On the teaching of history, Michael Gove is right | Niall Ferguson

Why

critics feel compelled to defend a status quo that so many teachers, parents and students agree is indefensible?

new national program

Michael Gove is out, and now the big guns destroy amendments Oxbridge how children are taught English history.

Cambridge

From none other than Richard Evans, Regius Professor of History, Gove has condemned the attempt to restore the "learning by heart patriots jersey loads much loved by traditionalists." Says Evans The new curriculum was "a little English version of our national past, linked to the isolationist view of our national future." It was "a foolish regression patriotic myths of the Edwardian era."

Oxford came the echo. David Priestland said it was a "narrow island ... depressing ... decidedly politicized and philistine" document. "We ... firmly on the floor of the bestselling Edwardian Our Island Story. "

The focus of these attacks is inversely proportional to their accuracy. In fact, if you want a perfect example of how depressing narrow, insular and politicized resolved Oxbridge historians can read both. One may wonder when, if ever, these learned professors last set foot in a classroom at school, or last had a conversation with a teacher or student of history current key stages 2 and 3 .

amateur Evans refers to "the scope and ambition of existing coverage, the historical-critical method and debate," suggests an ignorance almost voluntary - or indifferent to -. The sad state of historical knowledge among young Britons

If you want to understand what is wrong with the story in English schools, read the excellent essay Professor Matthew Hunter in the latest edition of Viewpoint. As Hunter said, not only the content is defective former national problem. This is the story of how it has been taught in schools since the inception of the project in British history in schools in the 1970s and the rejection of historical knowledge in favor of "analysis sources "and" child-centered "learning (" Imagine you are a Roman centurion ... ").

• Only a person living in a dream round Oxonian do not realize how much he has become, despite the efforts of thousands of teachers who work hard. I know because I saw three of my children go through the English system, because I regularly visit the school and talk with teachers of history, and because (unlike Evans and Priestland, the authors of works on a little dry, respectively, Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia) that I wrote and popular history.
• The new national program is not perfect, of course. This goes against the advice given Gove to be too prescriptive. The 34 subjects that will be covered by pupils aged seven to 14 years and had read a bit like the chapter titles and if there's one thing I hope we can avoid is an official history textbooks (even if is written by Simon Schama).

But the cartoon as a funny version of all of 1066 and all that kind of lie is a false document Richard Evans denounced as professional misconduct, if it is not the historian.

Among other things, the national program specifically designed to ensure that all students the knowledge and understanding of the broad outlines of the history of Europe and the world: the growth and decline ancient civilizations, the expansion and dissolution of empires "that" and understand historical concepts, continuity and change, cause and consequence of the similarity, difference and importance. "and" understand how evidence is used to strictly historical statements "

in Key Stage 1, children will be introduced to the "core" as the nation, civilization, monarchy, parliament, democracy, war and peace. In Key Stage 2, they will explore the ancient civilizations of Greece and Rome. Regarding "the essential chronology of the history of Britain," which Evans and Priestland oppose so strongly, it is a model of political correctness: Mary Seacole not only makes the cut, but Olaudah Equiano - just escaped our island history.
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