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Nationalism and History Teaching


John Simkin

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I agree that one major task of school and maybe especiall of the subject History is to offer students psoitive role models and as I personally do not like spending too many lessons on wars ( even though to show the horros of all wars and especially of modern wars and modern warfare) I mostly concentrate on people who fought for liberty, equality, peace and the dignity of all human beings.

I would like to come back to the idea of an internationalist history curriculum. If not national pride, glory and wars won and/or lost what then must be included.

Confronted by the ever growing topics and sources history has to deal with German curriculums have begun to outline general principles which on the one hand help teachers to decide what is really important and on the other hand help students to structure the things they have to learn and to understand how history has shaped our present.

This major principles are:

- freedom and power: how as a specific form of government justified and how was freedom understood etc.

- social structure, ineqity, classes: which attempts were made to make the world fairer and people more equal;

- individual and society: what was the individual expected to do and what was expected from the state;

- what and who was seen as a foreigner; how was he/she treated; how were other states perceived; war and peace

- attitude towards our natural environment;

and on a more philosophical tone:

- who are we, how do we see ourselves, what makes a human being.

I think this also could be criteria to find the epochs, events etc. an interantionalist curriculum should focus on.

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The way Winston Churchill is seen today is the result of nationalistic history teaching. He is seen as the man who led us to a courageous victory. That without him, the British people would have defeated and occupied by the German army. This is of course a complete distortion of the past. (...) In fact, Clement Attlee, won a landslide victory and went on to introduce important reforms that are now still popular with the British people. However, Attlee never featured in the poll of greatest Britons. The reason for this has a lot to do with the way we teach history.

John shows us an excellent example about nationalistic history. I suppose that if I my students are asked to write a famous Briton in 20th century (apart from David Beckham :lol:) , they will reply: Winston Churchill. Only the best students will have any idea about Atlee and the welfare state in Britain.

The idea of an international curriculum is really very fascinating but also very difficult.

Ulrike, probably the best would be start spottin "Winston Churchills" in our national histories and teach our students about events and personalities that don't fit any national official history.

patriotism/nationalism/chauvinism

Honestly, I cannot make out the frontiers between these concepts.

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The debate about nationalism and history teaching has presented many different points of views together with discussions on related topics such as regionalism or black people’s history though it actually started with a debate on aviation history.

During a last couple of days I was thinking about a new debate topics like this one:

“Presentations and teaching of other countries history inside a national curriculum”. Than suddenly I did change my mind and decided to bring this matter to debate at this debate forum.

When my students open the history book what kind of history knowledge of other nations do they meet?

Germany is represented when they learn about Nationalism (1860-1871) and then of course throughout First and Second World War.

Great Britain is represented when they learn about Imperialism in the late 1900 century and then by Churchill and The War.

France is represented by French Revolution, Robespierre, Napoleon and the colonial thrust into Africa and Asia with subsequent colonial wars.

And about Spain my students learn the period of conquests in America and there is also about half a page about Francisco Franco and Spanish Civil War.

How is Swedish history presented in your history schoolbooks? By which topics? Vikings? Thirty Years War? Most probably you do not even have any presentation of Swedish history in your schoolbooks. This is the fate of small European countries.

What I´m trying to debate is the presentation of other countries history in our history schoolbooks? Are these presentations fair and just? Aren’t they too much concentrating on heroes and wars instead on something (what should you propose you from France and Spain? etc.) which is much more essential for understanding our common and at the same time our disparate European history?

Edited by Dalibor Svoboda
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I have had the same experiences as Dalibor. What we need are schoolbooks which not only portrait our history and chosen snippets of the history of our neighbours but concentrate more on comparable and maybe even similar developments/histories in our countries and on the relationships between countries - be they small or large.

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I think that Dalibor has put forward a very interesting point. Which is the idea of Europeans nations that a regular student gets from his history textbook? Which is the "role" that each country plays in this historical theatre?

It is evident that each country has played a role and that, for example, Spain dissapears from a main role in history after, let's say, Westfalia Peace, and only reappears sadly in the Spanish Civil War?

Sadly enough, Sweden has no role in a Spanish history book. I wonder if it is more important to learn about the phases of Italian unification (I hope there is no Italian teacher on line :rolleyes: ) or study the construction of the Swedish welfare state. I am sure that the second would be quite more interesting for every European student nowadays. They might link the knowledge they would get in that lesson with the current problems of their societies.

Probaly, it would be very interesting to try to build up a new European curriculum.

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Some attempts to come to one European history textbook have been made. They did not succeed, it was just to big!

I think this is one of the main reasons why we do not yet have one.

Personally I think the first step must be to decide and select which periods, which aspects of the different periods etc. we want to find in the book.

For this we need criteria which help us to decide how much European or national history we want our students to learn: do we stress international relations more than domestic affairs; what about similarities and differences in our histories; etc.

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Wars and heroes make citizens proud. Especially if the wars leads to victories. People of Great Britain are surely proud of defeating Nazi Germany. It was their time of glory.

But nation’s times of glory could for other people be times of sadness. Just think about Munich agreement! Bombing of Dresden! Not bombing Auschwitz or any other extermination camps despite the knowledge of their existence.

Swedish history depicts king Gustavus II Adolfus and subsequent Swedish participation in Thirty years wars (1618-1648) in bright colours. During this war the German areas stretching from the Baltic Sea to Central Europe were completely devastated.

We do have conflicts of interest here. And these conflicts probably never permit us to abandon a nationalistic viewing of our own great historical deeds and at the same time feel resentment for unjust behaviour against our land from others countries.

Is there any way out of this problem?

Edited by Dalibor Svoboda
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I would like to pick up your example of the Swedish king and the 30 Years War.

First another fact which even stresses your point that it is very difficult and nearly impossible to come to a non-nationalist understanding of history: despite the devastation of Germany in those 30 years German Protestants still see the Swedish king as a "hero", a defender of their faith against the Catholic Emperor; there are novels about him and a Protestant institution even carries his name.

But in Germany we have no separate schoolbooks for Catholics and/ or Protestants and the Swedish king shares his place in German history with Wallenstein (from Bohemia if I am not mistaken) and Richelieu, the French cardinal joining the war on the Protestant side.

In one of the many postings the Georg-Eckert Institute is mentioned; the main aim of this institute is to collect and compare schoolbooks to find out how the European states are presented in different schoolbooks, to discover cliches and long-entrenched prejudices. The Institute invites historians from different countries in our case that would be from Sweden, Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic and France to see how the 30 Years War is seen and interpreted in the respective national histories and how the different countries want to be represented. Finally the historians try to work out recommendations how this war should be seen and taught to give a balanced and non-national view. The results of those conferences then are published as recommendations for schoolbook editors, boards of education etc.

Acually, I do not know if there are recommendations concerning the 30 Years War but I know that the first recommendation referred to Poland and Germany. As you know Poland was didvided by Austria, Prussia and Russia and eventually vanished from the map of Europe till 1918 and then again became a victim of Germany and Russia in 1939. These recommendations were published before Willy Brandt's new East policy and before the Federal Republic signed a treaty guaranteeing the Polish borders. In a way one could say that the recommendations by the German and Polish historians paved the way - at least on the level of our history books - for a better understanding of Polish history of how the Polish people feel about Germans and how closely linked the history of both nations has been.

If something like this can happen on a bilateral level why not on a multi-lateral one?

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"The results of those conferences then are published as recommendations for schoolbook editors, boards of education etc."

Are these recommendations national (for example only concerning Germany) or are they more European and accepted by other participating countries.

What is the www-address of the Georg-Eckert Institute?

Edited by Dalibor Svoboda
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“In a way one could say that the recommendations by the German and Polish historians paved the way - at least on the level of our history books - for a better understanding of Polish history of how the Polish people feel about Germans and how closely linked the history of both nations has been.

If something like this can happen on a bilateral level why not on a multi-lateral one?”

Is it a realistic approach or just a dream? A never ending conference with the goal to write and rewrite recommendations to historians and publishing houses in countries around the world?

Edited by Dalibor Svoboda
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This is the Georg Eckert Institute URL http://www.gei.de/english/index1.shtml

It is an excellent site and shows the way that German historians are trying to deal with a conflictive and bloody past in Europe.

It would be an excellent idea if somebody of the Institut could contribute to this forum and tell us about their work.

Ulrike, could you get in touch with them?

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This is the Georg Eckert Institute URL http://www.gei.de/english/index1.shtml

It is an excellent site and shows the way that German historians are trying to deal with a conflictive and bloody past in Europe.

It would be an excellent idea if somebody of the Institut could contribute to this forum and tell us about their work.

Ulrike, could you get in touch with them?

I agree. I will give them a plug in today's Teaching History Online. I will also contact them about joining the Education Forum (I always do when websites are featured in my two email newsletters).

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