I still recall, when I was a doctoral student in France, that the following sentence was repeatedly used: “The school is the first line of defense for the Republic and its values.” This sentence is engraved in my mind, and since then it has taken on different dimensions with every educational experience I go through.
Building societies where people can live together and where sustainable prosperity and peace can be secured is not an easy matter. This requires efforts made along two tracks, the first being from top to bottom, through the constitutional and legal structures of society as well as the state and its institutions, while the second is from bottom to top, through the educational structure which entails an intellectual and cultural structure, in which both public and private schools and universities, curricula and research centers play a major role in planning for the person of today and tomorrow. This human being represents, on the one hand, the goal of the state, and on the other hand, the primary resource and thereby human resource, of building society, the state, its economy and future.
This fully explains the preoccupation of the Enlightenment philosophers in Europe who, in addition to their criticism of the old European system of thought, and the birth of another system of thought in all its philosophical, political, social and economic aspects, were concerned with the educational aspect and how to build the human being, who has become the ultimate goal of the social and state building process. Jean-Jacques Rousseau's book Emile: Or, On Education is considered one of the most prominent expressions of the priority of education in building societies and states. It is not possible to build a social contract between free individuals-citizens, based on the values of freedom, democracy, equality, separation of powers, and perceiving the individual human being or the person an end and a value in itself, if this human being-individual-person is not prepared to fulfill this social contract and manage it in line with the common good of all free and equal citizens.
Lebanon, with its socio-political model, is grounded in building its state on a social contract, despite suffering from a number of structural defects, that is not different from other models in any part of the world.
Based on this introduction, we can approach the question of teaching civic education, to which citizenship education may also be added, and history, while emphasizing that these subjects only diverge and converge according to the vision set by the educational plan in Lebanon to build the hoped-for human being. In my capacity as a specialist in history and representative of the Lebanese Association for History, I will focus on the importance of history education in contributing to the development of a new social contract in Lebanon.
I will give a clarification.
History has always given rise to polarization manifested in two educational trends. The first one considers that, similarly to the subject of civic and national education, history is concerned with consolidating in the new generations a unified memory that will be a common basis for building the Lebanese citizen with a unified and assimilationist memory and background. The other trend sees that history is discipline of knowledge overthinking, as it is supposed to develop in students some skills and capabilities and lay the foundations for a preliminary culture of history, which they will develop if they wish to major in it.
In fact, educational decision-makers have emphasized the first trend since independence; however, the outcome is different from what they had hoped for. The Lebanese people have failed in building a unified memory, establishing citizenship by cultural assimilation, and maintaining their social contract. The latter has been subject to many violations by the Lebanese themselves, although many historians see that the 1975-1990 wars were wars of others, not the wars of the Lebanese. But the main question always arises: Would the others have been able to wage wars in Lebanon had it not been for the complicity of some Lebanese?
Anyway, the attempt has failed. Beyond that, educational decision-makers, academics and other people concerned with the subject of history have failed, or perhaps they have lacked the will, to develop a new history curriculum after 1968, as they have always linked it with the need for the cultural assimilation of the Lebanese, ignoring the fact that they include diverse groups, with each having its own historical narrative and interpretation of every single historical event. It should be noted in this regard that this failure has occurred although the signatories of the Taif Agreement, or the so-called Document of National Accord signed by Lebanese MPs in 1989 in Taif, Saudi Arabia, had recognized the need for developing a unified history textbook in the framework of the theory of assimilation itself.
Consequently, all attempts to develop a unified curriculum and a unified history textbook have failed, despite one attempt led by Professor Nemer Frayha during his mandate as President of the Center for Educational Research and Development (CRDP\CERD) in 2000, which almost came to fruition had it not been for the direct political interference and disruptions of the then Minister of Education.
Despite all these disappointments, Lebanese society has always demonstrated a distinct dynamism that is sometimes generated by individual, societal and elite initiatives more than by the state or its institutions. In this regard, it is necessary to talk about an initiative launched by the Lebanese Association for History, a non-governmental organization founded by history professors and academics specializing in history and educational science. This initiative is based on the idea that it is not possible to disregard the fact that the History course in schools in Lebanon has become a dead subject in every sense of the word, and that something must be done in order to revive this course because of its equal significance at the knowledge, cultural and building levels.
If we were to sum up this idea-initiative, we could say that it emanates from a new approach to the course of History which considers it as a “discipline” through which human beings, their features and capabilities are built, and not just a narrative or an official story that is passed on through generations. If we adopted history as a discipline at school, we would remove the burden placed on it for assuming it is a means to achieve the assimilation of the Lebanese people. Therefore, history is a tool and a means, not to teach students and have them memorize a previously agreed upon narrative, but to directly build their profile and capabilities, and communicate many human and civic and citizenship values to them indirectly and even without openly declaring them.
Thus, instead of having history professors enter the class, take the history book out of their bags, put the lesson title on the board, recite the lesson in front of their students, and ask them to memorize it, they will enter the class, according to this new approach, carrying a significant number of historical documents such as history texts, photos, videos, drawings, graffiti, ancient coins and money, and a plan of activities. At this point you ask me: “What will they write on the board instead of the lesson title?” The Lebanese Association for History suggests that the title be replaced with an inquiry question that reflects a historical concept: causality, change, persistence and continuity, historical significance, historical diversity, and so forth.
The moment professors write the question on the board, hand out documents to their students, divide them into joint working groups according to activities geared toward answering the question, they have transformed their classes from a simple teaching and memorization class, into a workshop in which students’ skills are developed in the areas of research, investigation, as well as reading, analysis, comparison and contrast of historical documents, and ascertaining their reliability in order to extract historical information and evidence that answers the investigative question. Let us reflect on all these skills and capabilities that we are in the process of building for students: close reading, deep research and exploration, analysis, teamwork, listening, inference, extraction of information, summarizing, debating, time management, assigning tasks, delivering presentations, critical thinking and hence independent and creative thinking, and so on. Beyond that, if we considered the entire process, the history class would be transformed from a professor-star recitation in which the students are merely non-interacting recipients of knowledge, into a workshop in which they, not the professor, are the stars and investigative “young historians”, I would say, who do all the work under the supervision of their teacher who has a broad culture and demonstrates high efficiency in managing both the class and activities. More importantly, instead of teaching one narrative to our students by asking them to memorize it, they will construct their own historical narrative based on the historical documents at their disposal. Thus, rather than having a single narrative, we will have various ones that reflect the historical truth, but from different angles and perspectives.
Here too, I invite you to reflect on the large number and quality of human and citizenship values that student will acquire, even indirectly, even without declaring them, during this investigation process: working together, accepting and working with the other, accepting differences, listening to the other, building a democratic spirit while working together, freedom, diversity, critical and constructive spirit, and so on.
This human being, who has acquired the skills, human and citizenship values, and historical culture in the history class at school, will be able to build and maintain the new hoped-for Lebanese social contract. It is this human being who will be able to interact with the reality and aspirations of his/her society because s/he understands its pluralistic structure.
When building this human being-citizen-individual-person with a natural inclination to accept the other, the human being with independent critical thinking, creativity, love of the good, truth, beauty and peace, the building of future citizens will become a realistic and possible endeavor.
Here I call upon all concerned, state, society, history professors and academics specialists in history, social and educational sciences, and decision-makers, to launch a process according to which history is considered once again a human subject, assuming the development of a new and unified curriculum of history that embraces Lebanese diversity and seeks to build the hoped-for human being in our Lebanon and the region. Then, the school in Lebanon becomes a line of defense in the civilized Lebanon we aspire for, the cradle of humanity, the land of peace and prosperity, a Lebanon that actively contributes to building modern human civilization.