Simon Schama: my vision for history in schools

From the Guardian

"In these economically and politically tricky times we need history's long look more than ever, says historian and government adviser Simon Schama, as he sets out six of the key events no child should miss out on."

Bring on the history revolution in schools

Geoffery Alderman writes : "Overshadowed by other events both national and international, the announcement at the Guardian Hay festival by education secretary Michael Gove that there is to be a review of the school history curriculum deserves widespread applause.

It is a long time since my own children were at secondary school, and since I served as a GCE A-level history examiner – and indeed as a chief examiner, setting the questions as well as overseeing the grades. But I have deliberately maintained a watching brief on developments in the school history curriculum, not least because I teach university students who have followed this curriculum prior to starting a degree programme..."

Free history lectures on iTunesU

Something my employer is currently working towards is joining the Apple iTunesU project. Basically iTunesU uses the popular iTunes Store to deliver free video and audio lectures from universities across the world. Most of the universities are in the US still as you would expect but a few already are from the UK including the Open University as one would imagine they would be in at the start!

Unfortunately my current course is not covered on the OU's iTunesU site though my course last year is, with a number of video lectures. iTunesU has been a great success for the OU with the million download mark being reached last October.

There are a number of interesting history lectures on iTunesU already, i have just been watching a video lecture given by David Starkey for Cambridge University on the British Monarchy for example. Maybe next i'll start listening to a lecture series on British Parliamentary and Electroral Politics 1688-1832 from the University of Warwick...

Call to scrap history lessons for children

A report into primary schooling in the UK will call for lessons in history, geography and science to be removed from the curriculum and replaced by what appears to be multi-disciplinary subjects and project work for example "instead of discrete lessons in history, design and engineering skills, pupils in York might do a project about the city's architecture encompassing all those skills".

If it really does work out that way then this could be a good thing. The study of history shouldn't be in a vacuum. To gain a full understanding you may need to study maps, climate, terrain (geography). You may also need to analyse large quantities of data (statistics) and consider how ancient machinery actually worked in reality (engineering). If that is how they could change the study of "history" then that, i feel, would increase the understanding of students and increase the relevancy of history to young minds.

At my final year at primary school my teacher, a Mr Saunders, took this project based approach to learning. We were allowed to study and research topics of our choosing and write up our findings in a project book (i did about 17 actually, i've always been prolific!) thus covering history, research, interpretation, presentation and design. And this was in about 1981 so he was very far-sighted!