How Should History Be Taught?

History should teach students how to think, not what to think.

Photo by Benigno Hoyuela on Unsplash

Despite being a Democratic Alliance (DA) member, and who should know better, Minister of Basic Education Siviwe Gwarube has pressed forward with a proposal to overhaul South Africa’s history curriculum.

The proposed changes to the curriculum have already come under fire. The aim of the proposal is to “decolonise” the curriculum. This phrase should ring alarm bells, as the phrase itself is dripping with ideological baggage, especially considering that South Africa hasn’t been a full colony since 1910, has been sovereign since 1934, and hasn’t even been a member of the Commonwealth since 1961. Not to mention that the ANC has been in charge since 1994.

If the history curriculum hasn’t been “decolonised” since all those milestones, then what constitutes a colonised curriculum? As someone who was a history student, most of what we learnt was about South Africa and topics relevant to South African citizens.

But it should be clear to anyone with any familiarity to the woke Afro-centric left that that there is no clear goalpost or idea of what decolonisation actually means. But for the newly proposed legislation, the goal is to shift the focus onto “African-centred” history, while pushing European and “global North” history to the sidelines.

In practice, this has meant scrapping a lot of global subject matter like the World Wars, and the French Revolution, while creating an incredibly content heavy curriculum focusing on previously non-traditional mediums of study like oral history.

Much of the criticism has been on the fact that you can’t divorce South African history from global history. You can’t learn any history in a vacuum. You need to understand why Jan van Rieebeck came to the Cape, and you need to understand the British Empire, the World Wars and the Cold War to understand the creation of modern South Africa.

On top of that, studying empires like Ming China was fun and opened the eyes of young students to cultures and contexts they wouldn’t previously have been exposed to.

But criticism of the curriculum has gone further than criticising the Afro-centred nature of its.

The Biko and Black Consciousness sections of the curriculum have been downgraded to a footnote. This is important South African struggle history, but it also teaches students something that ANC doesn’t like. That the struggle wasn’t led primarily by the ANC – and was rather a multifaceted broad movement.

Through that curriculum change alone, we begin to see what this is; not merely a move to elevate the South African focus in the curricula, but rather to indoctrinate students with a more ANC-centric history. The fact that a DA Minister is leading this reform is shameful and shows how the hearts and minds of even the opposition is captured by the ANC’s narrative.

The new curriculum is not what we need. It will not help students learn about the history of South Africa or the world and it will not equip them to become inquiring minds.

But what will?

How should history be taught?

There will always be bias in history and in history curriculums. It’s not a mathematical subject where 2 + 2 is always self-evident. The content that is taught informs conclusions. This means that the government in power can push its own agendas to shape the national identity and perceptions of the past.

The best defence against this is for parents, private schools and communities to counter state propaganda with their own historical education. But most people won’t do this.

But let us presume that minister Gwarube actually wants to equip students to become inquisitive historians. She wants them to be educated in matters of the past. Then, the solution isn’t to flood them with a surface level flood of content. It is to teach them the skills to teach themselves.

History is an endless subject. World War 2, likely one of the most studied periods of history, lasted only 6 years (a little longer if you include the Japanese conquests beforehand). Yet, it would take multiple lifetimes to truly absorb every aspect of study of that war alone.

It is arrogant to presume that any topic of study deserves more attention than any other. Why should we ignore the importance of the French Revolution and favour the development of Khoi languages instead? Without either, this country would be unrecognisable from what it is today.

We cannot teach everything to every student. That is why professional historians specialise.

So, rather than try to teach random topics, extensive timelines, or biased perspectives, a South African history curriculum should be focusing on equipping students with the skills needed to study and analyse history. Content should be used as a test of skill rather than as rote memorisation of topics.

At a university level, students are taught how to scour the internet, books and archives for the information needed to understand history. They are instilled with a love for reading and learning. Something many history classrooms rather damage in their students.

Rather than tightening the focus to just South Africa and Africa, the history curriculum should be focusing on allowing students to focus on any part of history they enjoy, while giving a broad timeline of the key events that shaped the creation of the modern global system and the South African nation.

Teach colonialism, slavery, the Boer War, the struggle, and 1994. But also teach how the French Revolution led to ideas that influenced South Africa, how the Russian revolution led to the Cold War that led to the sustaining of Apartheid and the shaping of the ANC’s ideology.

But, most of all, teach students how to love history. Because if you love history, you learn far more from self-study than you ever will in a classroom.

Nicholas Woode-Smith is a political analyst, historian and author. He is the Managing Editor of the Rational Standard and a senior associate of the Free Market Foundation. He writes in his personal capacity.