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

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

We are a young country, as so did not have the same problems with our country's history as do you folks. In grammar school they gave us a quick read on Marco Polo, the Vikings, then the Spanish explorers who sailed the world, then on to Christopher Columbus, Spanish settlements, French explorations, the Dutch, and finally the English - and on to 1776 and beyond. After Grammar school there was an option for kids who were on college prep track to study "Ancient History" and "Art Appreciation". World History, back then, was saved for freshman year in college (actually "The History of Western Civilization" which has since been renamed and reconstructed into "World History".) It would be difficult indeed for a country as old as England or Germany to cover it's entire history in the eight year period of grammar school, yet it is important for a people to know its country's story.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

When I was in school I studied the Tudors and Stuarts. It was mostly political history- and duller than it might have been, given the violence and glamour of the period. If I'd gone on to specialise in the subject I'd have found myself- in my senior year- looking at the era of the Industrial Revolution.

[endlessrarities.livejournal.com]

Here's a confession.

I didn't even DO history at school.

I did geography, and wound up stumbling into archaeology by accident, because of a TV programme (!). So the school curriculum had absolutely no bearing on my life whatsoever. I ditched history like a hot potato once we stopped learning about Greeks, Romans and Egyptians.

Oh, and incidentally, I have two extremely meaty academic books on the Glorious Revolution hanging around in my 'To Be Read' pile...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

You didn't miss much. History as taught at "O" level was pretty boring.

We've got Simon Schama's book about the French revolution sitting on a shelf somewhere. I think it may be what I read next- if I can find it.

[endlessrarities.livejournal.com]

You should read Hilary Mantel's A Place of Greater Safety for extra flavour. It's the best historical novel I've ever read and it reads the way I feel history ought to be: a bunch of blokes fumbling along doing stuff and playing routine politics, and - hey presto!- suddenly events have moved faster than they'd anticipated and the world has changed, carrying them along with it.

I thought it was brilliant and would recommend it to anyone.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I may try that.

I read Carlyle's French Revolution once- an absolute tour de force. Carlyle deserves to be rediscovered.

And I'm very fond of A Tale of Two Cities.

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

Actually I got a lot of useful information from various historical novels. It's the "spoonful of sugar" that Mary Poppins talks about. These novels made me look deeper into th subject matter. Oh, yes, and also Good Old Willy's historic plays as well.