Pupils are showing a passion for bringing the past to life
9:10am Tuesday 10th January 2012 in Education News
NEVER has the past been so controversial.
Education Secretary Michael Gove says that Britain’s teenagers are more likely to study “cowboys and Indians and the Nazis”. Instead, he has suggested that schools should teach pupils more British history to give them the chance to be proud of their past.
Meanwhile leading academic Sir David Cannadine, a professor of history at Princeton University, believes the subject should be compulsory until the age of 16, rather than 14, as it is currently.
Among those interested in the new fascination with the subject are young historians at Bolton School.
Head of history, and director of admissions at the school, James Rich, said: “Michael Gove’s speech that there is not enough British history studied at GCSE is a non argument.
“It is used by politicians to show their patriotic credentials, and make headlines. There is British history in the curriculum and should there be more? Not necessarily.”
Mr Rich argued that it is impossible to teach British history in isolation highlighting the causes of the First World War, and foreign history is often linked to British history, such as the British Empire.
He added: “History is the most popular option subject in the boys’ division.
Here there are no limitations on options but history is not compulsory.” A-level history students argued the subject enhanced the teaching of all subjects as well as developing essential skills such as research and analysis.
Students said that history complemented the teaching of English, politics, laws and even economics.
The students said it was important for schoolchildren to experience “history”, for example by visiting historical places and recreating the past through dramatisation. The school employs a historian to enhance the teaching of the subject.
And Year 11 historians from Bolton School Girls' Division recently visited Eden Camp, formerly a prisoner-of-war camp now a Modern History Theme Museum in North Yorkshire.
Nicholas Fairclough, aged 17, said: “History is a very useful subject, it goes across subjects, by its very nature history is compulsory.
“To understand today you have to look at prior events and interpret the past.”
Ruth Brown, aged 17, added: “History is very important because what has happened does affect us today.”
Although students have two classes studying British and foreign history, they say the two overlap and there is a British angle to foreign history, claiming it is almost impossible to study one without the other.
Bolton School boy’s division has its own history magazine, the HistOracle, which has been praised by the office of Prince Charles.
In answer to the saying “that history repeats itself and lessons are not learnt”, the sixth-formers say that people do learn from the past and to understand the present the past must be explored.
Adam Woolley, aged 16, said: “There are fewer starving people in the world than there were years ago, and there have been impr
