James Vernon: School History Gets the TV Treatment
[James Vernon is professor of history at the University of California, Berkeley, and author, most recently, of Hunger, A Modern History (2007).]
Michael Gove's appointment of Simon Schama to restructure history teaching in schools offers a little reassurance that it is now acknowledged there is some public value to the teaching of history, despite the removal of funding for it at university level. Nonetheless, it remains an announcement that tells us more about the contradictions of government thinking and its reductive view of the humanities and social sciences than it does about the state of history teaching in our schools.
How did we get here? In May 2009, Gove picked up on a report by the Historical Association that lamented the marginalisation of history at secondary level – with just over 31% of students now taking a GCSE in history. Their research found that 20% of schools offered no form of history teaching beyond age 14, with a further 10% folding the subject into general humanities classes. With 97% of private schools treating history as a subject area in its own right by comparison with just 60% of academies, disproportionate numbers of privately educated pupils take history GCSE – a trend also evident at A-level. History, it appears, is not just in retreat in our schools, it is fast becoming a privilege of the privileged.
The Historical Association, and the recently launched Better History group, blame this on structural problems in the system: schools favour subjects that deliver better test results, and pupils are forced to specialise from age 14. Gove, a strong advocate of market models and league tables, has instead blamed the discipline itself for its own demise. And he has found advisers who agree with him. History in schools, they argue, has lost the plot. It has focused on unrelated topics – such as Henry VIII, the Victorians or Hitler – without providing any connecting narrative thread that explains their relationship with each other. The solution is a return to narrative history, to a big story that will organise and make sense of historical experience. The only question is whose narrative and what story?...
Read entire article at Guardian (UK)
Michael Gove's appointment of Simon Schama to restructure history teaching in schools offers a little reassurance that it is now acknowledged there is some public value to the teaching of history, despite the removal of funding for it at university level. Nonetheless, it remains an announcement that tells us more about the contradictions of government thinking and its reductive view of the humanities and social sciences than it does about the state of history teaching in our schools.
How did we get here? In May 2009, Gove picked up on a report by the Historical Association that lamented the marginalisation of history at secondary level – with just over 31% of students now taking a GCSE in history. Their research found that 20% of schools offered no form of history teaching beyond age 14, with a further 10% folding the subject into general humanities classes. With 97% of private schools treating history as a subject area in its own right by comparison with just 60% of academies, disproportionate numbers of privately educated pupils take history GCSE – a trend also evident at A-level. History, it appears, is not just in retreat in our schools, it is fast becoming a privilege of the privileged.
The Historical Association, and the recently launched Better History group, blame this on structural problems in the system: schools favour subjects that deliver better test results, and pupils are forced to specialise from age 14. Gove, a strong advocate of market models and league tables, has instead blamed the discipline itself for its own demise. And he has found advisers who agree with him. History in schools, they argue, has lost the plot. It has focused on unrelated topics – such as Henry VIII, the Victorians or Hitler – without providing any connecting narrative thread that explains their relationship with each other. The solution is a return to narrative history, to a big story that will organise and make sense of historical experience. The only question is whose narrative and what story?...