• Teaching citizens to think, not just remember

In a small secondary school class in the city of Kandy in May of last year, I witnessed a passionate debate between 15-year-old Kasun and his history teacher. The class was learning about the Kandyan Convention of 1815. 

Kasun’s debate was not about facts but about the meaning of the convention to the Kandyan chiefs, the options available to the chiefs, or if the agreement with the British was inevitable or dependent on certain developments. 

The teacher was tied down to a syllabus in which learning facts was much more important than exploring their meaning. “Just the date and the parties to it,” she concluded in exasperation. “That’s all the exam wants.”

This is the moment in which the dilemma in history education emblematic of Sri Lanka is contained. In the global arena, it is becoming an issue common to all countries to ask the question of what the purpose of history education is. Moreover, can history education be seen as merely a channel for delivering packaged narratives to be memorised, or can it be utilised as an aid for children to understand an ever more intricate world?

The global shift: From memory to thinking

There has been a global move towards teaching history for critical thinking as opposed to memorising facts and dates. In Finland’s education system, which has consistently topped the list of the world’s foremost education systems, instead of memorising dates and events in history classes, source analysis and knowledge of causation are core. 

Students are also made to analyse various descriptions of one event and draw arguments based on evidence they gather. There is also emphasis on historiography as a component of the history curriculum under the International Baccalaureate system, which teaches the study of history as a form of narrative construction.

Such an educational transformation is the answer to the following simple truth: an era in which any historical truth can be. Accessed in an instant via the use of a smartphone, the purpose of education is not memorisation but developing the skill to critically use it. 

Yet the truth is that the educational framework in Sri Lanka is still suffused by the mindset created in the educational framework of the 19th century to produce loyal subjects who knew the imperial histories, not critical thinkers who doubted the authorities.

The fallout of this failure permeates beyond the sphere of academic performance. Various studies carried out among institutions of learning and non-governmental bodies have ascertained the scope of the influence of history teaching. 

Various studies carried out among the Stanford History Education Group indicate that those educated to analyse sources and think critically possess a significantly higher ability to distinguish between misinformation and valid information sourced online compared to those instructed through conventional history teaching. 

Long-term studies carried out among bodies like Facing History & Ourselves, which advocate for inquiry-based teaching of difficult history topics, indicate a significantly higher engagement rate among their graduates, where 86% are registered to vote as compared to national averages. History education properly taught: democracy education.

Why national history remains essential

Some progressive educators, in reaction to nationalist distortions, have proposed downplaying national histories in favour of world histories or thematically organised stories. Such thinking is misguided. A people’s national history is, nevertheless, an essential aspect of their historical awareness. It is an invaluable tool to inculcate in citizens the necessary background to meaningfully engage with their society.

A person from Sri Lanka with an understanding of the history of land policy, the drivers of communal political mobilisation, or the effects of colonisation and globalisation would be better able to assess current debates on policy issues than an individual without such knowledge. National history provides the critical context within which current political, economic, and social conditions must be considered, interpreted, or corrected when necessary.

However, the inclusion of national history in education must resist two opposite tendencies that are equally damaging. The first is the idealised and triumphalist approach to history that seeks to portray the history of the nation as a seamless story of excellence and success, suppressing the painful truths of violence, oppression, and failure. The other is the focus on grievances and victimhood, which seeks to break down the complexity of historical processes simply into stories of perpetrators and victims.

Neither approach serves students well. The former produces citizens incapable of critical self-reflection; the latter breeds cynicism and sectarianism. What students need is honest, evidence-based teaching that acknowledges both achievement and failure, that presents historical actors as complex human beings operating under constraints, and that emphasises the contingency of historical outcomes – the fact that things could have unfolded differently if different choices had been made.

History as intellectual training

Beyond civic education, history provides intensive intellectual training useful in all fields. The historical method – accumulating evidence, weighing sources, constructing arguments, anticipating counter-arguments – develops cognitive abilities critical for success in any pursuit.

Consider the following in more detail: the competencies involved in advanced historical work – distinguishing correlation from causation, recognising the distinction between necessary and sufficient conditions, understanding how context confers meaning, evaluating the reliability of testimony, and constructing coherent narratives out of fragmentary evidence. These are precisely those analytical competencies required for jurisprudence, medical diagnosis, investigative journalism, scientific research, and business strategy.

In all my discussions with Sri Lankan professionals – medicine, engineering, business, civil service – a recurring refrain is how those who developed strong analytical skills through humanities education, particularly in history, found themselves better equipped to deal with complexity, ambiguity, and contesting narratives than those whose education was narrowly technical. 

Yet in an era of rapid technological change and increased specialisation, the broad cognitive training provided by rigorous history education becomes more, not less valuable.

Democracy requires historical consciousness

The linkage between history education and the idea of democratic citizenship is a multifaceted one. Firstly, knowledge of how a society developed its system of governance to become a democracy, and how its rights were fought for but are vulnerable to the challenges of tyrannical regimes, is intrinsic to becoming a citizen of such a society. However, the linkage goes further than this.

A democratic society demands an active citizenship that is able to assess competing demands, assess evidence, understand context, and grasp that the truth is frequently complex and contested, all of which qualities would be developed in a properly functioning history education. 

By contrast, authoritarian politics depend upon historical forgetfulness, reductionist narratives, and an inability to tell the difference between propaganda and evidence-based argument.

It is only recently that such a relationship has been ascertained in research within the field of political psychology. The research carried out among regions in the same countries using different methods of handling history in education found that those regions where critical thinking about history was taught showed an instance of resistance to political manipulation and a positive engagement in politics, as opposed to the regions that were teaching only nationalist indoctrination.

This matters profoundly for Sri Lanka as it emerges from decades of conflict and grapples with complex ethnic, religious, and regional tensions. A population taught to think historically – to understand the contingent origins of current arrangements, to recognise that ethnic and religious identities are historically constructed rather than primordial, and to appreciate the common humanity lying beneath diverse experiences – is better placed to underpin democracy and social cohesion than one beholden to competing mythologies.

Beyond ethnic nationalism

One of the most meaningful aspects of the study of history is the refutation of the nationalism that holds that nations are communities based on blood ties or religious affiliations. In the nationalist imagination, nations tend to be seen as primeval communities that are based on commonalities such as blood, language, or religion. On close scrutiny, the reality that emerges is that nations are political communities.

This is exemplified in the history of Sri Lanka itself. History in Sri Lanka has been one of migration and cultural and religious integration and experimentation. There was the inclusion of varied peoples in the Buddhist kingdom of Anuradhapura. There was also the retention of Muslim trading communities and the incorporation of Tamil-speaking Hindus into the nobility of the Kandyan Kingdom. There was a unifying movement for independence, although it later fragmented.

The history here suggests possibilities of inclusive nationalism, rooted not in ethnic purity but in shared citizenship, common institutions, and collective commitment to democratic values. Yet these possibilities remain invisible to students fed simplistic narratives which project contemporary ethnic categories backwards onto complex historical realities.

History education that highlights the constructed, contested, and contingent nature of identities and institutions can make for nations that can accommodate diversity without being reduced into mutually antagonistic ethnic blocks. This calls for courage on the part of educators and policymakers to be able to present truths that are uncomfortable, admit to wrongs in history, and resist pressure by subordinating education to narrow political agendas.

The power of popular history

Formal education, while quite important, is but one aspect of historical consciousness. Folk tales, popular history books, historical romances, films, television dramas – it is these channels of communication that exercise at least as potent influence over public knowledge as textbooks. A culture prone to popular history is one whose countries tend to achieve greater historical literacy and active participation in public affairs.

Think, too, of the role that historical fiction plays within the United Kingdom, where the works of Hilary Mantel or Robert Harris have given the complexities of various historical epochs to the broad public, leading to debates regarding issues such as power, morality, or political transformation. 

Alternatively, consider the phenomenon of historical podcasts, which have established new audiences within the United States concerned with more serious aspects of history beyond the bounds of the academic institution.

Sri Lanka has plenty of material for popular historical narrative: stories of the ancient hydraulic civilisation, maritime trade routes, anticolonial struggles, and transformation, but this has remained largely untapped in popular media. The historical novels of Martin Wickramasinghe and biographies of national leaders, for instance, reach only a limited section of the population compared to the possible reach of the historical film, television series, or graphic novels.

But the cultivation of this popular history culture is not an entirely free or effortless venture. Publishers have to be encouraged to produce popular histories. Producers have to be assisted to produce quality historical films. Museums have to be equipped to produce history galleries. Online companies have to be assisted to offer history in an exciting manner. Most significantly, history scholars have to be encouraged to engage in popular history writing.

On the communication of history via folk tales, the following could be said to be important: Folk tales are an important means by which history is communicated. These tales are an important reminder of historical knowledge that is easy to remember regardless of the literacy level that one may be at. 

Modernisation may, however, impinge upon the communication process associated with these folk tales, disconnecting the historical past from the present day individual. Society could, however, ensure the preservation of folk historical knowledge contained in books or other communication mediums such as recordings or cyberspace.

Historical characters across media

The availability of media platforms provides an unequalled opportunity for presenting biographical reenactments. Biographical films, documentaries, podcasts, and biographical pages on social media might all be used in raising public awareness of historical events.

But quality is utterly crucial. Hagiographic depictions, in which historical figures are reduced to heroes in the public imagination, have very little educational merit. Viewers require depictions in which historical actors are revealed as full humans, beset by foibles as well as strengths, struggling to make the best choices within the limitations they face.

These depictions promote the quality of thinking in which history education should participate: to be able to interpret human acts in their context, in their ethical complexity, and in the understanding that historical events are the result of decision-making by imperfectly informed human beings faced with real-life dilemmas. 

These depictions make the past meaningfully available not as a source for straightforward truths but as material for reflection on timeless puzzles involving issues such as power, justice, fidelity, or transformation.

Historical personalities from ancient monarchic to anti-colonial to social reformers in Sri Lanka need to be handled with care. It implies avoiding both nationalist mythology and debunkers with ulterior motives and instead doing research-informed portrayals to show both sides of such personalities.

Building a nation through historical knowledge

The best reason for a rigorous study of history, in other words, is not economic benefit or personal motivation but the power of one’s nation. Powerful nations need people who are aware of the history of society, people in a position to make judgements about competing claims to politics, people aware of the failure as well as the achievement of society’s past, people capable of handling an uncertain future.

This is a strength, not because all citizens subscribe to the same version of history but because there are citizens able to respond in a productive fashion to a pluralism of narratives, recognising that the same story was experienced in a different fashion by different groups, that a narrative can be true in more ways than one, and that listening entails acknowledging these differences and searching for points in common.

This needs an infrastructure that enables and encourages this dialogue: schools where disputed history can be discussed without fear, institutions of higher learning that allow historical research to take place along scholarly lines and not along party lines, and a system of governance where leadership that can handle history in its complexities is rewarded and celebrated.

The establishment of such frameworks requires sustained efforts. Such matters as education reform, curriculum change, teacher education, resource management, and cultural shifts cannot be effected overnight. Alternatively, sticking with old education methodologies, which churn out citizens who lack historical thinking, invites constant susceptibility to being manipulated, sectarians, and deterioration in the democratic system.

The way forward

For Sri Lanka, an effective transformation in the field of history education needs to be implemented on multiple levels. There needs to be a focus on skill acquisition in the classroom, moving from a content-oriented approach to analysis, and from a narrative approach to source analysis. 

Educator training needs to enable teachers to perform these objectives in the classroom. There also needs to be a focus on evaluation that emphasises critical thinking skills rather than rote memory.

In addition to education, research in history needs to be strengthened and historians need to reach the masses. Publishers, producers, and the media need to invest in quality popular history. History needs to be a space for active learning rather than passive observation. Digital history needs to make history accessible without diluting its quality.

But most fundamentally, there must be a value placed upon historical thinking as a core requirement of active citizenship, rather than merely a specialism. This will hardly be achieved easily. However, the dividends in terms of active citizens, an immune democracy, and a sense of national identity that embraces diversity are well worth the struggle.

In the classroom in Kandy, Kasun’s questions are still unaddressed, and his curiosity unsatisfied by an educational system suited to different times. How many students in other classrooms have questions similar to those of Kasun, which they no longer dare to ask? A country which is unable to instill curiosity in its people, where historical issues are regarded as mere remembering rather than intellectual development, is doing more harm to itself.

The past is immutable, but how we teach it determines everything we do in our future. Teaching history matters because thinking citizens matter. The dilemma before us is this: do we continue to raise a crop of students whom we can more easily describe as having memorised dates and forgotten how to think, or do we create an education system worthy of the difficult and complex world our children are entering? The former is easier; the latter is essential. For a nation that takes its future seriously, there is really no choice at all.

(The writer is an ethnographer and art historian specialising in material culture, critical museum studies, and participatory research methodologies. As a member of Provenance Research on Objects of the Colonial Era (PPROCE), the Netherlands and Dutch Research Council (NWO) committees, she engages with repatriation and decolonisation debates. She currently holds a NIAS-NIOD-KITLV Research Fellowship in the Netherlands)

(The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the official position of this publication)