Simon Schama's history syllabus is a lesson in colonial guilt
Simon Schama's history syllabus is a lesson in colonial guilt – Telegraph Blogs
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The Government’s school history advisor Simon Schama has said that children are being shortchanged by history and suggests key six areas of history they should be taught.
Death of Thomas Becket
Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1162, was embroiled in a conflict with Henry II over the power of the Church before being assassinated by the King’s followers in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170.
Black Death and the Peasants Revolt
The Black Death is believed to have killed up to 1.5m people between 1348 and 1350 and resulting changes to England’s social structure contributed to the Peasants Revolt of 1381.
Execution of King Charles I
The death of Charles I followed his defeat on the battlefield by Parliamentary forces led by Oliver Cromwell. The King was charged with high treason and put to death in 1649.
Occupation of India
Rule over India was to last almost 200 years until 1947 as the Britain hung onto its prized Imperial asset while losing its grip on most of America.
The Opium Wars and China
The conflict between the UK and China was fought in from 1839 with the aim of securing key economic benefits in the Far East, leading to the cession of Hong Kong.
The Irish Wars
Prime Minister William Gladstone attempted to solve the “Irish question” by passing his Land Act in 1870, along with education and religious reforms.
It’s good in one sense that Prof Schama has agreed to promote history, since his books and television programmes are obviously inspiring and prove that, contrary to what educationalists believe, the subject is more popular than ever.
But when the news was announced I did have some concerns – did they have to get the most lefty of all the TV historians? Schama is, after all, a prominent and vocal supporter of the Labour party, and was one of Britain’s leading Obamaists in the run-up to his election. It’s not as if state education is being strangled by conservatism as it is.
And, unsurprisingly, 3 of his 6 topics give teachers a chance to inject a dose of imperialist guilt into the classroom. These are all the more dubious when one looks at what is left out; as Gawain Towler at England Expects suggests:
1066
Well you have to start somewhere, and British history without the Norman conquest is akin to bread without flour.
Thomas a Beckett
I agree with Schama on this as it is such an important moment. The start of a division between church and state. Also the beginning of the idea of the Church of England, rather than the church in England.
Magna Carta
The events leading up to it, and the formal beginning of the growth of Liberty
The Split from Rome
Henry the Eighth and the reformation in Britain. Had a massive impact on the rise of Britain and its sense of self
The Civil War-Glorious Revolution
The way in which autocracy was overthrown and the shifting of power within the nation away from the King and towards the people.
The Napoleonic Period
Britain, France, Empire, Wellington, Mrs Bellamy’s pies. War, glory, liberty, blood, guts, costumes, heroism, Corunna, defeat. What’s not to like?
I would certainly agree with 3 and 5 – how can our history lessons ignore parliamentary rule and our constitution, central to our way of life?
The purpose of teaching history is that it not only tells us why things are how they are, but it also helps to forge a common culture and pool of knowledge that unites individuals across age, class, race and religion (far more than pointless citizenship classes).
For that reason I would add Alfred the Great and the unification of England, which was completed under his grandson Athelstan, the first king of England.
I can see why the educational establishment might be loathe to teach about the formation of our nation, because it reveals some inconvenient truths:
a. England is a very, very old nation-state and (if you include the UK as a continuation of the kingdom) did pretty well on its own until a certain Mr E. Heath came along.
b. The English are very much not a “nation of immigrants”. England was unified in 927; 1000 years later the DNA of the country had changed very little, by somewhere between 5-10 per cent.
c. Christianity is central to England’s history. England as an idea was created by the Venerable Bede, a Northumbrian monk, and it was a Church province before it was a state; while the very fabric of that state is completely intertwined with the national religion, right down to the religious coronation of Alfred’s great-grandson King Edgar in 973, a ceremony that has changed little in 1000 years.
Yet this part of English history is largely ignored, and far more people under a certain age know about Crimean War nurse Mary Seacole than the first king of England; most probably think Athelstan is a failed Middle Eastern state.
But history also teaches us about human nature and about the mistakes people make. That’s why a fourth point about the creation of England is:
d. Having disappeared during King Edgar’s reign, the Vikings appeared again under his weak son Ethelred the Unready. The king hoped to get rid of the invaders by buying them off, which seemed a reasonable idea, since England was rich, but they returned, overthrew him and his son, and ended up ruling the country. Moral of the story: always stand up to people who want to rob or destroy you, and don’t try to reason with them.
This lesson is best summed up by the Anglo-Saxon Byrhtnoth at the Battle of Maldon who, when told by the Vikings they would leave if paid gold and silver, replied: “We will pay you with spear tips and sword blades.”
Now that has got to be more inspiring to 10-year-olds than a succession of apologies to all the countries we invaded, looted or sold smack to.
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So if you just ignore all the jingoistic claptrap for a moment, we might be able to make an interesting point out of this:
Why only six time periods? Is the execution of Charles I inherently that much more important than the Roman occupation or the Crimean war? Schama's got three basically Victorian items on a list of six, but doesn't mention the fact that much of modern British culture is a product of Victorian ideas.
Why not have less detail on specific episodes and more of a general overview? I read 1066 and All That in a week or so when I was 11. You could take out the jokes and the deliberate errors and it'd really make a pretty decent year 6 starter textbook. Then once they've got the basics down you can spend six weeks watching dramatisations of a witch trial and nattering about primary evidence.
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