The Evening Star MONDAY, JUNE 23, 1924. THE TEACHING OF HISTORY.
We seem so often to hear of differences between the Education Department and the teachers in matters of regulation that often wo fail to note their oooporation and agreement in really important matters of teaching. We find both, for instance, are agreed that greater attention should bo paid to the teaching of history in schools. Last month the Teachers’ Institute approved of a scheme to introduce New Zealand and English history in parallel sequence throughout the school curriculum; and now tho Minister of Education, the Hon. C. J. Parr, has intimated that the subject is to be given a more prominent place, and is definitely to include something of the history and growth of the dominion. Whether this end will be best served by the Minister’s plan of putting written questions depends a good deal on tho accompanying exposition and tho real effect made on the child’s mind. On the one hand, written work can bo merely what the French cull “ redaction,” or a rendering back almost parrotlike ; on the other hand, it can also he a test of accurate knowledge, for writing “ raaketh an exact man.”
History is a subject that needs carefully selected matter, expertly handled. Not all the detailed records of the prist serve as adequate material wherewith to develop in tho child mind such features as loyalty to country, indebtedness to the past, and tho sense of human solidarity. Many adults to-day look back on the history they learnt at school only to view it as an arid waste of dreary facts. Much was mere antiqnarianisra, whoso pursuit seemed stale, flat, and unprofitable. Other portions of it have been decried as tho “ jingoistic gush of untrained workers in national prejudices.” It has boon complained that “too much was heard of kings who died from surfeits and premiers whoso main interest seemed to be to discover chances of war. Of the lives of the people from day- to day little was leamt.” In many cases all that was learnt was not really history; tho wrong events were emphasised,- and much matter of intense interest was missed in a wrong selection. Political history is very much an adult subject, and thus is hard to make interesting to children, though the task is not impossible. But much social and industrial history is left, as well as the history of travel and exploration and the biography of great men and women in various spheres of life. These, rightly handled by an enthusiastic teacher, will prove not only of intense interest to his pupils, but also of so great educational value as to earn for history a much larger share of school time than it at present gets. Such matter will servo to train children to true loyalty and citizenship. Tho dramatic method, as illustrated in books that have lately reached Now Zealand (as well as in Shakespeare) is ranch to bo commended to make history live for tho pupils of our schools.
If history, then, is well taught in the schools, it will continue as a profitable and yet enjoyable subject for adult study and desultory rending. The Carnegie Library has much l-o offer the student here. History has a lesson for all sections of the community. For those who would reform the world at ono sweep, like our foolish Communists, it demonstrates how slowly the forces of social evolution work. Yot for those who say that social organisation is hopelessly static—“ you caidt change human nature ” —thoro is a. groat lesson of progress; for all the story of tho past shows how, sometimes by evolution, rarely by revolution, man moves slowly upward from the beast. Tho years have produced vast changes for good, socially, morally, and intellectually. History appeals differently bo different people; some profit chiefly by the stimulus to their imagination; others broaden their horizon by a wider view of tho world and its development ; still others find their political understanding stimulated by a more detailed study of tho political and social problems of the past. The great feature in portraying history is to ensure tho portrayal of human events as they actually occurred, with regard for continuity and development as well as more isolated facts. Every condition or event must bo conceived as related to something that wont before and to something that comes after. Tims it teaches tho reader to trace dovoopment. Again, by creating a sense of perspective, history gives an intelligent notion of thoso human activities, decisions, and achievements which lie behind our present-day institutions and problems. It affords training in the collecting and weighing of evidence. It gives more interest in it (
srrpplies a background for an appreciation of much that is best in literature and art. By showing how loyal citizens have honestly differed on public questions it develops farrmindednesa. At. tho same time it stimulates an intelligent patriotism by familiarising people with the history of their own country and its place in tho work!, especially if tho study is mot confined to one conn try but of the world in general. History is to society what memory is to tho individual. It is the record, of the accumulated experience of the past, and serves ns the key to tire storehouse of human experience for tho guidance of man in dealing with the problems of the present. The la rge number of teachers studying the honors course in history in om university colleges at- present should greatly assist the department in its endeavor. 11. is to he regretted, however, that this will t,c considerably checked by the recently enacted regulation restricting teachers to take education as their honors subject if they rvish for the highest qualifications. The recent introduction of history into tho'curriculum of tho Training College is also a step in the right direction. It is a pity, however, that tho University seems to have dropped tho extension lectures in British history that wore held in previous years. The new emphasis that is to bo placed on New Zealand’s past is very welcome. As tho Minister suggests, it is intensely interesting, full of tales of adventure and gallant effort. Its civic value also is high, for patriotism, like charity, begins at homo, Tho child is more easily stirred with a love of his own borne and his own country than for that of his fathers; but tho fooling for the latter will come as a natural development of tho former as the talc of tho past is logically unfolded.
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Evening Star, Issue 18667, 23 June 1924, Page 6
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1,089The Evening Star MONDAY, JUNE 23, 1924. THE TEACHING OF HISTORY. Evening Star, Issue 18667, 23 June 1924, Page 6
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