A history lesson for the Schools Minister
January 23, 2012
On 10th January Chris Skidmore MP (Con, Kingswood) secured a Westminster Hall debate on the teaching of history in schools. Mr Skidmore, who is a research fellow in history, along with fellow historian Tristram Hunt MP (Lab, Stoke on Trent) and others, put forward the case for making history compulsory to age 16.
The debate, apparently well attended by Members across the main parties, brought to light some interesting facts. The UK is the only European nation aside from Albania which allows students to drop history at age 14; and the number of pupils studying history beyond 14 dropped below 30% for the first time last year.
These statistics give me cause for concern. Firstly in general terms because, as a history graduate, I believe that knowledge of the past leads to a fuller understanding of the present, and therefore produces a more mature and cohesive society.
Then I consider the long-term implications for the trade in old books and prints. Some of my customers are collectors in their chosen field as a direct consequence of their academic studies. Perhaps they studied the trade union movement, or Catholic emancipation, or the slavery abolition campaign at school or university (and perhaps pursued those interests into a career as a lecturer or museum curator). They come to dealers like me looking for “primary evidence” in the form of contemporary cartoons, pamphlets, handbills etc.
If history as an academic discipline diminishes in importance, then inevitably that means fewer of these potential customers in future.
But my chief concern is not that there will be fewer career historians, librarians and archivists. It is rather that I perceive a narrowing of cultural horizons more generally. If standards of historical research slip, then in time will future generations of potential collectors be discouraged from investigating the origins of material culture, of whatever form?
This has obvious implications for the whole antiques trade.
Schools Minister Nick Gibb: “The new national curriculum will be based on a body of essential knowledge that children should be expected to acquire in key subjects during the course of their school career. It will embody for all children their cultural and scientific inheritance, and it will enhance their understanding of the world around them and expose them to the best that has been thought and written.”
Fine words, but let it be remembered that recorded history did not begin with Hitler’s ascent to power in 1933.
