Recovering History Education's Forgotten Past Diversity And

Recovering History Education’s Forgotten Past Diversity and Change in Professional Discourse in England, 1944-1962 Christopher Edwards UCL Institute of Education, University of London PhD Thesis 2016 Declaration I, Christopher Edwards confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis. Word Count 96257 words 2 Abstract This study explores diversity and change in the professional discourse of history education texts published in England between 1944 and 1962. Specifically, it examines post-war authors’ views on the aims of history education and on the role that primary source materials should play in the teaching of history. This analysis reveals that this professional discourse emerged as part of a dynamic social practice in which a vibrant community of post-war authors set out their various visions for a “proposed” history education. This textual analysis draws on methods of discourse analysis, which focus on the selection and structuring of ideas. A review of the secondary literature, which reflected back on on post-war history education revealed the existence of two contradictory positions. On the one hand, contemporary critics have heralded the period as a “Dark Age” in which rote learning, dull pedagogy and obedience to a narrow and celebratory history dominated. In contrast, on the other hand, other commentators have viewed the period as a “Golden Age” whereby history teaching was underpinned by robust civic and moral aims and in which pupils readily acquired a positive and secure national historical narrative. This study examines these two conflicting interpretations by closely analysing an array of post-war seminal historical texts published by key figures, such as, Rachel Reid, Robert Unstead, Estella Lewis and Gordon Batho and organisations, including: The Historical Association, the Incorporated Association of Assistant Masters and the University of London Institute of Education. The study concludes, that far from being singular and unchanging, post-war discourse among history educators was diverse, dynamic and thought provoking. Working within professional associations, authors discussed the purpose of history education and sought to influence history teaching in schools. What emerges is a shifting, complex discourse at odds with “Dark Age” and “Golden Age” simplicities. This study demonstrates the value of using published post-war history education texts as sources for the study of education from 1944-1962. Above all it challenges the view that there was an intellectual vacuum at the heart of history education during the two decades that followed the end of Second World War. 3 For Joanna Beresford 4 Contents Introduction 7 Part One: Preliminary Considerations Chapter 1 Literature review 30 Chapter 2 Sources for a study of post-war history education 65 Chapter 3 Approaches to Source-work A Conceptual and 86 Theoretical Framework Chapter 4 Perspectives and methods 117 Part Two: Text Analysis Chapter 5 The Board of Education’s, Handbook of Suggestions 129 Chapter 6 Ministry of Education’s, Teaching History, Pamphlet 143 No. 23 Chapter 7 Rachel Reid, Stanley Toyne and the Historical 166 Association Chapter 8 The Incorporated Association of Assistant Masters in 207 Secondary Schools Chapter 9 Charles F. Strong and Robert J. Unstead 238 Chapter 10 Estella Matilda Lewis 269 Chapter 11 Post-war responses to M. W. Keatinge: IAAM, 293 Kenneth Charlton and Gordon Batho Conclusion 320 Bibliography 332 5 “And the first step, as you know, is always what matters most, particularly when we are dealing with those who are young and tender. That is the time when they are easily moulded and when any impression we choose to make leaves a permanent mark.” “That is certainly true.” “Shall we therefore readily allow our children to listen to any stories made up by anyone, and to form opinions that are for the most part the opposite of those we think they should have when they grow up?” “We certainly shall not.” “Then it seems that our first business is to supervise the production of stories, and to choose only those we think suitable, and reject the rest. We shall persuade mothers and nurses to tell our stories to their children, and by means of them to mould their minds and characters which are more important than their bodies. The greater part of the stories current today we shall have to reject.” Plato, The Republic, Education: The First Stage (around 380 BC) translated by Desmond Lee, Penguin Classics, 2nd edn, 1974, p. 131. 6 Introduction There are good reasons to bemoan the condition of history education in the decades following the Second World War. One reason is that at this time some leading history educators did so. John Fines, for example, writing in 1969 wrote: Up and down the country children are still being bored to tears by syllabuses of constitutional and political history leading to examinations seemingly based on the belief that the ability to memorise is the most important criterion in education. History teachers are regarded by their pupils and colleagues with a mixture of scorn and pity, as is evidenced by the fact that in a recent attitude- test carried out by the Schools Council history came nearly bottom of the poll.1 There had been at this time, Fines argued, widespread student disengagement with history education: its aims and practices no longer seen, by many, as having any real credibility. In support, he cited The Schools Council Enquiry I, published in 1968, which reported that only 29 per cent of 15-year-olds thought that history was a useful subject of study, and only 41 per cent of boys and 40 per cent of girls thought it held any interest for them. Further still, it reported that just 28 per cent of the boys’ parents and 29 per cent of the girls’ parents thought that history was a “very important” subject for their child to learn. The cause of this disengagement, Fines opined, was the style of teaching that was employed, one based, he wrote, on “the belief that the ability to memorise is the most important criterion in education”. 1 John Fines in the Introduction to Blond’s Teachers’ Handbook, edited by John Fines (Blond Educational, 1969). 7 Mary Price, a leading post-war history educator, in her landmark article, “History in Danger”, published by the Historical Association in 1968, shared Fines’ concerns.2 Price wrote that at this time the majority of history lessons had consisted of taking notes and committing to memory a factual outline of British history, with teachers following the principle: “if I do not tell them, they will never know.” Price was not surprised by the key findings of the 1966 survey of early school leavers conducted by the Schools Council, which was that most students thought history to be “useless and boring”. In her article, she included this vignette to support her argument that in 1968 the subject had completely lost its bearings. She wrote: Not long ago a visitor attended a history lesson in a girls’ school, which consisted of forty minutes occupied by a lecture from the teacher and copious note taking. On the classroom wall hung some first-rate brass rubbings and when the lesson was over the visitor admired them and asked one of the girls if they had learnt about the people depicted, “Oh no” came the swift reply “those are nothing to do with history, its just something a few us do on the weekends.”3 Martin Booth, another leading post-war history educator, was also highly critical of what was then occurring in history classrooms. His study of five grammar school history departments, between 1965 and 1966, found that teaching and learning was dominated by the transmission of a received body of knowledge. 4 Booth’s questionnaire and interview data indicated that history teaching consisted of listening to the class teacher and copying dictated notes, reading textbooks and learning facts. He judged the majority of lessons in the data that he had collected “seldom made demands on students”. From this he concluded that post-war history departments were “wedded to techniques which tend to deaden rather than inspire”.5 2 M. Price, History in Danger, History, 53 (1968), 342–7. 3 Ibid., p. 344. 4 M. Booth, History Betrayed? (Longman, 1969). 5 Ibid., p. 122. 8 Two decades later, John Slater echoed the views of Fines, Price and Booth when he summed up post-war history education as an “inherited consensus” in which students recalled “accepted facts about famous dead Englishmen”. In 1989, he famously characterised post-war history education in the following way: Content was largely British, or rather Southern English; Celts looked in to starve, emigrate or rebel; the North to invent looms or work in mills; abroad was of interest once it was part of the Empire; foreigners were either, sensibly allies, or, rightly, defeated. Skills – did we even use the word? – were mainly those of recalling accepted facts about famous dead Englishmen, and communicated in a very eccentric literary form, the examination-length essay. It was an inherited consensus, based largely on hidden assumptions.6 In 1994, David Sylvester, the first director of the Schools Council History Project, labelled history education between 1900 and 1970 as the “Great Tradition”. 7 Borrowed from Leavis, he used the term to object to what he perceived to be post- war history education’s canonical approach to historical knowledge. He also took the view that pre-1970 history education had been dominated by the transmission of a received body of knowledge. He summarised this in the following way: The history teacher’s role was didactically active; it was to give pupils the facts of historical knowledge and to ensure, through repeated short tests, that they had learned them.

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