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THE ALLEYNIAN 709
OPINION, INTERVIEWS & FEATURES
Teaching history has never been without controversy, and it is certainly true that today we find ourselves faced with a range of issues that give rise to deep-seated passions and ethical debates. The murder of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement, in particular, have brought the question of historical injustices related to race to the fore. The teacher’s role is a challenging one in that we are responsible for creating and maintaining ‘safe’ spaces in our classrooms – ones where pupils can feel free to express themselves and their ideas without personal judgement – whilst simultaneously needing to act as moral arbiters: there are things that should not and must not be said, due to the distress doing so would cause. Furthermore, teachers are honour- and duty-bound to model and insist on academic integrity in their teaching of their subject: ultimately, it is the teacher’s role neither to validate nor dispute pupils’ individual ‘truths’, rather to impart the body of knowledge in which they specialise with honesty and integrity, and assist pupils in navigating it according to those same principles. Arguably, it is more straightforward to balance the imperatives outlined above when teaching, say, the Tudors, than the Holocaust or the rise and fall of the British Empire. One particular instance of failure in the discussion of an emotionally charged topic sticks clearly in my mind. As a PGCE student teacher, I attended a taught session at my university focused on teaching contentious aspects of the History curriculum. In it, the tutor took the example of the West African slave trade and attempted to illustrate that the historical causes of this abhorrent activity — principally the drive for profit — were distinct from the racism that was tragically enhanced by it, a racism used as justification for the inhuman treatment of fellow human beings by British imperialists and a great many others through history. His attempt to demonstrate that it would be reductive to define slavery solely as a manifestation of racism, and intellectually flawed to teach children that racism was the predominant or only cause of slavery, seemed reasonable enough to me. To one student teacher however, Black British and of Afro- Caribbean heritage, the tutor’s comments were as morally insufferable as they were factually flawed: his assertions violated the essence not only of her view of the past, but also her personal frame of reference - that intersection of past and present that gave meaning to her world and to her place within it. Tragically, her eloquence on this subject did not ultimately result in student and tutor finding sufficient common ground to move forward – she left the room, and the PGCE course not long afterwards. This episode has stayed with me, perhaps the more so because I remain uncertain as to what could have been done to salvage the situation. There are undoubtedly topics (sometimes whole A level papers, as with the British Empire) where classroom discussion will be far more emotionally affecting for some than for others, whether due to personal and family history, ethnic and racial self-identification or other factors. I would concur with the following view, expressed by the Twitter commentator Sarah Maddux: ‘When you debate [with] a person about something that
affects them more than it affects you, remember that it will take a much greater emotional toll on them than it will on you.’ In the face of this reality, there are no easy solutions or simple answers, and foolhardy would be the teacher who claimed to have these. From what I have learned thus far, I can offer the following observations. Firstly, acknowledging the potential for pain and difficulty when covering particular historical material is important, making all in the classroom aware that this will likely not be felt uniformly or equally, and that this is alright and indeed to be expected. Secondly, flippant and generalised observations, always best avoided in any case, should be guarded against and, where necessary, challenged in lessons. Such comments can be both personally damaging and intellectually dishonest (and in my experience are not exclusively aimed at minorities). Finally, History as a discipline offers both a body of knowledge that is evidence-based and a distinct approach to exploring and applying that knowledge to answer particular types of question. Those who undertake it must be taught the nature of the subject such that they can apply this approach in their study of the past and ideally – (the History teacher’s dream!) – in their present lives. Part of this requires acceptance of the existence of two distinct but overlapping spheres, as in a Venn diagram: the personal and subjective, and the objective – each informs and benefits the other; neither can claim with integrity to function in the other’s absence. Teaching contentious topics arguably helps pupils to learn one of historical study’s fundamental lessons: who we are informs how we approach the past; what we learn from studying it with as rigorous an objectivity as possible will in turn inform who we become. It is the teacher’s role to… impart the body of knowledge in which they specialise with honesty and integrity “
CONTESTED
PATHS
CONTROVERSIAL HISTORY IN THE CLASSROOM
Marina Instone reflects on the challenges, for teachers, of exploring emotionally charged historical topics
ARTWORK — DYLAN PUGH (YEAR 13)
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