The British Secretary of State for Education, Mr Gove, wants to set the content for the History syllabus in English schools. He denies that he wants to dictate how teachers teach History, but at the same time he has made clear that not enough facts are being taught.
An alleged wish-list of Mr Gove's preferred topics may be found here http://waugh.standard.co.uk/2009/10/michael-goves-history-list.html and may be compared to Simon Jenkins' preferred list in The Guardian yesterday. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jan/20/michael-gove-stalin-history-politicians
Mr Gove has created a feeling that 'something has to be done' about History teaching. This has implications for all children at school. But the group probably most affected would probably be the 11-14 year-olds who 'drop' History at 14 in order to do a different subject. Mr Gove has made clear that a primary function of History is to encourage patriotism.
At the moment the content of the History taught to 11-14 year olds varies from school to school, but has to come within prescribed limits, and is generally focussed on British (particularly English) History. The fact that different schools appear to give students a different experience of History appears to be one of the things worrying the minister.
So Mr Gove wants there to be 'a big story' - to tie the content of the History syllabus together - and this he believes should be in the form of a narrative. He has recruited Niall Ferguson and Simon Schama - presumably to provide the story which History teachers will then be obliged to teach.
Apart from refusing to take the poisoned chalice - what advice could members of the Forum give to these gentlemen to make an interesting syllabus of, say, 300 teaching hours, over 3 years? Contributions from other countries would be particularly welcome as the arguments 'in-house' seem to be going in circles.