Dear All
The latest post from the Institute of Education has some interesting points
and good links to both Civitas and E.D Hirsch who are both often quoted as
influencing Gove's approach.
Best wishes
Liz
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: IOE London blog <[log in to unmask]>
Date: 11 February 2013 13:58
Subject: [New post] The end of History? Let’s make sure it’s not
To: [log in to unmask]
**
Blog Editor posted: "Chris Husbands I should begin by setting out my
stall. I graduated with a history degree. The first thing I did with it was
to complete a PhD on Seventeenth Century demographic and economic
structures. The next was to teach history in comprehensive sch" Respond
to this post by replying above this line
New post on *IOE London blog*
<http://ioelondonblog.wordpress.com/author/dhofkins/> The end of History?
Let’s make sure it’s
not<http://ioelondonblog.wordpress.com/2013/02/11/the-end-of-history-lets-make-sure-its-not/>
by
Blog Editor <http://ioelondonblog.wordpress.com/author/dhofkins/>
*Chris Husbands* <http://www.ioe.ac.uk/about/FFCP_29.html>
I should begin by setting out my stall. I graduated with a history degree.
The first thing I did with it was to complete a PhD on Seventeenth Century
demographic and economic structures. The next was to teach history in
comprehensive schools. I was devoted to my subject and worked hard to
encourage pupils – many of whom thought that history had nothing to tell
them – to learn about the past and to comprehend what it had to do with
their own lives.
I have written history textbooks and books on how to teach history, and
have and examined the subject at A-level. I think history is incredibly
important: I believe that an understanding of history is an integral part
of every young person’s general education, and that it does not make sense
for anyone to stop studying history at 14. One of the delights of my job as
IOE Director is that I get to work with fantastic teachers who excite,
stimulate and enthuse their pupils. Ofsted agrees with my view of history
teaching: its evidence shows that history is one of the best-taught
subjects in the school curriculum.
It’s from this perspective that I read the Government’s draft national
curriculum for history<http://www.education.gov.uk/schools/teachingandlearning/curriculum/nationalcurriculum2014/>,
and I have two basic questions: is it good history, and will it promote
good learning? One of the fundamental problems which history poses for the
school curriculum is that there is just too much of it. That means that any
curriculum has to make a selection, and that selection has to be made on
the basis of some coherent set of principles. If not, history, as the
American poet Edna St Vincent Millay observed, is “just one damned thing
after another”.
The draft national curriculum <http://www.education.gov.uk/> is not short
on *things*: once primary children have been introduced to the concept of
the nation at five, they will be treated to an introduction to classical
civilisation and then a strong chronological narrative taking them through
the Heptarchy (look it up), and the Middle Ages (including “the Black Death
and chivalry”), ending their primary career by encountering the Glorious
Revolution.
Secondary pupils’ history career will begin with General Wolfe at Quebec,
and will move both through the British Imperial past – the Indian Mutiny,
the Great Game, Gandhi – and the economic and political history of Britain
in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, up to the election of, but not,
it seems, the government led by, Margaret Thatcher. In the House of
Commons, the Secretary of State commended a history curriculum which would
place the inspirational stories of heroes and heroines at its core.
Is this good history? Few appear to think so. The Regius Professor of
History at Cambridge, Sir Richard Evans, wrote in the Financial
Times<http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5b658930-7121-11e2-9b5c-00144feab49a.html#axzz2KD362RAy>that
it could portend the end of good history teaching in schools. History
teachers, including the Historical
Association<http://www.history.org.uk/news/index.php?id=1714>,
have been vehement about the proposals’ shortcomings.
The word history carries two distinct
meanings<http://www.amazon.co.uk/Teaching-History-11-18-understanding-ebook/dp/B005G14JKU>:
from the Greek work ἱστορία, literally an inquiry, and the French word *
l’histoire*, which is, of course, a story. History as an academic
discipline is both a story, and a mode of inquiry. The national curriculum
draft realises this in the preamble to Key Stage 3, but it separates
historians’ ways of working absolutely from the narrative, and the Key
Stage 2 programme of study emphasises story at the expense of inquiry: it
is chronicle rather than history.
In a powerful speech to the Social Market
Foundation<http://www.smf.co.uk/media/news/michael-gove-speaks-smf/>,
the Secretary of State cited the influential work of the American cultural
critic E D Hirsch in his defence. Hirsch emphasises the importance of a
“core knowledge” curriculum, setting out – often in great detail – year by
year slabs of knowledge to be taught to children. But Hirsch’s
model<http://www.coreknowledge.org/sequence>,
and its English imitators <http://www.coreknowledge.org.uk/ckuk.php> are
incurious about two things: first, about development, and the ability of
children to master complex ideas at different ages, and secondly about the
relationship between “knowledge” and “understanding".
Knowledge is of fundamental importance – and most curricula that play it
down are not very good. But understanding matters just as much. I may be
wrong, but I find it difficult to believe that a seven-year-old can make
much sense of the Heptarchy, or an 11-year-old the issues at stake in the
Glorious Revolution. We can – and history teachers do – do much better than
that.
*Blog Editor <http://ioelondonblog.wordpress.com/author/dhofkins/>* |
February 11, 2013 at 1:57 pm | Tags: E D
Hirsch<http://ioelondonblog.wordpress.com/?tag=e-d-hirsch>,
history curriculum<http://ioelondonblog.wordpress.com/?tag=history-curriculum>,
national curriculum<http://ioelondonblog.wordpress.com/?tag=national-curriculum>|
Categories: Chris
Husbands <http://ioelondonblog.wordpress.com/?cat=89731470> | URL:
http://wp.me/p1wqwD-hQ
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Liz Denton
Museum Development Officer - East Yorkshire & Northern Lincolnshire
(Monday - Thursday)
*Museum Development Yorkshire*
York Museums Trust
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Marygate,
York.
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