article analysis the purposes of teaching canadian history

Article Analysis:“The Purposes of Teaching

Canadian History”Peter Seixas, Canada Research Chair in Education,

University of British Columbia

Canadian Social Studies, Volume 36, Number 2, Winter 2002

1Tuesday, September 1, 2009

IntroductionQuote

pg 1 - “Defining the purposes or goals or objectives of any enterprise is a crucial task. without knowing our ends, choosing our means, becomes impossible... What are our purposes - what should our purposes be - in teaching Canadian history?”

Meaning

-we have to make the aims, intentions, and expectations of our program clear - it’s essential, because if we don’t know what we want to achieve, we won’t know how to get it

-what is the point - or should be the point - of teaching Canadian History?


IntroductionQuote

pg 1 - “Neither historians nor school history teachers should think of their job as making more of (myths). Distinguishing between myth and history can help to clarify what the job should be.”

Meaning

-job of the school shouldn’t be to keep promoting stories from our past which cannot be objected to, or protested against

-need to be able to tell the difference between myth & history, really spell out the task


IntroductionQuote

pg 1 - “Myths evoke strong feelings. They do...reinforce collective identities, social values, and moral orientations... The whole point of myths is to pass them on unchanged to the next generation. Heritage is similar. It involves myth-like narratives in which people can believe deeply and faithfully.”

Meaning

-we tend to protect our myths, because they tell us who we are - as a community, as a nation - and what we think is important

-entire purpose of myths: pass them on without change to our children

-heritage (tradition, culture) requires myth-like records or stories that everyone can buy into


IntroductionQuote

pg 1-2 - “In our own 21st century predicament, with different pasts, different cultures butting up against one another, traditional practices are no longer adequate for supplying meaning, largely for this reason: they provide no way of reconciling different stories, different accounts in a multicultural society.”

Meaning

-current modern problem: in a nation with so many different cultures, all with their own myths & histories, the established / usual methods of teaching history aren’t good enough to help us understand what something means or why it is important - the old, standard history lessons don’t allow us to find a balance between the different points of view and histories


IntroductionQuote

pg 2 - “This is the promise of critical historical discourse: that it provides a rational way, on the basis of evidence and argument, to discuss the differing accounts that jostle with, or contradict each other.”

Meaning

-what we’ll certainly get from analyzing, while discussing / studying / debating history, is a logical method using proof and reasoning to look at the various stories & records that collide with or go against each other


Intensified historical consciousness...

Quote

pg 2 - “All around us, there are signs of intense and intensifying interest in the past... Interpretations of the past in museums, movies and monuments - as well as in schools - have recently aroused bitter controversies...”

Meaning

-there are lots of signals and clues that more and more people want to know about the past

-the ways that people have tried to understand the past, and think about it - how they have presented their understanding to the world - have caused arguments


Why now?

Quote

pg 2-3 - “1. ...interest in the past - in the form of history - emerges, paradoxically at exactly the moment when tradition falls apart... A society that lives comfortably and unconsciously with a traditional past does not expend the effort on constructing... ‘heritage’...”

Meaning

-people seem to pay more attention to history when customs, practices, and social values that everyone has been used to are changing dramatically - it doesn’t seem to make sense

-people who are happy with a time-honoured past don’t worry about putting together a cultural history


Why now?

Quote

pg 3 - “2. ...the migration and mixing of peoples and cultures... [P]eople come with different histories, and thus, in some ways, different visions of the present and the future.”

Meaning

-increasingly less separation between groups of people from different nations and communities - this has a bearing on whether people are happy or comfortable with the past, when different stories and perspectives rub up against each other

-having different histories can mean having a different way of seeing the present, different expectations for the future


Why now?

Quote

pg 3 - “3. ...in many areas of the world, old regimes have toppled... Writing history always involves hindsight. Hindsight from 1999 in Khabarovsk, was very different from hindsight in 1989.”

Meaning

-changes in leadership or government cause us to see history differently, because someone else is in charge with a different idea of what is important or ‘real truth’ in the past

-we always see events more clearly after they happen


Why now?

Quote

pg 3 - “4. ...the empowerment of previously disempowered groups. Thus, in those world regions, as well as throughout North America...the new position of women and ethnic minorities, even in regimes that have not undergone radical political changes, has forced a re-examination of the stories of the past.”

Meaning

-groups who used to be heavily controlled and treated disrespectfully are more free to be themselves and demand respect (e.g. women, ethnic groups)

-people in these groups are using their new power to look into the past from their perspectives - rather than just stopping at the official, time-honoured, or standard version


Why now?

Quote

pg 3 - “5. ...globalization and its technologies have brought different peoples of the world into communication with each other in new ways, even when they are not physically closer to each other.”

Meaning

-businesses, organizations, and corporations that are expanding world-wide in part because of the Internet and telecommunications have created new opportunities for contact, socializing, conversation, and relationships, even when there are great distances between peoples


Why now?

Quote

pg 3 - “These changes intensify historical consciousness. People now puzzle over and stumble over questions that used to have easy answers supplied by myth:”

Meaning

-changes making us more aware of our history: 1) less interest in tradition2) mixing of peoples & cultures in communities3) changing government authorities4) empowerment of previously powerless groups5) globalization & technology bringing peoples into contact

-solutions to historical questions aren’t as easy to find


Questions of Historical Consciousness

Quote

pg 3 - “ ‘historical consciousness’...revolves around some very basic, but often implicit and unarticulated questions, which all memory practices - that is, both history and myth - attempt to answer.”

Meaning

-awareness of history centers on basic questions that are implied - suggested, hinted at, taken for granted - and difficult to express

-history and myth are both ways that we try to answer these questions



Quote

pg 3 - “1. How did things get to be as we see them today? Which aspects are signs of continuity over time, and which, signs of change?... These questions, and the accounts they demand, are not morally neutral or disinterested. They ask for accounts of the past to explain the present, and their answers have implications for the future.”

Meaning

-what features or characteristics of society suggest that certain things continue without interruption, and others are changing?

-these questions, & the explanations we’re looking for, have to do with right & wrong (ethics) - how we answer these questions will influence or have an effect on the future



Quote

pg 3 - “ 2. What group or groups am I a part of, and what are its origins? In fact, my identity has various aspects which take me to various different points of origin.”

Meaning

-who do I belong to?

-where did this / these group(s) come from? Why?

-no-one can be judged as a single stereotype - each person has multiple characteristics or features that come from many different places and communities



Quote

pg 4 - “3. How should we judge each other’s past actions, and therefore, what debts does my group owe to others and/or others to mine?”

Meaning

-how do we decide or figure out whether each other did the right thing in the past?

-how do we determine our obligations to others, to make up for wrongs that were done?

-how do we determine what others need to do for us, to make up for mistakes?



Quote

pg 4 - “4. Are things basically getting better or are they getting worse? This is the question of progress and decline. Should we have believed...that ‘the worse is yet to come?’”

Meaning

-is this as good as it will get for us - our society, our country, for humanity in general?

-what’s going to happen next?



Quote

pg 4 - “5. What stories about the past should I believe? On what grounds?...What counts as evidence?”

Meaning

-how do I know what’s real, and what’s been made-up after the real thing happened?

-how can I find out what’s real - how can I learn the truth?



Quote

pg 4 - “6. What stories shall we tell? What - about the past - is significant enough to pass on to others, and particularly to the next generation?”

Meaning

-what parts of our history are more important than others?

-what should our young people (YOU) be learning, that you’ll pass on to your own children?


From myth and heritage to history

Quote

pg 4 - “Though asking these questions is natural in the Canada of 2001, formulating good answers to them is anything but. To answer them well, people have to move beyond the simplicity and faith of myth...to the complexity of history...to understand the distance between the present and the past, and the difficulty of representing the past in the present.”

Meaning

-we only recently started asking these questions - once, nobody argued with historians at all

-putting together good answers to these questions is difficult... we have to remember that history isn’t simple or perfect, and that we will never completely ‘get’ what it was like in the past - its reality is too far from where we are today



Quote

pg 4 - “Good answers have to...

1. Comprehend the interpretive choices and constraints involved in using traces from the past to construct historical accounts.

2. Understand the pastness of the past...

3. Acknowledge complexity and uncertainty; deal with multiple causes, conflicting belief systems, and historical actors’ differing perspectives

Meaning

-understand that there can be different ways to see and ‘read’ evidence from the past; there are also limits to what we can do with historical evidence

-remember that it was a very different world in the past - we can’t just overlay the way we live and think now on people back then, like in Hollywood movies

-accept the twists, turns, and unreliability of history; cope with many causes, opposing ideals, and multiple points of view in the past



Quote

pg 4 - “These criteria allow a distinction here between intensifying historical consciousness and... advancing it. Films, historical sites, historical fiction are excellent at intensifying historical consciousness...Schools are in the best position to advance it.”

Meaning

-these standards (for answering historical questions) permit us to show the difference between creating interest and involvement in the awareness of history & its importance, and moving it forward

-Hollywood, tourist attractions, and romance novels promote history

-schools are best to help it



Quote

pg 4 - “example of what it might mean to advance historical consciousness. It has always been a challenge to construct a mythology of Canadian origins around the Fathers of Confederation. The late nineteenth century was simply not a heroic moment for politicians in Canada or elsewhere.” (see example provided)

Meaning

-people have tried to put together a common story or tradition about the beginning of our country using the Fathers of Confederation, but the trouble is that these men were not perfect or heroes - no-one was, at that time


re: John A. Macdonald’s speech (1885)

• In what ways has there been change between 1885 and now?

• Does the change represent progress in racial attitudes?

• How should we judge Macdonald?

★condemning Macdonald as a racist villain is too simple... instead, we should look at the way we use language differently now, and how it affects our reading of this speech... we should look at the reasons why he was making this speech, the political games he was playing, and the social values of the period


re: John A. Macdonald’s speech (1885)

★a well-thought analysis of this speech would also question how the attitudes revealed in his words affect(ed) the way we see ourselves, as a nation

-it is difficult for us to see his reality - the world he was living in, speaking to, and reflecting - because our world is so different

“Students should also come to understand that one document - or one excerpt from one document - can contribute to historical understanding, but is insufficient for reaching a robust historical judgement.”

-you cannot make a complete or significant analysis of an historic event by looking at just one account or one piece of evidence


So what should schools teach?

• teaching “one coherent story” (heritage & myth) as “‘what happened in the past’” (pg 5) will not help you when you leave school

• creating new, more progressive myths won’t work either; “[s]tudents are exposed to too many competing claims and narratives outside of school - in their families, films, community commemorations, and popular music. These - like the successful Heritage Minutes - are excellent vehicles for intensifying historical consciousness, but not for advancing it.” (pg 5)


Schools have an important advantage...

• taking history courses over ten years or so could enable students to become increasingly good at, and committed to, the problem of looking critically at the past

★ you can learn to look at history thoughtfully and in complex ways

★discussions about school history could start with questions like, “which story should we tell?” and “how can we make it interesting?” (pg 6)


Therefore...• “...the goal of history in schools should be both

a) a deep understanding of the past [the variety, the difference, the strangeness of life in the past, the interplay of continuity and change, the multiple causes and consequences of events and trends, the role of individuals, collectivities and states, etc.] and

b) a deep understanding of history [the processes of knowledge-making, the construction of a historical narrative or argument, the uses of evidence, and the nature of conflicting historical accounts]

This second level of understanding acts as the best insurance against dogmatic transmission of a single version of the past, a practice which violates the core tenets of the discipline.” (pg 6)


conclusion• once you realize that knowledge, truth, and morality exist

in relation to culture, society, or historical context, and are not absolute - that history isn’t ‘just the facts’ - will you lose interest?

• you’ve already met with conflicting historical interpretations, whether you’re aware of it or not - you need to be able to judge and consider the myths you encounter all around you, to explore the layers and complexities, and the school should help you do it better


article analysis the purposes of teaching canadian history

Education

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past past

different stories

writing history history

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myth history

different accounts

different expectations