Don't Be Patriotic

[VinnieK]

As for the teaching of history, it HAS to be bias. There is no such thing as 'balance.' Teaching people the 'bare facts' is a complete waste of time, because facts are useless. The Battle of Hastings might have taken place in 1066, but so what? Knowing that doesn't actually help you understand the reasons why, the significance of this, the consequences, the reasons for the Norman victory etc, etc.

 

It's true that facts alone are of no use, but to say that bias is inevitable and necessary seems to draw too stark a distinction between balance and bias. An overtly pro-British account of, say, the First World War isn't equivalent to a one that focuses on the broader European situation, or even that of the Western allies in terms of bias, even though there will inevitably be issues of balance with each account.

 

there simply isn't the time or facilities in High Schools to have students doing proper investigative history.

 

I don't think anyone's recommended teaching students proper investigative history - the preserve of the professional historian. To familiarise students with some of the problems and issues of history at an elementary level and the basics of how history is practiced is possible without having to bring in Hegel, questions about history as a social construct, or advanced research methods, and to an extent this is already done (At around the third year we started to be confronted with the issues of using secondary sources and the practice of evaluating different kinds of source material). The question isn't of whether or not to try and get kids to practice serious history, but to what degree.

 

Accordingly, the history is quite limited in scope, but there isn't really that much advantage in getting students to think about these things more, as it will just confuse them. It is quite easy to convey Martin Luther King Jr's role in the American Civil Rights movement, and the brutality of the conditions on the Trans-Atlantic slave boats, but it would be much more difficult to expand on these.

 

But surely thinking about these things more isn't restricted to increasing the period of time studied. To use your example, a more thorough study of Martin Luther King Jr's role in the civil rights movement doesn't necessarily require plumbing the depths of the slave trade's origins and scaling an ever increasing mound of historical data. Concentrating on some of the differing arguments and basic discussions surrounding study of the civil rights movement would encourge more discussion and analysis without having to resort to close analysis of European colonial practice and slavery in African culture.

 

Ultimately, I have serious doubts as to the influence history lessons have on things like patriotism anyway.

 

This I agree with. I suspect that state endorsed visions of patriotism would only take hold in the history or citizenship class if the pupils were already predisposed towards accepting them before they entered school, making much of the scheme for patriotic teaching useless. Especially since, as you say, there are more glamorous sources of patriotic inspiration available.

[La_Dolce_Vita]

As for political correctness, it is undoubtedly a good thing. I don't see how anyone can think otherwise.

Free thought has not been removed because of political correctness.

Perhaps not; but the expression of free thought has been severely curtailed by Newspeak political correctness.

 

I suppose then the issue is about the forms of expression and not the thought itself.

 

Albert: Thatcherism, and British politics, have not destroyed patriotism in Britain and created a 'me me me' society.

 

Some argue that it is not the politicians who have created the "me, me, me," society but rather it is the effects of capitalism and liberalism.

 

Countries always have differences of opinion just as families or any group of free thinking people. So in Thatchers time yes there were the unions and were were on the brink (or is that too dramatic) of having some pretty deep rifts. These have occurred before and we can assume that they'll happen again. One thing that the unions did show though that there were people who were willing to suffer individually for the benefit of their families and communities, witness the miners strike without getting into the issues of the causes and outcomes.

We are very much more prosperous now and I think with that prosperity comes some degree of a lack of conviction and also a predeliction for taking the easy option. We all want to become consumers and bigger consumers (that is definitely a product of both Thatcher and Blair/Brown)

 

I agree with what you say about a "lack of conviction". When I worked at HSBC I remembered the strikes and pickets that were going on because the company was altering its bonus package. I only started work at the company a week and was not part of the Union so was at work the day of the strike. The strike and pickets were barely noticeable but there were a few missing from their seats. Nevertheless, their colleagues did not show apathy, no, it was outright disgust and complete lack of comprehension at how they could just slack of work and cause trouble. It really shocked me. No identification with their colleagues at all.

[Lonan3]

Perhaps I'm from a generation (or two!) earlier than most of you. Certainly, at primary school, history was taught with a distinct bias towards the patriotic endeavours of the Brits. The teaching was very much of the way that 'we' had painted the map of the world red (the Empire) and brought the benefits of civilisation to the savages. being an RC school it will be no surprise to learn that 'civilisation' was principally about conversion to the 'true faith.'

As the Second World War had ended only a decade earlier, we were still being taught that the German people were inherently nasty.

The view that we were given of the World wars was that Germany deliberately started them but that Great Britain and its Empire - with a bit of help from some allies (the Americans more or less arriving in time for the celebrations!) - roundly defeated them because 'we' were cleverer and braver.

These 'facts' (for that is how they were presented) were frequently reinforced by the movies of the time and by the comic book stories that we read.

A whole generation grew up believing that these were the 'facts' of history that they were being taught.

I was fortunate. At DHS I had a history teacher (I think his name was Curphey?) who attempted to free our minds from the prejudiced and ill-informed teaching we'd had before then (It came as a shock to find that Italian tanks didn't have one forward and five reverse gears! )

Today's teaching of history is incredibly advanced compared with what I endured. My children - ranging in age from 34 to 11 - have learned far more than I ever did and from an infinitely greater number of perspectives. Having taken an OU degree that was largely history-based, I am aware of the analytical skills that are required and that history needs to be treated as much as a science as one of the arts. Whilst this cannot possibly be done at primary and secondary level, it is possible to lay the foundations for a questioning, rather than an introspective, view of the past.

Ultimately, the result is the discovery that history is about people rather than the accidents of boundaries surrounding particular tracts of land and that, to have any real value, it must be international rather than national. Even localised history can never be more than a tiny piece in the jigsaw pattern of our past.

[Skeddan]

Thanks for some very good points and critique in your reply VinnieK.

 

I think you are probably right about the cultural influence being an important factor. At the same time there is a great deal of American music, films, tv etc. and I don't think people identify with the US in the same way.

 

In a sense I agree with you that history lessons shouldn't be biased towards Britain, but neither should they be biased towards the Isle of Man,

Hmmm - not 100% sure on this. A balanced overall teaching of history would not cover much of the history of Denmark - and far less than British history, but I'm sure Danish children are still taught far more about their own country's history than might be warranted in an 'objective' world or even European history. That doesn't mean it is right, but I think there may be valid reasons for this being the case....

 

The history lessons I was thinking of was when I was in primary school - when I was about 5 we weren't told much about the political and economic reasons for the Hundred Years War. By the time I went to an English school the bias was much less obvious, but was mainly selective in nature - the stuff like Boer war concentration camps, massacres after Culloden etc. tended to get left out. IMO early education - to about 7-8 is very formative and also important.

 

You're dead right about the nature of the report itself. I was particularly interested in the article rather than the actual report, and in particular what 'the historians' said about it being impossible to teach history without patriotism. I also took it as indicating that more blatant and express 'value' based teaching should be resisted, not that the teaching was 'neutral' and free of bias and slant in favour of Britain. You're completely right though that neither the report nor even the article is any basis for claiming that teaching in UK schools has ever done other than sticking to bare facts and been free from any kind of indoctrination.

 

I'm sure things have improved considerably in recent years, and especially since the 19th and early 20th C (from what one can gather from older history books one sometimes sees). Perhaps the critical and 'objective' approach has even got to the stage where some might feel that a reintroduction of 'patriotic values' is needed, but I do tend to agree with Triskelion's comments that history is always biased/slanted/subjective to some degree. I also agree that one shouldn't draw too stark a distinction between balance and bias, and that subjectivity in academic studies is by no means the same as engineering and massaging history to deliver desired messages. Personally I think that is wrong, whether those messages are 'politically correct' or not - as may be the case with the controversy over French laws on the teaching of history or the kind of history Lonan3 tells us he was taught at DHS.

 

I doubt there is a history syllabus which is a model syllabus for everywhere - UK, Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Japan, etc. and that one probably should learn about one's own country's history, even if it is relatively unimportant in the world stage. It is interesting that there seems to be virtually no teaching of Manx history in schools, but rather an adoption of the English syllabus. It is also interesting how many people here seem to consider themselves 'British' (in what sense - part of UK? or in the sense that might have been used in the far flung colonies?). I think the example of IoM raises some interesting questions relevant to a discussion about teaching history, patriotism and national identity.

 

I think Lonan3's latest post here is particularly interesting about the history he remembers from DHS in his time. Maybe it didn't make Lonan3 himself a patriotic Brit - but maybe in part it coloured and shaped the views of others of his generation to identify with being British or to consider themselves as British.

[VinnieK]

I doubt there is a history syllabus which is a model syllabus for everywhere - UK, Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Japan, etc. and that one probably should learn about one's own country's history, even if it is relatively unimportant in the world stage.

 

In addition to questions of wider historic importance, I think the problem the Island has with regards to history and the place of local history within it is another one of those matters that comes down to size and that the Island's history has largely been dominated by (as opposed to interrelated with) that of other nations. It's perhaps illustrative to consider the example set by Denmark: Danish history is a crucial part of big historical themes such as the Viking's European expansion and commercial activities, the creation of modern Scandinavia, resistance and occupation during the Second World War, and so on. In other words Denmark has often been an "agent" actively participating in regional and international affairs. The Isle of Man, on the other hand, has often been more of a passive witness or subject of broader historical events, and even then usually through British regional history. As such less of the Isle of Man's local history makes much sense without being accompanied by a large bulk (and I suspect the lion's share of what's to be taught) of British history being taught beforehand and in tandem with local history.

 

Given this I'm not sure we can compare the Island with countries such as Japan and Denmark, both of which have played an important role in world history, or even Iceland (and I suspect a great deal of Icelandic history teaching naturally focuses on Danish history). In fact it's difficult to think of an adequate comparison - even Malta finds itself in the history of Phoenician, Carthaginian, Roman, Vandal, Arabic and European expansion, including such events as the Crusades and World War II

 

It is interesting that there seems to be virtually no teaching of Manx history in schools, but rather an adoption of the English syllabus. It is also interesting how many people here seem to consider themselves 'British' (in what sense - part of UK? or in the sense that might have been used in the far flung colonies?). I think the example of IoM raises some interesting questions relevant to a discussion about teaching history, patriotism and national identity.

 

I wouldn't say I consider myself British. In truth I don't really spend that much time thinking about what I am in that sense, but there is certainly a personal affinity of sorts there - not so much because of history lessons and what I was taught at school, but because most British people I've met are similar in many ways to myself and the Manx in general. Again, I suspect it's less due to what we've been taught, and more the music we like, the books we read, the jobs we do, and so on.

 

Also, I have to question your perception that many people on the Island consider themselves British. I think most would actually answer the question "what do you consider yourself to be?" with Manx first and foremost.