The old saying that history is just one damn thing after another is no longer true, according to Qualifications and Curriculum Authority. Last week the QCA published a report confirming what many teachers, university lecturers and parents have been complaining about for years: history is now taught in such a fragmented way that children have no chance to develop a chronological sense of the order in which important events happened. Survey after survey has told us that a majority of people questioned thought that Oliver Cromwell fought in the Battle of Britain, and other such absurdities: now we are getting it from an important government agency charged with monitoring what is actually going on in schools.
The list of failings is startling. Not enough time is allocated, to start with. Only 4% of curriculum time is allocated to history in Key Stages 1 and 2. To make it worse, certain periods are covered two or three times, while other periods are completely ignored. The phrase which was taken from the QCA report by the newspapers – the Hitlerisation of history – describes the way in which twentieth century history, especially the Second World War, is covered in depth, with no reference to earlier centuries. It is as if the twentieth century just sprang out of nowhere. The British Empire is conspicuous by its absence.
The ‘modular’ approach to history – asking children to imagine themselves to be medieval serfs or Egyptians building the pyramids – has added to the confusion over the order in which things happen. One friend of mine told me that his nephew, who has been educated at an expensive independent school, asked him if the Victorians came before or after the ancient Egyptians.
According to some of the teachers who spoke to the QCA, history is sometimes being done in half-terms, alternating with geography. It is also getting muddled up with citizenship. Of course, knowledge of the history of your own country and its institutions is a vital part of becoming a good citizen, but that doesn’t mean that history as an academic discipline should become subordinated to the short-term aims of politicians, like increasing the youth vote.
Now that the QCA has confirmed what many people have been complaining about for years, we must hope that politicians will learn the lesson and stop using history to promote their concerns about gender, race, equality and multi-culturalism, and will instead just let enthusiastic history teachers get on with what they have always wanted to do, which is to encourage a love and understanding of the past.
Comments (1)
Re the last paragraph, where did you see the porcine aviators? Just thought I would ask.
Posted by Derek Buxton | February 10, 2005 12:55 PM
Posted on February 10, 2005 12:55