To think this was an inappropriate school task

[Lalalabrador]

My year 8 daughter was asked to write an essay today on the question How did India benefit from colonialism and how was it harmed by it? I’m pretty gobsmacked. I’m a professional historian and sad that something so intellectually bankrupt is being taught to young people.

Yes, it is a challenging subject. I would have gone with ‘To what extent can it be argued that there were benefits ...’
It’s not my subject (another historian here) but
Niall Ferguson tackled this in his Empire arguing that British rule prevented Japanese takeover of India and therefore much worse atrocities. Hardly a glowing comment on British imperialism but worth considering.

@MaryBerrysChutney

Do people even know why we established "railways" in India? It certainly wasn't to transport people. Just to plunder the country and steal its natural resources. Colonialism was vile with no overt benefits to anyone but us. We were cruel, imposed our rules and culture on other countries and stole from them.

Who is "we"?

Loads of British people are from families who migrated here after that time.

@Lalalabrador

India did not benefit from colonialism. There is no for or against colonialism. There ‘weren’t good people on both sides’. I want my daughter to learn the truth about the British Empire not a skewed, jingoistic myth of a Britain generously bestowing ‘civility’ on the poor ‘savages’ of the colonies.

Surely when your daughter begins to research, that is what she will find.

You're presuming the answer - perhaps the teacher is wanting children to discover this themselves as many will have parents who think there were benefits - remember how many people voted for Brexit based on empire nostalgia.

chomalungma although my post didn’t betray anything I was one who thought it was about 8 year olds. I was so busy parsing the word ‘how’ and dissecting the wording that I didn’t read it correctly.
I think somewhere I was thinking ‘blimey things have moved ahead in school quite a bit since I was 8 !’

Oh dear.

Who is "we

'We' - being the British. As a country.

@corythatwas

Of course there were benefits. We're in danger of going too far the other way, after decades of one sided history. There must be balance.

Interesting question- must there always be balance? Would we say the same about Stalinism? About Nazism?

Aye, but we should also seek to understand the way in which those events came to be. Nazism didn't start and end with Hitler. We need to learn about why and how such atrocities were committed in such a huge scale - by "ordinary" people. Balance doesn't always mean to see good and bad - but cause and effect. Failure to understand how entire populations can be manipulated (e.g. state media control and othering) means we're doomed to repeat history.

There must have been a few minor and local benefits. A relative of my DH founded (and spent a lifetime working at) a women's hospital to help combat very high maternal and neonatal deaths.

[quote daisypond]@LilMidge01

She is not 8. She is 12 or 13.[/quote]
Ah yes thanks, I see my error in looking at other posts correcting. However, I still think the point stands for a 12 yr old.

I'm amazed at some peoples views that children shouldn't learn critical thinking and be able to look at this objectively. Do they not have debating clubs in schools anymore? We used to be given a topic and you had to make arguments either for or against, it didn't mean that you believed the viewpoint you were expected to argue, it was a way to make you think. This was a normal comp in London, not Eton.

I'm amazed at some peoples views that children shouldn't learn critical thinking and be able to look at this objectively.

Nobody is arguing that it shouldn't be looked at objectively. They are rather objecting to a loaded and leading question. I'm amazed that some people can't see the difference.

@chomalungma

But history seems to have become a hotbed of political agendas, anachronisms and weaponary for certain groups

Hasn't history always been taught like that?

I remember the map of the Empire on the wall and being taught about people like Gordon of Khartoum, Baden Powell etc

Kind of a certain message being drummed into us at the time.

What and whose version of history were we being taught?

Whose stories were being told?

I did consider this when writing this. Yes history has always been like this, but I think nowadays we would think we have moved away from Shakespeare’s view on the Plantagenets or the Victorian view of applying the evolutionary theory to everything.

I think we would consider that today we should have the freedom to be more rounded in our approach to historical research. But we are replacing one lot of constraints with another. In hindsight I agree my post was poorly worded and limited.

I guess it’s a good point you raise, will historical research ever be free of the chains of the thought processes of the historian and the society in which they operate. The best I guess we can do it recognise and try and compensate for h these constraints.

Maybe they dont have the ability to unpack it to the same extent you do, but pretty confident a 12 year old can understand the basics of "not all points are equal in weight attributed to them" and can grasp the concept that certain negatives can outweigh benefits.

The question does not ask them to justify colonialism.

They also haven't been given this in a vacuum presumably, and have had primary sources and class discussions led by the teacher prior which prompts them to think about these things.

I actually remember my year 7 and year 8 history lessons precisely for this reason because I loved how they encouraged this way fot hinking that I hadn't done in primary school. Obviously by adult standards it was very basic, but it felt ground breaking and eye opening at the time.

Give 12 year olds a bit more credit

I am very inclined not to, because 'Obviously by adult standards it was very basic' is a predictable and massive problem.

The risk of pitching this question, worded as it is, at children of 12 is that this is as deeply as they are ever going to be led into this question, and the wording implies some balancing out.

I am not worried that the question invites them to justify colonialism. My concern is that they are asked essentially to come up with a value judgement, whether they realise it or not. One regrettable aspect of that is that any conclusion they arrive at will be their fundamental assumption about colonialism for years to come. It is not the only problem, however.

12 is a delicate age. Students of 12 should be confined to exposure to primary sources, chronology, and commentary on the primary sources, perhaps, if a teacher wants to go into historiography, in comparison with primary source material and secondary source assessments of more recent times. Essay questions of the sort that the OP has posted are not only completely inappropriate intellectual tasks for tweens, they are completely inappropriate tasks for any student of History.

At 12, they should be invited to reflect on attitudes of the era being studied, in their own context, in order to fully understand each time period.

If history is to be taught as an opportunity to indulge in value judgements (which is not what the study of history is supposed to be) the danger is that it is presented as a monument of progress, with the current generation at the apex, with absolutely nothing learned (in terms of analytic skills or pattern recognition) that is relevant to dissecting the times we ourselves live in.

To sum up -
A History curriculum should not be treated as an opportunity to allow students to proceed to value judgements or for teachers to lead students to value judgements.
If nothing else, the study of History shows the dangers inherent in using the values of any given current day to pass judgement on any time in the past.

Should read -

Students of 12 should be confined to exposure to primary sources, chronology, and commentary on the primary sources, and perhaps, if a teacher wants to go into historiography, in comparison with primary source material and secondary source assessments of more recent times.

This thread shows what interesting discussion can result from an essay title. We don’t give enough credit to 12/13 year olds if we think they are incapable of a discussion like the one we’ve had here. Great to develop critical thinking.

@Enidblyton1

This thread shows what interesting discussion can result from an essay title. We don’t give enough credit to 12/13 year olds if we think they are incapable of a discussion like the one we’ve had here. Great to develop critical thinking.

I can imagine that if / when this appears in the Daily Mail, the comments won't be as interesting.

The question could be rewritten as; "in what ways would it have been different if Britain hadn't colonised India, and are these good or bad?"

These two questions do not require history skills. They require complex speculation that could never be tested, and value judgements heavily coloured by cultural norms.

History tests should require history skills IMHO.

@mathanxiety

Maybe they dont have the ability to unpack it to the same extent you do, but pretty confident a 12 year old can understand the basics of "not all points are equal in weight attributed to them" and can grasp the concept that certain negatives can outweigh benefits.

The question does not ask them to justify colonialism.

They also haven't been given this in a vacuum presumably, and have had primary sources and class discussions led by the teacher prior which prompts them to think about these things.

I actually remember my year 7 and year 8 history lessons precisely for this reason because I loved how they encouraged this way fot hinking that I hadn't done in primary school. Obviously by adult standards it was very basic, but it felt ground breaking and eye opening at the time.

Give 12 year olds a bit more credit

I am very inclined not to, because 'Obviously by adult standards it was very basic' is a predictable and massive problem.

The risk of pitching this question, worded as it is, at children of 12 is that this is as deeply as they are ever going to be led into this question, and the wording implies some balancing out.

I am not worried that the question invites them to justify colonialism. My concern is that they are asked essentially to come up with a value judgement, whether they realise it or not. One regrettable aspect of that is that any conclusion they arrive at will be their fundamental assumption about colonialism for years to come. It is not the only problem, however.

12 is a delicate age. Students of 12 should be confined to exposure to primary sources, chronology, and commentary on the primary sources, perhaps, if a teacher wants to go into historiography, in comparison with primary source material and secondary source assessments of more recent times. Essay questions of the sort that the OP has posted are not only completely inappropriate intellectual tasks for tweens, they are completely inappropriate tasks for any student of History.

At 12, they should be invited to reflect on attitudes of the era being studied, in their own context, in order to fully understand each time period.

If history is to be taught as an opportunity to indulge in value judgements (which is not what the study of history is supposed to be) the danger is that it is presented as a monument of progress, with the current generation at the apex, with absolutely nothing learned (in terms of analytic skills or pattern recognition) that is relevant to dissecting the times we ourselves live in.

To sum up -
A History curriculum should not be treated as an opportunity to allow students to proceed to value judgements or for teachers to lead students to value judgements.
If nothing else, the study of History shows the dangers inherent in using the values of any given current day to pass judgement on any time in the past.

I guess on this thread there is a confusion between the methodology of historical studies and the humanistic reaction to events of the past.

The study of history should be as free from value judgements as possible ( I don’t believe it is entirely possible to do this even the choice of subject matter is a value judgement surely). There needs to be awareness of what factors might affect interpretation and hopefully try and minimise impact. But often times research ends up being reflective at least in part by the motives of the researcher (eg Dame Frances Yates research of the history of the occult).

Although I can see the limitations on the question it appears an attempt to try and get the students to think beyond the current everything about colonialism is bad idea as something that is absolute and unchallengeable. It would be interesting to see the actual syllabus in which context this question was asked. It appears a rather, I think the word is teleological, way of exploring colonialism (if it’s not the right word maybe an historian can help me out on that).

Would a better question have been what were the circumstances under which India became part of the British Empire and how did India change whilst under British rule?

Maybe the pros and cons discussion would be better in pshe or whatever it is called, potentially tied in with what has been discovered in the history lesson. I’m not really a fan though of splitting up studies generally into compartments but maybe whilst learning skill sets it’s not a bad thing.

The study of history should be as free from value judgements as possible

Yes.

@Lalalabrador

India did not benefit from colonialism. There is no for or against colonialism. There ‘weren’t good people on both sides’. I want my daughter to learn the truth about the British Empire not a skewed, jingoistic myth of a Britain generously bestowing ‘civility’ on the poor ‘savages’ of the colonies.

Then surely she could apporach the essay from the pov that at the time it was seen as a benefit because.....but that we now know better.

@june2007

And yes benefits for Nazi Germany.. He gave them pride.. he gave hope.. he gave a scapegoat. (Therefore absolving others of responsability.) See not hard. 9Totally against Nazism by the way.)

Yes absolutely. And the holocaust allowed for a lot of 'breakthrough' in medicine and surgery due to the availability of test subjects sadly. There are always "benefits" , what I'm saying is the way the question is phrased re colonialism does seem to perpetuate the myth that it was inherently a good thing when in fact it was inherently a bad thing for the host country and any benefit was almost by accident. Someone made a valid point that none of the 'benefits' of colonialism (railway but also the abolishing of child marriage and the burning of widows) can actually be proven as we do not know how things would have turned out otherwise.

Going off topic. My year 3 DD was asked to write a balanced argument about corporal and capital punishment last year.

I was like WTAF.

I'm Jewish. Most of my extended family died in the ghettos of Warsaw/nearby towns and in the death camps at Madjanek and Treblinka.

I still believe it's valid to discuss why Nazism seemed like something positive to Germans at the time. Otherwise we learn nothing from history.

If op were an actual historian, she would understand this.

History does have value judgements though even in the words chosen to describe events.

I remember learning about the Indian mutiny in school.

I went to India and to Lucknow where it happened. There I learned about the Indian Rebellion.

The current focus on statues, renaming streets etc and people's reactions to it shows that people in power don't want to talk about history from a different perspective.

Ok. A problem is the sensitivity needed when working with children. Somerset Hamlyn - yours is an interesting and valid pov, but do you think it right to subject children to such a 'learning experience' as you describe? Would it be right, sensitive, inspiring to ask a twelve year old, who might, for the sake of argument, be your neice, to consider this? School isn't only about intellectual exploration, it's about making people feel comfortable; setting up fair and respectful practices. School is about learning by doing, learning by the adults modelling what is a good and inspiring way to behave. You can do critical thinking with a poem. Let's leave it there.

I still believe it's valid to discuss why Nazism seemed like something positive to Germans at the time. Otherwise we learn nothing from history.

I totally agree, and would have no issue with people studying why colonialism seemed like something positive to British people at the time, but the OP's daughter was asked to write about the benefits of colonialism to India, which is not the same thing.

Would you honestly be happy if children were asked to write essays about the benefits of the Holocaust to Jewish people?