I’m sat at a government review meeting and must admit I’m sneakily tapping away writing this blog. This isn’t because I’m disengaged or disaffected. Rather it’s because I’m very engaged and very affected. You see, the review meeting is about the new teaching standards for behaviour, and we are being asked what we think about them and how they will impact upon teachers and, particularly, new teachers.

The reason these behaviour standards have piqued my interest is because I’m wondering if teaching history is an amazing vehicle for helping to “manage” behaviour (as the standard says). In my mind, perhaps in yours too, history is all about people’s behaviour. It’s about understanding why people behaved like they did (whether a king or a mere minion), and how their lives and behaviours were affected by events and issues of their day. And history is also about understanding people’s behaviours in the present - why we view the past in a particular way, why we regard particular past events as significant. So what possible better preparation for “managing behaviour” is there? If you love history, you love people’s actions, their thoughts, their behaviours! So by our very discipline aren’t history teachers incredibly well placed to understand student’s behaviour, because we have an incredibly broad and deep historical context to draw on?

When a child tells us “I hate you and hate school” aren’t we privileged in that with our historical context we can appreciate that this is not a personal attack but rather an attack on establishment… And how dull history would be if there hadn’t been attacks on establishment! Now, of course, if we told that particular student this, he or she would be incredibly narked off and we would probably get an expletive or two, so I’m certainly not advocating this idea. But, at the heart of SHP - at the heart of good history teaching - is the principle that we should connect history to young people’s lives. If we are to live out this principle, history should be the hotbed which helps students to recognise their behaviours are in many ways very similar to those who have gone before. Not as a measuring stick, or a way to say ‘get over yourself’, but rather as a way to show our students that they are human, and it is very ok to be human! Perhaps there is some chance that history will help move them on.

I don’t claim that history is thus a cure all for student’s behaviour, or a discipline in which we don’t need to ‘do’ behaviour management. I am instead musing out loud whether teaching history and learning history makes you better able - socially, emotionally, mentally - to understand behaviour. I distinctly remember as I was going through a particularly gruesome time of teenage angst when I realised that so too had thousands of other teenagers. For example, working in a mill can’t have been easy when mixed with teenage mood swings, parent arguments and so on. I realised I didn’t have the monopoly on being a cow! My behaviour didn’t alter over night, but I did gradually mellow. My history teacher was the vehicle for this - the amazing Mr T who fascinated me with stories of children in the industrial revolution. He helped me connect myself, and my angst, to the past. Strangely, my future became possible. It didn’t seem like I’d have an interminable drag of angst.

But perhaps I’m incredibly naive. I’ve faced behaviour issues, sometimes that don’t go away with some classes, but would my theory apply to schools where you perceive there to be major behaviour difficulties? Would it apply to students with significant emotional and social needs? I’d love to hear your thoughts: are history teachers actually well placed to “manage behaviour” or is this my own experience applied too widely?

Esther

This afternoon, I took my A level history group to an archaeological dig at a local Iron Age hill fort. The students will be focussing on aspects of Roman Britain for their A2 independent enquiries so a chance to experience historical investigation at first-hand seemed too good to miss. Ham Hill is the largest Iron Age hill fort in Britain, but we know relatively little about it. Why was it built? How was it used? What happened to it after the Roman occupation? Archaeologists from Cambridge and Cardiff universities will be trying to answer these questions over the next three years (www.hamhillfort.info) .

As we toured the site, my students became increasingly curious about the lives and beliefs of the Iron Age inhabitants of Ham Hill. They were intrigued by a crouch burial found in a ditch, surprised by the decorative beauty of Iron Age pottery and puzzled by the skeleton of a dog found in the bottom of a grain pit. Over the next few weeks, I’ll need to build on this initial curiosity by developing the students’ knowledge of Roman Britain and by getting them fired up about the nature and extent of ‘Romanisation’. Hopefully, they’ll soon start arguing. Then I’ll know they’re ready to begin their independent enquiries.

As I drove home, I reflected on how so much of what we’d done at Ham Hill was based on SHP principles that were established forty years ago. Helping students to engage with the history around them, to become curious, to undertake genuine historical enquiry, to respect evidence, to understand the mindset and motivation of people in the past, to explain change, and (most important of all) to enjoy the study of history – these principles are still central to the philosophy of the Schools History Project as we approach a significant birthday (see SHP principles). In 2012, SHP will be forty years old! It’s easy to forget just how radical and distinctive the Project’s vision of school history was in 1972. By establishing a pedagogy based on the structure of the discipline, the Project provided a framework which, in my view, has served school history incredibly well over the last forty years. As specialist history teachers, we have a shared understanding of our subject that often makes history a beacon in the school curriculum. You only need to attend the SHP conference, or to read Teaching History, to be inspired by the creativity and rigorous thinking that underpins the learning in so many history classrooms. This practice is rooted in a shared understanding of the discipline that has its origins in the Schools Council History Project and the bold thinking of 1972.

Forty is a special birthday and we’re hoping for some decent presents. Here’s four suggestions for Messrs Gove and Gibb:

• A revised national curriculum that preserves all that’s best about the current Key Stage 3 programme of study.
• A requirement that the revised national curriculum is taught in all schools.
• A reform of GCSE that will ensure genuine progression from Key Stage 3.
• Adequate funding for specialist professional development for all history teachers

Have I asked for the right presents? Maybe I should be cheeky and ask for five; is there anything I’ve forgotten?

Next Time: In my next blog, I’ll dig deeper into history fieldwork. Why is it so important and why isn’t there more of it?

See Also: The new item from Ian Dawson and Chris Culpin on History Fieldwork