman Empire, Britain from 1066 to 1500, and the making of the United Kingdom. From 14 to 16, pupils will study a broad range of major themes in the 20th century history about Britain, Europe and the world. (Tytler, D., The Times, 29 December 1990)