History as taught in the schools: time to decide

Writing history textbooks today is a complicated task requiring approaches never practiced before in this country. In fact, the first such textbooks appeared in Ukraine in 1992, with Ukrainian Canadian Professor Orest Subtelny’s topping the list (the author is a foreign member of the National Academy of Sciences). This book has for a number of years helped school and college/university students find their way through the maze created by the unscrupulous adherents of Clio. However, it was published over a decade ago, and Prof. Subtelny’s work cannot be described as an academic work (why not? It is an outstanding university textbook of the Western type — Consultant). Hopefully, historical knowledge will be further popularized by two books of The Day Library Series, Ukraine Incognita and Dvi Rusi (under the general editorship of Larysa Ivshyna). Many experts and readers believe that this is an effective attempt to offer a modern informative as well as critical view on Ukraine’s age-old history.

Thus The Day’s readership is presented with an all too familiar problem, one this newspaper has dwelt upon on a number of occasions, and which has remained relevant throughout the years. Below practicing teachers, experts on teaching procedures and methods, others versed in the field, as well as The Day’s regular authors share their views, among them Prof. Stanislav Kulchytsky, Deputy Director of the National Academy’s Institute of the History of Ukraine, and Prof. Volodymyr Panchenko, Vice President of the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy National University, literary critic, and historian.

Prof. Valery STEPANKOV, Chair, Department of World History, Kamianets-Podilsky State University:

One can read newspapers and watch and hear television and radio programs posing the rhetorical questions: Are our children and grandchildren taught the true history of Ukraine? Isn’t this history falsified to fit the new ideological dogmas? Such questions are relevant and an expression of quite understandable public concern: Is a genuinely scholarly approach to history as a discipline — the importance of which can be hardly overstated — in cultivating our national identity, self-respect, and patriotism, preserving every link in the golden chain of continuity handed down by generations.

The said problem has two most important aspects: textbook content and the teaching staff’s professional level. With regard to the former, one has to admit that after Ukraine proclaimed independence, domestic authors came out with a number of first-rate textbooks matching foreign ones. Here, also, one ought to bear in mind that those authors had to write when the teaching and scholarly literary domains were dominated by the Russian great power concept of Ukrainian history, distorting it beyond recognition, and in the absence of a genuine Ukrainian concept. And so they first had to work hard to revise and properly comprehend the existing scholarly legacy. Only then could they sit down and write their textbooks. I think what we have to do now is, first, choose the best from among these books, selecting ones for school grades and turning them into a database for all Ukrainian schools. Second, we must resist any textbook-writing projects jointly with neighboring countries, since they will inevitably produce distorted concepts reflecting the most important aspects of our nation’s history in order to conform to foreign views.

It is also extremely important not to understate the teaching staff’s professional level, as well as the teacher’s public stand, if we want our students to learn the real history of Ukraine. We all know that most our teachers were taught the Soviet version of history, which had nothing to do with Ukraine. Naturally, one had to requalify. The retraining process proved too complicated, controversial, and incomplete. Even now school students are taught that Kyiv Rus’ was “the cradle of three fraternal peoples [i.e., Russian, Ukrainian, and White Russian],” that “the Ukrainian people began to take shape in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries,” that “the Treaty of Pereyaslav of 1654 marked the reunification of Ukraine and Russia.” In other words, just like during the Soviet 1970s-1980s.

We will have to make every effort so every Ukrainian schoolteacher is educated enough to refer to the noted French historian Marc Bloch who said that he was born in his homeland, drank from the springs of its culture, and made its past his own; he could only breathe freely in its climate and, together with others, was prepared to do his best to protect its interests.

Natalia RUDENKO, Principal, Simferopol Ukrainian Gymnasium:

This topic remains the most painful one in our school life. As for the Ukrainian Humanities Lyceum of Kyiv University, our partner, their teaching of history and raising genuine Ukrainian citizens is excellently organized, but this is a nightmare in the Crimea. Suffice it to say that one teacher took the floor at a conference in August and openly mourned the recent Soviet past.

I visit schools in the Crimea and I have seen Soviet hammer-and-sickle flags and classrooms with Lenin busts and portraits. Their teachers often refer to “the so-called heroes of Kruty,” so can we really expect them to educate genuine citizens of Ukraine? They are all experts on the history of the USSR (the official one, not what really happened — Consultant), each with a collection of communist myths about the “great and mighty Soviet Union,” and none of them knows or wants to learn anything about our nation’s history.

I’m surprised to witness the Ukrainian state’s tolerance of such openly un-Ukrainian activities in the educational domain. Here is a purely Crimean problem. The officials in charge of education deliberately hinder the supply of an adequate number of Ukrainian history, language, and other textbooks to the peninsula, and then ask Moscow to supply such literature. Then we receive Russian textbooks that are actively used in local schools. Meanwhile, our [Russian- language and Russia-minded] newspapers Krymskoye znamya [Crimean Banner] and Krymskaya pravda [Crimean Truth] launch full-scale ideological warfare against Ukrainian history textbooks, ridiculing the facts of Ukrainian history, the authors of such articles claiming that it would be best to have no such history textbooks at all. Hence the obvious conclusion is that there is supposedly no Ukrainian history. For them, the Bolshevik fairy tales in place of history constitute the pinnacle what they want and expect. Local schoolteachers read these newspapers, and not all of them have enough professionalism, even education, to adequately evaluate such articles.

Fedir PENDERETSKY, Principal, Zhytomyr Humanities Gymnasium No. 1 and a history teacher by training:

Teaching history is currently done in accordance with the school curriculum; it embraces all aspects. I like the current history textbooks, their makeup and design, each with a balanced system of authors and editors forming the pertinent chapters; there are almost no discrepancies between what they write and what we have in the curriculum, unlike the recent past. The authors refer to Hrushevsky, Krypiachkevych, Dontsov, and many other noted domestic historians, experts on culture, philosophers — something we never had before.

As for problems addressing the teaching of history in the schools, we don’t have enough such textbooks in the first place. We also need better refresher courses for the history teachers, especially at the local level, in terms of postgraduate practicum. We also lack professional history teachers. The History Department of the Zhytomyr Pedagogic University embarked on a program of training history teachers only recently, meaning they can’t supply local needs, especially in the rural areas.

Yelizaveta MONDYK, history teacher, Uzhhorod Elementary School No. 20, and head of a school history and law methodological association:

Our grade school history teachers find themselves in an extremely difficult situation, including glaringly inadequate curricula and that the students are under a senseless academic burden. They don’t have the most elementary teaching aids, such as maps, especially Ukrainian history charts. What they may have proves very expensive, a wall map sells at 70 hryvnias [about half a teacher’s salary]. Schools are undersupplied with textbooks, including those on world and Ukrainian history; no reference sources to look up noted persons’ biographies, explanations addressing the curriculum — we can’t find anything on the Ukrainian hetmans or books on Ukrainian feats of arms during World War II, even though we will soon mark the sixtieth anniversary [of victory].

Halyna KHMELIOVSKA, General director, All-Ukrainian Information Center, and chair, organizing committee for the forum of Ukrainians in the Crimea:

We have held a number of round tables. While making arrangements, we studied the situation with local schools, so we are fully aware of the basic trends in the Crimea. I would like to emphasize several principles that we believe should be adhered to. First, history must be taught using textbooks formally approved by our Ministry of Education. No other criterion can be accepted. We absolutely cannot allow school history instruction using imported textbooks, especially those “recognized” in the Crimea.

Second, Ukrainian history must be taught using the official Ukrainian language in every public school in the Crimea. This will help children study the nation’s history, language, and most importantly, perceive the spirit of Ukrainian history and statehood.

The issue of schooling, especially the instruction of history, will be very much on the agenda of the Crimean Forum of Ukrainians scheduled for December 9. I think the emphasis should be on the teaching staff and their professional level. The fact remains that most of them know next to nothing about Ukrainian history, except their handbooks of communist falsehood. They do not have — and I might as well regretfully state that they do not want to have — any modern teaching methods; they were not trained to operate in keeping with modern educational standards, so they use Soviet schooling techniques.

Taras HONCHARUK, Candidate of Science in history, Docent, Chair of Ukrainian History, History Department, Odesa National University:

We have many problems relating to the instruction of history in Ukrainian schools. Perhaps the biggest problem is the absence of experts on the subject. Not more than 20% of our department’s graduates end up as schoolteachers. As a result, despite the existing system of placement for our graduates, history is taught by school philologists, retired army officers, or at best teachers of history past retirement age. None of them have ever studied Ukrainian history and [most] know little about it, so they mostly teach world history — and this considering that we now have so many excellent Ukrainian history textbooks, along with sufficient supplementary literature.

Another important problem is the inadequate allocation of teaching materials. Children are taught ancient and medieval Rus’ history at a very early age, in the fifth or sixth grade, so that they remember little if anything of it by the time they finish school. However, the medieval Rus’ period is very important to understand what took place in subsequent Ukrainian state-building processes. In contrast, three senior grades at the old-style schools are taught twentieth century history, the result being that their graduates applying for university enrolment fail to pass entrance exams when asked to describe certain periods in Ukrainian history, especially distant periods.

The third problem is having to do with a curtailed geography academic schedule. Without knowing world geography, students feel at sea in world history. Also, a couple of words about the textbooks: the authors tend to pack them with facts, providing data on all those Communist Party Central Committee plenums and resolutions, precisely the way we had our Soviet textbooks, while adding new facts. This mugwump approach tells badly on the students.

Svitlana DREBOT, teacher of history and law, Zhytomyr Elementary School No. 20, who holds the prestigious awards of Schoolteacher First Class and Meritorious Worker of Ukrainian Public Education:

The requirements for the instruction of history at the Ukrainian schools are clearly stated in a program adopted by the Ministry of Education, yet the textbooks and teaching aids available in our schools do not always meet these requirements. And so it is often very difficult to concentrate on a specific topic in class, considering that the children have neither textbooks nor maps. It is true that such textbooks and maps appear in print, but they are too expensive, such that from a purely moral standpoint I cannot tell my students to buy them. I know that history indicates the rising generation’s IQ. Personally, I’ve never demanded from my students that they think any one way, that this be their final conclusion with regard to any issue. I believe that the main thing is for them to digest a variety of information and form their own opinions, their own views on our future. I have always urged my students to do just that.

Speaking of the teaching staff’s skill level, our schools are mostly manned by professional teachers. Students who finish our schools in Zhytomyr oblast often win republican academic contests. Yet I feel that our textbooks are written by university professors that have never taught in the schools. Often their style is such that public school students are unable to understand them. I am very fond of Poliansky’s world history textbook meant for tenth graders, primarily because the author aims to encourage the student to think rather than learn passages by memorizing facts and dates. There are also many history textbooks meant for the tenth and eleventh grades, so the teacher can choose from among them. In fact, we use one history textbook one day and another the next. This means that the ministry should pay more attention to the actual public school situation in this country. I might as well point out that my tenth and eleventh graders often don’t understand what kind of knowledge is required from them.

Bohdan POTURNAK, Deputy Head, Education and Science Directorate, Chernivtsi Oblast State Administration:

History is taught in the schools in accordance with a program adopted by the Ministry of Education, so we also have duly authorized textbooks, meaning that we actually work to carry out that program. At the same time, any kind of teaching requires creativity. The teacher must be aware of precisely what has to be treated in greater depth. The program allows for academic hours in reserve so that a teacher can expand on certain topics. For example, the joining of Western Ukraine to the Soviet Union and events at the turn of the 1940s are sure to arrest the students’ interest, for everything took place right here in our region, and there are eyewitnesses, which means that a teacher in Chernivtsi oblast could tell his class to concentrate on that period.

We cannot force our students to learn dates and names by rote; they should be encouraged to form a general picture of events in their minds, so they could analyze them and their consequences, viewing facts at different angles, learning to interpret them and to draw conclusions. In addition, Ukrainian history cannot be studied separately from world history, only in the latter’s context; it is necessary to see the general trends and processes.

COMMENTS OF THE DAY’S

Prof. Stanislav KULCHYTSKY, head of the task force to develop a state secondary education standard in line with the Suspilstvoznavstvo (social sciences) project:

We often hear that nothing is done the right way in Ukraine. However, summing up what we have done in the last twelve years, in any given sphere, it appears that we haven’t been wasting time. Specifically, the recent history textbooks are a far cry from the first comprehensive edition published in 1991, while Soviet history (that is, of Russia) was still taught in Ukrainian public schools. I must say this because I’ve taken part in the preparation for textbooks meant for a number of generations. Today’s textbooks are noticeably smaller in size, cleansed of Soviet stereotypes. The teachers and students can independently assess a historic document that became an integral part of the body of the text. The methodological apparatus has been substantially enriched. Every textbook is rich in illustrations and maps.

For ten years I’ve been on a Ukrainian-Polish commission set up to upgrade school history and geography textbooks. This commission has limited scope, it’s authorized to monitor the textbook authors’ work, so they elucidate conflict situation in Ukrainian-Polish relationships while displaying a tactful attitude to the neighboring state. Working on this commission has made it possible for me to compare what is written in various textbooks. The Poles are generally known for their respect for their national history, and their textbooks have always been known for quality. Still, the latest generation of Ukrainian textbooks practically matches their Polish counterparts in terms of scholarly approach, contents, and typography.

What should the future textbook look like? This largely depends on the State Secondary Education Standard, and the document has been worked upon for a decade and is actually nearing completion. It will serve as a basis for the twelve-grade school curriculum and also for the preparation of textbooks. When compiling the latter, one ought to decide on the principle, according to which to history is taught in class: linear or concentric. Abiding by the linear principle, those finishing grade school will have a very primitive idea about the epochs they had studied at an early age. Should a full course in history be taught in elementary school and then repeated in secondary school, at a higher level, the twentieth century would suffer, whose history must be learned in greater depth than the distant past. Every teaching principle has its advantages and limitations.

Prof. Volodymyr PANCHENKO, Vice President of the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy National University:

Above all, the good thing is that Ukrainian history appears in full format, being taught in our public school and institutions of higher education. Remember what Oleksandr Dovzhenko wrote in his Ukraine in Flames about a nation that did not know its own history? Not knowing one’s history leads to horrifying consequences; it can be compared to long-range artillery guns. Ukraine has been independent for twelve years, yet we are faced with a tragically paradoxical fact: Ukraine is being Russified by the Ukrainians themselves! How can one otherwise interpret the closing of Ukrainian-language schools in Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk? Or narrowing the usage of Ukrainian, our popular art, films, books, and television? All this looks like some kind of suicidal act.

Young people taking a considered look at history can prevent mankurtism (Kyrgyz writer Chingiz Aitmatov’s people without memory — Ed.), but to do so several factors must be considered, factors that appear crucial. First of all, the teacher of history as an individual.

Then comes the quality of history textbooks used in the public school, along with a variety of historical reference sources. Here one ought to bear in mind two extremes found in books that have been published during the past decade. First, naїve myths addressing Ukrainian history, attempts, figuratively speaking, to prove that Jesus Christ was Ukrainian. Second, the old habit of regarding Ukrainian history from a foreign (Russian) point of view. This is especially true of the Kyiv Rus’ heritage. But there’s more. For example, we read in a textbook about Alexander II of Russia: not a word about the ill-famous Ems Ukase banning the use of Ukrainian, including books and theatrical performances. Then there were Catherine II and Peter I. There is little doubt that the authors of such history textbooks will evaluate them in terms of their contributions to the “greatness of the Russian Empire.” The Ukrainians, like our immediate Polish neighbor, have a different scale of values — can you picture a Pole eulogizing Muravyov the Hangman and campaigning for the erection of monuments [to that Russian satrap]? In Ukraine, we learn about campaigns eulogizing Catherine II and raising funds to erect monuments to Count Potёmkin. I would like to make a separate point concerning popular historical works. We need such stories! Some appear in print, but the trouble is that here demand by far surpasses supply. Mykhailo Slaboshpytsky wrote his Z Holosu Klio [From the Voice of Clio] and the book has been reprinted four, maybe five times. This means that we do have public demand for such literature. It means that we must encourage such writings — through various contest, newspaper columns, as The Day’s Ukraine Incognita and History and I rubrics — so that we can cultivate authors capable of producing books as important as Ukraine Incognita and Dvi Rusi of The Day’s Library Series.