Teaching young children about the past

In the last issue of Education 3–13, ¹ Colin Richards, in his editorial, wrote of the concern of H.M.I. to strengthen academic content in the primary school curriculum. ² He emphasised the awareness of the ‘neglect of these central concerns in many classes, especially in relation to science, craft, history and geography’. This article attempts to focus on this ‘neglect’ in the teaching and learning of historical material among young children aged five to seven. At this stage of school life ‘historical material’ means any people, events and ideas concerned with a period before ‘now’ for the children. This could be ‘yesterday’ or palaeolithic man. In the words of David Attenborough ‘all living things are influenced by messages from the past’. ³ So are young children, whether consciously or unconsciously, and to them the past is important to help them to understand themselves in time, and to help them to relate more sympathetically to other people, especially their parents and grandparents. These ideas are supported by Margaret Donaldson who believes that other people’s past helps the self-centred child to ‘decentre’. ⁴ This article has two main purposes, in the first place, to look at present practice, its underlying assumptions and what happens in the classroom, and secondly to suggest some possible approaches to replace or improve upon them.