Teaching History

[poliphilo]

The teaching of history in schools is hugely controversial.  Rightwing people want it to be all about Nelson and Churchill. Leftwing people want it to be all about the slave trade and the chartists.  Apparently the current solution is to dodge aside from the fire fight and make it all about Hitler- because everyone can agree about the rights and wrongs of him.

Quite apart from the politics- or the lack of a "common culture" as Martin Kettle has it- there's the problem of just how much history there is to teach- 3,000 years of it and counting (that is if you don't include prehistory, which archaeology is making less and less opaque).  So your grandkids know lots about Martin Luther King and nothing about Martin Luther? Yup, that's bad- but would you really want it the other way round? And where are you going to find time in a highly pressurized curriculum to make sure they learn about both? 
 
Are there things that should absolutely be in the syllabus?  Probably. But I don't know what they are, because I can think of so many.

Comments

[endlessrarities.livejournal.com]

I think the best thing schools should teach the next generation is an interest in all history, and all cultures, so that when they leave education they have at least an understanding that what they've learned is the tip of the iceberg and that there's a huge exciting world out there, featuring people whose lives and experiences have been mind-bogglingly different to our own. Sure, we need to learn about past mistakes, just so we can try and avoid repeating them, but there should be at least some positive aspects to the past.

There's books and television programmes aplenty which can enhance people's knowledge of a whole variety of historical periods, if they have at least some idea of time-depth and cultural variety. All they need to do is open their eyes and look around them!

It's worked with wildlife, hasn't it? Why can't the same mass appeal extend to archaeology & history?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I agree. The contents of the syllabus matter less than that it should be taught- whatever it is- with passion.

We don't need to get the whole of world history at school (even if it were possible). All it needs is for the interest to be set alight.

I'm a huge fan of Time Team, by the way. It had a lot to do with me going off and getting my archaeology "O" level.

[endlessrarities.livejournal.com]

I'm not, I'm afraid! It's too staged and I find TR and his cohorts a bit annoying... Some of my colleagues have worked with the TT, mind, and really enjoyed the experience, so each to their own.

I do remember a really good series by the TT production team (pre-TT) for Channel 4 called 'Time Signs' which featured Mick Aston & Phil Harding. It followed a big archaeology job on the future site of a reservoir, going through the entire process of desk-based assessment, evaluation, standing building survey, excavation & post-ex. My mum taped it for me, bless her! It knocked TT into the shade and should be recommended viewing for anyone studying Archaeology or just interested in the subject. It was shown way back in the 90s at the same time the brilliant archaeology magazine programme Down to Earth was on. Ah, now I'm getting nostalgic!!

Oh, and the Time Team special on Stonehenge was really, really good. So I can't pull a sour face at everything they do!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I've admired "little Tony" (as he's known in this house) ever since he did a retelling of the Odyssey on kids' TV back in the 80s. He'd written it himself, and the way he delivered it gave me goosebumps.

I guess Time Team is staged- but isn't everything on TV? We "starred" as ourselves in a short documentary once- and were directed as if we were actors. The number of times I carried that coffee cup into the living room!

[endlessrarities.livejournal.com]

Ah, he'll always be Baldric to me.

And I mean cunning Baldric, from Blackadder I. Not stoopid Baldric...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I spotted him the other day in the old John Wayne movie McQ. He was very young back then. He plays a motorcycle courier whom Wayne pushes into the Thames.

Time Team, Blackadder and being roughed up by John Wayne- it's been an interesting and varied career.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

To say nothing of Codex! (Not perhaps the apex of his career, or mine.)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

But great fun- at least it sounds like it was.