Professor and Fulbright Senior Specialist Keith Barton of Indiana University delivered a thought-provoking public lecture to university staff, students and teachers from the Auckland area on the subject ‘Can history teach us to care about one another? Citizenship, values and identity in the school curriculum.’
Studying history is important he says, because it helps us analyse the origin of present day issues and it develops important intellectual skills such as evaluating and drawing conclusions from evidence. It can also help students understand other perspectives. Many people, he remarked, also think history should do something to develop a student’s character, and that it should contribute to a sense of shared identity and values.
Drawing on his research into students’ conceptual development and his experiences in helping develop history curriculum in several countries, Professor Barton looked at the way history is taught in two very different societies, and the implications this has for the development of values in students and their ability to consider wider perspectives.
In the United States, history figures predominantly in the school curriculum - but it is mainly American history. In fact, said Professor Barton "it’s about all we study."
"We don’t study much about people or events that aren’t part of our national narrative of ‘freedom and progress’. We tell a story in which all peoples in our nation’s past came to our shores seeking freedom - freedoms that were eventually given to them. We tell a story of never-ending social and material progress, of the development of unique rights and freedoms that make us the envy of the world."
Although this approach contributes to a strong sense of shared national identity, it also comes with a cost. This approach can also be problematic because the exclusion of diverse experiences can result in a student having little concern for others, perhaps underestimating other cultures and overestimating their own.
"We don’t have much time for people who continued to get lynched long after the civil war was over", he noted, "or Japanese Americans who were thrown out of their homes during World War II, or striking coal miners who were fired on by federal troops, or women and men who have defied conventional gender expectations."
He commented that for students who can better see themselves in alternative stories, it becomes difficult for them to identify with the national history they have been taught - it can even mean denying their own experience. "The story of national ‘freedom and progress’", he pointed out, "can’t always paper over cracks in historical experience for marginalised groups."
On the other hand, the experience in Northern Ireland shows an attempt to expose students to a wider array of historical experience, in part because there is no single story of national identity. For primary school students they completely leave out the history of Northern Ireland, but expose students to subjects like the Mesolithic peoples, Viking society, daily life in the Victorian era and WWII. At secondary school they are exposed to both sides of the Nationalist/Unionist historical conflict in a remarkably balanced way. But the problem here is that it is difficult to teach a history of the nation because this history is one that remains largely unresolved.
"They present both sides of any issue and there is no attempt to say which side is the correct one or to create any kind of separate consensus view of history... creating a shared national identity would just be too controversial."
The main problem with this ignoring of a national identity is that students have no alternative to the more exclusive ones they encounter outside school.
Professor Barton’s research in the United States and Northern Ireland has interesting implications for teaching New Zealand history and the history of other postcolonial societies that may have been marred by injustice, oppression, violence and unresolved issues. Do we teach just the ‘safe’ history, the parts that everyone agrees on, or do we also expose students to different sides of unresolved issues? Do we want to teach a ‘national history’ and use it to create a sense of national identity? Can a democratic society function without doing so?
Note:
In New Zealand, in most schools history is studied within the Social Studies curriculum up until the end of Year 10, and there is much variation from school to school on what topics are taught. While controversy can cause some teachers to shy away from teaching some aspects of New Zealand history, both the former and new curriculum include New Zealand history.
By the time students reach Year 11, History becomes an optional subject for Level 1 NCEA. The most commonly taught New Zealand topics at this level are ‘Maori Pakeha Relations 1912-1980’ and a foreign policy topic, ‘New Zealand’s Search for Security 1945-1985’. At NCEA Level 2 among the available New Zealand topics is ‘The Growth of New Zealand Identity 1890-1980’ but is not often taught. At Level 3 approximately one third of students study 19th Century New Zealand history, while the rest study the Tudor-Stuart period of English history. The topics for History in senior secondary school are currently being reviewed.
Photo: Japanese Americans in California await deportation to a War Relocation Authority centre (internment camp) for the duration of World War II.
Credit: Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley
