Blackadder Wars - A brief, and admittedly personal, reflection.

I can’t pretend to know the ins and outs of this debate and I’m actually surprised that I’ve chosen to discuss it all. However, having just listened to the Start the Week episode with Michael Gove, Margaret Macmillan, Simon Sharma and Tom Holland from 30 December 2013 and having read a few of the news articles that have been produced in its wake , I found myself forming my own opinions and thought why not share them as the first blog of the new year!

Cast of Blackadder goes Forth
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackadder_Goes_Forth

Commemoration of WWI is going to a topical subject over the course of the coming year and rightfully so. It is a period of British history that most people are familiar with and that holds great personal resonance with those who can recall the experiences of their relatives. It has always been a topic that has interested me and in my own time I’ve read war poetry and conducted my own research when questions have arisen in relation to the family tree. But as with most of us, my main knowledge derives from what I was taught at numerous points throughout education. Admittedly it was a fair time ago now, but I don’t remember ever being told the history of WW1 in a simplistic manner and for that reason I was somewhat surprised when discussion of how WW1 is taught in schools sparked such a heated debate. In particular I was somewhat bemused by the fact that use of ‘Blackadder’ became one of the main discussion points.

I remember vividly being shown a clip of Blackadder at the end of a history class where the focus had been on WWI, but it was never used as the centre piece of the lesson and I can’t say that I based my entire understanding of WW1 on the message of that piece. In fact I think it was one of those cases where a video was shown as a reward for finishing a given piece of work early. It was also just one of a number of other teaching tools that were used to teach us about WW1, we were also shown primary source material (including propaganda) and taken to Brookwood Cemetery – what political meaning should I ascribe to that?

Brookwood Cemetery
http://www.cwgc.org/

I can’t help but feel that Gove, and indeed Paxman, are underestimating teachers and indeed students when reflecting on how WW1 is taught in schools. I particularly don’t think enough credit is given to the students who are watching it. Students of history are always encouraged to look at other historical sources and to analysis and critique them and this is a skill you’re taught early on at secondary level. And while Blackadder may not be a historical source, it does present one interpretation of history and is something that students can approach and draw their own conclusions from. If nothing else it is informative of popular perception of the war. Also, students are not so thick as to take it as gospel – it is a piece of comedy after all! I think it is highly unlikely that any teacher would use Blackadder as the definitive source for understanding WW1, they may use it to start a discussion but you can then bring in all sorts of different arguments from across the board and as such, I have to agree with Tony Robinson, that showing clips of Blackadder is just one of many tools that teachers use to make classes a little bit more interactive and to engage students.

WW1 Poster
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/uknews/3400728

I remember in another class being asked to debate the reputation of General Haig, having been given a mixture of sources that portrayed him as both an army general doing his job and others where he was portrayed as the ‘butcher of the Somme’. I know now what a controversial figure he was because of that particular lesson and also now realise, that at that point I was also being introduced to the idea of historiography and the continually evolving nature of historical interpretation. At 14 years old we were being given material and encouraged to draw out own arguments and as such I never saw WW1 as a narrow and straight forward conflict and have always had great respect for those who fought for this country.

That might have been down to the initiative of our teacher I don’t know, but I would say is that those lessons gave me a really good grounding for understanding WW1 and one that was based on more than just the idea of ‘lions led by donkeys’. I can't help but feel this debate has lost some perspective and become more about political agenda than education. As with most of history WW1 is the subject of multiple interpretations - who's to say which are right and which are wrong? Should we not be more concerned with presenting as many of those perspectives as we can and hoping that one or more may provoke an enquiring mind?