Raymond Zhou

A balanced approach in history class

By Raymond Zhou (China Daily)
Updated: 2006-09-09 06:39

Revising a history textbook is a dangerous thing. People who are used to the old version will feel cheated and find a thousand faults. People who start with the new may doubt your motives and suspect they are not getting a balanced account.

The new history textbook adopted in Shanghai has ruffled a lot of feathers, for different reasons.

The biggest reason mentioned in Chinese media is actually the most trivial: No netspeak is allowed.

Since when do textbooks accommodate words such as MM (beautiful girl), dragon (ugly girl) or PK (player killer)?

I've always advocated more freedom for usage of slang, but a formal textbook is not the right platform for such expressiveness because it is not a personalized and entertaining narration like the one delivered by Professor Yi Zhongtian to a massive television audience. But that's a topic for another column.

The significance of the new Shanghai textbook lies not in its resistance towards words in vogue, but in its fundamentally revolutionary approach to history. And personally, I believe it is the right approach.

It has toned down descriptions of peasant uprisings and violent dynastic changes. In their place is more content about innovation and culture.

It would be tempting to interpret it as an answer to the call for "a harmonious society." But such politicizing, though not wrong, may be a little shallow.

The learning of history in a Chinese classroom had always been made up of memorizing lengthy dynastic lineages, with their numerous names and dates. There is no room for interpretation: you are supposed to see it only from the one perspective sanctified by the textbook.

And honestly, the old approach is not balanced. It places too much emphasis on destructive events and their dynamics, often leaving them out of historical context. One gets the sense that if you belong to the ruling class, your job is to oppress the people; and if you are a laobaixing (hoi polloi), you should automatically hate the landlords and the powers-that-be and overthrow them at the first chance you get.

No wonder youngsters nowadays cheer online whenever news of the killing of a billionaire or an official emerges. If you sow hatred, you reap hatred.

That is especially true for teenagers, who are not mature enough to receive a comprehensive and nuanced chronicling of historic events. Actually, in our society, even some adults have difficulty digesting the complexities of history because we, in our formative years, had been fed a black-and-white, cut-and-dried rendition.

I'm not suggesting we should omit wars and revolutions al together. But given the limited time for history teaching in our packed high-school curriculum, the shift of focus to positive things in history - the creations that have enriched us, the civilisations that have made us who we are - is an encouraging one.

Is it going from one extreme to another? Not necessarily. For one thing, this approach will make a more wholesome person out of the high-school student. This is not the same as blanket whitewashing if you encourage the teenager to dig deeper into history while in college and come up with more sophisticated interpretations.

Suppose the student does not go to college or pore over those thick tomes. It is still better, I'm convinced, that he or she remains blissfully ignorant than blindly hating everyone who is richer or who occupies a higher position.

Speaking of condensations and omissions, there are recent events, like the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, that have shaped whole generations but are squeezed to only a brief mention, in both the old and new editions. It is lamentable, but for high-schoolers, it is probably necessary.

A proper education should include learning about one's own national history and also world history. That does not mean only the happenings that we would love to hear. There is plenty of ugliness in our history that we should know and understand. As they say, those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.

Reversing the sequence of teaching may sound innocuous, but can lead to the breeding of warped minds, with severe inferiority or superiority complexes and irrational distrust of fellow human beings.

The Shanghai textbook is a step in the right direction. And from the attacks heaped on it from those who cling to the outdated way of thinking, it may prove to be a significant one.

Email: raymondzhou@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 09/09/2006 page4)