Greg Melleuish: Australia's New History Standards Neglect the Individual
[Greg Melleuish is an associate professor in the school of history and politics at the University of Wollongong.]
With the release of the draft national curriculum, it can be said that history's time has finally come.
For many years the study of history was on the retreat in schools in many parts of Australia, being supplanted by various forms of social studies. But now it has become one of the big four alongside English, mathematics and science.
The effect of this change of status will be enormous. History teachers will need to be trained and this will affect the study of history at universities. A generation of Australians will grow up who cannot avoid studying history....
Although there is an occasional mention of studying key individuals in the document, there is a much greater emphasis on groups, societies and people. One gets the feeling, reading this document, that it understands history in terms of movements and forces rather than the individuals who compose those societies.
In year 9, students will get to grind their way through world population movements and the Industrial Revolution, including "the factory system and its effect on productivity, consumption, social structure, labour conditions and the division of labour", leading to slavery and convict transportation. Nothing here, so far as I can tell, about the inventors who made the great inventions of the period, the entrepreneurs who developed the industries or the humanitarians who sought to remedy the evils of the age.
When individuals are ignored in the study of history the consequence is a rather dry and general account of the actions of humanity, an abstraction that is compounded by an over-emphasis on method....
The real question is: Will this curriculum excite students in their study of the past so that they leave school with a real love of history? I doubt it. It is too stodgy, focusing far too much on abstract social forces and the acquisition of the skills of the historian. History is about people. Students are excited by the stories of real people, individuals to whom they can relate. That should be the starting point for the teaching of history.
Read entire article at The Australian
With the release of the draft national curriculum, it can be said that history's time has finally come.
For many years the study of history was on the retreat in schools in many parts of Australia, being supplanted by various forms of social studies. But now it has become one of the big four alongside English, mathematics and science.
The effect of this change of status will be enormous. History teachers will need to be trained and this will affect the study of history at universities. A generation of Australians will grow up who cannot avoid studying history....
Although there is an occasional mention of studying key individuals in the document, there is a much greater emphasis on groups, societies and people. One gets the feeling, reading this document, that it understands history in terms of movements and forces rather than the individuals who compose those societies.
In year 9, students will get to grind their way through world population movements and the Industrial Revolution, including "the factory system and its effect on productivity, consumption, social structure, labour conditions and the division of labour", leading to slavery and convict transportation. Nothing here, so far as I can tell, about the inventors who made the great inventions of the period, the entrepreneurs who developed the industries or the humanitarians who sought to remedy the evils of the age.
When individuals are ignored in the study of history the consequence is a rather dry and general account of the actions of humanity, an abstraction that is compounded by an over-emphasis on method....
The real question is: Will this curriculum excite students in their study of the past so that they leave school with a real love of history? I doubt it. It is too stodgy, focusing far too much on abstract social forces and the acquisition of the skills of the historian. History is about people. Students are excited by the stories of real people, individuals to whom they can relate. That should be the starting point for the teaching of history.