‘Don’t delete it – teach it’
Re: A crisis in history education, Matt Gurney, Nov. 13
Cancel culture is pervasive to the extent of the knee-jerk dismissal of important people both historical and present day.
Sir John A. Macdonald is a subject of vilification because of things done under his leadership that caused harm and trauma. Consideration is not given to his positive contributions to our nation as its first prime minister. Matt Gurney stated it well: “This isn’t a crisis or a scandal, it’s … history.”
Don’t delete it; teach it, good and bad. That’s the best way to learn what not to do in the future.
Frances Hellen, Toronto
As the director of a pan- Canadian partnership focused on history education, I agree, albeit to a limited degree, with Matt Gurney’s claim that “History is an afterthought in this country, and always has been.” That is certainly the case when it comes to the priority given to history and social studies curricula across the country, where, but for a few exceptions, history and social studies are often at the end of the line when it comes time to revise and update curricula. In Alberta, while the K-12 Social Studies curriculum has become a political football, the elective history programs of study languish in a basement of a government building somewhere, collecting dust since they were last revised in 1985.
I have good news for Mr. Gurney. History education is front and centre in a new research partnership called Thinking Historically for Canada’s Future. I, along with 27 colleagues and 50 partner organizations including social studies and history teacher organizations, museums, and other history, heritage, and educational organizations across the country, am conducting a long-overdue, Canada- wide investigation of the state of K-12 history education, including an examination of curriculum and resources, teaching and learning practices in diverse contexts, and how in- and pre- service teachers are prepared to teach history. This seven- year study is the first of its kind since A. B. Hodgetts’ landmark National History Project more than 50 years ago. In his report, Hodgetts offered a scathing critique of the state of history education in Canada and lamented the “bland consensus version of history,” the emphasis on memorization rather than deep learning, and the failure to help students establish connections between the past and present.
If Canada is to protect, maintain and grow its status as a healthy democracy it requires a well- educated, engaged citizenry with the capacity to engage in critical study of the past. Increasingly, history education researchers are focusing their work on fostering historical thinking with the aim of having students actively construct and understand the past, rather than passively receive prepackaged versions of it. Our study is investigating the impact of these and other curricular changes on students’ thinking about history. I invite Mr. Gurney and readers to follow our progress at thinking-historically.ca.