There is no ‘one correct version’ of history
Controversial curriculum offers an opportunity to teach important lessons, Paul D’Amboise says.
In this year of “important” anniversaries, history is a little bit more on the minds of the general public than usual.
Beyond the speeches and other commemorations that will inevitably recede from public consciousness, there is another reflection on history about to be enacted, with more permanent effects than any particular anniversary — the latest reform of the Quebec high school history curriculum.
The new curriculum has been picked over by critics and supporters rather thoroughly, so I will not retrace the specific points in detail, beyond noting that one major criticism has been that it gives short shrift to the presence and contributions of minorities. Instead, I propose we approach history curriculums developed by ministries of education from a different angle.
Unlike many other subjects, high school history programs attract a great deal of interest from people not necessarily trained in the field. History programs are supposed to develop critical reading, writing and thinking skills, supplementing those of the language arts.
However, they are also tasked with passing on “the national story,” and it is here strong debates over content develop to a degree rarely seen in other fields of study. As Michèle Dagenais and Christian Laville pointed out in a Montreal Gazette op-ed piece Oct. 14, “The history offered in this curriculum focuses very narrowly on the French-Canadian nation, its heritage and its aspirations as interpreted by the authors of the curriculum. Other Quebecers are not part of this story.”
This focus is in reaction, and opposition, to an earlier curricular reform in 2006 where “there was recognition of multiple identities, and it was deemed important to ‘take diversity into account as an essential element of identity’ and it thus proposed to ‘reconcile the diversity of identities with shared membership in a community.’ ”
Each of the approaches, 2017 and 2006, represents decisions made at the ministerial level, with consultations from professional pedagogues and historians, but also with input from political advisers and civil servants outside those fields.
As an academic discipline, history is never a settled issue, as each generation asks questions of the past relevant to its present concerns, and new evidence and new methodologies frequently emerge to enhance, and alter, our understanding of the past.
Of course, high school history is not the same as graduate work at a university, but the principle remains the same. There is no “one correct version” of history, but rather multiple perspectives, informed by our individual and collective experiences and backgrounds. To insist on “one correct version” is a disservice to students and creates an impoverished legacy for society.
So what can be done? Continued vigilance on the part of historians and pedagogues remains essential, yet the reality is there will always be some degree of political meddling in the development of high school history curriculums.
I propose we consider this reality an opportunity rather than an obstacle. There is nothing preventing history educators from applying a critique to the underlying assumptions and arguments of a high school history curriculum within the classroom. The curriculum itself would become a primary source document and serve as something to be examined by students, rather than be taken at face value.
Such an approach would act as a bulwark against changes to the curriculum all too often made at the whim of political fashions of the moment. By learning to assess history with a critical eye in high school, however incompletely, students will engage with society armed with a better set of skills for making judicious decisions as citizens.
Government-mandated history curriculums are here to stay. Instead of only lamenting their shortcomings, let us treat them for what they are — interpretations of the past open to critical review and examination.