Issues in History Teaching

James Arthur, UNIVERSITY OF WALES SWANSEA ROBERT PHILLIPS, James Arthur, UNIVERSITY OF WALES SWANSEA ROBERT PHILLIPS

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780415206693
• eBook ISBN: 9781134624294
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Written by a range of history professionals, including HMIs, this book provides excellent ideas on the teaching, learning and organization of history in primary and secondary schools.

1 What are the issues in the teaching of history?

James Arthur

One of the most critical issues of all in the teaching of history, and one that is raised by a number of contributors in this volume, is the subject’s continued presence on the school curriculum. Despite repeated assurances from the Qualification and Curriculum Authority (QCA) that it is committed to securing the place of history in the school curriculum, the Historical Association felt it necessary to launch yet another Campaign for History in February 1998 (the Historical Association ran a previous campaign in 1988). The central objective of this new campaign was to secure the survival of school history through the promotion of the idea that every pupil, between the ages of five and nineteen, has a right to a historical education. It is significant that the decision to launch this ‘save history campaign’ was made in 1997 before the Government decided to loosen the primary school curriculum by allowing schools to spend less time on certain subjects, including history, in order to concentrate a far greater proportion of their teaching time on literacy and numeracy. The consequence of this Government decision, whether intentional or not, has been to reduce the amount of history taught in the primary school and further reduce the need for primary schools to devote their scarce resources to the training of history subject leaders. Whilst it is recognised that the National Curriculum statutory requirements will be reinstated in primary schools in September 2000, it does not remove the fact that history teaching will have suffered in the mean time.

Within the fourteen to sixteen curriculum the number of entries for GCSE history has continued to decline since 1986 by about 1 per cent each year and history’s place within the Key Stage 4 curriculum in many schools has consequently been eroded. The choice of courses and qualifications now available to young people at post-fourteen continues to grow and therefore constantly increases the competition that history faces. There are also concerns that some schools structure their Key Stage 4 options in such a way that history is simply not available as a choice for those who wish to take it. In addition, pupils, parents and employers often need convincing that history teaching is both relevant and useful to adult working life. History is also not an easy option either at fourteen or at ‘A’ Level; the 1996 Dearing Review of Qualifications for 16–19 year olds groups history with mathematics and physics as being ‘more difficult than average’ and indicates that the subject has one of the highest entry requirements at university. All of this places pressure on the future of school history and no one should underestimate the real threats and challenges being posed to the subject, particularly at Key Stages 1, 2 and 4.

It is therefore not surprising that many newly qualified teachers find it difficult to secure history posts in secondary schools to teach the subject for which they have been trained. History teachers also face the new demands on their subject teaching presented by the White Paper, Excellence in Schools (1997), with its immediate goals for the school curriculum of encouraging wider access, higher aspirations and standards, increased literacy levels, inclusive education and a desire to overcome economic disadvantage. There has also been a vocal lobby seeking a role for history teachers in the teaching of citizenship education. The Historical Association, for example, has argued strongly for the expertise of history teachers to be used in order to ensure effective citizenship education. Whilst a good historical background is necessary if young people are to understand fully the nature of modern democracy, including their rights and responsibilities, it is not the Government’s intention that citizenship education should be principally delivered through the history curriculum. Citizenship education will form a distinct subject area within the curriculum and will not necessarily be taught by the history teacher as there will not be any prescriptive model of delivery. The review of the National Curriculum is set to add further demands on the history teacher, including the integration of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and study skills into history teaching. The purpose of this review has been to pursue a school curriculum that more closely matches the needs of pupils. As part of this review the QCA established a new History Task Group in October 1998 to review the history curriculum in schools.

The History Task Group, 1998–9

The composition of the 1998 History Task Group was essentially the same as it had been in previous groups that were made up of a clear majority of classroom teachers. There was one LEA adviser and one representative from higher education. There were of course the usual ‘observers’ from the DfEE, OFSTED and the QCA history subject officers. The group met only three times between October and December 1998 and the agenda was centrally controlled and set by the QCA for all subject groups. The purpose of the group was made clear at the first meeting, which was to secure less prescription and more flexibility in the History Order. In addition, the group was to consider how history made a distinctive contribution to the school curriculum and in particular to outline a clearer rationale for the subject by stating what the priorities are at each of the Key Stages. The teachers on the group were reluctant at first to envisage any changes to the History Order, particularly at Key Stage 3, but with considerable ‘persuasion’ and argument from the ‘observers’ on the group there was a realisation that many history teachers had perceived the programmes of study more as a syllabus than as a curriculum framework. There was also a realisation that many history teachers had already slimmed the history curriculum down, but not always in a very consistent way across the programmes of study. Nevertheless, it would be mistake to think that the History Task Group generated, far less discussed, a series of issues for history teaching. The group did not have time to deliberate at any length and was more focused on the work of reducing the content specification of the History Order and incorporating statements about the rationale for history teaching, including statements on ICT and access. The group was largely preoccupied with technical points and getting the right phrases for ideas that had been largely formed elsewhere.

There was also extremely limited discussion of citizenship education largely because the Government had not, at that stage, made a decision on the recommendations of the Crick report (QCA 1998c). Another reason was because the QCA had established a group with the title ‘Planning for Adult Living’ to consider all the non-subject areas, such as spiritual and moral education, but this group was largely dominated by an argument about the place of citizenship education on the school curriculum. I have no doubt that some of the responses to the QCA’s consultations, especially those from the Secondary Committee of the Historical Association, figured prominently in the developmental work of the QCA history officers. The final history papers produced by the QCA for the formal consultation on the National Curriculum were edited by a central QCA team to ensure a degree of coherence and consistency across subject areas. The History Task Group was aware that changes to the History Order had to be kept strictly to the essential minimum in order to ensure that it was manageable. Key Stage 3 history therefore remains largely intact. Much has remained untouched and the main changes appear to have been a clarification of requirements through a significant reduction in content specification and a description of the types of learning experiences for history in each of the Key Stages, including the strengthening of ICT and the need for greater differentiation within history teaching.

All of these changes, it is claimed, are intended to allow for greater professional autonomy in selecting content and resources in the teaching of history. The brief work of the History Task Group and the developmental work of QCA has produced a history curriculum with a more explicit rationale, but this must now be combined with the broader aims and purposes of the school curriculum as a whole. History teachers need to demonstrate that their subject is ‘relevant’ and an integral part of the values, aims and purposes of the school curriculum. These challenges raise a number of potential issues for history teaching, not least of which is whether history teachers should give greater priority to the value of history teaching, as part of the general aims of the school curriculum as a whole, or focus their attention on improving history learning itself. It should be remembered that Government decisions have already removed compulsory Key Stage 4 history and effectively removed the duty of English primary schools, temporarily, to teach history to their pupils. Whilst the existence of the National Curriculum has ensured history’s place at Key Stage 3 on the school timetable, it is Government decisions, as we have seen, that could just as easily remove it or reduce it further. It is significant that there has been far less interest in the revision of school history shown by the media, especially concerning the debate about the nature and purpose of history itself. The debate about citizenship education in particular has overshadowed the role of history in the school curriculum.

A collection of issues

This collection of selected essays has been written by a diverse range of scholars in the field of history education and includes important contributions from three experienced history HMIs. Most of the contributors are established scholars who are already well known through their publications. A few are new scholars whose work, as yet less well known, is already beginning to make an impact in the field of history education. The book covers both primary and secondary phases and by no means exhausts the potential issues surrounding the teaching of school history. Each contributor has selected his or her own issue in history teaching. The book is divided into three parts with several chapters in each. The first part addresses issues in the teaching of history in the school classroom. Contributions in the second part examine the relationship between the subject and the broader educational aims in society. The final part is written by three history specialist HMIs who focus on issues in the training of history teachers. Each chapter concludes with some brief questions for discussion and a few suggestions for further reading. The extensive bibliography at the end of this book provides the reader with a valuable resource for further investigation and research of the issues raised. Taken together the seventeen chapters in this volume provide a thorough map of the central issues in the field.

We begin with Robert Phillips, author of the well received and impeccably researched, History Teaching, Nationhood and the State (1998) and co-editor of this present volume, who provides us with an understanding of the policy context for all three parts. His detailed research highlights and traces Government policy initiatives in school history over the last thirty years. He describes the debates and issues surrounding the development of the history curriculum and the political involvement of Government in establishing a National Curriculum for history. Robert is also concerned about the future quality of history teaching in our schools, for as he concludes:

As far as history teaching is concerned, if history teachers are not encouraged to be research orientated, innovative and transformative, then the consequences may be particularly dire, for ultimately the future of a vulnerable subject like ours is dependent upon the quality of teaching.

Robert lays the groundwork in this essay by providing the starting point for the issues raised in each of the three parts.

A second introductory essay by Penelope Harnett, editor of the professional journal, Primary History, provides a contextual chapter by way of further background to all three parts. She specifically addresses the history curriculum in the primary school and raises a number of critical issues. She describes evidence of how primary schools are spending less time teaching history than in previous years and suggests that one of the consequences of this is that: ‘As different subjects compete with each other for space on the timetable, linking subjects together becomes more attractive, and a return to greater emphasis on topic work more of a possibility.’ However, she believes that the experience of the National Curriculum has increased primary school teachers’ awareness of the distinctive contribution that each curriculum subject can make to topic work, which will, she believes, prevent a return to the unfocused thematic work that characterised primary school teaching in the past. Penelope’s chapter surveys the teaching of history in primary schools and provides an outline of the issues that primary history will face over the coming years.

Part I of the book rightly focuses on the teaching issues arising out of the history classroom. It begins with an excellent essay on teaching historical significance by Martin Hunt. Martin, as well as being co-author of Learning to Teach History in the Secondary School (1997) has developed a highly praised PGCE course in Manchester that uses a series of course booklets written by him and which are worthy of publication in themselves. In this chapter Martin examines the case for assessing the significance of events, people and changes in the past and explores the educational outcomes of teaching significance in history. As well as identifying the issues, he also proposes a number of very useful strategies for teaching significance in the history classroom. In addition, Martin effectively relates his essay to an argument for the relevance of history, as he says:

At a time when there are pressures on history departments to assert the strength of the case for history beyond Year 9, the assessment of the significance of events, changes and people in the past not only deepens pupils’ understanding of the world in which they live, but also helps them consider the ageless social, moral and cultural issues that adolescents see as being very relevant.

This essay makes a major contribution to our understanding of historical significance and successfully bridges theory and classroom practice.

Christine Counsell provides us with further bridging: in an important essay she looks at historical knowledge and historical skills as central issues in teaching. Christine is editor of the Historical Association’s journal, Teaching History, and is an influential scholar on writing and thinking skills in history teaching. She also has a significant voice in defending the place and role of school history through her work for the Historical Association and through the many services she has provided for QCA. In this present essay Christine examines not only the relationship between content and skills but how teachers plan them in their teaching. She also explores the assumptions that teachers have about these two vital issues.

Tony McAleavy, as well as being an LEA inspector for the humanities, is also the author of a number of best-selling historical textbooks for schools. Tony has extensive experience of teaching and advising on history and considers the relationship between interpretations and historical sources in his chapter. In particular he examines how we can use pupil interpretations as a starting point for reflecting on our teaching, and he offers some practical suggestions for the classroom.

This is followed by an important chapter on the developing and understanding of chronology in history. William Stow, an experienced history educator, together with Terry Haydn, co-author of Learning to Teach History in the Secondary School (1997), show here how chronology is an important issue for both primary and secondary teaching of history and suggest some practical strategies for the teaching of chronological understanding. In particular, they give an overview of research into children’s understanding of chronology across Key Stages 1–3 and highlight why chronology has a controversial place in debates over methods of history teaching. So important do they consider chronology to be that they make this appeal:

What is vital is that, at a time when the amount of history taught in primary schools seems set to diminish, this key aspect of historical understanding is still given prominence. The concept of historical time and its associated skills and links to other concepts is one of the most essential aspects of understanding for the primary child to take forward into secondary education.

This essay analyses afresh the issue of chronology in history teaching.

Terry Haydn makes a second contribution to this volume with his research and writing on ICT, which is of course strengthened in the new History Order. He especially looks at what we can and can not do with ICT applications in history and considers some ways forward for the classroom history teacher. He is conscious that history teachers will normally only use ICT if they are confident that it will improve pupil learning in history. However, he is equally conscious that a failure to consider the use of ICT by the history teacher will result in a loss of opportunities for engaging pupils in history and enhancing their learning. Whilst he believes that history teaching should help young people to handle ICT intelligently, he also warns that: ‘Good teachers are always looking for ways to improve their teaching, and are able to adapt and change to meet new challenges and opportunities, but let us not pretend that computers are an unproblematic educational miracle.’ Terry adopts a sensible, pragmatic approach to ICT in the history classroom that will be welcomed by many.

Wendy Cunnah is a specialist in special educational needs within history teaching and her contribution considers the issues of both why history is perceived to be a difficult subject and also how history can contribute to the teaching of literacy. She provides a comprehensive survey of the research and ideas concerning access to history, particularly the crucial importance of the pupil’s language development and how it aids access to the study of history. The chapter examines the challenges for history teachers of the inclusive classroom and she explores, in that context, why the question should not be ‘should we teach history?’ but ‘how should we teach history?’. Finally, she outlines a number of positive strategies for addressing how children should receive a history curriculum based on need, not learning difficulty.

Chris Husbands, author of What is History Teaching? (1996), together with Anna Pendry, his co-author of History Teachers in the Making (1998), consider the issue of what existing understanding about history pupils bring to their history lessons. In this context their essay examines some actual historical work of pupils in order to highlight the implications for classroom practice. They conclude by suggesting that:

If children are to think historically they need to make sense of not just the past but also the adult people in it, and listening to pupils and looking at their everyday work reveals that this is an aspect of their understanding and development with which they need our support. Without such support, they are likely to continue to be overly influenced by their existing ways of thinking.

The authors make the case that teachers should seek to discover the pupils’ existing historical knowledge in order that this prior knowledge can be taken into account in planning for teaching and learning.

Part II of this volume addresses national and international concerns, and begins with two essays on the national dimension of teaching history. The first is by Ian Davies, who is a published expert on citizenship education and in the role that history teaching can make to promoting democracy. His essay is timely in relation to the publication of the Crick report (1998) and the Government’s intention to ensure that citizenship education is firmly placed on the school curriculum. In particular, Ian looks at the challenges associated with implementing citizenship education through aspects of history. He reveals that, like citizenship education, the status of history in the school curriculum is low and that the potential for overlap between the two is great. Ian believes that history teachers will be given a heavy responsibility for teaching the new requirements for citizenship education, although this remains to be seen. Nevertheless, he draws our attention to the real professional neglect among history teachers that has occurred in making links between history education and citizenship education. As he says: ‘a proper sense of citizenship includes knowing about the links between the past and the present’. Citizenship education will remain a muc...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Illustration
• Contributors
• Introduction to the Series
• 1 What are the issues in the teaching of history?
• 2 Government policies, the State and the teaching of history
• 3 Curriculum decision-making in the primary school The place of history
• Part I Issues in the classroom
• Part II Broader educational issues and history
• Part III Issues in the training of history teachers
• Bibliography
• Index