Frank’s historical and social insights can help principals contextualize contemporary education challenges within broader societal trends. His work can provide perspective on policy, leadership, and the evolving role of schools in shaping civic-minded citizens, making his contributions valuable for conference discussions around education strategy and leadership.
What should students understand about the past?
This lecture will make the case for historical literacy. The issue is not primarily about what things students need to know – the least fruitful kind of discussion – so much as why being able to think historically is critical to functioning well as a citizen and human in a world transformed by social media, artificial intelligence, environmental threats and democratic decay. The argument will rest on the way historical literacy builds capacities for radical empathy, critical thinking and story-telling. Historians work with time, and they explore otherness: the otherness of the past and its peoples, the otherness of places and societies different from our own. But it is also about connection: the effort to place ourselves in a larger context, to recognise our own historicity, and to recognise what we share with others, by temporarily taking us out of ourselves in what Tom Griffiths has likened to time travel.