Follow Steven Schwartz Let’s hope Queen History can rule in peace
Written by Steven Schwartz on October 17th, 2008
In his book The Poverty of Theory the English historian E P Thompson describes history as the “Queen of the Humanities" .
Thompson was right; all other areas of study come together in history – English, politics, economics, sociology, even mathematics and science. Because history is the story of humanity (although I’m told one Macquarie history course once included a study of the Bonobo chimpanzee), it encompasses every aspect of our existence. The study of history also teaches students many skills, including writing, analysis and research.
This week the National Curriculum Board came up with a set of proposals for teaching history in a systematic way in Australia’s primary and secondary schools.
The board’s History Advisory Group, led by Professor Stuart Macintyre (and which includes Macquarie University’s Associate Professor Marnie Hughes-Warrington) has proposed a national history curriculum.
Australian history would maintain an important place in the curriculum, but it would be set in the context of world history. A national curriculum restricted to just Australian history would be inappropriate, the group says.
“If only to equip students to operate in the world in which they will live, they need to understand world history. That history should have a broad and comprehensive foundation from which its implications for Australia can be grasped.”
At first glance this seems sensible, but history teaching is not without controversy as the prolonged “history wars” that raged in recent years go to show.
At the heart of historical controversy stands interpretation. Sometimes we know what happened, but often we don’t know the motivation of the actors. If history teachers are not careful they may fall into the trap of presentism – projecting current concerns back into a time when those concerns had no meaning.
So any history curriculum for young students has to tread very carefully. It must prioritise facts over opinion and fair evaluation of evidence over moralising.
The recommendations have been attacked by Greg Melleuish as “clearly the work of a committee” because “they appear to be a jumble of components rather than a coherent whole”.
Sydney Institute director Gerard Henderson criticised the direction of the draft curriculum, reportedly telling the ABC: "This idea that facts should be downplayed and concepts of historical enquiry and historical thinking should be stressed, in my view, is not the correct way to go.”
As I made clear in a post earlier this week, history gives us important perspectives on both the past and the present. It’s important young people in particular have a sound knowledge of where we came from so they can understand where we might be heading.
Stuart Macintyre says it’s important the curriculum is accessible to all people, and should not be about axe grinding.
He’s right, but of course axe grinding is inevitable.
British writer Leslie Hartley famously said that the past is a foreign country “and they do things differently there”.
Young students need a factual guide book to navigate through that territory, not a politically correct charter of contemporary mores.
The draft curriculum is now up for discussion.
I’d love to see Gerard Henderson’s list of “facts” that students should “learn”. Or anyone’s list of facts, for that matter. I’m not an academic historian, merely an amateur one, but it seems to me that the few “facts” that are beyond dispute can be looked up and don’t need to be taught or learned (although I do think students should be taught about WHAT facts might be important for an understanding of history, so that they know where to look and what to look for and where to look for interpretations of those facts).
For example, it’s a fact that John Howard lost Bennelong and the Libs lost government last November; it’s a fact that the ALP lost Ryde on Saturday. These facts are on the official electoral record. But what students need to know is that it’s important to know about elections and election results if you want to understand the political and social trends of the nation and the relationship between the people and those who govern them. The really interesting bit, though, is WHY these events occurred – and THAT’S where you need to be able to critically analyse the context and the multitude of diverse sources of interpretations of those results. And so you also need to know WHO might provide interpretations and what their agendas might be. Facts AND analysis AND interpretation are required for understanding. And of course, there is no real boundary to the context – individual, local, State, national and global factors could be considered.
I rather like the focus of the NSW high school history course and HSC Modern History course (which my daughter is about to be examined on). The students certainly learn their share of facts, but I think there is an entirely appropriate focus on critically analysing a range of sources with varying interpretations of those facts and at looking at historical events from a range of perspectives.
When I hear the kids talking about their history studies, it sounds to me that they have a pretty sound grasp of the importance of the events they’ve studied, and how they fit into the jigsaw that has produced the world we live in today. They often draw parallels between past and contemporary events – and then critique this by looking at how the contexts differed! And they often hypothesise about how things will turn out in the future, based on patterns of events in the past. I don’t think you could wish for anything better than a study of history that enhances students’ understanding of the present AND develops their capacity to imagine and influence the future.
So I suppose I’m clearly on the interpretive side of the history wars, although not on the extreme edge of it. For example, it does worry me that young people don’t seem to have the general knowledge that we had. I know that they can look up anything they need to know – information, after all, is more accessible than ever before – but mere information doesn’t constitute knowledge. The problem is that they often seem ignorant of their ignorance, and that’s a concern. There is no point being able to critically analyse interpretations of “facts” if you are not even aware that some facts and events are pivotal.
So, as the current NSW history curriculum seems to recognise, both knowledge of certain facts AND the ability to interpret and critically analyse sources are important in studying history. And, if pushed, I reckon all but the extreme edges of both sides of the so-called “history wars” would probably agree on that. Let’s face it, the “history wars” are really just another ideological conflict pretending to be about something else. It’s really about who gets to write the history and whose view prevails – power and conflict, business as usual in the politics of education.
So what is the role of teachers? Peter Slezak makes some good points in today’s Herald on this matter. The assumption that “bias” is only something that affects those who disagree with the writer’s/observer’s/majority position is alive and well in public debate in this country. I hope our academics have a read of some of the submissions to the Senate inquiry into academic freedom and then think hard about what sort of university we should be – and then get out there and defend their view (whatever it is) publicly, so that we can have the open debate we need!
Dear Vice-Chancellor,
In my submission, the teaching of history has a few vital components if it is to rule peacefully. The Commonwealth of Australia is only 107 years old – and in global terms what years they have been! I’m sure that it is only that this continent is so challenging to get to en masse, and such a family-friendly country, that has kept the political traditions this way for so long. History has to pay close attention to geography.
The government of our country did not come from nowhere. It is the by-product of a long, thoughtful and sociable process – much civil talk, writing, polite discussion and vigorous debate. Thus it continues to be such a by-product, and for as long as remains this at least it can humbly continue to exist, whether in the territory we currently call Australia, or elsewhere. History should to pay close attention to the ways in which understanding of each other is enhanced.
Teaching the new generation the history of the nation, or the history of the universe for that matter, is not nearly as important as teaching them sound respect for themselves, for others, and for these sociable processes. History ought to show how much better peace and respect are than pain and disrespect. Bias is inevitable, but it doesn’t have to sway public debate by its mere existence, nor does it have to generate the contempt in which so many hold it.
A contest of biases, with the addition of knowledge, civility and maturity, can become a decent and edifying discussion about society. Let’s retain our traditions of polite discussion and civil debate, and push them closer to the centre of public life. Sound and text are vitally linked.
Yours sincerely,
Peter Anderson
The work of the institutes attempting to promote the study of Canadian history in the schools of the country has had no influence (fewer people vote than before, and the political comments of readers at the CBC and The Globe and Mail sites would have to be rated as pre-infantile).
Teaching literal history is just about the saddest waste of time invented by literal-minded people. Young people should be encouraged to take an honors social sciences program for their final six years of school, if that is what they are interested in. If they want to go into Law, History, Economics, Commerce, Political Science, or International Relations, with intensive work in languages and literature, they should be exempt from other requirements except insofar as they could master them in summer schools.
What very few educators are prepared to admit is the fact that the last six years of school, in the UK, the US, Canada, and Australia, are a virtual wasteland given the opportunity costs of rigid systems that are trailing at least four years behind the potential of students.
If I were to teach History, I would integrate fiction such as “Tree of Smoke” with non-fiction such as “Terror and Consent.” I would never do a canned curriculum. I would help honors students choose books live since if you compare the watery soup in school with the excellent books in History, International Political Science, Espionage and Terror, and historical fiction to be found in good bookstores today, you might wonder whether History teachers really understand anything at all about teaching.
The lurking primary mistake in History is to assume the language. We avoid the COBUILD English Grammar, the Longman Language Activator, and the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary in History courses as if some silly little booklet on writing essays in the subject could compensate.
Historians reject the corpus revolution in Linguistics just as adamantly as scientists do. No wonder they are so persistently enraptured in their reification of fact and process, so that they cannot orient to the past in an original way.
Students need to have their procedural memory and tactile senses enhanced by meticulous projects in information coherence. Academics just have no idea. One powerful project is to have students internalize an eight print newspaper media reading cycle so that they will be able to complete it each day in about two hours and so collate information. Pattern recognition. How can it be that we do not understand how to inculcate this skill?
Even if journalists will identify History as a valuable subject for them, it remains unexploited for its learning possibilities because teachers think about it without reflection. Every discipline has its characteristic way of being performed badly, History because everyone tends to think the methodology is obvious, when it really is quite subtle.
If we were to separate the learning of Music from cognition, it would seem absurd. But mechanistic History fits like a glove.
I am sure that those who have contributed to teaching at MGSM will tell you that unless you understand history you will have a difficult time marketing to the masses. History tells us why the States of Australia have different attitudes and need, in some cases, a different marketing approach. There are not that many marketing people that use this unfortunately.
Regards
Lindsay