Examination of Witnesses (Questions 420-437)
PROFESSOR LINDA
COLLEY, PROFESSOR
DAVID CONWAY
AND DR
DINA KIWAN
7 JUNE 2006
Q420 Chairman: Has he got a false
impression, Professor?
Professor Conway: Yes, he has:
wrong.
Q421 Stephen Williams: You have advocated,
and I have read the written submission you put to the Committee,
and the Institute you belong to has recirculated Our Island
Story, are not a lot of the sort of history books that were
written 50 years ago, or 100 years ago, supposed to be a celebration
of heroism and achievement, to make people feel proud about being
British, rather than a recognition of the warts and all facts
of history that took place?
Professor Conway: With respect,
I think the answer to your question is, no. Henrietta Elizabeth
Marshall, if one takes the time and trouble to read her book you
will see that not only does she affirm many other aspects of British
national history besides, if you like, its imperialistic past,
but also she does criticise various kings and various rulers and
various initiatives that Britain has taken. It is a balanced outlook
and I think it will be one that if people read the detail they
would see, I am not stressing indeed the canonical version, it
is just simply an instance of something that was taken for granted
50 years ago.
Q422 Chairman: I think the worry
was, and Stephen I think is coming back to that, that you said
perhaps there ought to be a timeline drawn before things got too
controversial, because that would leave out a big issue about
women's rights and women's equality, it would leave out the role
of gay and lesbian people in our society, it would leave out many
of the people who have come from distant parts of the world and
settled here. You did say let us have a timeline that leaves out
the controversial stuff?
Professor Conway: I did not say
that. What I suggested there being a cut-off date for was the
teaching of British narrative history. I did not suggest that
nothing since should be taught about, it should not necessarily
be taught about as British national history.
Q423 Stephen Williams: Professor
Colley earlier mentioned perhaps we need to have more festivals
to get a discussion of British history and Professor Conway rather
scoffed at that idea, but anniversaries are much celebrated these
days. We have got an important one in Bristol at the moment, the
bicentenary of the birth of Brunel, which led to people discussing
his achievements around the country. Next year we have got a far
more controversial one, the bicentenary of the abolition of the
slave trade throughout the British Empire in 1807, and there are
lots of issues to discuss around that. I am being put under pressure,
as the MP for that City, to apologise for slavery. What place
does anniversary or festival actually have in getting people to
understand and discuss the past?
Professor Colley: Again, there
is no happy recipe for consensus. I do not actually believe in
people apologising for the past. We are responsible for our own
actions in this life. I think that the difference with, we do
not have to call it a festival, festivals that happen every year
is that you have a constant and recurring impulse and that you
pick up different groups of society. Again, I refer back to the
United States; they have their calendar of national commemoration
and it is quite effective, because, and this has been worked out,
they have days dotted throughout the year which the entire United
States commemorates but has particular appeal to particular groups
at particular times. Veterans' Day honours obviously the Armed
Services. Martin Luther King Day is a day that the entire nation
recognises, which obviously has a particular appeal to Afro-Americans.
Columbus Day has been appropriated by the Italian Americans, also
by the Spanish Americans. If you have something that happens every
year people are reaffirming who they are, as distinct from just
saying, "Oh, let's think what this year is the bicentenary
of."
Q424 Chairman: Is not that a bit
superficial, in one sense? I do not mean to be rude on this. America
always saw it was a very diverse nation from people all over the
world and, of course, they have a written Constitution, they have
a Bill of Rights, if you go to school you pledge your allegiance,
they very carefully nation-built 200 years ago in the way that
we never have?
Professor Colley: I am afraid
that is not true. We have forgotten just how much we did nation-build,
and the United States has a Bill of Rights because we had a Bill
of Rights in 1689; they copied it from us.
Q425 Chairman: No-one quotes it or
recites it?
Professor Colley: Well, they should.
That is actually something else which needs to be done in terms
of citizenship education. There are a lot of very important constitutional
documents which have emerged from our past and they should be
known better. I think it is very interesting that in the BBC History
magazine's competition "What should our national day be?"
the majority of people said "Magna Carta." That is quite
interesting; it is quite healthy, I think. One of the things I
would like to see, if we do not have, as many countries have,
some kind of museum of citizenship, some museum of democracy,
where these iconic documents are on show, we might not want to
do this in stone and concrete and glass, but we could have an
online site that schoolchildren could get to on the Net, telling
them about all these documents, what it meant, why it was such
a struggle to get it, how it fits into the longer story. We have
the material in our past; in recent decades, we have not been
as imaginative in exploiting this as we might have been.
Q426 Stephen Williams: I did read
the Sun actually this morning, Chairman, and they are crowing
about the fact that they have persuaded the Scottish Minister,
as they describe him, the Prime Minister, to fly the flag of St
George and to support England in the World Cup. Professor Conway,
in your written evidence you suggested that citizenship and history
teaching should inculcate pride in Britain. Could you expand on
that?
Professor Conway: I have now laboured
the point, I feel. I would simply add that David Bell, of course,
about a year ago, wrote a piece where he queried the motives of
those who flew the St George cross and likened them to the BNP.
It just goes to show how much progress can be made in 12 months,
what a little act of war can do to concentrate the mind. We are
a society; we face dangers. There is a vital need to stop home-grown
suicide bombers. Nothing is going to be guaranteed of doing it,
but if we simply allow multiculturalism to make its way and human
rights to obstruct deportation of foreign criminals we cease to
be a society. There are some who wish Britain to cease to be a
society; they just want to see us as a sub-region, or a set of
sub-regions, of a wider Europe. If you do not have that view,
if you think that this country has something to be proud of, you
will want to disseminate that to your children and your children's
children, and the way to do it is through citizenship. I agree
with Linda Colley. By the way, can I say, you do not have to look
far, Westminster Abbey, all our cathedrals are these museums to
the nation's past, where you will see memorials to the deeds that
were done and it was this country which defeated Napoleon and
Hitler, one can read off the litany; this nation has a lot to
be proud of. We do have national days, if they were just disinterred
and the politically correct taint that has been put on them were
to be got rid of.
Q427 Mr Marsden: Professor Colley,
I would like, if I may, to get you to expand a little bit about
the importance of history and citizenship beyond school. Incidentally,
as someone who was involved in the early nineties in various attempts
to try to get a museum of British history off the ground, I agree
entirely with what you say about the importance of us highlighting,
in whatever format, some of the key documents, and the rest of
it. One of the things which has been argued, of course, is that
history has become more marginalised as a focus for civic values
because there has been much marginalisation in this country between
what is taught in schools and the input of history in universities,
and particularly the input of the university historians to the
textbooks and things that we have talked about here. Are there
ways in which, as part of the focus on the citizenship review,
the Department for Education ought to be engaging a broader section
of the historical community, not just in terms of school work
but in terms of work in citizenship education beyond school?
Professor Colley: I am sorry,
I am not quite clear what you are asking.
Q428 Mr Marsden: I am asking two
things. First of all, do you think that there has been a dislocation
between university history and the teaching of history in schools,
and to what extent has that affected our general understanding
of it? Secondly, given that the Department is now imminently going
to carry out this review on the possibility of putting modern
cultural and social British history in, what sort of remit should
that have?
Professor Colley: Again, I must
plead not just partial jet-lag but also an element of ignorance,
because I have been employed mainly in the United States since
1982, so I am not au fait with educational developments
in these islands to the degree that I should be, doubtless. I
do think there has been some dislocation. I think there has been
a decline, for example, in great institutions like the Historical
Association, which was a kind of Association that met throughout
these islands where interested lay people could go and listen
to university lecturers giving their time free to talk about different
aspects of history. If you look at A J P Taylor's diaries, he
was constantly going from one end of the country to the other
talking to these Historical Association meetings, and that has
been a declining institution, unfortunately. I think there is
still enormous popular interest in history, you see this with
the success of Simon Schama's TV programmes, whatever you think
of their content, but enormous numbers of people want to watch
and listen to them. I think the interest is there; it has to be
taken hold of.
Q429 Mr Marsden: How do you channel
that in a broad community, in terms of the broader issues, which
go beyond just history, of identity, that you addressed so eloquently,
the changes since the Second World War, in terms of what we do
as part of our overall education process? The Chairman referred
earlier to what citizenship might or might not be taught in the
universities. Would there be any point, any use, especially now
that British university structures are becoming more like, for
good or ill, American university structures, in having a sort
of UK version of a Western Civ course which dominated many American
universities until relatively recently?
Professor Colley: Yes, I think
there would. I think it is one of the things that universities
can fall down on. I should say, part of the problem is, I think,
the research assessment exercise, which encourages people to publish,
publish, publish, but it does not really give them any kudos or
status or extra marks for quality of teaching. This seems to me
to be crazy. Of course you want your academics to write and publish
and be scholarly, but you want them, first and foremost, to teach,
that is what they are there for. I think, in many universities,
there has been a tendency towards increasing specialisation, academics
teach the books that they are writing, they do not teach big survey
courses. I think this is a great shame because, of course, it
just prolongs the problem. It was alright perhaps not to do big
survey courses of British history and other people's history in
the universities when you could be confident that the schoolchildren
had done the basic survey stuff at school; you cannot be confident
of that any more. If they are not getting it at school and they
are not getting it at university then you have got a problem.
I think that should be part of the package. I think universities
should be encouraged to do these big survey courses, they are
very important, but I think that to get academics to devote time
to do that there have got to be incentives.
Q430 Mr Marsden: You have got to
give them brownie points, basically?
Professor Colley: Yes; the carrot
as well as the stick.
Q431 Mr Marsden: Professor Conway,
I wonder if I could come back to you on a couple of points. You
have spoken insistently, indeed passionately, about the importance
of having a narrative with topics that can engage and can make
the construction the point, but is it not the case, to some extent
at least, that even the construction of a narrative implies a
particular perspective and a particular perception? The Chairman
referred to Christopher Hill earlier, and I taught a course for
the Open University on the 17th century in the 1980s and it was
very interesting because, of course, what was laid down by Christopher
Hill in the course, which focused on the vital importance of the
Levellers and the Diggers and the Muggletonians, and all the rest
of it, was totally at odds with what various 17th century revisionist
historians were saying then. All I could say to my slightly bewildered
class, when they said, "What's this truth?" was "There
are no tablets from Sinai." That is both the case for dates,
to some extent, as it is for interpretation. Can we ever construct,
can we work towards something perhaps, an absolute list of key
dates and key events that will satisfy everybody and will do the
socially-inclusive thing that you say you want it to do?
Professor Conway: Can I ask at
what level you were teaching?
Q432 Mr Marsden: I was teaching what
was called the second level course for the Open University, which
had people from the ages of 25-75-plus.
Professor Conway: Thank you. You
were teaching at higher education level. I was talking about primary
and secondary level, where I think the need to bring to bear the
kind of diversity of scholarship one gets at university level
is not quite the same.
Q433 Mr Marsden: Therefore, are you
saying that basically it is alright to impose a set list of dates
on people at primary school in the hope of what they may get out
of it and get a broader perspective later on?
Professor Conway: I am certainly
not saying that. I think it would be deadly were anyone to think
that the purpose of teaching history to young children were simply
to inculcate a set of dates in their minds; that is not what I
have in mind, whatsoever. If you read any children's narrative
history, you will see it is stories, you know, like stories in
literature, like Enid Blyton.
Q434 Mr Marsden: Can I just stop
you there. I have to say that I too, sadly, am of the age, as
Helen said, I was brought up on some of those stories as well.
I have had my Ladybird books on Alfred and Edward the Black Prince,
and all the rest of it. They were engaging, yes, and probably
they stimulated my early love of history, but they certainly did
not give me the full story?
Professor Conway: Exactly; and
that is what you have universities to do.
Q435 Paul Holmes: Surely this is
at the heart of the whole question about citizenship education,
whether it is done through RE or history or citizenship lessons,
surely this is the whole point. Are we teaching to children up
to the age of 18, and I taught 11-18, a set of received truths
that we do not debate, we do not say to those kids, "Well,
there are different points of view"? The whole point of the
history teaching I had, in the late sixties and early seventies,
and the whole point of the teaching I did, up until 2001, was
always to be saying there are different points of view about this.
Are you seriously suggesting we should not do that to children?
Professor Conway: I do not know
what makes you think I am suggesting that. What I said was, by
implication, the older children become, the more they learn, the
more important it becomes to stress the degree of contestation
that there can be, but the younger the children you are dealing
with the more important it is not to muddy the waters and not
to be afraid about teaching anything for fear that you will be
teaching something that cannot be revised later on. The point
about Hill was, as a revisionist, there was a kind of Whig interpretation
to which he was providing a corrective. When I studied history,
in my day, in school, in an earlier decade than you, even at O
level, even in the earliest years of secondary education, constantly
we were being informed and encouraged to read about diverse points
of view. I think it is incredible to suggest that anyone should
have a secondary education in which history can be taught without
that. I am talking about very young children and I am also talking
about, notwithstanding that, the importance of teaching, if you
like, the mainstream traditions. How come someone like Herbert
Butterfield could write in 1945 "The Whig interpretation
is not just confined to the Whigs, it is the Englishman's interpretation
of history"? Were you suggesting to me that he was naive,
as an historian?
Paul Holmes: The English man's interpretation.
Chairman: We got that point loud and
clear.
Q436 Mr Marsden: A question to Dr
Kiwan. Dr Kiwan, you vouchsafed earlier that you were going to
be involved in the review that Bill Rammell has announced. Do
you have at this moment in time, or do you think other people
have at this moment in time, a view as to what the chronology
is of the significant modern and social and cultural British history,
to which Bill Rammell referred in his speech, and do we have to
have one as part of that review process? In other words, do we
start off by saying it has got to be the last 50 years, the last
100 years, the last 150 years, or what?
Dr Kiwan: I cannot say too much
at this point because we have not really started the review process,
we have not even started consultations yet. The terms of reference
are to consider first the diversity across the whole curriculum,
then the second component is whether a fourth pillar should be
added, and that fourth pillar, modern, social and cultural history,
so it is left framed whether that fourth pillar should be added.
That is the question to ask first, before getting into what the
specifics of it might be.
Q437 Mr Marsden: The point I am making
is, and I am not asking you to prejudge the inquiry, the interpretation
of "modern" has deliberately been left, or has been
left vague, because this is an issue which already historians
and others are getting rather worked up about?
Dr Kiwan: I am afraid, really
I cannot answer that.
Chairman: I am drawing stumps at this
point. Can I say that this has been a most interesting and enlivening
session; we have been privileged to have the three of you here,
and some of the views that you have expressed have really stimulated
our thoughts and we are grateful for the time that the three of
you have given. I hope you will remain in touch with us. I know
you said that you are working mainly in the United States, Professor,
but we hope to see you as a regular visitor, but do stay in touch
with us by e-mail, or whatever, as, Professor Conway, I hope you
will remain in contact. If you think that we have missed a point,
any of you, when you go away from this meeting, please be in communication;
we really value whatever different views you take. The process
we have here is to listen to a lot of views and then try to add
value by writing a thoughtful report. Dr Kiwan, we will be in
touch anyway, because if your timetable is such I hope the thoughts,
the distilled wisdom of this Committee will influence what you
are doing with Bill Rammell. Thank you very much for your attendance.
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