5/14/2008 7:22:00 AM
Letters; The Times 14 May
Brighton College history lessons
Sir, I was disappointed to read that the headmaster of Brighton College has joined the clamour to give his pupils a “narrative of history they so relish” in order to imbue them with a “sense of their history” (report, May 10). While a cross-curricular course along the lines he suggests has some merit, there is a divergence between his aim of imbuing his children with a sense of pride and patriotism and teaching them about their history. Without any counterbalance, any telling of the dark side of our history, we end up with the sanitised H. E. Marshall view of our past as endorsed by Civitas, and, worse, run the danger of becoming part of the debate that treats history in its extremities as some sort of political football kicked shamelessly between traditionalists, who treat history as irrefutable fact, and those who use it to promote a social agenda. Of course our students need a proper context to view their world and they can benefit enormously from a chronological framework, but history is not taught to boost national morale but to try to give a balanced view of what happened in the past from what we know today in order to better understand our world and to make us better citizens. While students need a proper mix of knowledge, they need also to learn the skills of discrimination and analysis and the opportunity to view history as contested knowledge until proven otherwise. Learning one’s own history has nothing to do with being ashamed or embarrassed; it is about seeing one’s place in the world and looking at what happened in the past as objectively as possible. In learning about Winston Churchill (as they most certainly should), perhaps a good starting point would be a discussion of his statement: “History shall be kind to me for I intend to write it.”
Peter Tait
Headmaster, Sherborne Preparatory School, Sherborne, Dorset
Sir, The plan by the headmaster of Brighton College to teach “The Story of Our Land” is highly encouraging. It is time to end the left-wing/liberal conspiracy over the past 50 years which has inculcated, especially in our schools, a false sense of shame, guilt and need for apology for our imperial history. Sadly, we cannot expect leadership from our Prime Minister in this respect. Mr Brown has been recorded as saying, “the main challenge of modern Britishness is to put behind us all that mixture of pride and shame about our imperial past and change the subject”. We must all hope that other wise headmasters will teach our children that the history of our contribution to the peace and development of the world smacks much more of pride than shame.
Alan Forward
Sherborne, Dorset
Sir, While the headmaster of Brighton College is right to draw attention to shortcomings of the Key Stage 3 curriculum (report, May 10 ), he also shows a lack of understanding of what is currently being taught in schools and a worrying insularity in his view of education. Many schools, including mine, place great attention in their Key Stage 3 curriculum on local geography, local and British history and a study of faiths, including Christianity, which are strongly represented in the UK. However, for very sound educational reasons, most schools also draw examples and case studies from all over the world to illustrate core concepts. Many young people cease to study history, geography or religious studies after 14. If their background for the previous three years has been in “The Story of Our Land”, we will be educating a young generation to be largely ignorant at 14, and in their later lives, of the world which lies outside our small island and, hence, unfit to play a meaningful role in today’s global economy and society. The Government gives us far too many soundbites and publicity-seeking initiatives. Please, as headteachers and schools, can we focus on sound-footed, educational wisdom.
Nicholas D. B. Dorey
Headmaster, Bethany School Goudhurst, Kent
Curriculum / Quality Assurance
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