Struggling with the Grand Narrative

Response to Timothy Stanley

One of the articles that has resonated with me lately is the supplemental reading by Timothy Stanley, on the role of grand narratives in the study of history. In this article Stanley argues for three positions: 1) that grand narratives in Canada (and other colonizes countries?) start with the arrival of European explorers, 2) that grand narratives follow, almost exclusively, the expansion and settlement experiences of Europeans, and 3) that grand narratives are not the objective “truth” from the past, but rather one interpretation among many.

As I have written before, my teaching position this year is a grade seven Humanities teacher, which puts me in a position of teaching the “entire” history of Canada. My own background has very little deep training of Canadian History. I have only one direct university course in Canadian History, so I feel my understanding has been derived mostly from the public history that surrounds me, what Stanley has labeled “the most widely circulated, common-sense representations of the past, of the CBC's "Canada: A People's History," of beer commercials, of the Canada Hall at the Canadian Museum of Civilization, and of innumerable high school history textbooks and speeches by political leaders.”

Due to my own experience with Canadian History, I feel I rely on the grand narratives that make it easy for an immigrant (which I am) to understand and make sense of the history of this place. I realize that the grand narrative of which Stanley speaks is easy and comfortable for me, because I am a white, male. I can pick up and make sense of the public history, with little trouble. Additionaly, because the narratives are a comfortable way for me personally to make sense of Canada’s history, my role as a history teacher flows naturally out of the common-sense view of our past.

Part of me doesn’t see a problem with teaching a form of Grand Narrative. My current line of thinking is that students need a unified or cohesive model of history to follow, in order to make sense of the place where they live. I understand that the grand narrative is not the experience for a number of groups of people within our population, and that a history that focuses on the decisions and power struggles of dead, white males, marginalizes and excludes certain voices. However, I do see a place for these events and a history that weaves together the significant (and by significant, I am using Levesques criteria of Profundity, Quantity, Durability and Relevance) historical events from our past. For myself, it is important that students have a factual and detailed understanding of how our current country came to be.

However, I do realize that the study of our past cannot focus solely on the “winners” or the dominate group. A history that is overly romanticized, or uses the narrative for power and authority over other groups is a dangerous narrative to be teaching our students. In my own teaching, I am striving for a balance between a form of the grand narrative, one that traces the ‘significant’ political, social and military events, while attempting to weave in the voices and experiences of the excluded voices.

But part of the issue for myself, and for a number of other teachers who I have spoken with about the issue of teaching history, is that our content knowledge or experience drives much of how we see our past, and then what we past on to our students. How do we include the marginalized stories when they are not our own, and even more so, how do we honour them when, most of the time, we don’t know those voices exist? I need to come back to this issue - I feel I have much more to figure out about being a "history teacher." There is so much of my daily teaching experience that centers around my understanding of history.


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