What Historical Study Can Reveal to Educators: The Example of "Peace, Order, and Good Government"

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Abstract

In what way is the educational past relevant to the problems and issues that present-day teacher candidates face as they enter twenty-first century classrooms? Do they not have urgent, contemporary educational dilemmas that need to be addressed through understanding of current research, study and reflection? This thought only holds true if one believes that the past is dead and gone; that there is nothing to hold us to our history. Thankfully, this rather nihilistic belief has been challenged over the years by historians of education who argue that we cannot see clearly our present situation, with all its problems and complexities, and work towards better solutions, unless we understand the past (Collingwood, 1993; see also Lucas, 1984; Pietig, 1998; and Violas, 1990). Significant remnants of the past remain and interpenetrate our present ideas: in fact, past notions are the precursors or ‘determining conditions’ of our present ideas (Collingwood, 1993, p. 420).

It is the role of the Historians of Education, therefore, to “assist teachers in understanding the extent to which society impacts our schools” (Kerr, Mandzuk & Raptis, 2011, p. 118). While most other courses in the school system (or even the education of teachers for that matter) concern themselves with imparting information, or representing classroom life as being stable or predictable, it is foundational studies that reveal the complexity of schooling and the realities that surround it. History, as part of this paradigm, attempts to focus on understanding past human action by understanding activities, events and ideas behind actions that are taken. Specifically, it helps students (at whatever level) develop understandings of what happened in the past, why it happened, how past events continue to affect current education policy and practice and how the past can affect future educational developments and mindsets within an entire society.
This paper will examine the role of historical studies in the education of teachers using the example of the Canadian metanarrative of “Peace, Order and Good Government”, juxtaposing it as a contextually distinctive orientation in relation to those that arose in other societies. While the ‘peace, order and good government’ mentalité represents a long held aspiration on one level, it has not always represented the reality of the Canadian experience, nor should it be accepted unquestioningly as the only strand in Canadian ways of thinking. It is not the role of historians to promulgate or revoke such discourses. Instead, historians endeavour to critically examine the collective memories that have shaped our understandings of nationhood. This allows such conceptions to be understood and supported with a clear perspective as to their meaning and place in schooling and society. From here, we may see more clearly into our present situation, while broadening our “conceptual scope” and establishing a “range of possibilities for action” (Greene, 1973, p. 181).

Authors

• Lynn Ellen Lemisko, University of Saskatchewan

• Kurt Clausen, Nipissing University