Professionally Forgetful? Defining the parameters of historical professionalism

Written by Gary Scales. Edited by Liam Brake.

At school, I found history to be obdurately dull. The insipid prose of the textbook was dutifully paralleled by the bland colour of my exercise book. I remember little of my early lessons, yet today I find myself enamoured with the subject and its potential to illuminate fresh understandings of the past and future. I have provided much thought to the reasons why I have to come to deify history to the same extent I reviled it in years previous. With time, my analysis has changed and although I must consider my experience was perhaps not universal; such consideration has failed to alter my belief that there exists a sizeable gulf between academic history and curricula for pre-degree level history.

Lamentably, I was recently provided evidence this gap remains when a school teacher informed me her school would be visiting the southern USA on “the civil rights trip”. With the twentieth anniversary of Sugrue’s The Origins of the Urban Crisis approaching, her declaration would seem to indicate the absence of such pioneering scholarship from school history agendas. The steadfast magnitude of this space raises questions most pertinent – is the academic history profession becoming so insular as to neglect wider spheres of influence? If so, how exactly are we to define the parameters for academic history? Suggesting GCSE and A-Level students undertake exhaustive studies of Sugrue and spatial theory would be somewhat sightless; these are advanced texts aimed at advanced audiences, but omitting the messages of such books from classrooms is almost as asinine. After all, classrooms are the arenas in which future historians first encounter our craft. If history is to chart the healthy and meritorious course it deserves; it must first thrive in the school classroom.

SELF-DEFEATING PROFITS

Professor William Cronon has cautioned that in spite of the enjoyment and achievement academe may offer, pursuit of specific history is inseparable from “certain vices that are not quite so admirable.” After hearing my friend, one can only speculate if one such vice is the propensity of the academic historian to permit the inflexibility of the space between academia and those who reside in spheres currently far removed – such as school teachers – even though such people may consider themselves of the same professional capacity.

Herein is a question of the most unclear proportions; is the academic historian forgetting the wider world – the very world we attempt to deconstruct and explain? Evidently, there are no clear answers. I certainly make no intention to classify the now commonplace concentrated style of erudition as negative. My point is this is fast becoming the established custom and such practice carries inherent risk. In 2003 the AHA declared “prestigious universities are turning out PhDs whose knowledge is a mile deep and an inch wide.” While innovation is welcome, such scholastic profits must be balanced with a robust sense of relevance outside institutions of higher education. Otherwise the price of this method could prove the perilous separation of academic gain from arenas where its application may ascertain the greatest profits for the profession. Significant advances in knowledge can be greatly amplified if constructed so as not to forget the people and mechanisms which ensure the historical ensign remains aloft.

CONSTRUCTING EXCLUSION

I turn now to the second question. How are we to define the parameters of historical professionalism? No stakeholder in the history profession will dispute the magnitude of an academic’s obligations; teaching, writing, editing and presenting must all be addressed. Managing these tasks is complex and demanding but to risk sounding sanctimonious, this intricacy should enhance, not preclude, relationships between academe and related circles of educational responsibility. Ensuring the longevity of this union is serious work; so serious a satisfactory approach remains subject to controversy and ambiguity.

I do not profess to have a solution to these uncertainties. Nonetheless, I do believe distinguishing between “forgotten” and “excluded” is vital. Few would refute that history is constructed; a narrative provided to a collection of facts. As intellectual practice, “forgotten” implies a lack of consciousness whereas “excluded” does so the opposite. Should these same classifications be applied to the responsibilities of the academic historian, the basis upon which the aforementioned space maybe reduced effectively, could be located without detriment to university learning.

Assigning responsibility for school history education to those not employed in academia would be simple, but a decision unworthy of many modern scholars’ abilities. Professional parameters must be defined so as to influence as many allied spheres of interest as possible. Like any good purveyor of their trade, historians should never be satisfied with their achievements and spectacular evidence exists to support that they never are. Nonetheless, the historian should not lose consciousness that exclusion in academic study may lead to exclusion from duty. It is imperative therefore their potential breadth of influence is retained within their purview and exclusions be constructed accordingly; a converse practice may result in nothing other than a sizeable self-injustice.

DEATH OF A SALESMAN

As Whitehall continues to vacillate, the future of UK higher education seems an uneasy prospect to assess but this need not be negative. Never has there been a more apt moment to reiterate the requirement for academic history to reach out to prospective students thus narrow concentration in subject and conduct have rarely been more precarious. As Socrates affirmed, “education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel”, therefore we must market our craft as much as we produce it.

I do not mean to denigrate modern scholarship; however the profession must reach further outside academic discourse which currently sits on the brink of becoming dangerously reclusive. By doing so, we can ensure the most important historians of all are not forgotten – those who have not yet had the privilege of discovering the enjoyment and fascination historical enquiry can bestow. Addressing this critical demographic is one of our most rudimentary responsibilities. If we do not, then history may become one of the very vestiges over whose recovery we often spend many arduous hours.

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