Michael Gove education reforms in history and geography

Blog: Time to get back to facts and figures in education

Blog: The past may be no place to live but we dismiss it at our peril, writes Shirley Tart

It is exciting to see every new generation preparing to take on the world in their time, when the future always looks rosy and problems easy to solve.

But what does that have to do with 21st teaching of history and geography?

Well everything, actually.

If we can’t place ourselves in the world’s magnificent and robust story, learn from the mistakes as well as the successes and value the opportunity to do both, the way forward is lost. And the idea that the great carvers of history, the spectacles of the geography books, can be wiped from the school curriculum in favour of slick, quick, instant happenings, is dreadful.

So where that has happened, I’m all for a better way, a re-introduction to our local, national and global story, the sort of lessons which for some of us were the protein of our education.

The first time I saw the Cape Peninsula in South Africa, it was as though the geography books with those painstakingly detailed, coloured maps of our great continents, had become alive. The place itself is breathtaking but the memories and the lessons of yesteryear, put it all in a different context. And the great thing about history and geography, of course, is that you never stop learning, absorbing, experiencing our planet in new ways.

I was also a stamp collector (an inexpensive hobby then but such a valuable one) and pored over stamps with amazing pictures and names, identifying places like the the Gold and Ivory Coasts, Far Eastern treasures, New World, emerging nations. The imagination ran riot. And finally seeing any of these wonders of our world – many names have of course been changed, little countries disappeared – brings such an added richness.

And when in recent years, some school lessons even abandoned figures of history like our own Winston Churchill, you almost give up.

Except that we must not do that. If Education Secretary Michael Gove is intent on bringing history and geography back into the classroom in a big way, along with key 21st century learning as well, that is all to the good.

Every generation should be taught about our past in schools and not just from TV channels. It puts us all in context and teaches the blinding errors as well as the great successes and just of ordinary life down all the years. And that’s a privilege which children of every age and time deserve to experience.

1
Peter

January 20, 2011 at 11:57

Once again, lazy tabloid sensationalism rears its head.

I heard this story on the Today programme this morning, alleging that the national curriculum only mentions the UK in it’s Geography section and that it only names two historical figures in its History section.

Yet when I actually take the trouble to examine the national curriculum (and it’s available to us all at the click of a mouse), I find the following for Geography:

Pupils should be able to:
a) use atlases, globes, maps at a range of scales, photographs, satellite images and other geographical data b) construct maps and plans at a variety of scales, using graphical
techniques to present evidence.

and…

Key aspects of the UK: This includes local and national perspectives.
It should also include the geographical aspects that underpin a young person’s identity and their global citizenship.
Different parts of the world: This includes the location of places, key aspects of their changing geography and how places link with other places in the world across a range of different environments.

I’m also aware from my own children’s studies, all at state schools, that they have looked at a variety of historical events and figures, including the First and Second World Wars, the formation and break up of the British Empire, ancient Rome and ancient Egypt – quite a range of facts there then.

So the suggestion from both Michael Gove and Shirley Tart that these topics are not being covered in our schools, or that facts are not being taught, is based upon skimming an overview of the curriculum, failing to understand the purpose of a curriculum in the first place (it’s a curriculum – not a detailed lesson planner or exam syllabus!) and above all a partisan attack on the long-time Tory whipping boy that is the teaching profession.

Perhaps, Shirley, you could spend a little bit less time on Royal fawning and being a mouthpiece for the Tory party, and a little more time on properly researched, quality journalism?

Why not ask to visit a few local schools and see what is actually being taught, rather than just regurgitating the words of a minister whose principal aim for our children’s education seems to be to underfund it?

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2
Nistagmus

January 20, 2011 at 12:40

Title suggests that we have have moved away from facts and figures in education – Is this actually true ?

Article then suggests that schools currently don’t teach any British history – Is this actually true ?

Article then goes on to imply that history/geography is taught only on TV – Is this actually true ?

If it turns out this is true then fine, otherwise it seems to be an excuse to praise Michael Gove – whose position on religious groups running schools hardly makes him a deity amongst those who consider the indoctrination of children into believing ‘fantasy to be real’ to be a human right abuse.

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3
Colin.D.

January 20, 2011 at 18:25

If some of the letters which have been published on the Star page over the last few months that I have been using it are anything to go by, then I would suggest that teaching our children the basics of our native tongue is more important.
Simple words spelled wrongly, a complete ignorance of what punctuation is all about, and the inability to string together a coherent sentence are all too common. How important is the major domestic product of New Zealand when some writers can not even spell the phrase correctly?.
Has anyone ever been confronted by a checkout girl with a malfunctioning till?, even the simplest addition is beyond most of them.
Back to basics, R-R-R. Not the way to spell arithmetic I know, but why should I be different?.

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- Nistagmus
  
  January 21, 2011 at 10:26
  
  A question mark contains a full-stop.
  The first E in even should therefore be capitalised.
  
  Yes, I have nothing better to do. I’m waiting in for an electrician. That’s my excuse for pedantry anyway.
  
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4
Steve McQueen

January 21, 2011 at 10:37

Has anyone ever been confronted by a checkout girl with a malfunctioning till?, even the simplest addition is beyond most of them.

You shouldn’t put a commar after a question mark. Now back to the classroom, you!

As for the comments – she’s proven yet again that she has no grip on anything remotely interesting, or she does comment, it’s completely packed with piffle and rumour!

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- Andrew Owen
  
  January 21, 2011 at 14:57
  
  What about a ‘comma’? (Do you want a lift to the classroom?)
  
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- Colin.D.
  
  January 24, 2011 at 01:41
  
  Oh dear. Well spotted you two. I’d like to say it was deliberate, but no, I was caught out.
  
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