History in Canadian High Schools: The Revival of an Endangered Subject, 1960-2010

Paul W. Bennett Adjunct Professor of Education, Saint Mary’s University

Founding Director, Schoolhouse Institute, Halifax, NS Friday November 21, 2014

NCSS 2014, Boston, MA

The Core Textbook:When History was King of the Ontario Social Sciences

John Ricker and John T. SaywellThe Modern Era , The Clarke Irwin Series

Ramsay Cook and Ken McNaughtCanada and the United States: A Modern Study

Progressive Education and the Rise of Social Studies:Origins in Alberta

Donalda Dickie Alberta Progressive Educator

New Social Studies TextbookThe Great Adventure

Architects of the Progressive Assault on Subject Knowledge(1965-68),

Emmett Hall and Lloyd Dennis (Government of Ontario)

The Threat tothe DisciplineOne of the most strident critics of the Hall-Dennis Report was Dr. James Daly, a little known McMaster University English history professor, who responded with a stinging critique in the form of a political pamphlet-sized book entitled Education or Molasses: A Critical Look at the Hall-Dennis Report (1969).

“ The crest of the liberal education reform wave in Ontario was marked by the establishment of OISE... and by the publication of the splashily- produced Hall-Dennis report,”

Russell Hunt wrote in The Mysterious East (1971). That very report provided a clear sign that “liberal reform of public education was to prove a failure.”

The Legacy of Dr. James Daly and his Little Pocketbook

By January 1983, the bloom was off the Hall-Dennis rose and The Globe and Mail published a news feature by Judy Steed entitled “Crisis in the Schools.”

West Toronto history teacher John Sheppard told Steed that teachers held the Hall-Dennis Report responsible for “destroying education in Ontario.”

With Daly in the final stages of his life, he must have smiled at the story proclaiming the Hall-Dennis era finally over.

“Now, it’s the eighties,” Steed stated, “and it’s back to the basics with more structure.

The Impact of Progressive Education

“The influence of progressive education, most clearly represented in the Hall-Dennis Report of 1968, contributed to a reduction in the number of required courses in the Ontario curriculum. Fewer and fewer students signed up for optional history classes. By the mid-1980s, students were required to take history only in Grade 7 (Canadian history up to 1800), Grade 8 (Canada, 1800-1900), and Grade 10 (20th-century Canada). Students who opted for more history in senior high could choose from these courses: ancient and medieval; modern Western civilization; modern world (20th Century); American; and Canada in a North American Perspective. At the same time, the impact of progressive educational theories had begun to alter the way history was taught. There was now less emphasis on the absorption of factual content, and more on the acquisition of skills in critical thinking, oral and written communication, and inquiry research.”

Shaping the Character of Ontario: The Role of History Textbooks

Larry Glassford, “Citizenship Literacy and National Self-identity: The Historical Impact of Curriculum and Textbooks in Shaping the Character of Ontario.” Active History (March, 2010)

Origins of Canadian Studies: The Civic Education Project

The rise of “social history” in the universities was accompanied by a high school mutation, known as the “new social studies.” The emerging trend gained ground throughout the 1970s, aided and abetted by a new Canada Studies Foundation. Although founded in response to A.B. Hodgetts’s 1968 study, What Culture? What Heritage?, it evolved into a ‘trojan horse’ for multidisciplinary social science and further eroded the “traditional” Canadian history curriculum.

Much of the impetus for the “new social studies” came from Edwin Fenton’s influential books, Teaching the New Social Studies in Secondary Schools : An Inductive Approach (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1966) and The New Social Studies (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1967).

The Canadian Studies MovementThe Canada Studies Foundation, 1970-78

In concluding their work with the Canada Studies Foundation, A.B. Hodgetts and Paul Gallagher were intent on carrying the process one step further. Their summary report, Teaching Canada for the ‘80s, called for a common multidisciplinary framework for studies of Canada spanning the full range of school years. Their proposed Canada Studies curriculum was “pan-Canadian “ in its perspectives and culminated in senior high school students studying public issues in Canada and the world.

The Social Studies “Skills Mania”In his 1995 book on the Ontario high school history curriculum, veteran teacher Bob Davis claimed that the new social studies had actually “buried the political memory of youth.” He launched the first salvo against the “Skills Mania” and its impact.

Ringing the Alarm Bell:Michael Bliss, “The Sundering of Canadian History” (1991)

One of the liveliest public debates of the 1990s centred on the ‘hot button’ issue of Canadian history, and particularly the teaching of Canadian history in schools and universities.

The first alarm was sounded in 1991 by University of Toronto historian Michael Bliss who bemoaned the “sundering of Canadian history” and charged that historians had become so narrow and specialized in their focus that they had effectively abdicated their responsibility for transmitting the grand narrative of our history.

“An Endangered Species”:The Canadian History Textbook

“Textbooks changed too, becoming more visual and colourful. Page after page of wordy narrative, broken up by the odd black-and-white photo, began to give way to shorter snippets, interspersed with boxed anecdotal items, colourful graphs and analytical charts. Maps and political cartoons, well ensconced in the mid-century textbooks, retained their place. Authors were now expected to provide ideas for classroom learning activities that would engage the students in discussion, debate and role-play.”

(Larry Glassford, March 2010)

An impassioned cri de coeur

Responding to the rumblings, historian Jack Granatstein produced his controversial best seller, Who Killed Canadian History? (1998) broadcasting the message and identifying the alleged perpetrators, most notably the “new” social historians, ministries of education, faculties of education, and curriculum writers.

The Canadian History Tests

Jack Granatstein’s polemic caused a real stir and prompted a major public outcry for more and better taught Canadian history in our schools. The Dominion Institute, founded by Rudyard Griffiths and a small group of recent university graduates in 1997, began producing national surveys raising serious questions about the state of public knowledge about past politics, wars, and civics.

Illustration:Front Page Story and Editorial,The Globe and Mail, 30 June 2001.

Revival of Canadian HistoryThe Historica Summer Teachers’ Institute: Bringing History Alive! (2001-2003)

The Historical Thinking Competencies

Source: Peter Seixas and Penney Clark, eds., Teaching About Historical Thinking (2006)

1. Historical Significance• Historians can not include all that has happened in the past.• How do we decide whether an historical event is significant event for everybody or just some

people?

2. Evidence• How do we know what happened? Which version of events should we believe?• Issues of evidence invite students to explore the role of sources in constructing accounts of the

past.

3. Continuity and Change• Two historical stereotypes exist: either nothing really changes over time or events that occurred

long ago must be completely unlike modern times.• Students need to discern what has changed or stayed the same over periods of time, and to

realize the subtleties of change and continuity are difficult to discern.

The Historical Thinking Competencies

4. Cause and Consequences• These dimensions focus on the contributing influences in history.• Understanding these influences makes it possible for students to see the factors that shape

their world.

5. Historical Perspective• Historical perspective requires understanding the social, cultural, intellectual, and emotional

contexts that shaped people’s lives and actions.• Without this perspective, students will remain trapped in a simplistic view of the past, seeing

events through present experiences and values.

6. Moral Judgment• Students must learn to consider the complexities and dangers associated with passing

judgment on historical events and people.

Teaching Historical Thinking

TEACHING ABOUT HISTORICAL THINKING Mike Denos/Roland Case

Introduces six interrelated concepts central to students’ ability to think about history.: historical significance,

evidence, continuity and change, cause and consequence, historical perspective, and moral judgment.

www.tc2.ca

The Virtual HistorianTM is a web-based educational program for teaching Canadian history in both official languages. Designed with the most advanced technology in computer programming and reality-like imaging, the Virtual HistorianTM places students in the virtual environment of authentic historical investigations of key events and issues in Canadian history, such as the Halifax Explosion (1917), the Person's Case (1929), The Dieppe Raid (1942), and the October Crisis (1970). Students are provided with various interactive objects from the library, which include declassified documents, newspaper articles, personal letters, photographs, artifacts, and videos.

www.vitual historian.ca

The Virtual Historian

History Education ResearchThe History Education Network

THEN/HiER is the first pan-Canadian organization devoted to promoting—and improving—history teaching and learning by bringing together the multiple and varied constituencies involved in history education:

academic historians; public historians in museums, archives and historic sites; practicing teachers; researchers based in faculties of education; and curriculum policy makers. Our goal is to create more

research-informed practice (from kindergarten to graduate school) and more practice-informed research through dialogue among these various communities.

THEN/HiER shares offices with the Centre for the Study of Historical Consciousness in the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. We collaborate in CSHC projects such as Benchmarks of Historical Thinking. Please visit CSHC’s website at http://www.cshc.ubc.ca/.

THEN/HiER Goals

1. Create a more robust history education research culture in Canada.2. Improve history education policy across Canada.

3. Improve history education practice 4. Develop research-informed assessment of history learning

5. Provide advocacy for history education.

•

Benchmarks of Historical Thinking

Historical Thinking ConceptsEstablish Historical SignificanceUse Primary Source Evidence

Identify Continuity and ChangeAnalyze Cause and Consequence

Take Historical PerspectivesUnderstand Ethical Dimensions of History

History Curriculum AnalysisThe Historica-Dominion Institute

Nova Scotia Canadian History Curriculum

Nova Scotia Curriculum Assessment

Re-Opening the Debate

The Canadian version of the “History Wars” of the 1990s is over and “limited identities” is the new orthodoxy in universities.

Trent University’s Christopher Dummitt has urged fellow Canadian historians to move “Beyond Inclusiveness” and to appeal to “the town as well as the gown.” Secondary school teachers see the possibility of a long overdue rapprochement

History and Multiple Identities:Is Canadian History More than the Sum of its Parts?

Allan Beaton likens the Premiers to the seven blindmen of the Hindu fable in explaining Biculturalism (1965)

Whither History in the Schools?:Rediscovering the “Big Story” of Canada