Handbook for History Teachers

W. H. Burston dec'd, Cyril Wallington Green, E J Nicholas, A K Dickinson, D Thompson, W. H. Burston dec'd, Cyril Wallington Green, E J Nicholas, A K Dickinson, D Thompson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000514513
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Didattica
• Subtopic: Didattica della storia

First published in 1972, Handbook for History Teachers is intended to be a general and comprehensive work of reference for teachers of history in primary and secondary schools of all kinds. The book covers all aspects of teaching history: among them are the use of sources, world history, art and history; principles of constructing a syllabus and the psychological aspects of history teaching. The bibliographical sections are arranged on three parts: school textbooks, a section on audio-visual-aids and, finally, books for the teacher and possibly for the sixth form. It thoroughly investigates and critiques the various methods employed in teaching history within classrooms and suggests alternatives wherever applicable. Diligently curated by the Standing Sub-Committee in History, University of London Institute of Education, the book still holds immense value in the understanding of pedagogy.

PART 1 The Teaching of History

DOI: 10.4324/9781032163840-1

Edited by W. H. BURSTON

In Part 1 the figures in brackets denote references, given at the end of each chapter.

The Place of History in Education

DOI: 10.4324/9781032163840-2

W. H. BURSTON, M.A. Reader in Education, University of London Institute of Education

1

The traditional justification of the place of history in education has been in terms of its value as a body of knowledge which the ordinary pupil and indeed the average adult could acquire and whose mind would be in some way enriched by his study. Sometimes, as in Victorian times, history was seen as the 'school of statesmen', at others, more crudely as engendering the right kind of patriotism by making the student aware of his heritage. In more modern days, a more sophisticated defence could be offered and history could be seen as providing not so much a body of knowledge as a way of thinking peculiar to the subject called history, and valuable to the reader if applied to modern problems. This way of thinking could be analysed in terms of, for example, the logic or pattern of historical explanation, the need to elucidate the uniqueness of events, and the general value of acquiring an historical perspective and a wider, if vicarious, experience of human nature. In terms of the school curriculum, all these advantages could be claimed, together with an important second point, that history, as the study of life in society in the past in all its aspects, could be the basis of the curriculum and afford a much needed synthesis of its various separate subjects.

All these claims, however, rested on one important assumption that the history which was studied was what emerged from the hands of the historian - as a finished product so to speak. It was the result of his painstaking and professional analysis of original sources which was 'history' and it was the writings of historians which were valuable to study and which had their place in education. Recent developments in the teaching of history have provided something of a challenge to this assumption. It is now argued that pupils at school and quite young ones at that, should be given some training in historical method, and, by the use of sources and other first-hand evidence, establish or 'discover' the facts for themselves. If this method of teaching is in any sense to become the basic method of teaching history in schools rather than an occasional variant, it clearly places the justification of the study of history on a radically different footing, for its value in education would lie not in the study of the writings of historians but rather in acquiring and applying the methods of the historian. For this reason it will be useful to commence this chapter by some discussion of 'discovery method' and the use of sources in teaching history.

The method is the result of various pressures and ideas. Perhaps the oldest of these is that of 'activity' as a generally desirable method of learning any subject, and such ideas go back at least as far as Dewey, with his theories that only when the child realized that there was a problem to be solved would he commence to think, and only by practical experience would he learn. More recent impetus seems to have come from the example of science teaching method. Science teachers have always maintained that a training in scientific methods was an important aim in their courses, and the recent Nuffield innovations may be seen as an attempt to place more emphasis on this, with correspondingly less stress on the amassing of scientific factual information. Could not this, some argue, be applied to history? Apart from this, with suitable sources, the method can do much to make history real and vivid. Finally it is claimed that skill in evaluating evidence is an important educational asset and can be helpful to the modern citizen in judging the various accounts of contemporary events he reads in the newspapers or receives from radio and television.

In discussing this method of teaching and the educational benefits which may flow from it, it is important to be clear just what it is, what it can justly claim to do and what it cannot do. A useful starting-point is to consider the methods, and previous training, of the professional historian. In England the student of history is not generally regarded as equipped to use sources and to write history until he has taken an honours degree in the subject. He may, in the course of studying for that degree, study a special subject with some reference to original sources and this is commonly examined by means of a documents paper. What he normally gains from his course is a good outline knowledge of English and European history and a detailed knowledge of a special period or subject, together with some kind of aspect history such as constitutional or economic history. The general assumption of all this is that the student of history needs a good knowledge of history, in breadth and somewhere in depth before he himself is equipped to start writing it. And this would imply, of course, that the use and in- terpretation of sources, as the historian does it, is a professional matter requiring a specialized training and skill.

It is possible to argue that while this is the traditional training of the historian it is not the best. In particular it can be claimed that the honours student might use sources to produce a small piece of original work, rather than sit a documents paper. Such original work would be analogous to the special exercises in colleges of education, the best of which is work of real quality. We may gain some help in deciding the issue if we consider more closely what the historical use of sources actually involves.

The fundamental point is that few, if any, sources yield direct information: all sources require interpretation. For this interpretation the historian brings a number of things to bear. He will use his general knowledge of the period or subject of research, culled from the writings of other historians. He will use many other sources which may bear on the subject - a single source is rarely considered in isolation, at any rate in modern history. He may have theories as to what sources there ought to be, hitherto unexplored. He will use all the knowledge he can get of the author of the source, so that he may think himself into his mind, as it were, and see behind the written words what the writer really meant. Finally he may have, and some argue that he must have, one or more hypotheses guiding him in his selection of what is significant in his sources and what is not.

In the light of this what are we to say to the use of sources in teaching history in schools? First, the use of a single source, or even of two contrasting accounts of the same event, is a very limited exercise in historical method. Second, that if it is to be more than a test of comprehension, background historical knowledge is needed. Third, that if it is designed to enable the pupil to discover or establish historical facts for himself, it would require the use of all relevant sources if it was to be a genuine historical exercise, and this, at any rate in modern periods, is impracticable. On the other hand, with some knowledge of the period and of the writers of documents, it is possible to claim that the pupil can be trained to detect bias, especially if he studies contrasting accounts of the same event. Furthermore, the exercise need not be confined to establishing facts: differing explanations may be contained in the source material and the pupil may discover not only the facts and events, but also establish for himself the explanation of those events.

My particular purpose in this chapter is to examine this method from the point of view of its educational value, and by that I mean a specific educational benefit and not one derived from the greater interest in history which the method may well evoke. Here what is claimed is that training in judging evidence will help the contemporary citizen in deciding how much of newspaper accounts of contemporary events he can depend on. It is interesting to notice that much the same claim has been made of scientific method, and could be made of any subject which claimed to inculcate processes of logical reasoning. But with history it must be admitted that the connexion is closer: the subject-matter - the problems of man in society - is the same, and so is the kind of source - a newspaper account in the past may well be a useful source for teaching, though one famous one - no. 45 of the North Briton - exemplifies more clearly than most the need for a good historical understanding of the period for its successful interpretation.

This leads us to perhaps the only cautionary comment which need be made of this claim. Modern newspapers need some background knowledge of politics and public affairs for their correct interpretation and if historical sources show the same need, then there may indeed be a fruitful transfer of training. It must be remembered, however, that newspapers are a particular kind of source: to the true historian there are many others, notably private letters, which are more valuable. A course designed to promote education in citizenship might therefore lead to selecting one kind of material, and not the variety which might be used if the course were supposed to promote the rudimentary training in historical method which is all that can be done at school.

The most important general point to emerge from this discussion is that sources need historical knowledge if they are to be interpreted: from this it follows that, whatever the merits of 'discovery method' it can never be the sole, or perhaps the main method of teaching history in schools. This being so, we should not overlook other advantages which can be claimed for it: it is an interesting way of teaching, it involves the active participation of the pupil, it brings history to life, and is valuable in demonstrating that many historical facts are probabilities rather than certainties. All these advantages are really methods of improving the pupils' knowledge and understanding of historical facts and their explanation, and for our present purpose this means that the claims of history to a place in education have to be seen as they traditionally were, namely as the benefits which accrue from an understanding not of historical method but of historical facts and explanations.

2

When people speak of the value of history or of the need to understand the historical aspect of a contemporary problem, they most commonly mean that it is essential to know how that problem grew up or developed from its origins in the past. History is this knowledge of origins and development or evolution of contemporary matters. But there are also two other possible views of the value of history. Some hold that it is interesting and valuable as a study because of the contrast which past societies and institutions afford with our present. They would say that we all have much to learn from making such comparisons and that history is therefore a necessary part of a good education. Finally, we frequently hear talk of the 'lessons of history' and the clearest meaning which we can give to this phrase is that there are in the past situations which are parallel to some in the present: if we can understand these parallel situations in history we can gain valuable guidance in coping with some of our present and future problems.

Each of these assertions about the value of studying history implies a different view of the nature of history. The first defines history as the study of the origins and evolution of the present, and it follows that the most important things in the past are those which directly contributed to the shape of the present. The second, finding the value of history in its contrast with the present, stresses that history is the imaginative reconstruction of the past life of a community, as it stood, irrespective of its position as a stage in the growth of the present. The third view must ultimately believe that there are social laws which explain the events of the past, that there are recurrent situations in history, and that the same laws may guide us in the present when such situations confront us. While to many this may identify history with sociology it is worth observing that in certain kinds of history, such as economic history, there seems to be clear evidence of the application of general laws to the explanation of events.

Within each of these concepts of history there are many variants. History conceived as the story of how the present grew up can be applied to any part of the present we care to select. We may want the English people to be conscious of their heritage and therefore teach only English history. We may apply the same treatment to the growth of village, town or county. Or we may speak of the development of ideals of world co-operation. The same approach can be applied to different aspects of life - we can study the development of the constitution, as the Whigs did, or of modern economic and industrial society, or of the welfare state. With history conceived like this, everything has a history and many different syllabuses are possible. They have one feature in common - they all have the same concept of history and they all seek to trace the development of something in the present.

When history is defended as a contrast with the present, we select a short period of the past, study it as nearly as we can as it actually was and then view the present from the standpoint of the past. Within each period studied, the content, or perhaps more precisely, the kind of content will not vary, that is to say, all aspects of life will be studied. But our desire to point a contrast may affect our selection of period. We may select periods affording a sharp contrast, or we may seek those with some affinity to our world on the grounds that they are easier to study. We may agree with Thomas Arnold that nations go through stages of development comparable with individuals, such as childhood, adolescence and manhood, and on this basis argue, as he did, that Athens in the age of Pericles was easier for the nineteenth-century schoolboy to understand than eighteenth-century England. Without going so far as this, many would feel that, since this concept of history makes heavy demands on historical imagination, there is a case for selecting periods with some affinity as well as some contrast with present society. Whether we do this or not the essence of this concept of history is the study of a short period in some detail: no chronological sequence of periods is necessarily implied, and the teacher is free to choose where he will. But, whatever he chooses, the study will treat the past in the same way, namely, the emphasis will be on the appeal to the historical imagination, to forget the present and immerse oneself in the past. In short, the means, but not the end, the attitude of mind though not the ultimate purpose of the study, is 'history for its own sake'.

The third concept of history is less straightforward. At one extreme, to make history the study of laws governing recurrent events is to make it a form of sociology. At the other, we have the large number of people who believe that history is distinct from sociology, and yet believe that there are 'lessons of history'. The variants between these views are numerous and they depend mainly upon what kind of law we wish to establish, to use, and to demonstrate. Marxism stresses the economic factor governing the evolution of society and this means a stress on economic history. Some versions of history so stress the geographical factor as an influence on events as to deserve the appellation 'geographical determinism'. On the other hand, we have the revisions of economic history which have taken place under the influence of Keynes' theories of the trade cycle: this is shown in recent work on the Industrial Revolution stressing the influence of the rate of investment. Another example is Professor Wheare's study of federal constitutions: here extensive use is made of the past, but in order to establish the general nature of federal government.

All these varieties in the third category may be divided into two groups - those theories which classify and explain events in terms of recurrent situations and those which advance some form of evolutionary hypothesis. The assertion that, owing to the absence of a warm seaport, Russian foreign policy will always seek to expand in the Baltic and the Black Sea is an example of the former: it is capable of illustration without following a chronological pattern. The same is true of Keynesian theories in economic history. But the second category, of which Marxism is a conspicuous example, seeks to establish laws of the inevitable evolution of society. We can predict with these laws, as we can with those of the first kind, but we do so by identifying the particular stage of development our society has reached, and the theory tells us what must follow. Such theories require a chronological pattern. The essential value of either kind of sociological history lies in ...