A Bible in every school from Michael Gove

Derek Wilson, in his recent book about the Authorised Version '"The people's bible: the remarkable story of the King James Version", makes clear that as far as James l was concerned the production of an Authorised Version was an exercise in religious and political repression. The whole idea was that all the other versions, such as the Geneva Bible used by Shakespeare, would be replaced by an authorised version which had no nasty marginal glosses attacking his bishops, and would have lots of Latinised words making it suitable for worship. Surprisingly, it actually took about a century for the Authorised Version to drive the others off the market. Could Gove be the wisest fool in Christendom? 

The argument about teaching History

'Dr David Starkey rarely disappoints as a controversialist, so it is no surprise he thinks most of Britain is a white monoculture – "unmitigatingly white", he told a conference this week in London. The debate had been about the national curriculum, which Starkey said needed a "serious focus on our own culture". '
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/18/ian-jack-teaching-history-british-empire?

The debate about the national curriculum is based, in my opinion, on a false premise - that there is something seriously wrong with the teaching of History in our schools. In the summer of last year Michael Gove looked under the bonnet of National Curriculum History, shook his head, gave a low whistle, and announced that a simple service would not do and that we needed an entirely new vehicle. As every car manufacturer knows, it's the dream rather than the vehicle that needs selling, so he immediately approached three highly successful manufacturers for ideas, Ferguson, Schama, and Starkey. Gove chose Schama, who on the surface seemed to offer the same kind of flashy red sports model as the other two, but who then surprised everybody by going out and talking to both the technicians who produce the vehicles, and, even more surprisingly, consumers themselves [i.e. children, and, for all I know, parents.]

It is interesting that there have been very few contributions from History teachers to these comments on Ian Jack's excellent article. The reason for this is that they are far too busy dealing with an ever increasing pace of change, such as recent changes in the examination system which have wrecked modular courses they have spent so long preparing. (Incidentally modular courses, for instance at AS, are the very 'vehicles' which allow young adults to engage with the more sophisticated arguments to be found in some of the comments above. They are also much more like the real problems we have to think about and research in the workplace.)

But going back to Mr Gove's concern, voiced at a Conservative Party Conference and then at a book fair last year, that our children were being short-changed with regard to their (English) historical heriatage: the concern is simply misplaced. There is nothing wrong with the History National Curriculum originally set up by Mrs Thatcher's government, or at any rate by the committee of educationalists and teachers the government appointed. It provides a good framework, allowing teachers to devise their own schemes of work and lessons.

If there is a problem it is simply that the curriculum time available for History has been relentlessly and progressively squeezed, both in Primary and Secondary Schools.

The presentation of a coherent narrative of British History probably dropped out of schools some years ago, but recent trends, such as skipping a year of Key Stage 3 in order to prepare for GCSEs, have suddenly made things worse.

Ironically Academies do less History – an 'unintended consequence' perhaps.

Reflections from my living room

The word 'reflections' can suggest not just thinking, but thinking deeply about things. Thinking, and thinking deeply, can be two very different activities, the one involving, say, solving a crossword puzzle, the other involving thinking about the universe, which, as someone once pointed out, is very big indeed! Some people deliberately try to avoid thinking too much, for example by not watching or listening to the News.

But just sitting in our own living room minding our own business can itself raise ethical questions. Did the materials inside your mobile phone or flatscreen television come from reputable suppliers, or was it dug out by viciously exploited workers in darkest Africa? Has your buying fairtrade coffee made the problem of exploited coffee farmers go away? What about the leather in your sofa, cheap cashmere sweaters, cotton goods or laptops produced by child labour, or children's toys packaged courtesy of virgin wood from Sumatra? If we shie away from thinking about issues like these, we've probably given up also on the bigger issues – like too many people in the world, too few resources (even simple ones, like water), and climate change.

Pessimism, or even cynicism, has become a way of thinking, perhaps even a way of life. Any teacher will tell you that conveying an optimistic view of life to children and young people often goes against the grain of what society as a whole thinks. It is all too easy to believe that family life is disintegrating, communities are becoming uncaring, bullying is rife in the workplace, and those of whom we expect high standards, such as bankers, politicians, and journalists, are all in it just for the money.

I recently read a university magazine article by a leading industrialist predicting that the present world (probably receiving its 7 billionth inhabitant this year) will collapse by the end of the century. However, he assured his readers that the few who survived (apparently his dinner-party guests) would be able to live a wonderfully fullfilling life, with a life-span extended hundreds of years by ever-improving science and technology! (I'm not making this up – he even had a 'Sir' in front of his name.) The gentleman (or should that be 'knight' if he's a 'sir') seemed to have forgotten the founding Christian principles of his own university and the society it serves.

As Christians we are realistic about whose world this is (Psalm 24 v.1) and our own place in it (John 3 v.16). Our salvation covers the past, the present, and the future. We also believe in a God who loves all of us (Luke 12 v.6 above). This gives us a profound optimism that as long as we stay in partnership with the God who made us we can look forward to a better world for everyone. 

[My thanks to 'The Guardian' for the specific examples of unethical household objects]

What shall we tell the children about evolution?

An article in 'Christianity Today' http://www.christiantoday.com/article/evangelical.school.gets.the.go.ahead.in.nottingham/28446.htm invites us to get excited about creeping creationism: an Academy is planning as part of its Christian ethos to commend Creationism. However, the school's version of what's happening is different: http://www.eccnewark.org.uk/ It suggests that, if this was the plan, the school's managers have had a rethink. Actually the school concerned - 'Everyday Champions Academy'- appears to be under siege by parents, government inspectors, and Humanist lobbyists before it's even opened its doors, which is a pity.

But as the initial article got me excited, I'll share my opinion on the wider issues anyway. A good book to read on this is Denis Alexander's 'Creation or Evolution' - and not just because I knew him at University. He is at pains to point out, alongside his own convictions as a Christian and a scientist, that there are a number of different points of view on Evolution and on the Bible's account of creation, and how they might relate to each other.

There is, at the very least, a distinction between 'Creationsim' and 'Intelligent Design'. Basically Creationism appears to many so absurd that it is difficult to take it seriously. A few years ago some maths materials appeared which included a reference to the creation '6000 years ago' - a young earth indeed! Having said that, I have tried to point out, to a Christian who has a further degree in mathematics, the mismatch with History, Geology and Astronomy this produces - but to no avail. The arguments for Intelligent Design are more subtle: they appear absurd to most scientists, but not necessarily to the rest of us. My own rejection of it is not based on the scientific arguments - whose details I don't understand - but on the fact that most scientists reject it.

Personally, I was converted to 'Evolution' (from a previous position of not-having-thought-about-it-much) when at about the age of 10 my mum took me to the Natural History Museum. However, the pamphlet I came away with puzzled me, specifically its maps, which showed the continents in different geological eras, including, for example, an unbelievably vast Gondwanaland that included the South Atlantic and the Indian Oceans, as well as the continents of South America and Africa. Some years later 'the theory' of continental drift mysteriously became 'scientific fact', and I realised that the map was wrong, and that the areas marked as 'Land in Cambrian, but now Sea' were never land.

How should Evolution and Creationism be presented to children and young people in schools. The resignation of Michael Reiss 3 years ago - http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/sep/17/evolution.controversiesinscience

- shows how fraught this discussion has become. But the idea that young people should be excluded from this debate strikes me as dangerous. Better to give give Creationism and I.D. a mention at some point in the curriculum, and allow young people a chance to discuss them.     

Riot response

    I was quite surprised that the most effective words that came out of the riots were spoken by Tariq Jahan, a grieving father, and a muslim. Christians need to be more open-minded. It is all too easy to get the wrong end of the stick and to take offence, just like the Pharisees who were always taking offence at Jesus, in fact. Jesus wanted his disciples to be more open minded and thoughtful than the Pharisees, and found himself saying to them (i.e. the leaders - not the rank-and-file!): “Are you still so dull?”

    Often, when we are trying to say the right thing, we say the wrong thing: in 1948 the US ambassador to the United Nations urged the warring Arabs and Jews to end their hostilities 'like good Christians'. Some time later President Regan gave a speech trying to appeal to the third world. He told them: 'The United States has much to offer the third world war' - and he repeated this 9 times in his speech. It's not just making a slip of the tongue: all too often we make entirely wrong judgements. In my time as a teacher it became quite clear to me that most of the time I picked on the wrong pupil who I thought was being naughty. It always turned out it was the pupil sitting next to him who was the real culprit!

This very human capacity for blunder has been well illustrated by the recent riots, and by reactions to the riots. On Newsnight last week the historian David Starkey, who has acquired something of a reputation for wisdom - quite wrongly in my opinion - gestured towards one of the other Newsnight guests, Owen Jones, who wrote a book about chavs, and said: "What has happened is that a substantial section of the chavs that you wrote about have become black." It was a galactically stupid thing to say.

    The same principle of misunderstanding applies to religion. In Jesus' time the key text was the 10 commandments, which Jesus himself pointed out boiled down to one clear moral agenda of loving God and loving one's neighbour. But the Pharisees insisted on the observance of an extensive collection of instructions, which they themselves had cobbled together, which set out precise rules of behaviour, sometimes overiding the God-given moral code. So Jesus challenged them: 'Why do you break the commands of God with your tradition?' The Pharisees had just not thought it through, and had become inconsistent in how they applied their faith. Jesus even had to point out to his own disciples that they were missing the point that Isaiah had made:

"These people honour me with their lips,

but their hearts are far from me.

They worship me in vain;

their teachings are merely human rules."

    But I believe that the same charge could be laid against us. A great 20th Century Christian writer wrote: ‘To worship is to quicken the conscience by the holiness of God, to feed the mind with the truth of God, to purge the imagination by the beauty of God, to open the heart to the love of God, and to devote the will to the purpose of God.' These were fine and thought-provoking words. The problem was that they didn't and don't just apply to worship but to the whole of the Christian life. The reverence expressed here retreated to one day in the week, and was regarded, even by Christians, as irrelevant to the other six.

    So then, at the risk of enormous blunder, I would like to suggest that one of the causes not just of the riots but of the general malaise in society that preceded it is our wrong-thinking about money, as individuals, as a society, but also as Christians. The principle of what has been described as 'Possessive individualism' - i.e. earning money whatever it takes - is so deeply embedded in our culture that we take it for granted. Yet putting the acquisition of money or things before community, country or even family began a couple of hundred years ago, after a deliberate rejection of Christian values, and also, I might add, of specific biblical teaching. When we read our bibles, we need to be prepared to take in what the Word of God says, and not just what suits us.

Mr Gove and the teaching of History

Sean Lang is to be congratulated on being appointed to the committee set up by Michael Gove, the Education Minister, to reform History teaching. Sean's 'Better History Group' has a clear agenda http://www.anglia.ac.uk/ruskin/en/home/faculties/alss/deps/hss/news_and_events/better_history.html

and is certainly one of the contributions that needs to be heard if History is to survive as a school subject.

Having myself retired after 30 years teaching History in secondary schools, my interest (apart from a personal bee in my bonnet about the almost total disappearance of World History from the curriculum) is that we are about to make a terrible mistake. Who 'we' are in this context is a moot point. A readable left-wing account of what has been happening in History teaching can be found here:

http://www.isj.org.uk/index.php4?id=704&issue=129

but I assume is not one of the points of view that will be heard by Mr Gove's committee.

The last 'reform' of History by a Conservative government, at the time of the introduction of the National Curriculum in the late 1980's, was characterised by an attempt to confine History curriculum topics to pre-modern History. I think it was a 30-year rule that Kenneth Clarke had in mind, at a time when if a teenagers' 'free market' was applied this would have ruled out much of the History they were interested in.

The launch of the current reform has been characterised by a demand for the teaching and learning of 'The Facts' (apparently to counter all that touchy-feely Left Wing opinion) and for greater emphasis on 'Our Island Story' and 'The British Empire'. Unlike the previous reform, which in the end was carried out competently enough if unimaginatively, by a committee of teachers and educationalists, this one was heralded by the appointment of historian and TV History presenter Niall Ferguson. As an article in 'The Guardian' put it: 'Niall Ferguson, the British historian most closely associated with a rightwing, Eurocentric vision of western ascendancy, is to work with the Conservatives to overhaul history in schools.'

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/may/30/niall-ferguson-school-curriculum-role

By the time the committee presents its work (2014?) it is possible that a balanced scheme of work will appear, but at the moment I have a number of concerns. Many of these are mentioned in the 'International Socialism' article referred to above.

History teachers in Secondary Schools, however, like to 'get on with the job', and like to believe they will always be free to teach what they wish - except for those rare occasions when an OFSTED inspector is actually sitting at the back of their classroom with a notebook! In any case, many are simply pleased that Mr Gove has a passion for History and wants to preserve it as a distinct subject.

There are several things they ought to be very concerned about. One is the balance of topics that has been suggested. World History, on paper part of the existing curriculum but in practice noticeable for its absence, is likely to be totally eclipsed by 'The British Empire' and 'The rise of the West' - and no, these two topics are really not the same as World History; the three need to be taught together. Even then is this a balanced overall view of History if there is not a regional History - the Middle East or China perhaps? Then there's European History, and local History, all be be woven into a convincing overall narrative. Oh yes, and it's got to be chronological.

The need for all the different strands of 'Our Island Story' to be visible is also important. However, I am not clear how this is going to happen. I suspect the strand that includes the Tolpuddle Martyrs is going to be rather thin; my first reaction to an early list of topics I saw, for example, had me wondering where the Suez Crisis was.

There is a tension between teaching 'The Facts' of History and making sure that youngsters are proud of their English/British heritage. It is a tension that has to be managed in the classroom, not in a syllabus or scheme of work.

A classic example of this is how teachers should teach slavery. Michael Gove insists that one of the main reasons for teaching History is to give children pride in their heritage. Realising that there is a difficulty here in relation to slavery, he has pointed out that slavery was already going on in Africa, and also that it was the Royal Navy that played a leading role in ending it. This ignores the fact that Britain played the leading role in the Atlantic slave trade in the first place, making a fortune out of it, and finally abandoning it when its value was beginning to wane. Nor is it helpful, when you're trying to cast a list of British heroes that part of Lord Nelson's early career was devoted to the preservation of Britain's slave plantations from the French. African chiefs confused the rights and wrongs of their own slavery with that of the much worse European-style slavery practised in the Americas, but we shouldn't. If a History teacher wants to end the topic of slavery by showing the 'Amistad' video clip, of a British warship destroying a West African slavery fortress, that is up to him or her. But already there's an implication that those History teachers who think that some of our national history is shameful will be given a very hard time.

In fact I don't think the 'British Empire' should be a major part of the History Curriculum at all. British India began with the conquest of Bengal in 1757, and the devastating famine in Bengal in 1770 was a direct result of East India Company policy. (Perhaps those in the Company who argued that they should concentrate on trade and avoid conquest should have been listened to.) British India ended with the massacres of the Partition, where the 200 year policy of divide-and-rule probably played a part. A few years before that, in 1943, Bengal suffered another devastating famine, which followed an order to raise the price of food in order to help deny it to the enemy should he invade.

No doubt if teachers read more Niall Ferguson they might find some positive things to say about the Empire, but I worry that as we get nearer to the time when the new curriculum is published they might actually be under pressure to read his books in order to do this!

Then there's the issue of teaching facts and knowledge, giving young people 'the big story', and ending the emphasis on Historical skills. This should not be an EITHER/OR situation. There is a genuine need for an over-arching narrative to tie History together. But a glance at all the topics involved shows that this is not easy, and busy History departments or History teachers have had to come up with their own narratives and their own over-arching stories, and with diminishing curriculum time in which to do it. I suspect it was almost entirely the time factor which gradually removed connecting narratives. With respect to Simon Schama's story-telling skills this should remain the classroom teacher's problem, not his.

Simon Schama is the Historian/Presenter who was prevailed upon to lead Michael Grove's History group. I fear that he will preside over an unbalanced crew. So far I've seen no sign that the Schools History Project, an important strand in the teaching of History over the last 30 years or so, is represented at all. (The fact that an article in 'The Sunday Express' http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/226070/Return-to-traditional-history-is-in-danger- could confuse Sean Lang with 'New History' advocates would certainly seem to suggest this.)

Finally, there's the Empathy issue. Empathy, according to one dictionary definition, is 'the power of understanding and imaginatively entering into another person's feelings'. Put like that - almost a definition of being human - it is startling that its use as an 'Attainment Target' or anything else was forbidden in the National Curriculum. Every historian and everybody who thinks about History uses empathy all the time. Something has gone wrong with the History debate if the word needed to be removed from Educational vocabulary.

Will the British Empire inspire the young?

   The reform of History teaching that is being mooted by the Coalition Government will probably result in 'The History of the British Empire' being put into pride of place.  'Pride' would also be the operative word, as the Secretary of State for Education, Mr Gove, is keen that youngsters should acquire pride in their country's History by learning about the British Empire. 
   There are problems with this.  There is a growing gap between what Historians have discovered about the past and what the general public believe about it.  Most people's ideas are based on out-of-date information they learned at school.  On the whole only History teachers of AS/A2 and IB level keep up with what academic historians have found out. 
   The History of the British Empire has been re-written over the last 20 years, particularly by the historians of countries which Britain used to rule.  Modern British schoolchildren, far from being inspired by the whole enterprise of Empire, might well end up being disgusted and disillusioned.  They might well wonder what gives one people the right to invade and take over another.  I believe Mr Gove, himself a History lover, believes that the Royal Navy played an important part in ridding the world of the slave trade in the 19th Century.  There is some truth in that, but overall the biggest carrier of slaves across the Atlantic Ocean in the first place was Britain, and there is a very strong argument that Britain only changed its stance on the slave trade and on slavery itself as its economic value changed.  Wilberforce, whom I personally admire, was not quite the hero he is cracked up to be.
   I am not for one moment advocating that we abandon teaching of the British Empire.  But I  don't think the balance sheet comes out in the way that Mr Gove and some of his chosen curriculum reformers believe.  And crucially, if world history is to be taught as part of the History Curriculum, it is vital it is not taught through the distorting lens of Empire.
   'Mr Gove and ... his chosen curriculum reformers' are the heart of the matter.  British History is not one story, but many often competing stories, and historians argue with each other with their rival stories.  This reflects the reality of the state of our knowledge, and it would be intellectually dishonest to ignore it.  To re-write History as though there is only one story would also be very dangerous; children will be very quick to pick up on being fed one particular set of facts and not another and take their queries home to their parents.
   Mr Gove would be wise to have a few prominent historians of a different political hue join his committee.