Leftie history teachers are helping to foster minority resentment, warns Cambridge don
LIBERAL teachers who present history as the struggle of minority groups may be fostering resentment among pupils, a Cambridge don has warned.
Robert Tombs, Professor of French History at St John’s College, said while such views were ‘fashionable’ they might be doing more harm than good.
He said that focusing on groups’ ‘separateness and victimhood’ within a country clashed with a sense of ‘shared national narrative and a common national identity’.
And he warned that by presenting these stories in a ‘one-sided’ way, teachers could ‘create present-day divisions and resentments’ among pupils which did not exist before.
Professor Tombs said projects such as ‘Black History Week’ and holocaust memorial days were ‘generally praiseworthy’ in promoting tolerance and inclusiveness.
But he warned against making the entirety of history a ‘powerful narrative’ of conflict between groups which co-exist in countries today.
He said many have argued that traditional stories of Britain’s journey through history should be ‘challenged’ because they are ‘triumphalist’, and cited the historian Simon Schama. Mr Schama has said ‘argument’, ‘dissent’ and ‘the celebration of division’ should be at the heart of national history.
Professor Tombs said: ‘However fashionable such a view, it would evidently be as one-sided to present history only in terms of division as it would to present it only in terms of harmony.
‘It would surely be perverse to emphasise, foster and even create present-day divisions and resentments through one-sided presentations, superficial stereotypes and distorted myths of the past.’
He rejected the argument of some Left-wing commentators that teaching a nation’s history might promote ‘xenophobia’, saying this was a ‘remote danger’ given the cultural and political tendencies of teachers in western countries.
His comments were contained in an essay for a report by the thinktank Politeia called The State, National Identity and Schools.