Monday 27 January 2020

Keith Flett on History, the Nation and the Schools, Ten Years On (1999)

History, the Nation and the Schools, Ten Years On
Written By: Keith Flett
Date: October 1999
Published In LSHG Newsletter Issue 7: Autumn 1999 

Ten years ago History Workshop Journal organised a series of events on history teaching in schools as the Tory Government proposals for history in the national curriculum were implemented. The events were a great success, attended in large numbers by teachers. They were able to influence from the left of centre the debate on the national curriculum not just in history but in English and other subjects.

Ten years on and a Labour Government is revisiting the national curriculum and proposing some changes to what is taught. Socialist historians need to make their voices heard once again.

On the face of it the prospect of a New Labour Government addressing the question of how history is taught in schools is a depressing one. The Tory Governments after 1979 had in their ranks some serious historians, such as Ian Gilmour, and in general they both knew the value of history and of keeping their version of it as the predominant one. They were not always successful but they were, for example, particularly keen to keep modern history off the curriculum, presumably on the grounds that discussion of it tended to lead towards anti-Tory conclusions.

By contrast, while there are serious historians in New Labour ranks they are hardly in a position to influence the Government. Patricia Hollis, who wrote on the Unstamped Press in England in the 1830s, is in the Lords. Gordon Marsden of History Today is a backbench MP. By contrast David Clark, who is a good labour historian, was a Government Minister but was sacked.

The Cabinet and Blair in particular appear so obsessed with modernisation - not the same thing as progress, as asylum seekers and the disabled will testify - that history does not get a look in. Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott may have been taught by Raphael Samuel at Ruskin, but he never utters an historical thought beyond the debate he has been having with himself about whether he is middle or working class.

Of course not even Blair can get away with ignoring history altogether. The millennium celebrations will probably be largely a history-free zone. However, the hundredth anniversary of the foundation of the Labour Party which takes place next year is more awkward. Millbank has already produced a sanitised history for the consumption of New Labour activists.

In terms of specific changes to the history curriculum these have arrived appeared in dribs and drabs. This is almost certainly because what is taught as history is still a very contentious issue for the political right. It should be for the left as well.

So far, then, David Blunkett has determined that more effort should be made to teach history I chronological order. He has also noted that the Second World War and its origins should be studied - much recent comment suggests this is already a very popular subject with students. Finally he has suggested that the history of the wartime code breakers at Bletchley Park should be taught, particularly to interest boys who may be disaffected from school. Over in the English department William Cobbett has become a set author.

It is obvious that while this is not a Thatcherite history agenda it is certainly a fairly traditional one, and something that most Tories won’t feel too unhappy about.

By contrast socialists must be asking why, in the wake of the Macpherson report, extended efforts are not being made to examine issues of colonialism, imperialism and anti-racist struggles in the classroom. We might also ask, since the hundredth anniversary of the Labour party occurs next year, why this subject should not be studied in school history lessons? Finally, we might also ask, given the war against Serbia, whether it is planned to examine the history of the struggle for human rights, self-determination and liberation, and the various mechanisms which people have used to pursue this struggle.

We may well find that the going in terms of influencing Government policy in these areas is at least as difficult as it was ten years ago. That should not, however, stop us from trying.

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