1930s books revived to teach pupils traditional British history
History books first published in the 1930s have been revived in a bid to tackle schoolchildren's ignorance of Britain's past.
According to the publishers, the 1930s books are needed to address a 'crisis' in the teaching of the traditional narrative of British history
The series, called A History of Britain, was first published in 1937 and was widely used in schools for decades.
It has now been updated and relaunched for a modern audience amid growing concerns that schools are failing to give children a good grasp of history.
It comes as a group of leading history experts called for reform to the school curriculum so secondary schoolchildren are taught a single chronological history course, stretching from the Norman conquest to the 20th century.
Currently, pupils study topics such as the Nazis, Soviet Russia, slavery or the Victorians, often taught in isolation and repeated in different years.
According to the publishers, the 1930s books are needed to address a "crisis" in the teaching of the traditional narrative of British history.
"For more than half a century most intelligent youngsters in Britain have grown up to live in the half-darkness of historical ignorance," said Tom Stacey, chairman of Stacey International.
"I have seen this ignorance creeping up on three generations. I count their loss as incalculable deprivation. There has been a parallel discarding of the fabric of biblical history and the Christian narrative."
He said that traditional history had "all but vanished" in schools, replaced by a diet of "projects on slavery, Victorian slums, the labour movement or, again and again, the Second World War".
The 1930s series was written by E H Carter, who was chief inspector of schools, and R A F Mears, a history teacher. Subsequent volumes covered British history up to the 1950s.
The updated books are edited by David Evans, an historian and former head of history at Eton College.
The first two books to be re-released cover the Tudors and the Stuarts. Eight more will follow, beginning with the Roman invasion.
The last two books, From Churchill to Thatcher; 1951 – 1990, and Into the 21st Century, are new but will be in the same style as the original series.
Concerns that schools are failing to instil a good understanding of the timeline of British history have been raised by a long list of commentators, including academics David Starkey and Niall Ferguson, Andrew Marr, the BBC presenter and author of A History of Modern Britain, and the Prince of Wales.
"There can be no justification for the excessive focus on the history of the Third Reich," said Professor Ferguson, "What we urgently need is a campaign for real history in schools."
A group of experts, lead by Sean Lang, a senior lecturer at Anglia Ruskin University, have just published a report, Better History, calling for a single chronological history course for 11 to 16 year olds. It should be compulsory and have historical knowledge at its heart, the group say.
Mr Lang said: "The current situation whereby students study one set of topics in the early years of secondary school and then embark on a quite separate set of topics in later years has gone unquestioned for too long.
"The building up of an extensive body of historical knowledge should be a central aim of the history curriculum."
Fears about current history teaching are backed by a damning Ofsted report which found that although the National Curriculum demands that children develop a "chronological framework", in practice pupils' knowledge was "often very patchy and specific" and that children were "unable to sufficiently link discrete historical events to answer big questions".
The Conservatives have pledged to give children a "clear sense of how British history developed", if the party wins the general election, and the Anglia Ruskin group hopes to influence a Tory rewrite of the National Curriculum.
The group, which includes Martin Roberts, a member of the academic steering committee of Prince Charles's Teaching Institute, and Nicolas Kinlock, a former school head of history, author and former deputy of the Historical Association, will hold a seminar in the summer to sort out details of the new proposed course of study.
Alan Hodkinson, principal lecturer in educational research at Liverpool John Moores University, whose three year study showed that even young children can grasp chronology, said: "Historical time is vital to the study of history.
"Without a comprehensive grasp of such, children will fail to understand how to sequence events, periods and people chronologically.
"My research suggests that rather than being de-emphasised, dates appear vital to historical study and should be employed consistently.
"It is time that the people responsible for the curriculum stopped underestimating what our children are capable of."
A report published last year by the Historical Association found that thousands of pupils get only two years of teaching in the subject at secondary level, instead of three.
Official figures show that fewer than a third of students sat GCSE history in 2008, raising concerns that the subject is becoming the preserve of independent and grammar schools.
No comments:
Post a Comment