The constantly changing discipline of history didactics – An introduction (original) (raw)
Teaching World History as a discussion of the human experience of the past and the present through a tool box of theoretical approaches. Skills students achieve during our 2-semester long course include analytical thinking, critical reading, historical thinking and academic writing in English. To this end, a selection of primary sources and secondary sources are used in student-centered exercises to discuss historical content and to facilitate the acquisition of above-mentioned skills. In order to achieve this, scholars from various disciplinary backgrounds cooperate with English language instructors.
Discussions on history teaching in Turkey indicate that the previous versions of the history curriculum and the pedagogy of history in the country bear many problems and deficiencies. The problems of Turkish history curriculum mainly arise from the perspectives it takes and the selection of its content. Since 2003, there have been extensive educational changes, including the alterations of primary social studies and secondary history curricula. The major goal of the preparation and projected practice of the new history curriculum is to overcome the problems and deficiencies of history teaching. This paper examines the documents of the new Turkish secondary school history curriculum and compares it with the previous state of history teaching in the country. A qualitative document analysis technique was employed to descriptively examine the content of the curriculum documents. It has been found out that most of the problems and deficiencies observed in the previous versions have still been existent in the current one.
Technium Social Sciences Journal
There are permanent approaches regarding the role and purpose of history in the context of the 3rd millennium. The idea that history should and can be studied was strongly emphasized because people need to know themselves. Three sources of fundamental knowledge of history were mentioned for the 20th and 21st centuries: school, family, mass media. Contemporary specialists warn that the success of teaching history in school should not be based on a strictly mechanical assimilation of historical data and events, but above all on the understanding by the subjects of history learning of the significance of historical processes, events and progress over time, but and to the contribution of history to the formation of national identity. This explains why the study of history is closely linked to education for democratic citizenship and human rights.
Bildung and the Internationalization of Curriculum Studies
International Conversations on Curriculum Studies, 2009
I explore resonances between Didaktik and North American curriculum studies, focusing on Bildung, linking it to the autobiographical tradition in North America. Posing historical and gendered questions regarding the concept (of Bildung), I also explore differences between the two traditions. During our time together in Tampere, I suggest, we can focus our own, and not only our students', self-formation. Perhaps we use conference encounters not only to report our own work, faithful to our own national cultures and theoretical programs, but also to allow ourselves to go into temporary exile, undergo estrangement from what is familiar and everyday and enter a third space, neither home nor abroad, but in-between, a space that, in von Humboldt's words, "makes possible the interplay between his receptivity and his selfactivity." In this interplay, I suggest, can occur the internationalization of curriculum studies. ***** I wish to participate in the dialogue 1 proposed by Stefan Hopmann and Kurt Riquarts in their edited collection on Didaktik, "generally defined as the art or study of teaching" (2000, 3), a definition drawn, perhaps, from Eric Weniger (2000 [1952], 112), who defines Didaktik as "primarily, and certainly in everyday terms, the study of teaching and learning, the study of instruction." If instruction and teaching are subsidiary concepts in U.S. curriculum studies, it appears we are creating a dialogue between differently positioned, as well as historically and culturally distinctive, concepts. Given these "fundamental" (2000, 3) differences 2 , Hopmann and Riquarts acknowledge that such a dialogue will be difficult. Despite the difficulty, I want to share their conviction that (2000, 4) each tradition can offer the other "substantial insights" and "knowledge." Acknowledging (see 2000, 4) that curriculum theory has "taught" the Didaktik tradition "important" lessons concerning the relationship between school and society, on the nature and scope of educational planning, and on the socially constructed character of schooling, Hopmann and Riquarts (2000, 4) assert that the Didaktik tradition can, in turn, support curriculum theory's interest in reflective teaching, curriculum enactment, and teacher thinking. 3 As well, Didaktik's emphasis upon content as the "core" of teaching intersects, they suggest, with the "recent awareness" of curriculum theorists that "subject matters" (2000, 4). 4 Drawing upon Comenius, Hopmann and Riquarts (see 2000, 4) list three elements of Didaktik. Teaching, they tell us, requires knowing 1) the content of instruction, 2) from where that content comes, and 3) how content is used. This third element is not a matter of "application" as North Americans might understand that concept, but, rather, "a crucial factor William F. Pinar: Bildung and the internationalization of curriculum studies Transnational Curriculum Inquiry 3 (2) 2006 http://nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs/index.php/tci 2 induced in any level of educational reasoning" (2000, 5). What does this mean? Drawing upon Herbart, Hopmann and Riquarts (2000, 6) describe instruction as "developing" the student's knowledge of his or her "obligations, opportunities, and choices." In Herbart's view, they summarize, "instruction is education by content" (Hopmann and Riquarts 2000, 6; emphasis in original). This notion, we are told, constitutes the "core" of German Didaktik onto the present day (Hopmann and Riquarts 2000, 6). The most important contribution of Herbartianism, Hopmann and Riquarts (2000, 6) stress, was its extraction of Didaktik from general educational theory, rendering it a discipline of its own, focused on instruction "under the conditions of schooling" as distinct from other instructional settings like self-education or education in the family. 5 Indeed, the "overwhelming success" of Didaktik, they suggest, had to do with being embedded in "certain institutional environments" (Hopmann and Riquarts 2000, 7). The centralization of schools in Prussia required a theory regulating the interplay of these organizational domains (e.g. the state curriculum, centralized teacher education, and local schooling). Certainly here is one historical difference, as in the United States, there has been (until four decades ago) a reluctance to centralize curriculum making and to align it with teacher education and local schooling. Despite this historical difference, in the 1960s there were German scholars who imagined that "the" 6 American curriculum tradition seemed to be "far ahead, and much more appropriate, for meeting the needs of a rapidly changing society" (Hopmann and Riquarts 2000, 8). In Germany, the curriculum "fever," as Hopmann and Riquarts (2000, 9) characterize it, "did not burn very long." The difference in "institutional structure" (2000, 9)-namely that difference between state and federal curriculum control, mentioned earlier-coupled with the strength of the Didaktik tradition within teacher education and school administration meant (Hopmann and Riquarts tell us) that the German appropriation of the American curriculum tradition was brief, a kind of "first love" Hopmann and Riquarts (2000, 9) describe it, "hot and fierce, but short." Didaktik did not emerge from these "wonder years" of "curriculum love" completely "unchanged," Hopmann and Riquarts (2000, 9) continue. 7 The changes Hopmann and Riquarts identify bear no resemblance to Mager or to Bruner (the names they associate with "the" American curriculum tradition with which Germans had become infected), but more to the critical tradition that would surface after Schwab's famous 1969 pronouncement, during the decade of reconceptualization (see Pinar et al. 1995, chapter 4). First, and "foremost," Hopmann and Riquarts (2000, 9) explain, "there is a consensus … today … that Didaktik has to be critical, and even resistant," especially when state requirements do not coincide with Didaktik's conception of the "good" of students. (Who determines the "good" of students, asks Tero Autio [2006b], and by what criteria? Do issues of class, gender, and power disappear in such a formulation?) Second, and "no less important," they continue, Didaktik had reclaimed its "old strength" as a "mediator" between the content and the teacher by a "radical turn" toward "content" (2000, 9). This is, however, no reconceptualization of the synoptic textbook for teachers, as I have proposed (Pinar 2006a). Instead, Hopmann and Riquarts are referring to the substitution of general by specific subject-matter Didaktik, that is the "Didaktik produced and delivered inside the boundaries of the school subjects" (2000, 9). Just as general curriculum development was replaced by school subject specific areas in the United States (especially after World War II), it appears that in Germany, too, subject-matter Didaktik has replaced the previous, more generalized, versions. 8 This fact both fields face. In order to clarify differences as well as hint at resonances between the two traditions, today I will concentrate on the key concept of Bildung, as presented in the Westbury-Hopmann-Riquarts volume. I underscore two aspects of the concept: the first its historically variable meaning and the second its gendered structure. I conclude with the suggestion that
2013
It is a cliché, but also a fundamental fact that we live in a world where globalization and international challenges, opportunities and relationships play an increasing role. However, how have these changing conditions affected the content of school history? To what degree have curricula and textbooks addressed these challenges? Is the main focus in school history still on the history of the nation state, or has it successfully integrated topics and themes from world history? These are questions I discuss in this paper. In the main, my starting point is the situation in Denmark, but with perspectives and comparisons from Norway, England and Germany. Among other things, I will put school history in a historical context, because the subject's history and genesis-in my opinion-tends to maintain a traditional content and form of organization, thereby reducing the subject's usefulness. At the end of the paper, I outline and discuss a few alternative options for selecting and organizing the content with the aim of being more inclusive with regard to global and international aspects. The paper must be understood as a step towards the clarification of a development project that aims to propose and experiment with practices for the selection and organization of the content of the history curriculum, with the aim of increasing the international and global dimensions in history teaching.
The Teaching of History in Secondary Schools
History subject is often seen as a boring subject. It has a lot of old facts that students find it difficult to memorize. This is the common complaint from secondary school students when asked about the History subject. This qualitative study is carried out to uncover the underlying reasons why History is seen as a boring subject. Methods such as observations, interviews and review of documents are used to gather the data. There are nine History teachers participated in this study. They have been observed, interviewed and the relevant documents were reviewed to find out their teaching approach and to identify the reasons for the approach to be implemented. The finding shows that these participants are using teacher-centred approach with conventional teaching activities and excessive used of the textbook. The main reason given for such teaching is the constraint of time. These teachers have to complete teaching the syllabus before the centralized exam being held. As a result of such teaching the values, especially the patriotic values, which was emphasized in the curriculum of this subject is last inculcated in the teaching. Based on the finding, it can be concluded that the examination is the underlying reason for the subject to be seen as a boring subject. These teachers do not have many options to change their approach of teaching History. Since the centralize examination is compulsory, therefore, teachers have to be creative and innovative in order to make the teaching of History more interesting for the students and the patriotic values can be inculcated. Keyword: Teaching History, Teacher-centred, Traditional Teaching, Conventional Teaching
What about Global History? Dilemmas in the Selection of Content in the School Subject History
Education Sciences, 2013
It is a cliché, but also a fundamental fact that we live in a world where globalization and international challenges, opportunities and relationships play an increasing role. However, how have these changing conditions affected the content of school history? To what degree have curricula and textbooks addressed these challenges? Is the main focus in school history still on the history of the nation state, or has it successfully integrated topics and themes from world history? These are questions I discuss in this paper. In the main, my starting point is the situation in Denmark, but with perspectives and comparisons from Norway, England and Germany. Among other things, I will put school history in a historical context, because the subject's history and genesis-in my opinion-tends to maintain a traditional content and form of organization, thereby reducing the subject's usefulness. At the end of the paper, I outline and discuss a few alternative options for selecting and organizing the content with the aim of being more inclusive with regard to global and international aspects. The paper must be understood as a step towards the clarification of a development project that aims to propose and experiment with practices for the selection and organization of the content of the history curriculum, with the aim of increasing the international and global dimensions in history teaching.