Tuesday, September 23, 2008
The power of a book
Students in France and Germany ask for their history textbooks to be written bilaterally and start a world trend.
How do countries approach the teaching of past events where their country or communities within their country have been involved in a conflict? It has not been unusual for countries to write their own textbooks which omit events or do not offer balanced descriptions and analysis of events. This can lead to mistrust and conflict between communities being perpetuated in future generations.
Now, the power of student voice has not only raised this as a problem but also suggested a solution.
Following a meeting of the Franco German Youth Parliament 500 high school students made formal requests to their governments to collaborate on writing fair and accurate textbooks to explain the Second World War to young people. The leaders listened to the views and a group was set up to organise the project. A team of teachers met, discussed and jointly wrote the first textbook devised by two countries to attempt to explain the conflicts between them in a balanced way.
The book, Europe and the World since 1945, is written in French and German with the same maps, quotes and illustrations and is in use in French and German schools. Two more textbooks are planned on pre-1945 history. The German government is also now negotiating a similar project with the Czech Republic.
The success of the project has caught the imagination of other nations who share conflict as part of their past. The UN has sponsored the writing of collaborative joint textbooks in Kosovo and Bosnia as part of a programme to help future generations rebuild and reconcile differences.
Japan and South Korea are the latest countries to announce a project to produce jointly written textbooks to explain the history between their nations.
The projects are delicate negotiations and need mutual support from individuals, communities and governments. The Japanese Professor coordinating the Japan and South Korea textbook project, Mr Kan Kimwia, explains,
"One difficulty in compiling a textbook is that so many people want to stress their versions of "correct history," when there is no such thing. A common textbook is only possible in an environment where everyone can freely discuss the issues."
Difficult and fragile as the negotiations are,the resulting books promote positive relations for the future and the principle that all children are entitled to receive a balanced and accurate representation of events in the past.
The project clearly demonstrates following the principles of real and effective student voice can and should take teachers and education policy makers to ideas and improvements they may not have considered making themselves.
For those able to read French or German read extracts and information on the website. For the rest, the scheme has generated considerable interest in a number of languages and a good starting point for further reading is the governmental bilingual site.