Problem relating to higher school certificate examinations in history: a teacher view

Abstract

What is the aim and the purpose of teaching history? How are examinations to be related to this aim? What role is the teacher to play in respect to teaching the subject with some educational aim in view and at the same time, preparing the pupils for examinations? How is he to overcome the problems arising therein? If you are to ask the purpose of life, you will find that there can be no one answer. It is the same with history. Its purpose is as diversified as life itself. All that one can say about history is that by studying the thoughts and actions of men in their social context in the past, one may learn something about "humanity in general and oneself in particular." From the practical point of view, history teaches us not what decisions to take, but how to take them. Its use is "not what you can do with history but what history does to you."