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History and national identity in the classroom

Paul Goalen. History Today. London: Jun 1997.Tomo47, Nº 6; pg. 6, 3 pgs

Resumen

The role of history in the classroom and the formation of national identity are examined.

Texto completo (2031 palabras)

Copyright History Today Ltd. Jun 1997

During the course of 1995, Dr Nick Tate, the Chief Executive of SCAA (School Curriculum and
Assessment Authority), initiated a debate on the role of history teaching in schools in the formation
of national identity. In a keynote speech delivered to history teachers and advisers in York in
September 1995, Dr Tate outlined his belief that 'national identities depend on stories' and that
teachers need to provide children with 'a sense of belonging to a community which stretches back
into the past and forward into the future' in order to give them 'a sense of meaning in a world which
is in a state of constant social, economic and technological flux'. Like others before him, Dr Tate
assumed that large doses of British history served up as part of the staple diet of our children's
schooling would affect the way they perceive themselves as members of the wider community of
Great Britain.

Yet there is little evidence beyond the assertions of some politicians and administrators that the
history curriculum is capable of turning children into 'better' citizens. Previous researchers into the
development of patriotism in children, such as E.L. Horowitz and J. Piaget writing in the 1940s and
1950s, did not focus on the contribution of the history curriculum to the development of identities,
whilst more recent research into early twentieth-century imperialistic and patriotic history textbooks
sometimes assumed that their messages were quietly absorbed by a passive audience.

There are indeed limits to what a centrally controlled history curriculum can produce. The notion of
serried ranks of passive pupils absorbing the carefully constructed historical messages of the
dominant regime may seem attractive to extremists at either end of the political spectrum but would
have little chance of success in late twentieth-century classrooms. In the first place, the history
curriculum would have to be intolerably prescriptive and absorbed through standardised texts and
rote learning to have any chance of delivering an officially approved version of the past. Even then,
if the pupils did not riot through boredom, they would probably quietly reject such a pedagogical
catastrophe as a dull and tedious imposition on their time and consciousness.

Secondly, there are few history teachers who would willingly accept appointment simply as story
tellers to the tribe, for as Alfred Smyth, writing in The Times Educational Supplement, has recently
reminded us, 'No one version of the past can be mummified like Lenin in his tomb in Red Square
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and preserved in a glass case by an establishment bent on imposing its own perception of events'.
Indeed, if there has never been an agreed version of the national past, and if history remains an
argument about the past as well as a record of it, then teachers may continue to debunk
establishment heroes and challenge a 'drum and trumpets' version of the past with more democratic
perspectives of life 'below stairs'.

Thirdly, there has seemed to be a movement in recent times to return the history teaching profession
to the `great tradition' that dominated history classrooms for the first seventy years of this century.
This tradition focused mostly on British political history which was taught chronologically from
Julius Caesar to 1914 by teachers who operated didactically, employing methods such as reading
round the class, dictation, and copying notes from the blackboard. Historians such as V.E.
Chancellor, John Mackenzie and Richard Aldrich have drawn attention to the imperialist and
patriotic flavour of this syllabus, at least as reflected in some textbooks and official statements.

The version of history to be found in schoolbooks written in the 1930s which were still in print and
widely used in the 1960s, such as the Macmillan junior histories, Nelson's four volume series 'The
House of History', and the Collins series 'The Thrill of History', was as Mackenzie wrote in
Propaganda and Empire, 'nationalist and patriotic, devoted to stories of great men and of significant
events (usually wars) in a national march to greatness'. Moreover, official advice, as issued by the
Board of Education in 1905, sometimes stressed the importance of developing national identity
through the teaching of history.

The problem with this version of school history is that we do not really know how effective
it was in moulding and shaping the ideas of the young. Oral history has uncovered some
evidence that it was successful and that stories of heroism and national glory provided a
welcome relief from the monotony of the school routine which was dominated by the three
Rs. But Patrick Brindle in a recent article in History Today (June 1996) reminds us that 'We
cannot assume that the content of the textbook was the same as the content of the lesson',
for in some schools there might only be one copy of the textbook and in other schools none
at all, so that lessons were sometimes 'cobbled together' by teachers who might be unsure of
the content and delivered to pupils who hankered after entertainment. Furthermore, where
the child reader did have access to the textbook, we should not assume an unproblematic
relationship between the reader and the text, for some children might not necessarily
understand or absorb the subtler strains of patriotism the author had meant them to
internalise.

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'A Good Thing' (left): 'A Bad Thing' (right): sketches from Sellars and Wheatman's lighthearted
romp through our island history, 1066 And All That.

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[Fotografía]
Proud to be British? VE Party for the children of Sutton Dwellings, Chelsea, July 1945.
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We should therefore be cautious about predicting the likely effect of any one particular history
syllabus. Some children, after all, often find it difficult enough to remember the story correctly, let
alone interpret the message. Nevertheless, in a recent pilot study, I probed the extent to which our
current National Curriculum for history was helping to develop a sense of national identity in
children. I interviewed a sample of twenty-four Year 9 (13-14 year old) children in two contrasting
comprehensive schools who were approaching the end of the compulsory phase of the history
curriculum (history is now optional for Year 10 and 11 pupils for GCSE). Roughly half the children
selected for interview had opted for history at GCSE level and half had not, so it was hoped that
there would be a balance in their attitudes towards the subject.

When the children were asked about their experiences of history at Key Stage 3 (for eleven to
fourteen year-olds) the children's preferences reflected the balance between global and national
history at this Key Stage. Favourite history topics recalled by the children included nine mentions of
the Second World War, four for Martin Luther King, three for the Civil War, and two mentions each
for Slavery, Napoleon and the Wars of the Roses. Other topics receiving at least one mention each
were Arkwright, Hitler, the Great Fire of London, and 'Victorians, Vikings, Greeks, Egyptians' (the
latter being Key Stage 2, primary school topics). No particular preference for the history of Great
Britain was uncovered here.

Another interesting feature of the children's responses was that when asked which history topics
they would like to have studied at school but had not been allowed to, they opted more often for
world history rather than British history topics. The topics mentioned which the children would
have liked to have studied were as follows: America, the assassination of JFK, Vietnam, Gandhi,
Egypt, Poland, France, Germany, Russia, Asia, Australia, the Caribbean, Jamaica, the Aztecs, the
Maya, Ireland, `the Scottish/English war', fashion, music, Tudor times, Victoria, revisiting primary
school topics, and more time on the First and Second World Wars.

The interest in world history suggested here may partially reflect their eclectic television viewing
habits. Several imported television programmes from the English speaking world rivalled home
produced programmes in popularity, and sporting celebrities of many different nationalities had
followers among these children. Indeed, the evidence here may suggest that children are
increasingly seeing themselves as citizens of a global polis rather than of just one country.

There was, however, one topic that did seem to have had an impact on the development of these
children's national identity. Each pupil was asked whether they had studied any history topics that
had made them feel proud to be British, and whilst two pupils mentioned the Industrial Revolution,
fourteen mentioned the Second World War. Typically, the reasons given for feeling proud about the
Second World War were 'because we won', or 'because they were the underdogs and they came out
winning'. Another pupil made explicit his feelings of national pride: 'I suppose the fact that we are
not all speaking German now makes me feel happy and proud that we did win and proud to be
British'. One perceptive pupil interpreted the Second World War as not just a military victory but a
victory of ideas as well, a victory for Western democracy over fascism.

Yet for nearly half the sample this pride was tinged with regret for other episodes in British history
which were considered less savoury. Ten pupils from the sample came up with examples of
historical topics which had made them ashamed to be British. The topic of Slavery was selected by
four pupils as one which cast a shadow over their country's history; another pupil picked on the
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public schoolboy officers and leaders of the First World War, another the Treaty of Versailles,
another a nineteenth-century cholera epidemic which was only checked when it hit the rich, another
the Victorian treatment of working-class children, and another the Second World War bombing of
German schools and children. One boy interestingly felt that the Civil War was a shameful episode
because the two sides should have been able to find a peaceful means of sorting out their
differences.

There is little evidence from this pilot study that we are in danger of producing a narrowly
nationalistic generation as a result of the centrally imposed history curriculum in England.
On the contrary, many pupils are able to draw quite a balanced picture of their country's
contribution to the modern world taking some pride in the achievements of Britain whilst at
the same time realising that the national past is not simply a record of heroes and glorious
victories. Furthermore, television brings the rest of the world into every home and the
children in my sample showed their interest and concern for the wider world in the list of
topics they would like to have studied in their compulsory history course.

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A black mark on the nation's history is felt to be its part in the slave trade.

Indeed, my data would support the conclusion that popular culture, particularly television, is a
significant influence on our young people, but I would stress that this influence is not all negative
since it can feed an interest in the wider world which teachers as curriculum planners could build
upon were they allowed to. Moreover, it is increasingly being recognised that pupils have much to
contribute to the whole issue of school improvement and that they are capable of generating
critiques of schooling which are both perceptive and useful If the pupils were listened to before the
next review of the National Curriculum, some interesting changes might result. Two thirds of the
pupils in my sample believed that teachers and pupils should be heard in the debates surrounding
the construction and revision of the National Curriculum for history.

Such sentiments are healthy in a democracy and might also be viewed as an important
safeguard against any powerful group that sought to use the history curriculum for
propaganda purposes. Yet for the time being, and until the next revision in the year 2000,
the history curriculum in England in the compulsory phase (i.e. up until the end of Key
Stage 3), seems only to be making a minor contribution to the development of patriotism in
children, and it has to compete with those elements in popular culture, especially perhaps
sport and television, which are increasingly making our children citizens of a global polis
rather than of just one country.

[Afiliaciones del autor]

Paul Goalen is Head of History at Homerton College, Cambridge. He has recently written a series
of articles on using drama to teach history tn primary and secondary schools in The Curriculum
JournaL