Values and Practice: History teaching 1971-2001

Abstract

From the biographical perspective of his own career as a history teacher and trainer, the author explores how the ideological ferment of the last 30 years has shaped the values and principles that have informed classroom practice in the period. The paper contrasts the tolerant, progressive humanism of the post-war era with the intense political controversies of the 1970s and explains how history teachers who recognised the post-modern dilemma and responded with new approaches and methods found themselves blamed for moral decline and falling standards. The arguments of Thomas Greenfield and Alasdair MacIntyre, with their frank acknowledgement of the contested nature of truth and knowledge, are compared with the certainties of Rhodes Boyson, Sheila Lawlor and Melanie Phillips. The History National Curriculum, with its apparatus of objectives and levels, is criticised as an incoherent set of bureaucratic procedures designed to close down classroom debate that appeared to threaten the established order. Research from Texas is cited as evidence that this standardised method may hinder teaching and learning, inducing compliance rather than understanding. In conclusion, a visit to the Beth Shalom Holocaust Centre provides an example of how effective history teaching engages with inescapable controversy and is trivialised by an excessive concern with objectives, tests and examinations.