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Gone but not forgotten: the decline ofhistory as an educational foundationTheodore Christou aa Faculty of Education , University of New Brunswick , PO Box4400, Fredericton, NB, Canada , E3B 5A3Published online: 17 Aug 2009.

To cite this article: Theodore Christou (2009) Gone but not forgotten: the decline ofhistory as an educational foundation, Journal of Curriculum Studies, 41:5, 569-583, DOI:10.1080/00220270902875197

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J. CURRICULUM STUDIES, 2009, VOL. 41, NO. 5, 569–583

Journal of Curriculum Studies ISSN 0022–0272 print/ISSN 1366–5839 online ©2009 Taylor & Francis http://www.informaworld.com

DOI: 10.1080/00220270902875197

Gone but not forgotten: the decline of history as an educational foundation

THEODORE CHRISTOU

Taylor and Francis LtdTCUS_A_384691.sgm10.1080/00220270902875197Journal of Curriculum Studies0022-0272 (print)/1366-5839 (online)Original Article2009Taylor & Francis0000000002009 This paper contends that history of education should be a required part of teacher prepara-tion. The discipline’s languishing status in schools of education is widespread, and shouldbe seen in relation to the general decline of humanities and social science subjects asfoundations of teacher training. This paper examines the reasons for the disappearance ofmandatory history of education courses in teacher preparation, and argues that a misrepre-sentation of the relationship between theory and practice permits a view of history as notimmediately applicable to classroom concerns, and thus expendable in a curriculum drivenlargely by utilitarian concerns of accountability. Ii recommends strategies for reintroducinghistory of education courses into teacher education programmes in such a way as to develophabits of mind that promote critical and reflective inquiry.

Keywords: educational foundations; educational history; knowledge base for teaching; Ontario education; reflective teaching; teacher education

Why history of education in teacher preparation?

In this paper I examine the languishing position of history of educationcourses in teacher preparation. The discipline’s decline as a foundationalsubject is both international and widespread (McCaul 1958, Hartley 1993,Depaepe 2003). The importance of history in educational foundations is, ofcourse, part of the larger debate about their role in teacher education.Although I concentrate on one discipline, what may be said about historymay also be said about other foundational subjects.1

I begin by considering some reasons for which educational historyshould be an important part of teacher education. Kliebard (1995), in his‘Why history of education?’ contends that teacher candidates, throughunderstanding this history, are able to engage more critically with theircontemporary educational context. They neither revel in future reform norcower in the face of it. History is not in the business of predicting change,but it does demonstrate that change is inevitable.

Theodore Christou is an assistant professor of comparative and social studies education in theFaculty of Education, University of New Brunswick, PO Box 4400, Fredericton, NB,Canada E3B 5A3; e-mail: tedchristou@hotmail.com. His research examines the reception ofprogressive education in Ontario, Canada, during the inter-war period. A published poet, heworked as an elementary school and continuing education teacher before beginning hisdoctoral programme.

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Kliebard also suggests that the most important contribution of educa-tional history is its ability to foster habits of mind that are desirable in teachers,including purposeful inquiry and critical reflection. The historian scrutinizeshis or her world by challenging and contextualizing the assumptions andquestions of the past. Examining these questions in their contexts developsthe habits of inquiry to examine current assumptions. These habits helppeople contextualize their present concerns and abandon questions that areno longer of relevance or vitality (Kliebard 1995).

Furthermore, the goal of teacher education should never be mere prepa-ratory training for the swirling, buzzing chaos of the classroom that awaitsteacher candidates. It is, undoubtedly, valuable to concentrate on thecontemporary realities of educational practice; it is quite another matter,however, to develop in prospective teachers a broader perspective, includingthe hope of progressive change and the critical attitude that enables reformof contemporary practice. In other words, thinking about how things are isno substitute for inquiring how things might and ought to be. There is littlesense in focusing instruction on topics that one will learn anyway from one’swork or life experience. In analogous terms, a 20-year-old who does notknow anything about his or her neighbourhoods cannot blame his or hergrade 1 social studies teacher (Egan 1983).

In 2001 I spent my first day as a novice teacher. In the school staffroom at lunch I was told to ‘forget everything I had learned’ in teacherpreparation; the realities of schooling were learned in the trenches and notin the distant campuses of universities. As days became years, I feltincreasingly disconnected from my profession’s history and traditions. Ifrequently reflected upon my own schooling and often talked about thepast with veteran teachers. Beyond my lived experience and the memoriesof people around me, my knowledge of schooling and of pedagogy was achasm of gaping black. I began reading educational history as a way ofreaching out to the past; I hoped that it could support me or enlightenme.

I came to believe that educators should know more than the body ofknowledge they were teaching; they should also be aware of the tradition ofinquiry into which they initiate their pupils (Berlak and Berlak 1981). It isperhaps because my engagement with the history of education has helpedme to grapple with these expressed aims that I advocate for its place in theteacher education curriculum. However, despite its importance, educationalhistory has fallen out of favour.

Why has the history of education fallen out of favour?

My comments on educational history’s decline within faculties of educationwill refer in particular to Ontario, Canada, as an illustrative case. However,it bears reiterating that this decline is much vaster in scope than the conditionsin a single discipline and in one Canadian province. The humanities and,more particularly, the social foundations of education, are in crisis—witnessthe marginalization of these subjects within teacher education curricula andin educational policy documents (Butin 2005b).

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What factors might have contributed to this demise? The first involvesan accountability shift in teacher education that represents a relativelyrecent need for disciplines to demonstrate proof they are worth space andtime in teacher education curricula (Bales 2006). This shift is part of thetrend towards growing rationalization and centralization in educationwherein funding and support are tied to outcome measures (Bredo 2005).The discipline of educational history has not proved to be immediatelyrelevant to the needs of beginning teachers; consequently, it has beenignored by accountability bureaucrats more interested in utilitarian criteria.The historical and philosophical foundations of education are regarded byboth teachers and principals as one of the least significant courseworkrequirements in relation to their present job tasks (Levine 2005).

A second factor contributing to the discipline’s marginalization may beassociated with the methods and means of instruction. For example, inrelation to the materials used for teaching educational foundations, Bartosand Souter (1982) have shown that foundations courses in the US weretaught primarily using textbooks—a source of concern for anyone who doesnot see the standardization of instruction as a primary goal. Analyses of thesetextbooks illustrated that their design, while encouraging inquiry into contro-versial questions such as the uses and distribution of social and economicpower, imparted superficial explorations of social and historical issues(Bartos and Souter 1982). Whole movements relating to minority education,for example, were summarized in a chapter and dealt with clinically andartificially (Tozer and McAninch 1986). Although critics should be carefulnot to assume that all history courses were taught by means of textbooks thatrepresented educational history poorly, the scant research in the area seemsto support this conclusion. At least, there is no literature to support thehypothesis that there has been a recent dramatic change in the teachingresources or general trends just noted. The point to be made is that on thewhole textbooks not only provide insufficient coverage of historical stories,their descriptions are sterile, lacking the drama, voice, and passion of a narra-tive space conveyed by many primary texts. The foundations of educationare viewed by both teachers and principals as one of the least significantcoursework requirements for their current job tasks (Levine 2005).

A third factor that could have contributed to the marginalized role ofhistory of education courses relates to the transfer of teacher education inOntario from normal schools and teachers’ colleges to faculties of educationin universities. In 1971, 5 years after the Ontario department of educationdecided that teacher education should be integrated into the province’suniversities, eight independent teachers’ colleges remained together witheight new university programmes (Stamp 1982: 209); by the 1980s the lastteachers’ colleges had closed and new faculties established. More to thepoint, many instructors from teachers’ colleges began teaching in the univer-sity faculties and departments of education (Myers and Saul 1974, Fullanet al. 1990). The staff of the teachers’ colleges were predominantly ‘master’teachers with practical and methodological concerns, who were often trans-ferred to the faculties of education; they had fewer academic qualificationsthan was usually acceptable in university faculties (Myers and Saul 1974).The universities’ professional programmes thus inherited a teaching faculty

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with a tradition of preparing educators according to a ‘norm’ (Worley andFry 2002). This norm was often behavioural and aimed to show teachercandidates what to do and initiate them into the instructional methods andstrategies required for classroom teaching (Spring 1994).

This is not to say that there is a causal and definite link between normalschool instruction of teacher candidates 20 or 30 years ago and contempo-rary education faculties in universities. Following internal pressures in theuniversities, many of the new faculty members upgraded their academiccredentials and earned graduate degrees (Myers and Saul 1974). The pointto be made is that teacher education in Ontario emerged from a tradition oftraining candidates for the practical realities of the classroom. This kind oftraining is, in spirit, antithetical to the critical inquiry and reflection modelsof teaching upon which disciplines like history of education depend forsupport.2

The fourth factor related to the marginalization of the history of educa-tion in teacher preparation is governmental involvement and regulation ofeducation faculties. In Ontario, the provincial government’s involvement inteacher education did not cease when it encouraged the closing of the teach-ers’ colleges and the establishment of education faculties in universities(Freiberg and Waxman 1990). Although education programmes are nestedin universities, the provincial government is a major player in decision-making and policy funding. The government negotiated the foundation ofuniversity faculties in education and now funds the programmes andmandates components of the curriculum (Fullan et al. 1990).3 The point tobe made here is not that the teaching profession is necessarily governed morestrictly or differently from other professions, but that the autonomy ofuniversities in setting and implementing curricula is severely checked.

At the time of writing (2008), the Ontario government’s mandatedcurriculum, its interest in norm-referenced, province-wide teaching, and itsunderstanding that schools can be compared and ranked, demonstrates adesire to reach a level of ‘accountability’ and ‘transparency’ that emphasizesstandardization and centralized control. One way to ensure that teachers areaccountable to normalized standards and methods is to minimize opportu-nities for them to be critical of the educational system, their employer.Knowledge of history of education is not supported by an authority systemthat favours, through its policies, standardization. This is particularlyrelevant when historical narratives can potentially bring forth criticisms andcompare an educator’s workspace and purpose with those of other educatorsin other contexts (Dewhurst and Lamb 2005).

A fifth factor related to educational history’s displacement involves thediscipline’s association with the ‘foundations’. When, in the 1920s, facultyat Teachers College, Columbia University developed ‘foundations’ coursesas a means of tying together social science and humanities topics into studiesfocused on educational issues, history of education ceased to be a subjectstudied on its own (Tozer and McAninch 1986, Tozer et al. 1990). Thefusion of history, philosophy, sociology, and psychology of educationresulted in the blurring of borders and the dissolving of each area of study.Psychology, supported by ‘scientific’ research pursuits and methods, is stillconsidered an important part of teacher training. This is especially the case

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since the US National Research Council published the ‘scientific principles’of education research (Shavelson and Towne 2002) and in situations inwhich such terms as ‘best practices’ and ‘using what works’ are invoked(Lagemann 2005).

Education schools across North America imitated the Teachers Collegemodel of developing foundations courses that would liberate humanities andsocial science subjects from their parent disciplines and unite them as a wayof examining contemporary educational debates (Tozer and McAninch1986, Urban 1990). Educational history’s status as a ‘foundational’ subjectdirectly affected its status within schools of education. In general, it becamedisconnected both from the curriculum as an independent discipline andfrom the concerns of its ‘parent’ discipline. This latter disconnect under-mines the very aims of historical inquiry by requiring that it concentrate oncontemporary issues and debates rather than on the past for its own sake.

With the emergence of postmodern critiques of power and knowledgebases, the foundations model (and with it, each of the humanities and socialscience topics involved) was interrogated and attacked. Why did foundationscourses focus heavily on the ideas and texts inherited from ‘dead Europeanwhite men’? Where were the female, international, and minority voices in thefoundations syllabus? Why is the architectural metaphor of the foundation avalid one for knowledge construction? Should practice be the place wherereflection occurs, rather than the distant and disconnected classroom?

While foundations scholars were dealing with these questions (it may beargued that they still are), methods and curriculum courses were assertingtheir place in the teacher education curriculum by studying ‘best practices’and demonstrating how the knowledge they espoused was directly applicableto the classroom. Unfortunately for the foundations, the literature examin-ing the ‘relevance’ of foundations courses in education programme curriculais inconclusive (Urban 1990). In general, education students have highregard for and use of ideas and topics studied (particularly issues of equityin current schooling and debates regarding the purposes and goals of educa-tion); they also think that strategy- and skill-instruction is more practical andrelevant (Urban 1990).

Foundations classrooms, charged with integrating various broad subjectareas into one short course, could not represent efficiently all of the bodiesof knowledge they represented. The courses were, and are, criticized fortheir over-dependence on secondary sources (Butin 2004). The anaesthe-tized voice of textbook descriptions, as well as the condensed, marginalized,and sterilized historical summaries they convey, remove historical learningfrom the real and dramatic stories and experiences that humanize the disci-plines (Kliebard 1992). In its watered-down form, history of educationlacked all flavour, taste, and colour; it is not surprising, then, that the subjectfell out of favour.

Why are integrated foundations courses insufficient?

One may argue, despite the position just stated, that the history of educationis not lost from the curriculum as long as integrated foundations courses

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have a place in teacher preparation. Is it not enough that history of educationis taught in the context of an integrated educational foundations course? Inother words, why does educational history deserve to be a stand-alonecourse in an already congested curriculum? I have already stated my positionthat cross-disciplinary, integrated foundations courses have actually contrib-uted to the demise of history in teacher education. At this point, I offer fiveshort explanations to justify my argument that the treatment of educationalhistory merged in foundations courses is insufficient in and of itself.

First, social or psychological foundations courses devised according tothe Teachers College model of the 1920s are not available in the same wayat each and every faculty of education in Ontario. These courses weredesigned to integrate humanities and social science topics around present orpressing concerns, laying the ‘foundations’ for future and reflective learning(Urban 1990). Philosophy, history, sociology, anthropology, and sociologyof education are mobilized as a unit. If these courses were mandatory in alluniversity faculties, my position that educational history (in some form)should be made mandatory would be open to more credible criticism. Alas,they are not.

Second, even in the education schools in which foundations courses thatinclude historical treatment of issues are available, they are not mandatory.At Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, for example, where a course inthe ‘Foundations’ is mandatory, there is no integrated course like thosedescribed immediately above.4

Third, there is an argument to be made that integrating a half-dozensubjects into one course renders that course unable to meet the demandsmade upon it. If foundations courses are to provide a base knowledge tocontextualize, and to promote reflection, as is often argued, the task seemsalmost impossible if one integrated course attempts to support all otherlearning. Contrast the case of the general programme for grades 1–6 teachercandidates in Ontario: mandatory courses are offered in each of the curricu-lum areas that these education students will be instructing (language,mathematics, science and technology, etc.). Architecturally, it would seemfolly to make the foundation of a structure narrower and feebler than thebuilding that it supports.

Fourth, the very notion of an integrated foundations course seems toconflate each discipline’s methods. To learn a discipline is to be immersedin its methods. In other words, to learn history one must do history and thinkhistorically. This means that history is not a series of events and individualsto commit to memory or plot on a timeline. The same argument holds truefor philosophy, sociology, psychology, anthropology, and any other coursethrown into the mix of a foundations course. ‘Doing’ history is not the sameas ‘doing’ psychology. In a single course, the task of doing justice to eachdiscipline’s methods, procedures, disciplinary debates, and content seems,from my perspective, insurmountable. Even if in such a course each subjectwere to be treated separately and sequentially, a very small and unjustamount of time would be devoted on each discipline.

Fifth, by not respecting the disciplinary autonomy of ‘foundations’courses, the aims and purposes of each subject are undermined. History, forexample, as an academic discipline, examines past events and attempts to

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explain them or understand them for their own sake and in their owncontexts. When instructors use history to justify the present or to explainwhy present problems exist, they fall into a presentist trap wherein the pastis judged using present conceptions or notions. This is not to say that historyis entirely impractical and useless; but there is a remarkable differencebetween understanding the past for its own sake and using the past in orderto focus on the present. This same critique has been directed at the socialstudies curriculum in elementary schools. There, history and geography areintegrated and geared, for the most part, towards contemporary issues forthe purpose of socializing students to the world that surrounds them,without respecting the integrity and aims of the different disciplines (Egan1983). Thus the question, ‘what additional content could a stand-alonecourse offer that cannot be made available in a course that integrates historyof education with other disciplines?’, is easily refuted: it is not simply amatter of content; it is a question of method, of intent, and of content.

I have been limiting the explication to the domain of educational history,but I expect that a psychologist or anthropologist could offer similararguments. The aims of psychology, in short, are not those of history or ofsociology. True, there is clearly significant overlap between the ‘foundations’subjects, particularly when one considers the force they bear in explainingand reflecting upon dimensions of human and social life. However, for thereasons noted above, I reiterate my position that it is important to treateducational history as a mandatory stand-alone subject.

Practice and theory misconceived

History has been relegated to the margins of teacher education because itdoes not appear to be immediately and directly practical. It does not neces-sarily treat immediate and contemporary educational issues or debates as do(or should) courses in policy studies or social justice, nor does it providetangible, hands-on skills or recipes that may be taken, as in curriculumcourses, into the classroom to be practised or followed by teacher candi-dates. History does not even provide, as psychology or school law do, a heavydose of theory to ‘ground’ practical and instructional strategies.

In practical terms, the contribution made by other subjects than historyis important. A teacher candidate who is a week away from his or her firstpracticum placement in a school wonders what a day-plan looks like, whatresources are available, and how the students will receive him or her. He orshe may also be thinking about how well he or she will get along with his orher associate teachers and the principal, and if the relationships he or shebuilds will help secure a teaching assignment at year’s end. In short, being ateacher candidate can be very stressful; often the most desired knowledge isthat which is most tangible and immediately practical. It is not everybodywho will put aside these and other pressing quandaries in order to inquiredeeply into the schooling context and engage in critical reflection. Studyinghistory of education, nevertheless, helps with these and other aims.

My intention is to consider these matters in broad strokes. From mypersonal experience over the last decade involved in some capacity with

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teacher education and with classrooms, it is this kind of broad-stroke think-ing about the preparation of teachers that is most common. Furthermore,I have seen that the those aspects of professional education not directly andimmediately applicable, as courses in assessment strategies or lessonplanning appear to be, are very often framed as being simply impractical.Again, the impractical is frequently conflated with the theoretical, which isalso, in a sense, not immediately applicable. Disciplines, then, that are notimmediately practical are more likely to fall out of favour with teacher candi-dates and faculties of education.

That is not to say that every subject that has marginalized status isdeemed theoretical. Hypothetically, there could have been a courseinstructing education students on how to use hypnosis as an instrument ofdiscipline. Thankfully, there never was such a course, but the exampledemonstrates how evolving social norms or paradigms, such as the influ-ence of psychoanalysis, can potentially affect perspectives on curriculum.What has evolved and altered in the case of the hypothetical query is someprevailing attitudes towards discipline and control, rendering a concept nolonger useful (or ethical). A more historically concrete example wouldconsider the theory of faculty psychology, which was prominent at thedawn of the 20th century, and subsequently abandoned in educationalpsychology and teacher preparation (Kliebard 1992).

The case of educational history is different. Its ability to empower criticalinquiry and reflection is undiminished. History is not less able to contextu-alize and foster understanding of the past (and our relationship to it) than itwas in 1907. What is at the root of the discipline’s diminished status is amisconceived divide between theory and practice. Ideally, the two should beseen as intertwined and complementary. Theory informs practice and isitself refined by practice. It depends on its applicability for data and oncontexts that lend it shape. It must be trustworthy to survive and to beapplied. This means that the testing and refinement of theory binds it topractice and to life. In turn, practice is richer and deeper because of thereflection and inquiry involved in theorizing.

When the relationship between theory and practice is misconceived, asI believe it to be in faculties of education in relation to the ‘foundations’subjects (history included), it pits interdependent kinds of knowledgeagainst each other. Theory is seen as aethereal, practice is seen as grounded,tangible, and concrete. ‘It is just too theoretical’, one may have heard someclassroom teacher or instructor say.

Since Herbert Spencer advocated the construction of a ‘scientific’curriculum that makes subjects of study subservient to some granderpurpose or goal, the classical division between labour and leisure entered thesphere of curriculum theory and design (Kliebard 1992). This division, asinterpreted by Spencer and applied to education, marginalizes the study of‘leisure’ subjects that do not directly relate to practical and immediatelyapplicable objectives. Leisure, according to Spencer’s taxonomy of tasks thatcomprise human life, is the last and least important (Spencer 1963).Furthermore, the influence of Edward Thorndike must be introduced intothis brief discussion about relevance and specificity in the curriculum. Hispioneering work in psychology showed that it is not easy for people to

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transfer abilities and skills developed in one context to another. Theimplication, derived at the turn of the 20th century, was that education,particularly professional training, should be situated, relevant, and specific(Kliebard 1992).

In the case of teacher preparation, humanities subjects like history andphilosophy that do not appear directly or scientifically related to the labourof training teachers to perform specific classroom tasks effectively arepushed to the periphery. Following a class where I briefly outlined thehistory of the literacy wars in Ontario, more than 70% of the reflectionsI received at the end of our session asked me to ‘cut out the theory’. The nextweek, in a discussion that I prompted to clarify what had triggered negativeresponses, it emerged that from me, their instructor in a literacy course,students wanted their learning to relate directly and specifically to the jobthey would have to do in classrooms.

With these thoughts in mind, I do not hesitate to speak of the divisiondescribed as a misconception of the relationship between theory andpractice. It embodies the same principles as the humanism–naturalismdichotomy that John Dewey devoted much time to disengaging (Kliebard1992). The history of education incorporates both practical and theoreticalconcerns when it considers both the intended or imagined aims of pasteducational thinkers and the actualized, intended curricula of the past. Itdemonstrates that educational thought and action belong to the samedomains—teaching and learning (Freeman 1994).

However, if a teacher education institution merely ‘trains’ new teachersto master and imitate ‘best practices’ in the schools, it will be merely aconservative establishment that preserves the status quo. Behind the think-ing that supports ‘best practices’ is a tradition of thinkers leading back toHerbert Spencer who advocated for constructing a curriculum based on thenatural laws of learning and reflecting those in a sequence and scope of study(Kliebard 1992). In reality, although contemporary educators may knowmore about learning than they did in the past, they have not unlockeduniversal and natural mysteries of learning, and it is presumptuous toassume that they will. As Thorndike showed, what is learned in one contextis not directly applicable in another situation.

To expand on that point, I need only recall my first years as a profes-sional teacher and remember the many occasions when I was drowning inresponsibilities. The most accessible and available life-preservers wereveteran teachers and the memory of my own learning experiences. It hasbeen argued before that the scope of an educator’s professional knowledgeis limited to the breadth of their own personal experiences (Davis 1992,Garrett 1994). Depending on either of those two sources to keep afloatwould perpetuate, not advance, the way instruction happens in schools. Thisis only acceptable if it is presumed that there is nothing to be gained fromquestioning and challenging standard practices.

Although theory and practice are not disconnected and disparate bodiesof knowledge, it is important that the value of ‘practical’ courses not beelevated above those classes that contextualize, frame, and promote reflectiveinquiry. To be truly pragmatic about learning how to teach is to understandthat the classroom as a working context is not constant and never predictable.

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It is to use practical and theoretical approaches strategically, as required forthoughtful and intelligent teaching.

Case-studies, historical mindedness, and the teaching of educational history

John Dewey’s position on the notions of ‘correlation’ and ‘recapitulation’may be used to develop a method of teaching history that can develop histor-ical mindedness and foster the habits of mind that promote critical inquiryand reflection into educational contexts. Correlation has been defined differ-ently over the last century of curriculum theory, but the Herbartians usedthe term to refer to what is presently called ‘integration’ or ‘co-ordination’(Kliebard 1992). Integration is a principle by which the rough divisionsbetween subjects are blurred. Often, project work is able to accomplish thegoals of integration, because it immerses the learner in active and authentic(real-life) tasks that require the use of different skills and knowledge. In aunit in which students are making a newspaper, for example, they are corre-lating (integrating/co-ordinating) reading, writing, editing, proof-reading,media, technology, arts, social studies, science, etc.

Dewey’s (1966) conception of correlation went deeper than antecedentexplanations, for he saw that all areas of studies, despite their abstracted anddifferentiated presentation, emerged from real human experience and history.The idea that we have to integrate various subjects takes for granted theassumption that they are fundamentally different things we, from without,bring together; in fact, Dewey argued, they are united and made authenticthrough children’s lives and experiences (Kliebard 1992). The correlation ofknowledge, then, must not just happen in subjects, but also in the problems,needs, and concerns of human life and action. Educational history, it follows,should not be presented as an impractical or disconnected body of knowledge,for it emerged and emerges still from the lives and experiences of actualteachers and learners.

This history may be studied and learners may uncover the way thatpresent conceptions of knowledge reached their present forms. Here, JohnDewey’s interpretation of the notion of ‘recapitulation’ requires some exam-ining. At the risk of oversimplifying, recapitulation was initially interpretedas the belief that the development stages of human learning repeat the‘progress’ made by humanity over the course of history. Furthermore, itwas thought that students’ learning should emulate the stages of humandevelopment. The concept of recapitulation, in early curriculum theory, wasable to answer the questions of what to teach (namely, what humans weredoing and thinking at particular times in history) and in what order to teachit (the sequence was set out by history). In the early years of schooling, forexample, a student would read and study the myths, symbols, and folkloreof early, ‘primitive’ civilizations.

John Dewey, reformulating the disreputed and debunked notion of reca-pitulation, introduced an epistemological question into the equation: howdid knowledge and human understanding of knowledge take its presentshape (Kliebard 1992)? Dewey (1938) believed that all subjects and areas of

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study were derived from the domain and scope of lived experience andhuman need. This question opens the door for educational history to recon-struct the evolution of educational knowledge; it is crucial, however, thathistory be rooted in practical and real human activity in which all learningand teaching happens.

To achieve this end, educational case-studies, drawn from primaryhistorical sources, may be used to engage student teachers in the sameproblems and dilemmas that educators have encountered throughout time,leading to present frames and settings. In other words, we as educatorsare not recapitulating history because we learn according to the same phasesthat Western civilization has pursued, we are progressively working througheducational problems, reacquainting ourselves with our professional inher-itance and, in so doing, arming ourselves to face present professional debatesor concerns.

I reiterate here the dangers of presentism because the historical casesstudied should not be dealt with anachronistically. That is to say that thereis the threat of removing a historical narrative or voice from its context andimposing on it a presentist or moralistic interpretation. When we as educa-tors impose upon the past contemporary morality and beliefs, we are proneto providing a misleading interpretation that validates and confirms ourpresent conceptions. All that has passed, in this way of thinking, has ledteleologically and triumphantly to the present. We are the measure by whichall else is judged and, consequently, we pass judgement and relate all thingsto ourselves and emphasize only what supports and uplifts our establishedworld-views (Fischer 1970).

Doing history may lead to new and dynamic conceptions of livedexperience and contexts, but it is, like all bodies of knowledge, renderedmeaningless unless we see that it is inherently wedded to actual, lived humanactivity and experience (Dewey 1916, Kliebard 1992). This is why I considercase-studies to be powerful subjects to treat historically. The materialcomposing these cases should be drawn from primary sources. Wherepossible, the voices of individuals should be heard. Pictures, memoirs, andcorrespondence may be marshalled as supporting documents. Always, thecases should be built on primary evidence. Secondary sources, if at all used,should be employed merely to contextualize the evidence.

The cases to be studied and the evidence to be examined cannot coverthe entire scope of educational history, even in a concentration on, say, thehistory of education in Canada, or just Ontario. This necessitates the selec-tion of some sources to the exclusion of others. What history shall be taught?Whose history shall be learned?

In response to these questions, I do not think the prescription of a histor-ical canon that reaches for the ‘best’ knowledge can adequately meet theneeds and interests of different bodies of students and faculty membersacross. e.g. Canada. A student who is curious about school discipline mayfind Egerton Ryerson’s5 writings and correspondence concerning corporalpunishment of more importance than another student who is curious aboutthe evolution of, say, the mathematics curriculum. I believe, then, that histo-rians of education should use phronesis in order to compose a class syllabusthat is powerful, relevant, and equitable. By phronesis I refer to practical

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wisdom. This means negotiating the content of classes to take into consid-eration the educational context. The cases to be studied and the sources tobe examined should, in part, be selected to encourage individual students’interests, curiosity, and research endeavours.

The instructors should also be conscious of the need to present topicsthat may not be represented in the interests of individual students but areimportant to a broad understanding of the body of knowledge harkened toby the class title and description. A course on, for example, history of educa-tion in Canada should critically examine citizenship topics as well as thereservation schools for First Nations’ children. Similarly, it should notconcentrate solely on urban to the exclusion of rural schools. These studiescan be entry points into critical examination and debate of issues of concernto contemporary classrooms that teacher candidates will encounter. Contex-tualized and critically discussed, such studies can provoke critical thinkingand humanize the study of educational history, dissolving the perceiveddifference between its ‘theoretical’ and ‘practical’ nature.

With the cases, teacher candidates can learn to think historically—examining primary sources, looking for biases, considering the broaderintellectual and social context, etc. Reading and discussing cases that repre-sent educational contexts from different periods of time while ‘doing’ historymay present teacher candidates with experiences that may run contrary totheir own, enabling critical reflection of educational practice and belief(Dewhurst and Lamb 2005). Furthermore, as culminating tasks, students canwrite case-studies. This will involve actively seeking primary sources andengaging in historiography. Such tasks require that the teacher candidatequestion the reliability of sources, the broader context in which phenomenaare situated, and the ways that explain phenomena while bound by evidence.These questions will develop the habits of mind that scaffold deep andmeaningful inquiry into teaching practices and the contemporary world.

It is also important for teacher candidates to develop historical minded-ness, awareness of the social, political, and economic functions of historicalknowledge. This involves thinking as historians do, critically evaluatingsources, suppositions, and interpretations. It also involves an active searchfor historical meaning, as well as a developed interest in and ability tomake claims about contexts and phenomena (Osborne 2001, Seixas 2004,Bruno-Jofré and Steiner 2007).

This notion of historical mindedness is what makes historical inquiry acrucial component of teacher education.6 When responding to the question‘why the history of education?’ in the introduction, I made reference to Klie-bard’s position that ‘doing’ historical work allows the educator to examinecritically a context with insight and with the habits of thought that promotereflection and critical inquiry. Historically minded teacher candidates willalso have a heightened sense of the way that phenomena and contexts appearin infinite varieties and complexities. They will be unburdened of the fallacythat we can predict how events will transpire because we know how theyhappened in the past. They will be prepared to face the fact that change willhappen and that the unpredictable is to be expected. They will not cling toa recipe book of instructional strategies and educational solutions. In thedomain of human interactions and life, there are no recipes for everything.

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History of education courses may connect teacher candidates to vast anddiverse pedagogical heritages of thought and practice. They provideconcrete examples of reform initiatives and evolutions in schooling that mayhelp them to contextualize contemporary debates or discussions. Moreimportantly, engaging in historical inquiry (developing historical minded-ness) may provoke critical inquiry and reflection. Kliebard (1995: 194)cogently sums up this point:

In the end, then, much of the value of studying the history of education lies notin providing us with answers, but in daring us to challenge the questions andthe assumptions that our intellectual forebears have bequeathed to us.

Notes

1. See, e.g. Butin (2005a), Gibson (2002), Mueller (2006), Ryan (2006), Sabik and Storz(2004), and Tozer and Miretzky (2005).

2. Even when, in 1914, Queen’s University’s Faculty of Education in Kingston, Canada,mandated that all teacher candidates study the history of education, records of thesummative examinations illustrate instructional emphasis on the rote memorization offacts and dates rather than on creative or critical inquiry (Queen’s University 1914).

3. I regard the Ontario College of Teachers as an agency created by provincial governmentas a means of regulating and supervising the teaching body, including teacher candidates.The College certifies teacher education programmes (and can remove their certification),has input into entrance/exit requirements, sets the standards of practice for the profes-sion, and requires that certain topics be covered.

4. I co-instructed the history of education course offered as an elective in foundations: ithas an enrolment of six out of nearly 700 students. This is an instance in which aneducational history course is provided in the curriculum, but students are not requiredto take it.

5. Egerton Ryerson, chief superintendent of education for Canada West/Ontario,1844–1876, is regarded as the ‘father’ of Ontario schools.

6. The use of historical mindedness as an aim follows from the work of Rosa Bruno-Jofré and Karen Steiner (2007) who defined the notion in terms of thinking histori-cally and of being aware of the socio-political functions of historical knowledge.Historical mindedness had been depicted by Ken Osborne (2001), who recoveredthe idea from an 1899 report by the American Historical Association Committee ofSeven, as entailing “a way of looking at the world at large that derives from afamiliarity with the past and with trying to understand and interpret it” (553).Bruno-Jofré and Steiner reconfigured the notion as entailing an aim in historyeducation and in teacher preparation.

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