Plain Talk
By
Mursi Saad El-Din
Nial Ferguson is a regular contributor to the Sunday Times Review. He is also a well- known writer and his latest book published, by Penguin, is Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World.
He is a great enthusiast for the teaching of history and believes that history -- despite the fact that books and TV programmes on the subject are popular -- is in crisis. Simon Schama's three volume book on British history has become a surprise best seller and his TV programme with the same title has had consistently high ratings.
Ferguson himself made a contribution with a programme on Channel 4, with the title Empire. According to an article he wrote for the Sunday Times Review, the programme was watched by nearly 2.5 million people "one in 10 of the national television audience" while the book "had already outsold anything I have written before". The disappointment was, however, that only 14 per cent of the audience was under the age of 35 while 60 per cent were 55 or older. The under 16s accounted for barely three per cent.
So are school pupils not really interested in history? The issue of history was recently discussed in a summer school organised by the Prince of Wales which addressed the teaching of English and history, a follow up on last year's summer school which discussed architecture.
According to Ferguson, the Prince of Wales is gravely worried about how history is taught in schools. He is quoted as saying that "we are witnessing the destruction of our cultural linguistic and historical habits." The prince then called for "the vital necessity of maintaining coherent chronological story telling in the teaching of history".
We have the same problem in Egypt, where history is treated as the black sheep of the family. History is not compulsory and at one time it was what was termed a "subject of failure", which meant that a pupil could move to a higher form even if he or she had failed in history.
The time allotted to the teaching of history is minimal. In the UK, according to Professor Ferguson, it is usually one hour a week.
Dr Ferguson continues by listing the consequences of the decline in teaching history. According to one recent survey nearly one third of 11 to 18 year-olds are under the impression that Oliver Cromwell fought at the battle of Hastings, and fewer than half know that Nelson's flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar was called the Viceroy.
"A terrifying 30 per cent," he goes on to say "have no idea that the first world war was fought in the 20th century."
George Santayana, in one of his Soliloquies, writes that those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat its mistakes. This seems to be the case of America in Afghanistan and Iraq. American leaders do not seem to remember the lessons of history, of the British and Soviets in Afghanistan and of the British in Iraq.
Professor Ferguson agrees with the Prince of Wales, who believes that to be ignorant of the past is to be both rootless and intellectually impoverished. I too agree and believe that history is important in creating among the young a sense of belonging and a pride in one's identity. There is a clear link between history and instilling a sense of civic responsibility.
The Prince of Wales' summer school for teachers produced a report with a number of important recommendations, some of which are applicable to Egypt. For one thing more time should be allotted to the teaching of history, while there should be more interesting text books. History, according to the report, should provide a sense of continuity, be rich in narrative and encourage an awareness of spiritual, cultural, moral and social issues.
These are lofty aims, easy to spell but difficult to translate into reality. Yet it is only through close attention to them that history, that most pervasive and essential of disciplines, could acquire its rightful place in the public mind, hopefully making for ever smoother transitions into the future. History, whether we like it or not, will always be with us. And it is up to us to acknowledge and deal with its presence.
