Teaching of History

TEACHING OF

HISTORY

BHUVANGARG

RAJAT PUBLICATIONS NEW DELm - 110 002 (INDIA)

RAJAT PUBLICATIONS 4675/21, Ansari Road, Daryaganj New De!hi - 110002 (India) Phones: 23267924, 22507277 Email: [email protected]

Teaching of History

© Reserved

First Edition 2007

ISBN 978-81-7880-309-8

[The responsibility for facts stated opinion expressed or conclusions reached and plagiarism if any in this volume is entirely that of the editor. The publisher bears no responsibility for them whatsoever.]

PRINTED IN INDIA

Published by Mrs. Seema Wasan for Rajat Publications, New Delhi and Printed at H.S. Offset, Delhi.

Contents

1. Teaching Primary History 1

2. History Teaching in Secondary Schools 23

3. Teaching Tools for Local History 47

4. Teaching World History 73

5. Teaching Effective World History 109

6. Teaching Medieval Castles 133

7. History Teaching through Reflective Practice 147

8. Teaching the 20th-Century History 151

9. Teaching Conflict Resolution 161

10. Research-Teaching Relationships 205

11. Certification of History Teachers 215

12. Future of Teaching History Research Methods 225

13. Evaluation of History Teaching 237

14. Assessments to Improve the Teaching and Learning History 241

15. Future of Learn and Teach History 247

Bibliography 263

Illdex 265

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1 Teaching Primary History

Since the 1960s, when the subjects of historical study broadened to include the new "social history," the amount of material that historians have to deal with, and the number of subdisciplines they are studying increased considerably. The following are the teaching methods of primary history:

QUESTIONS AND QUESTIONING

Enquiry lies at the heart of history. Understanding the past involves a process of enquiry, where we examine sources about the past, raise questions and debate their meaning.

Closed and Open Questions

We can ask children closed or open questions. Closed questions will test recall and understanding and help children to revise what they know. As such, they have a useful place in a teacher's repertoire. The best questions, though, are open questions. Open questions in history focus children's attention, rouse curiosity and interest, drive and shape the investigation, elicit views and stimulate purposeful discussion. Open questions promote higher order thinking and so help children to develop their thinking skills.

2 Teachi1lg of History

Key Questions

Key questions are overarching questions which give any lesson or topic unity and coherence, driving and focusing the investigation. A key question for a topic might be: Why do we learn about the Ancient Greeks? what was special about them? and for a lesson within the topic: Was there a Trojan War? Not all questions are key, or important. It is all too easy to ask trivial questions. Good questions challenge us to investigate a topic and help us to develop our understanding of the past.

Children Asking Questions

Learning to ask good questions is a valuable skill to acquire, and our pupils will become good at questioning if we build in opportunities for them to ask their own questions. When teachers invite children to ask questions about a topic, such as the Great Fire of London.

Speaking and Listening

Speaking and listening are crucial for practising and embedding new vocabulary and concepts, and as such form the bedrock on which literacy is built. They also form the basis of social interaction, and are skills to be taught, as listening and turn-taking do not come naturally to children. Harassed teachers, too, do not always give children enough time to develop confidence in speaking.

Discussion and debate sharpen thinking skills and promote understanding. By teaching history as a process of enquiry, a process that demands the questioning and debating of evidence, we advance oracy, historical literacy and thinking skil1s.

We give children opportunities to develop their oracy through:

- Problem-solving and defending conclusions reached.

Teaching Primary History

Group discussion to test meaning and refine ideas.

Simulation and role play.

3

Asking children to pose questions, to predict, to raise doubts.

Explaining their thinking processes and ideas.

Evaluating their own learning.

Set rules for class discussion and debate together with the children. A key principle is that whoever is speaking has the right to be listened to. A speaker's ring or stone helps to establish such right.

Points to consider when planning a debate:

The key question or issue (e.g. How should Drake treat mutineers?)

The evidence the children will use to support their arguments

Setting the scene for the debate (e.g. via story or brainstorming)

Promoting orderly thinking and good arguments

Follow-up work, e.g. writing, presentations.

Reading Books

Reading books is very different from reading documents. Books are more diffuse, and carry many different forms of information and evidence. Good books provide rich sources of knowledge about any given historical period. To help children use books well, we suggest the following approaches.

Book Navigation Exercises

These are invaluable for giving children an overview of

4 Teaching of History

the topic and a 'map' of the historical territory.

Children do index-searching in pairs. Who are the key people? Key events?

Has everyone got the same list? Discussion about relative importance.

Look at contents, at the picture on the front cover: What or who does the book's author pick out as significant?

Flick through: skim and scan, looking at the signposts in the books to form mental pictures. Then make three statements, and pose three questions. From these build up a class picture of key features, and hold a class quiz.

Organise the information in the book into overlapping sets.

Write down one or two words/sentences about each significant person or event to start a timeline. This is best done later in the topic, and is good for the more able.

Simple Data Capture

For instance, children could draw a chart showing features of daily life (shopping, home life, schools, transport, occupations). The children can help to decide the categories. They then research in their topic books and fill in the chart.

Questions and Hypotheses

Children are great copiers, so we need ways to prevent being presented with tthunks of text copied verbatim from topic books. Here are two effective approaches.

- Pose questions which prevent children from copying

Teaching Primary History 5

from the text, such as 'Was Montezuma great?' or 'Were the Romans a good thing for Britain?'

Formulate hypotheses for the children to test by evaluating information in their topic books, such as 'All evacuees had a horrible time away from home during the war'.

Causes and Consequences

Children could make a Causes list and a Consequences/ Results list of, for instance, the Saxon invasions of Britain, and try to explain how they are linked.

Historical Stories and Novels

Let us not forget historical stories and novels. The best open a door into another world and give children insight into past lives. They help children develop a sense of period, extending their knowledge of the world and its people. You can deepen the children's learning in both literacy and history with a well-chosen class reading book, such as Nina Bawden's Carrie's War, simultaneously with the teaching of 'Britain since 1930'.

Reading Documents

Historical documents are a boon to teachers. They offer the full range of types and genres of writing, from letters and diaries to official speeches and reports, from narrative accounts to poetry of every kind, from instructions to persuasive arguments and advertisements. As such, they make excellent shared texts for literacy teaching, introducing children to new ideas, vocabulary and forms of language. Crucially, if tied in with the teaching of a history topic, historical documents provide a context that enhances the learning of literacy.

The hi~torical context connects the children with the


people, society and situation that produced a particular document, engaging them imaginatively in exploring its wider meaning. Reading historical documents includes reading as a technical exercise in comprehension and deconstruction, but goes way beyond this to the higher literacy of understanding meaning, situation and significance. With appropriate teaching approaches and support structures, children can read documents well above their official reading ages. The reading of documents with children can be broken roughly into two stages.

Comprehension and Deconstruction

Here are some strategies for reading difficult and challenging texts with children.

Initially, read through the document with the children (or play it on an audio tape) to give them a feel for the whole text and its general meaning.

Start by asking the children 'just to glance at it' for things they will find easy (such as people's names, dates, places, animals, colours). After scanning the text like this a few times, the children lose any sense of its difficulty and are ready f~r deeper study.

Cut up the text into paragraphs, stanzas or even individual sentences for pairs or groups to work on. Later pool the pairs' / groups' contributions.

Cut up the text into sections and jumble them up. Give each pair or group one mixed-up text to sequence.

Ask the children to give the whole text, and each section or paragraph, a title.

Meaning, Situation and Significance

Now we turn to delving deeply into the document, asking ever more searching and complex questions. Here we ask


children to develop their critical faculties, their skills of inference, of interpretation. 'In this poem, how do the Vikings describe their world? What situations do they regard as important enough to write about? What do they value? How do their values differ from ours today?' This stage requires much discussion, careful listening by the teacher, and acceptance of all contributions.

Text Breaker

We have devised a textbreaker structure to help children make sens.e of difficult and challenging texts. What does textbreaker do?

scaffolds the children's learning.

helps with comprehension and deconstruction of the text.

enables exploration of the layers of meaning in the text.

Textbreaker can take several forms, from the simple to the complicated, and includes at least some of layers A? in the list below.

General Structure of Text

outlines.

features.

Words and Phrases

concrete nouns.

abstract nouns.

adjectives.

verbs.

adverbs.

8

pronouns, etc.

Ideas

main ideas.

sequence of ideas.

hierarchy of ideas.

Genre and Register

author's intent.

language used: tone, conventions.

Audience.

Historical and other Concepts

time: dates, periods, sequence.

Teaching of History

terminology: war, Reformation, valour.

cause/consequence: reasons, situations, significance, results.

interpretations.

evidence and enquiry.

With textbreaker we usually provide a glossary of hard words for instant reference.

Chidren Writing

How can we help children to write well, to do justice to their abilities through the written word?

The first step is to use verbal approaches to enable children to clarify concepts, explore appropriate vocabulary, and think about the form or genre in which they will write - here good examples to analyse are crucial. This will involve much raising of questions, discussion and


debate, brainstorming words on the board, role play and teacher modelling. Through such activities children gain confidence in their power to control and deploy language.

The Nuffield Exeter Extending Literacy project (EXEL) and the National Literacy Strategy have provided useful frameworks for helping children to write effectively, particularly through the use of writing frames and the explicit teaching of different writing genres.

Writing Frames

A writing frame provides a skeleton outline, a template, of key words and phrases (starters, connectives, sentence modifiers) to give children a structure within which they can communicate what they want to say in an appropriate form. Devise your own writing frames to suit your purpose. Here are some examples Writing frames from David Wray,

Effective Writing

To produce an effective piece of writing, children need to take into account three elements:

the author: are children writing as themselves, or as an historical character?

the form or genre: such as letter, diary, report, argument

the audience: who is the writing for - teacher, friend, the public, or a historical character?

Most importantly, we need to give children a real purpose for writing and we need to praise their efforts, acknowledging good work publicly.

Pictorial Note-taking

Children practise pictorial note-taking in How the Tudors came to power.


Learning about Time

History is concerned with lives, ev~nts, situations and developments in time and through tjme, so chronology is central to its understanding. A class timeline is an essential element of any history unit. It gives the children a framework for understanding and 'organising the historical period: when it all happened, what happened at that time (the key events), how things developed or stayed the same (change and continuity) and the sequence of events.

We never use ready-made timelines, but engage the children in constructing timelines of lives, events, periods. The timelines can take the form of string-and-peg sequences, wall or artefact displays or chronicle and diary writing. We utilise numbers, pictures, artefacts, and the written word (captions, labels, explanations, accounts).

Some useful chronological activities for children to engage in:

Sequencing pictures or artefacts (such as for local history, buildings according to period built; for Britain since 1930, fashions or inventions)

Comparing now and then (how did people travel to school or work then, and how do they travel now; or how many hours a day did children in the mines work compared with children's work at school today).

Comparing the features of different decades within a period.

Building up class timelines (such as incrementally over the course of a unit; or selecting key events from topic books to place on a skeleton timeline showing decades).

Selecting key events (or headlines) of the decade (or year).


Writing logs, chronicles or diaries of ev-ents suc1"! as Viking raids, the course of the Spanish Armada, the Jarrow march, the Great, Fire of London.

Compiling personal life timelines (for themselves, or for key historical characters such as 'Henry VIII: This is Your Life').

The Visual Image

T opfoto Visual images are powerful teaching and learning tools, providing windows into the past. We need to teach visual skills to children, and that means treating pictures as sources of information. Pictures can be read as texts in their own right, not as mere illustrations. Although children are surrounded by visual images, particularly on television, they often cannot comment on or remember what they have seen - they have not engaged with the images, have not 'read' them. For that they need to look deeply, to enter imaginatively into the picture, to question, to hypothesise.

Here are some strategies for engaging children in reading pictures.

Play 'I spy with my little eye'.

Quick flash of the picture: What did you see?

Another flash: Look for something someone else saw, and another new item.

Counting: How many pearls is Queen Elizabeth wearing? How many people are wearing brown? How many children are there?

What do you think were the artist's favourite four colours?

Put a photocopy of the picture in the middle of a sheet of paper.


Write down three things it tells us, and three questions you want to ask about it.

Or, list all the feelings this picture arouses in you.,

Or, list the colours, the people, the objects, and so on.

What are the people in the picture saying? Draw and fill in speech bubbles.

Picture as video: What happened before the scene depicted? After?

We then move on to consider the meaning of the image, its purpose, its context, what it meant to people at the time, what we can learn about the past from it.

Objects

As survivals from history, objects offer us an unrivalled way of touching past lives. Objects as humble as coins or old bottles can yield rich information and learning. They carry with them messages about the people who made, owned and used them, and about the places they came from and passed through.

Introducing and using Objects

Wrap them up so the children have to try to guess what they are from the shape.

Practical archaeology: bury objects (or fragments) in layers of sand in an old fish tank for the children to dig up and record using a grid.

Object carousel: place objects on sugar paper on desks around the classroom. Groups of children spend 5 minutes with each object, recording their observations and questions on the sugar paper before moving on to the next object. Then pool knowledge and questions.


Children observe, describe and draw an object in detail.

Raise What, Where, How, When and Why questions about an object.

Word games: pass an object round; each child must say something about it, or think of an adjective to describe it.

Bring in a dustbin bag or old suitcase containing objects that give clues about the owner/so

Storytelling: incorporate an object into a story about the past. This will give the object special significance.

Ask the children to bring in objects for a classroom museum (opportunities for sorting, categorising, labelling, layout).

Use a collection of historical objects to write an Argos catalogue for the past.

Ask the children to enact the object in use, or tell its story.

Maps and Plans

This is where history makes full use of geography, for all past events occur in place, as well as in time. Maps, like timelines, are essential reference points for all history units - they help children to develop an awareness of place. We want to help children to understand the physical world in which past people lived, as well as their beliefs, attitudes and experiences. Maps and plans are especially important for visual learners, as they provide a spatial and visual way of investigating historical questions and recording findings.

Maps and plans are a splendid resource for teaching about change and origins, about distance and journeys,


about the spaces in which people lived. Use good atlases that show not only countries, but also physical features. For journeys or voyages into Terra Incognita, we want children to use the maps - or travelling instructions - that people at the time would have used, so that they are working with the world as people knew or imagined it then.

Physical Maps

To understand journeys we need maps showing contours, rivers, mountains, heights - and we also need to understand climate. If we are to appreciate the trials of soldiers marching with, say, Alexander the Great, it is vital to know where the deserts and mountains are and how long it might be until the army reaches the next source of fresh food and water. A mileometer is useful in such journey plottings, as is knowledge of the average speeds of: a person walking; a horse walking, trotting or cantering; a coach pulled by four horses; a sailing ship. These bring home to children just how long it took our ancestors to travel to their destinations. For voyages, maps showing prevailing winds and currents help us understand why Columbus sailed at a particular latitude, or why Drake was becalmed in the tropics.

Plans

Plans help us to understand the layout of houses, monasteries, castles, churches, fields, estates, archaeological digs. When we do archaeological simulations in the classroom, we chart on a plan the progress of the dig and the finds uncovered. Using the plans of homes and other buildings, children can place cut-outs of the contents in the appropriate places on the plan. They can also people the rooms and chart the inhabitants' movements as they go about their daily lives, then conduct guided tours of


the building or site.

Making of Maps

As well as using plans, children can also create them, that is from pictures or written descriptions.

Local Maps

Local record offices will have detailed Ordnance Survey maps for your area, going back over 150 years. You can usually obtain copies for a small fee. Alternatively, use the internet. If, for example, you type: "victorian+ordnance+survey+maps" into Google or a similar search engine, you will bring up pages of links to historical maps. Just five maps of your area spread over 100 years will make the basis of some excellent work. The children can spot when buildings disappear, or change their use or name, and when new buildings appear.

Similarly, place name investigations give us valuable insights into the nature and pattern of settlement by the Roman, Saxon, Viking and Norman invaders of Britain. Investigating the origins of place names on our modern maps is both fun and enlightening.

Story-telling

Here we are talking about history stories created by the teacher and told - not read - to children. In telling stories to children we speak directly from the past, we use the power of eye contact, of gesture and movement, and of the voices of different characters. Through stories we can carry children in a metaphorical Tardis to different worlds in space and time. When telling stories we find a key to unlock the children's imagination and make the past intelligible to them. For example, the story of Victorian children working down the mines, our modern children can identify with the heroine being scared of the dark,


and so they enter her world.

The purpose of stories, then, is to:

Convey information, ideas, and technical language through engaging children's imagination

Create a context, providing a mental map and a visualisation of a past situation

Serve the need for wonder

Help children to understand human situations and the human condition, and thus connect the past to the present.

Create Stories

Choose a topic, and find out as much detail as you can - you will be conveying information through painting word pictures.

Identify a problem and its solution - this gives the story its shape.

Build your descriptions, flesh out your characters and the context they lived in. How did they think, look, feel and act? What motivated them?

Rehearse the story to yourself - run a mental video of the story unfolding.

Tell the story to the children, living and acting it by using appropriate voices and gestures and moving round the room.

Drama and Role Play

Roman market in 21st-century Exeter © Jacqlli Dean Drama can playa spontaneous part in lessons, be a focal element in part of the course, or take the central role in a topic. It can be done by groups or the whole class.


Drama works best if it is set in a specific historical context. There are three strands involved:

the identity/roles of the people involved in the situation;

the time and place of the events;

a focus or issue that concerned the people involved.

Before you begin, decide what sort of historical learning you hope to achieve. An histori.:al resource such as a story, document, picture or artefact can provide a good starting focus for drama.

Some Drama Strategies

Teacher in role.

Hot-seating.

Making maps or plans.

Still image.

Overheard conversations.

Forum theatre.

Counsellors giving advice

Meetings.

Simulations and Games

Simulations and games can recreate in children's minds almost any situation that faced people in the past. They are infinitely flexible tools, providing richness and variety in the classroom, with pupils' emotions and intellects actively engaged as the past is brought to life. Simulations and games are closely linked. They are highly structured and controlled kinds of drama - the children stay in their seats as they work through them. Both deal with real

18 Teachillg of History

problems and their development. The pupils take on the roles of historical characters and react to the problems these characters face. The difference is that in games chance decides what happens, whereas in simulations the children make the decisions.

In a simulation the activity has been pre-designed, based on, say, Drake's circumnavigation of the world, with key decisions to be made at various points along the way. When the ship lodges on a reef, should Drake jettison food stores or captured treasure to lighten the ship? When his ship is becalmed in the Doldrums and the sailors become mutinous, how should he react? .

Each simulation can be broken into two elements:

The historical situation (the place, the people, their problems, decisions they have to make). Decide the structure beforehand. What problems and decision points will face the pupils? What will be the consequences of each decision taken?

The roles of the participants. You need to develop each role in enough detail for the player to make realistic decisions. They must be clear about their aims.

Expressive Movement and Freeze Frames

Children need help if they are to understand and sympathise with the feelings of people in history - their life experiences and knowledge are not as great as ours. However, their youth also means that they bring a sense of wonder, freshness and excitement to new situations. Freeze frames and expressive movement tap into this sense of wonder. This teaching approach offers a way for children to work creatively, within a clear structure.

Like drama and dance, freeze frames and expressive movement open the door to understanding the thoughts,


feelings and actions of past people. Participants express action, motivation and emotion through the language of the face and body. They communicate through gesture, movement, and their relationship to other performers.

Both freeze frames and expressive movement ask pupils to depict a sequence of events through a series of scenes or tableaux, telling a story enactively. With freeze frames, children move only as they change from one still frame or tableau to the next. When doing expressive movement children also move within each frame. Like drama, expressive movement incorporates words. These express the meaning of a situation for the participants, to provoke a response from them, or to convey a mood.

The end result is a performance in which the whole class takes part enactively. The children can communicate their knowledge and understanding with deep engagement and feeling.

Organising Freeze Frames and Expressive Movement

Freeze frames and expressive movement need careful thought and preparation if children are to understand past situations and emotions from the inside. Here is a teaching sequence when using this approach.

Tell the story, including detail to help the children imagine the scenes they will be creating. We usually tell only the first part of the narrative. The remainder is kept back to build up suspense.

Select the first scene. Break it up into parts for different groups of children to enact, using their own interpretations.

Groups of children work on freeze frames of the initial scene. Time must be strictly limited - 'You have three minutes to create a tableau showing your reaction to

20 Teachillg of Histonj

the death of the king.'

Each group presents its tableau to the rest of the class.

The children work on two further scenes, repeating steps 2 and 3.

Sequencing: the children enact the three scenes in sequence. Either you or a child makes a short statement to mark each sequence.

Tell the final part of the story.

Discuss with the class how the work is to continue.

The class work on the final scene or scenes, as for points 3 and 4.

Finally, the narrative is enacted, scene by scene. Adding music or poetry can heighten the mood and meaning of the story.

Sites and the Environment

Visits outside school open up new worlds. Historic sites are stimulating, rea1, three-dimensional; they give a sense of scale and texture. Whether you are visiting an archaeological site, a stately home, museum, castle, abbey, local street or church, the principles are the same for all.

Preparation

The temptation is to plan too ambitiously, to try to cram in too much; but this will only exhaust both the children and yourself. You could try some of the following.

Choose a specific focus or theme, such as 'When we arrive at the castle, we'll be the attacking army - we're going to work out how to breach its defences'.

Split up the planned on-site tasks. You could appoint 'expert' groups who will be reporting on an aspect of


the site: one room each, or a group each for furniture, paintings, and clothing; or give each child a previously-taken photograph of one feature for them to identify, examine and report back on during the visit.

Tell a story in class beforehand. This is a powerful way of bringing imaginatively to life an old building or ruined site. A story engages children emotionally, and provides a visualisation, a mental model, which will help them to see the site as vibrant with past life.

The Visit

The most important principle here is to resist the urge to do all the talking, to tell the children what you want them to see. It is they who must do the looking, and your role is to find way:YfO help them. Send them off to find, to observe, thP( gather them together to tell you what they have seen: This generates valuable discussion which helps the children develop their thoughts.

Tasks

Set tasks to/fnake the children stop, question, investigate, ponder and reconstruct. For instance, in an art collection: 'Who\,is the owner's favourite artist?' For a particular painting: 'What were the artist's favourite four colours?'

Obse'Y0tion

Close looking is difficult for children, so ask them to sketch particular items, partly as a record, but mainly to make them look hard ('looking through the end of a pencil'). So, in a cathedral, send them to find and sketch the most interesting carving they can find, either face, animal, plant or figure. Explicitly develop the five senses: encourage the children to look, touch, smell, feel and even taste.


Tools

Leave the worksheets behind. Instead give the children torches for dark corners, magnifying glasses for detailed looking, pencils and sketch pads and cameras to record key features - ration the number of shots - this will make the children focus on what is important.

History Investigations

These computer-based investigations offer a vehicle for the purposeful use of ICT in history. They are like textual jigsaws, with each piece of the jigsaw being a discrete text file (pictures can also be included).

Cast in the role of history detectives, children drive each investigation, following up clues in their search for explanations. In their progress through the history mysteries, the pupils develop a range of investigative skills of the historian, as they put forward hypotheses, argue points with one another, use logical deduction, assess evidence, and draw conclusions. Pupils are in control of their own learning in an open-ended, challenging and motivating context.

Through pursuing history investigations, children gain an insight into the processes of planning and executing an historical investigation. Once they understand how each textual jigsaw is put together they, and their teachers, can create their own history mysteries. The need to create a working, logically-linked investigation vastly extends each pupil's awareness of evidence, causation and motivation and how they interconnect.

2 History Teaching in Secondary Schools

Often the new forms of historical study are also interdisciplinary in nature. Another vital shift in content and conceptualisation involves the expansion of world history courses in secondary schools. To be sure, colleges that train future teachers are increasingly likely to have an introductory world history course that at least discusses issues that must be faced when dealing with the breadth of world history content in the schools. But for secondary teachers, conceptualising the world history course remains a challenge, all the more so when they have had limited courses beyond introductory presentations.

When high school students or undergraduates enter a history class, they often have little background in history and almost none in its methodology. History teachers at all levels have to confront this lacuna, especially when teaching survey courses. This is where students begin to

;r, develop their ideas about the subject, or lose interest completely, and also where history departments encourage talented students to select the field. Interesting solutions to this problem are being tried at both the school and the college level. In programmes that students find challenging

24 Teaching of Histo'~1

and rewarding, teachers and college faculty are making more use of primary sources, technology in presentations and research, textual analysis, and interdisciplinary courses that link English and history or anthropology and sociology.

The traditional lecture and traditional assessment are 'increasingly regarded as major obstacles to good history teaching whether in a school or at a college. Research studies indicate that the traditional lecture is not the most effective method for the diverse learners in today's classrooms, either for fostering retention of knowledge or for teaching Critical analysis. Research also shows that teaching primarily through lectures in college history classes impinges directly upon what happens in the K-12 classroom.

If lectures are the primary method of transmitting the ideas, theories, and data of historical inquiry to students, they will then perceive this method to be the only appropriate one when they themselves become teachers. Increasingly, college as well as high school teachers are acknowledging that they need to explore methods that include active discussion and exercises that involve the use of historical materials and historical analysis.

Similarly, the content and structure of college history courses and the related modes of evaluation will shape the methods of assessing history learning adopted by future teachers. For example, if rote memorisation is heavily tested in college survey courses, the next generation of secondary school teachers will also resort to r the same practice. Education courses (in pedagogy and assessment, for instance) will, no doubt, provide instruction on innovative testing methods; but it is the direct, practical experience of history courses and their evaluation methods that will linger in the students' minds,

History Teaching in Secondary Schools 25

to be implemented when they become teachers.

Unquestionably, assessment, and authentic assessment (reflecting actual practice in history) in particular, will become an increasingly important concern in testing history in schools. Authentic assessment measures learning by asking students to evaluate a document or develop an argument based on data, not just answer questions that simply require recall of information. An imaginative and varied array of exercises in college history classrooms and the research on their effectiveness can contribute directly to future applications of this type of assessment.

In required history survey courses, a balance must be struck between the need for content and the need for the development of critical thinking, writing, and historical research skills. The need for this balance is a focal point for discussion among those who teach survey courses. Some suggested solutions have encouraged different thinking about teaching and learning, resulting in an examination of varying curriculum and presentation models.

History departments that are training teachers need to emphasize the transferable habits of mind, from document assessment to evaluation of change and causation, as well as providing appropriate basic content. By the same token, history-social studies teaching standards developed in some states include a growing emphasis on discipline-specific analytical skills. This emphasis may provide context for some rethinking of curricular emphases and reading assignments in the history major, so that future teachers gain repeated experience in developing historical habits of mind (that is, developing perspectives and making reasoned historical judgments) in order to incorporate them in their own


subsequent teaching efforts.

The content of history is increasingly in the public sphere. In US, the national debate over standards has moved the content of K-12 and college history curriculums onto the public agenda even though such basic questions as what information is important and how it is presented should be concerns primarily of history faculty at all levels. New questions continue to be raised about who receives schooling in the country and what is required in that schooling. The focus on what students know about history reinforces the need for more (and certainly not less) history in K-12 classrooms. If one implements the recommendations of the Bradley Commission, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Report Card, or National Standards documents, the need for increased history content learning becomes paramount.

Often history is perceived to be a story of who we are. Many individuals and groups not directly involved in history research or teaching have taken an interest in what the "story" of America and the world conveys about and to Americans. The outpouring of national feeling after the attacks of September 11, 2001, has increased the discussion about what kind of history is taught in schools and made those questions all the more relevant.

As conversations on campuses in recent years have often centered on the "canon" of history, those who know about history from research, teaching, and writing are now more often, and appropriately so, pulled into the public debate. Books that focus on this debate about what students should know and what they do not know in history have been on bestseller lists. This public evaluation of what history courses should contain should attract the attention of all historians, not just the secondary-school teachers who must respond to state standards, textbook


selection committees, and their students' parents.

College, university, and secondary school history faculties have similar objectives, but they offer varying depth and breadth of knowledge, use multiple techniques, and teach disparate 'student populations. Because one took a college course in history one is not a historian; because one attended high school one is not an effective teacher. In fact, university historians and secondary-school history teachers have the potential to create a productive symbiotic relationship that would benefit all instructors as well as the students they teach.

Most educators have little opportunity for direct experience with what goes on in other sectors. Secondary school teachers have little time to pursue academic research, and university historians have no time to sit in secondary classrooms. But the increasing number of collaborations shows that even without direct experience, it is possible to increase awareness by meeting on common ground and thereby understanding better the important issues in each other's work.

HISTORY TEACHING IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS

It is still too soon perhaps to accurately assess the burgeoning collaborations around the country. But the items below will give an outline of what seem to be some of the principal trends related to partnerships between historians at schools and colleges.

History Standards Movement

Following the release of the 1983 report A Nation at Risk, the general public began to become more concerned about what was being learned in schools. Nationwide tests in the late 1980s indicated that U.S. students were far behind their counterparts in almost every other industrialised country in the world. The resulting political fallout led to


the Educate America Act of 1994, which set national goals for student learning. The "goal" that had a special impact upon the K-12 curriculums stipulated that students should "leave grades 4, 8, [and] 12 having demonstrated competency over challenging subjects including English, mathematics, science, foreign languages, civics and government, economics, arts, history, and geography."

In the process of developing state and local history standards, many of the issues that had emerged within the history profession over the past several decades resurfaced. The "new" social history applied well to the changing needs of increasingly diverse schools and students, but it also brought to the forefront the debate over what historical "truth" is and what our young people should know to meet the standards of the National Goals.

Multiculturalism raised a debate between particularists and pluralists, and between "traditional" and "new" historians. The proposal to include new kinds of historical research within history texts and curricula had its critics, since it meant that other "important" material had to be left out. This debate continues to engage educators (and the public) as curriculum teams, often using funds from the Educate America Act, develop state history standards and assessments.

State and Local Curriculum Goals

Standards have been available for u.S. and world history since 1994, and states have used them to develop their own state or local standards. At the secondary level, the history curriculums in many schools closely follow the state created standards and benchmarks or "essential learnings" in order to address tests mandated by the state. The recently passed No Child Left Behind Act (Public Law 107-110, 2001) mandates testing of students in all grades for competency in reading and mathematics. Most states


also have high-stakes tests at the secondary level in

history.

Each state is responsible for its own measure, but, given the high stakes nature of the test, more and more teachers experience pressure to "teach to the test." Students who do not pass the test may not graduate; schools that do not have a certain average passing score for their students may be labeled as "failing," with funding consequences. The emphasis on reading and mathematics has also led to concerns that teachers may focus less on history / social studies, believing that they need to concentrate on what is tested.

State standards have been evaluated by various organisations and are ranked publicly, most notably by the Fordham Foundation in The State of State Standards. Each state is given a grade based on criteria defined by the foundation. Most states (Oregon, Kentucky, or Virginia, for example) publish their standards on their state's Department of Education web sites. A recently completed comprehensive survey, History Education in the United States: A Survey of 'reacher Certification and State-based Standards and Assessments for Teachers and Students by Sarah Drake Brown and John J. Patrick, provides an analytical overview of some aspects of the current situation. It is worth noting that state standards bodies-which often include neither teachers nor historians-are increasingly focusing on the high-stakes tests and their results.

This trend has made history courses more formal, confining teaching to a set curriculum or "essential content." While the history profession has in general expanded its areas of study, current trends in secondary education are leading to a narrowing of the content and are inhibiting teacher creativity.


Teacher Involvement in Standards

A study found that "nearly one-fourth (23 percent) of all secondary teachers do not have even a college minor in their main teaching field." Many history teachers also were trained outside the field of history. A 1990 survey of 257 history teachers found that 13 percent had never taken a college history course, and only 40 percent had r B.A. or M.A. in history. This lack of disciplinary training has limited their involvement in the definition of standards.

Without the information or training base with which to decide about what to teach, reliance on published texts remains a primary source for course development and delivery, leaving decisions about broader issues of standards to others. Moreover, with fewer teachers now available to fill classrooms in urban and rural schools, teachers are more often teaching "out of content." In social studies departments, which frequently include the many varied courses required by the shifting needs of schools, teachers may be as far from their field of training as to be teaching peer counseling rather than world history.

Alarming as this situation is, it also points to the increasing need for university historians to collaborate with the more than 40 percent of secondary-school history teachers who did receive training in history and thus have good knowledge of content and are eager to strengthen history education in secondary schools. They need to be supported not only by contributing to the development of standards but also by encouraging them to be mentors of others who lack current history knowledge.

CHANGING TEACHING STRATEGIES

An increasing number of schools have moved to change the basic way they deliver schooling. This has been done


to accommodate the changing requirements placed on schools by a society that wants schools to address such social problems as violent youth, dropouts, or illiterate graduates Following the lead of such educators as Theodore Sizer, Robert Slavin, D. W. Johnson, and Roger T. Johnson, and Edyth Johnson Holubec, schools are restructuring curriculums and the way they are organised. Much of this change has focused on middle schools because they provide the transition between the more flexible world of elementary schools and the very structured, subject-centered world of high schools.

In the middle school model a group of 80-120 students, grades 6-8 generally, are placed with a team of teachers who are responsible for all of their academic subjects. In this model, history teachers may work with English, math or science teachers to create themes around which several subjects may be taught. Themes might be selected based on the content standards in history or geography. Middle school teacher teams are encouraged to think in interdisciplinary terms, as classes may be combined into nontraditional 90- or 100-minute time blocks. In the best cases, this scheduling format has encouraged history teachers to engage in cooperative planning and to use cooperative learning for students. The model also may facilitate placing history in a context that is logically integrated with other academic subjects.

Also at the middle school level many experiments have been conducted on authentic learning and assessment. Teaching methods such as inquiry (long a staple of science labs) and concept formation and concept attainment (which focus on hands-on learning strategies) are more readily tried. These methods have also been encouraged by some of the national standards documents, notably in mathematics and science and by the Historical Thinking Standards of the National History Standards. A


significant result of experimentation at the middle-school level is that some of the leadership for professional development of faculty has come from middle school teachers.

The renaming of the "junior high school" as the "middle school" has not been simply a matter of changing the inclusive grades, from 7-9 to 6-8. It has often amounted to a wholesale restructuring of the goals and orientation of schools, which has made it much easier to plan workshops or seminars that address new learning theories in general. Because teachers work in teams, each teacher is expected to be responsible for the content of his or her own teaching fields. The professional training they receive then, has typically focused on how students' learn, what keeps students in school, or how students can better work together, not on what students are learning. Rather, content learning will more likely occur at the high school level, where the emphasis has been most focused on academic content.

HIGH SCHOOL HISTORY TEACHING

Although some high schools incorporate some of the new structure and methods of the middle school model, most have found the ideas of cooperative learning and alternative assessments to be too difficult to implement in a system that has as its measure of success high scores on the state mandated tests or SATs and college admissions. Many university faculty have been linked with high school teachers in the development of advanced-placement courses and preparation for gifted and talented programmes, where it is recognised that the teacher's content knowledge is essential.

Teachers-especially those who have been required by the nature of their assignments to teach out of their field


of study-willing to think in different ways, to provide students with the newest research in content as well as in methodology, require additional information and training. Many school systems, some state education departments, and the Department of Education at the federal level recognise the need for in-service training or professional development for teachers. The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) for many years has supported summer institutes for teachers in content specialties. These efforts, where they have been funded, have provided a valuable service to teachers and students. Additional education for teachers in secondary schools remains a sipnificant concern, however.

Frequently, it is a systemwide decision or a state mandate that governs professional development content for teachers. Even in a system in which the decisions about what is presented in the classroom are made at the school (usually department) level, suggestions or guidelines are provided from school systems, state organisations or professional organisations. In history, the AHA, in collaboration with OAH and NeSS, has just released its "Benchmarks for Professional Development in Teaching of History as a Discipline." More teacher input into the subject and direction of their own pre-service and inservice training would logically lead to more teacher commitment to new knowledge.

Education and History Departments

It is a truism that university departments of education and history exist in separate worlds. Pedagogy and content are assumed to be entirely distinct, intellectually or institutionally. But an increasing number of historians, and in some cases history departments, are becoming closely involved in teacher licensure or teacher outreach programmes with their colleagues in ed uca tion


departments. By the same token, within schools of education there is ongoing discussion about how to balance methodology with content, or about how to provide pre-service teachers with current and relevant history knowledge.

If anything, content has been gaining in importance in licensing programmes nationally. As early as 1965 the State of California, responding to concern that content has been sacrificed for method, ended all education degrees for the Bachelor of Arts and required that all students concentrate in a disciplinary field. Other states have followed this approach. Many states have also required a fifth year for licensing, in some cases deferring education courses until that time. In other areas universities have been considering dramatically downsizing education schools into departments or programmes or moving to graduate degrees only (which include licensure requirements).

Schools of education are now becoming much more closely linked to academic departments through the requirements of their certifying bodies, namely the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE), to which schools of education may choose to belong, and the National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification (NASDTEC), which governs requirements for teacher licensure within each state and the District of Columbia. When each body evaluates teacher preparation programmes, it considers a set of guidelines that an education school must meet. It used to be the case that only the pedagogical programmes for teacher preparation were reviewed, but as of 2000, NeATE directed a lead organisation within each discipline to conduct evaluation of the programmes by which future teachers learn their subject.


In the case of history, that is being done by the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS), and the great majority of history departments will have to be involved at least to some degree. Universities and colleges seeking accreditation for their teacher preparation programmes in secondary History ISocial Studies must prepare a portfolio demonstrating that the course work required of their graduates has successfully taught historical items that relate specifically to the standards of the NCSS. The portfolios are reviewed by teams of historians and history educators. The AHA has developed a document to advise departments how to undertake the review.

Since 1989 another standards body has been in place that attempts to set a specially elevated standard for individual teachers. The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) invites teachers to demonstrate their ability to meet standards that reflect exceptional teaching based upon a deep knowledge of their subject. It uses a model for requirements and testing related to that of the medical profession. This voluntary process is attracting participation by teachers in numerous states, many of which offer increased salary and recertification points to teachers for successful completion of the process.

The National Board currently offers certification in Early Adolescence Social Studies-History (students aged 11-15) and in Adolescence and Young Adulthood Social Studies-History (students aged 14-18+). The programme is focused upon five core principles that have been adapted by NCATE for inclusion in its evaluation of teacher preparation ptogrammes:

- Teachers are committed to students and their learning.


Teachers know the subjects they teach and how to teach the subject to students.

Teachers are responsible for managing and monitoring student learning.

Teachers think systematically about their practice and learn from experience.

Teachers are members of learning communities.

The Int.erstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (INT ASC) is attempting to use these standards as a basis upon which to unify guidelines for teacher training institutions all around the country.

History departments might usefully take into account these guideline statements in considering the relevance of their curriculums for teacher training. Right now, with some important exceptions, the task of specifically evaluating teacher preparation is left to education departments. Yet schools of education can only do so much without the collaboration of university history departments and school history-social studies departments. It appears that different constituencies hold pieces of the whole picture.

A 1995 study of 400 history departments by John W. Lamer of Indiana University of Pennsylvania found that in most higher education institutions, the work of training history teachers is done outside history departments. The greatest amount of collaboration (35 percent) occurs in advising education students, while as few as 8 percent shared responsibility for teaching the history-social studies methods course. Since that study, the AHA has taken a leading role in encouraging these K-16 collaborations and reporting them on their web site. Stronger collaboration in just this one area could potentially create a stronger


teacher, a better prepared student, more effective research, and a better place for history in academic institutions in the future.

Learning Theory and Teaching History

Just as the demographics of the student population in our schools and the range of historical research have changed, so too should our notions about effective learning of content. There are innovative programmes and individuals at the secondary and university levels that are endeavoring to integrate the new history with the latest learning theories.

From learning theorists such as John Dewey and Jean Piaget to historians such as James Banks and Geneva Gay who write about history teachers in the secondary schools, the idea of involving learners in the process (of "doing history") has been a constant. Inquiry learning, advocated by Edwin Fenton in the late 1960s and early 1970s-from which so much of what is being done today in history education has evolved-has been reinforced by James Banks and others in the 1990s.

For many years, theorist Jerome Bruner has advocated inquiry as a strong method of engaging students in learning. Students are encouraged to go "beyond the information given" and to ask their own questions and construct their own understanding. Tom Holt, in his essay, Thinking Historically, advocates the integration of thinking skills into the teaching of history, and not developed as a separate skill. The National History Standards of 1994 and 1996, which continue to be highly influential in history education, include a section called "Standards in Historical Thinking" that defines how historical thinking is best applied to teaching.

Some programmes are under way that illustrate this


trend. Research in the area of second-language learning and learners suggests a method that combines reading, writing, and analysis skills with content to accomplish the "outcome goals" (what students know and what they are able to do) of the new standards found in many states. The large numbers of immigrant children entering our schools in recent decades have called attention to questions about learning that had traditionally been addressed differently with English-speaking students.

Because school personnel today generally place newly admitted students in classes based on age rather than English ability, limited English proficiency (LEP) students are often placed in secondary-school classes, where they must acquire both language ability and content knowledge in order to pass proficiency tests in history or government. Teaching LEP students to succeed in this academic setting involves the use of more hands-on presentation, group learning, and alternative assessment. The vocabulary and concepts so important to second-language learners are equally crucial to all history learners; the methods effective with LEP students are also found to work for all history learners. Increasing numbers of LEP students entering colleges make this information about teaching methods relevant to university teachers as well.

Innovative pedagogic methods are emerging also from the increasing computer use for research and presentation in secondary schools. Once exclusively the province of advanced placement and gifted and talented classes, computers have been routinely discovered to intrigue "regular" and special-needs students as well. Again, involving students in their own learning enhances the learning for almost all students, the only additional problem being that with computer applications, teachers often need training along with the students to become

History Teaching ill Secondary Schools 39

more comfortable with the possibilities for classroom use.

Research on history learning also generates opportunities for mutual discussion and experimentation by history teachers at both school and college levels. The research is not yet well connected to actual teaching practice, but the potential is significant. Researchers have examined, for example, ways in which students handle source materials, with implications for generating more rapid acquisition of relevant analytical skills. A lot of similar research is going on in Europe on this subject. The International Society of History Didactics provides a forum where educators from a great variety of countries-the United States included-and diverse academic constituencies share their work.

When all is said and done, all of the researchers who examine history learning have similar approaches: one way or another, one must involve the students. It is the "how" of this approach that often stops secondary school and college and university faculty from proceeding to make the changes they, too, believe benefit their students. Active learning is the key, but this does not have to mean that one should never lecture or never convey to students the knowledge one has gained as a historian. Rather, it means pulling the students into that process so that they learn from and with the teacher. The renewed interest among history teachers in using documents to supplement textbooks is one important response to this challenge, although the practice remains limited.

A related technique that has been effective is to provide students with small parts of the story on which they can "put their own stamp." Using artifacts from an era under study has been particularly successful. Students at all levels can answer questions about "real" pieces of history (a document in its author's original hand available


from the National Archives or a local historical museum or an object such as an early coffee grinder, a massproduced skillet, or a piece of art from Central Africa). The object introduces the time period or the theme. Students answer questions about the object's use, its maker, or the object itself. Their answers give the teacher useful information about the students' knowledge of the topic and provide direction for the instruction that follows. By first asking students to hypothesize about the subject they are exploring, the instructor involves them in the process of thinking historically.

Teaching in this way demands that the instructor continue to work on the craft of teaching through professional contexts. The idea of professional development originated in the public schools and has affected how schools of education work with K-12 schools. Increasingly that has led to collaboration with museums and college and university history departments.

Collaborative Efforts

There are an increasing number of collaborative efforts to enhance history learning in all parts of the country. Just how a collaborative effort becomes successful is a complex problem, but there are plenty of examples of projects that have found solutions to it. They basically provide diverse professional groups strong common links by which to work together, thus strengthening the place of history in the schools and in colleges and universities collectively. The movement of college-school partnerships goes back to National History Day of the 1970s and the History Teaching Alliance of the 1980s; the National History Education Network (NHEN) in the 1990s was sponsored by the AHA, the Organisation of American Historians (OAH), and the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS).


Yet the key to collaborations lies in local effort, and for that reason this discussion can only skim the surface of the subject by outlining national programmes that encourage such efforts. In general, school-college collaboratives tend to offer one or more possible types of programme: an annual day of panels either on content or pedagogy; on-going study groups or courses for teachers; and college participation in teacher preparation.

One of the oldest, still existing collaborative programmes takes place within the Advanced Placement Test programme of the Educational Testing Service. It gathers together teachers and college faculty every summer to mark the AP exams, and in so doing has established an extremely important link between faculty in the two sectors of education. The accelerating growth in the number of students taking the history exams has brought about a need for more rep~esentatives from colleges and universities.

National History Day has established by far the most widespread and permanent programme of local collaboratives. Founded by David Van Tassel in Cleveland in 1974, it provides a platform for historians and teachers to interact with public school students about history. The process of creating a project for the annual National History Day provides an opportunity for students to do the historical inquiry that historians value and wish to instill in students. At all levels (local, state, and national) historians can be involved with schools and students in grades 6-12 (as resource persons, judges, or supporters) through the National History Day summer institutes for teachers or at the national competition, held annually in June at the University of Maryland in College Park, Maryland.

The Council for Basic Education (CBE) has sponsored


annual conferences that bring to the nation's capital faculty in education and the liberal arts who are active in partnerships. It works closely with a variety of organisations concerned with teacher preparation; in June 2000, for example, its conference was devoted to the PRAXIS II examination designed to assess the content knowledge of students working for teaching credentials. The CBE focuses its work on consortia of colleges with particular areas of interest in different parts of the country.

A particularly active sponsor of collaboration, the Gilder-Lehrman Institute, has grown up in the last five years. It sponsors or lends assistance to a wide variety of programmes for history teachers, chiefly but not exclusively on the East Coast. Of particular interest is its leadership in developing the "history high school," the programme by which a school makes history the focus of its curriculum to a particular degree.

The National Council for History Education sponsors a variety of programmes of collaboration between teachers and professors. Its annual meeting is the main regular gathering devoted to discussion of history teaching between people in colleges, universities and the schools. Members of the organisation lead programmes within Teaching American History grants as well as other projects. The leadership of the NCHE includes prominent historians and public school history teachers.

Historians also work with projects supporting the teaching of civics or government. For example, the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD), in collaboration with Freedom Forum's First Amendment Center, has developed a First Amendment Schools Project. It involves schools, communities, and experts in content and curriculum development in reframing how schools model and teach democratic


principles of the first amendment.

Leadership has also been very important at the regional or state level. For example, the Ohio Academy of History, currently housed at the University of Akron, is a professional society bringing together teachers, scholars, public historians, and students interested in all fields of history. It seeks to promote high standards of historical scholarship and teaching and the development and dissemination of historical knowledge in the state's schools and colleges. The Academy issues awards for outstanding publication, teaching, service, dissertations, and public history. It also monitors and comments on the dissemination of historical knowledge in Ohio's schools.

Areas of New Opportunity

Computer Technology and Collaborative Learning

Technology is affecting the historian's way of doing business, and it is an integral part of the discussion on learning. More and more is available in the education market in the way of electronic media for teacher and student use. Some of these provide access to vast databases; some use data to create programmes for student use. Although some advertise their value by emphasizing how they involve students in history, they often provide nothing more than a pre-set list of choices that move students through a prescribed cause and effect process to arrive at a previously decided end pOint. There are a number of very significant issues involved in the use of technology, especially computers, in K-Grad classrooms that involve decisions about validity of approach and value of content. In this case, evaluation of effective materials could be an area of collaboration.

Partnerships with organisations, both in other schools and outside school walls, may also advantage resource


poor schools with training and collaborative development of effective lessons that can maximise the technology resources they have. Joint seminars or learning opportunities that expand computer knowledge and at the same time develop teaching ideas for students could be another base for significant school university collaboration.

Off-Site Study

Resources outside the classroom are underused at all levels of teaching history. Every community has something within its boundaries that reflects a time in our past and in many cases communities support local museums or historical societies. If there is a partnership with a local college or university, historians and their students can work with secondary students to research, analyse, and write from documentary, photographic, or oral sources. In so doing, students can build a relationship with their own community and its people in ways a text, a lecture, or a computer can not provide.

Classroom Connections between History and Education

There has long been a disconnect between the practice of historians teaching in the classroom and the research and theory about teaching history. In liberal-arts institutions there is an ideal opportunity to combine new historical knowledge with new research about learning. Mary Crystal Cage, for example, has written about a programme in which students majoring in the liberal arts may also learn about teaching. The course focuses upon the special skills required for effective teaching. Moreover, some universities are linking upper-level history courses with students who are working toward a teaching credential. This has happened, for example, at George Washington University between the Schools of Education and Arts and Sciences . The approach increases the content knowledge of college students who are planning to teach and at the


same time increases the knowledge of all history majors and faculty in the varied teaching methods applied to history.

Development of Content Core

History has a lot to gain from the growth of public interest in standards as a central principle of public education. The efforts on the part of many states to develop their own history standards indicate that they value the knowledge and ways of thinking about and analysing material that students gain by studying history. The basis exists to reemphasize the significant role of history in the curriculums of public secondary schools. This could not be more effectively illustrated than with the recognition of the frequency with which history and historians were called upon to provide context for discussion and action as it relates to current events.

Secondary school teachers value the support of university historians in processing the historical debates, updating their learning, and gaining confidence in the message they bring to their students. At the same time, if the collaboration is to be completely effective, university history teachers need to address the learning issues of their students; to add the new knowledge gained by learning theorists, museum educators, and other applied historians that expands the reach of their teaching.

History Curriculums and Teacher Training

Since the great majority of colleges train future history teachers, commitment to a strong history major, and possibly a related minor, constitutes the most important basic requirement needed for contribution to this training. At the same time, some programmes might profitably reevaluate elements of their offerings in light of the teacher training role to make sure that appropriate range,


exposure to analytical skills, guidance in coordinated interdisciplinary work, and imaginative assessment mechanisms are available-along with consideration of relevant opportunities to interact with existing history teachers.

Departments training history teachers must not only indicate that students have taken certain history courses, but that students can demonstrate and apply the knowledge gained in the course work. This requirement should provide an opportunity for history departments to collaborate in teacher training, if only to provide information about their content courses. Two-year colleges also playa strong role in the development of the historical knowledge of potential teachers.

3 Teaching Tools for Local History

BUILDINGS AND NEIGHBOURHOODS

A neighborhood is a community of houses, streets and landscape that has a unique character and is part of a larger community. It is a good size for a study of community functions, for developing a self-guiding trail, or for a study of architectural styles. Few students take the time to notice the individual structures in their neighbourhoods or to even wonder what they might have been before. Slowing students down to take a longer look at the community in which they live can provide them with tangible context for larger historical themes.

For example in US, when teaching industrialisation, the immediate reaction is to take students to the Lowell National Historic Park and Tsongas Industrial History Center, each of which provides superb models for learning and teaching. At the same time, many of the smaller towns in which students live were built on the Lowell model and provide historical context within the familiar. When students begin to see the patterns of, for example, land use in relation to residences vs. industry, owners vs. workers, environmental impact in their own towns, they are better able to see them in whatever industrial towns they may encounter in the future.


Teaching Tips

In older cities in particular, many of the buildings that remain are those of wealthier individuals who used to live in the community. It is easy to assume from that physical evidence that everyone lived the way that the individuals who peopled those houses did. Likely, very few did. When presented with a historic neighborhood or building, it is essential to ask the students to figure out what else would have existed. Have all the buildings of workers been torn down? What have they been replaced with? Why do those buildings that exist still remain?

Basic Questions

What makes a neighborhood? Define the neighborhood you are studying: its boundaries, location on a map, numbers of houses, streets.

What is typical about this neighborhood? Unusual?

What are the types of land use in your neighborhood? Residential Houses? Business/Stores? Industry? Open Space?

How do neighbours travel to work? What kinds of transportation are available?

What is the oldest house date? Are any houses on the National Register? Newest?

What is the origin of neighborhood street names? (How would you find out? Town or city hall? Neighbours? Library research?

What role has this neighborhood played in the larger community?

What issues are of concern to thE. neighborhood now?

Teaching Tools for Local History 49

Critical Thinking Questions

In neighbourhoods that housed the wealthier segments of the population, who are the people you don't see? Who were the people who made life comfortable for residents who lived in those areas? Where did they live? Is there any record left of their contributions to the quality of life in that area?

Interview members of the community to determine past neighborhood conc.erns and how the neighborhood has changed.

Develop a walking tour of the neighborhood as a tourist brochure. Why would anyone not living there want to take the tour?

Do an inventory of house styles in the neighborhood. Research changing styles.

Compare the built and natural environments of your neighborhood (percent of each, quality and character and how they rei a te to each other.

Students can make a display showing old and new pictures of their neighborhood. Exhibit class pictures from different neighbourhoods and tie this in with map studies of the neighbourhoods

CEMETERIES

Using cemeteries to teach local history provide many opportunities to provide local context for national topics. Everything from the location of the cemetery in relation to the larger town to the art of the gravestones provides invaluable information about how members of that community viewed death and life. How a cemetery is used in the classroom is largely determined by what it is that is being studied. Are you looking to see the impact of


disease or mortality on the make-up of the town? Do a survey of individual stones to see what patterns develop. Are you looking at wealth distribution and social status? Compare the complexity of stones within the same 10-20 year period. If you are looking to see how the community's perspective on death has evolved over time, than take a look at several sections of the cemetery and chart the changes in iconography, structure and location of gravestones.

Teaching Tips

Provide information on the Cemetery you will visit with students: its location, who owns it, runs it, role in community. Check it out ahead of time so that you are comfortable leading the trip and your activities are relevant. If you use the sheets on gravestone symbols the students' will locate, be sure there are good examples to find. If you are dividing up the cemetery in sections so that detailed work can be done on a specific area, find similar-sized areas that allow comparisons. Modify the templates to the specifications of your cemetery.

Gravestone Rubbing

For many years, students and enthusiasts of gravestone art have taken "rubbings" of favourite stones. While this seems like an easy project to do with students, it is, in fact, quite controversial.. Repeated rubbings degrade the stones and can cause damage if done improperly. The following is an excerpt from the Association for Gravestone Studies' guide on the Dos and Don'ts of Gravestone Rubbings:

Please Do

Check (with cemetery superintendent, cemetery commissioners, town clerk, historical society, whoever


is in charge) to see if rubbing is allowed in the cemetery.

Get permission and/or a permit as required.

Rub only solid stones in good condition. Check for any cracks, evidence of previous breaks and adhesive repairs, defoliating stone with air pockets behind the face of the stone that will collapse under pressure of rubbing, etc

Become educated; learn how to rub responsibly.

Use a soft brush and plain water to do any necessary stone cleaning.

Make certain that your paper covers the entire face of the stone; secure with masking tape.

Use the correct combination of paper and waxes or inks; avoid magic marker-type pens or other permanent color materials.

Test paper and color before working on stone to be certain that no color bleeds through.

Rub gently, carefully.

Leave the stone in better condition than you found it.

Take all trash with you; replace any grave site materials that you may have disturbed.

Please Don't

Don't attempt to rub deteriorating marble or sandstone, or any unsound or weakened stone (for example, a stone that sounds hollow when gently tapped or a stone that is flaking, splitting, blistered, cracked, or unstable on its base).


Don't use detergents, soaps, vinegar, bleach, or any other cleaning solutions on the stone, no matter how mild!

Don't use shaving cream, chalk, graphite, dirt, or other concoctions in an attempt to read worn inscriptions. Using a large mirror to direct bright sunlight diagonally across the face of a grave marker casts shadows in indentations and makes inscriptions more visible.

Don't use stiff-bristled or wire brushes, putty knives, nail files, or any metal object to clean or to remove lichen from the stone; Soft natural bristled brushes, whisk brooms, or wooden sticks are usually OK if used gently and carefully

Don't attempt to remove stubborn lichen. Soft lichen may be thoroughly soaked with plain water and then loosened with a gum eraser or a wooden popsicle stick. Be gentle. Stop if lichen does not come off easily.

Don't use spray adhesives, scotch tape, or duct tape. Use masking tape.

Don't use aay rubbing method that you have not actually practiced under supervision.

Don't leave masking tape, wastepaper, colors, etc., at the grave site

Basic Questions

What is the name of this cemetery? In what community is it located?

Locate the cemetery on town map. Describe its location, size and immediate neighbours. Why do you. think this site was selected? What does the location of the cemetery tell you about the relationship between life and death in the community?


Who is buried here? Look for names that are found throughout town (names of schools, streets, ponds, etc.).

What years are covered in this cemetery? List oldest and most recent you find. Identify the oldest and newest stones in the cemetery. How have they changed over time?

What kinds of gravestone shapes do you find and what symbols are on them?

Find several gravestones that look very similar and might be carved by the same carver. What were his favourite symbols and inscriptions? List the name of the carver if found on the gravestones.

Read several epitaphs and write out your favourite.


Can you determine when new ethnic groups arrive and are their life expectancy rates different from community contemporaries? Do you find causes of death specific to that group? (Quarry worker, e.g.)

Read poetry or literature that relates to graveyards, death and dying and write an epitaph for a poets or authors you are reading. Or if you are studying the community, write epitaphs for leading townsmen and women.

Identify stones representing different levels of wealth and status in the community. How do these stones reflect the economics of the community?

Do a survey of gravestones that have natural and human damage. They might be broken, knocked over (human), eroded from rain, wind or be affected by plant material, lichen (natural). Consider the kind of


stone used and determine which kind is most, least durable. Comment on the different methods of writing inscriptions on the stone and effectiveness.

Do a statistical study of life expectancies during a particular period of time and note causes of death. Make comparisons between different periods. Look for evidence of infant mortality, wars, epidemics etc. What are the differences between male and female life expectancy? What might account for this?

community. How do these stones reflect the economics of the community?

Do a survey of gravestones that have natural and human damage. They might be broken, knocked over (human), eroded from rain, wind or be affected by plant material, lichen (natural). Consider the kind of stone used and determine which kind is most, least durable. Comment on the different methods of writing inscriptions on the stone and effectiveness.

Do a statistical study of life expectancies during a particular period of time and note causes of death. Make comparisons between different periods. Look for evidence of infant mortality, wars, epidemics etc. What are the differences between male and female life expectancy? What might account for this?

CENSUS RECORDS

Census records are invaluable sources for investigating population changes, family structures, immigration and economic patterns. Students can use them in conjunction with old maps to gain a clearer picture of the texture of past life. Many primary source documents that have been preserved over time, like diaries, letters and other traditional historical sources, document the lives of


extraordinary or privileged people. In contrast, source materials like the census, track "ordinary" as well as "extraordinary" individuals. Examining such records allows us to begin to construct a more interestingly inclusive view of history. Population schedules can be used to study immigration, ethnicity, families, health, work and economic trends, among numerous other topics.

The U.S. has counted its population every 10 years since 1790, in order to apportion seats in the House of Representatives. Thus, in each census, Americans from the famous to the unsung and the infamous appear, including local residents, villains, and favourite figures of literature, politics and the arts. As with any historical document, there are gaps in the coverage of the population schedules. The US Census between 1790 and 1840 is a fairly simple list of the heads of households, with combined numbers indicating others in the household. The census did not enumerate American Indians until the late nineteenth century. The 1890 U.S. Census was destroyed by fire in 1921.

By law, the records from the federal population censuses are confidential for 72 years. Thus, April 2012 is the scheduled date for the National Archives to open the 1940 records to public use. In Massachusetts the population was counted every ten years from 1855 to 1945, but only the original population schedules for the 1855 and 1865 census still exist. All other Massachusetts State census years are lost or destroyed. The originals, as well as microfilmed copies, are located at the Massachusetts State Archives.

Teaching Tips

Because they are "tabular data", census records can be typed into a spreadsheet or database programme and then


sorted, sifted, categorised and analysed by students to determine demographic trends. Historical, artistic and literary figures can be searched for and found in census records, as well as individuals who lived and worked in the local community. Online census indices and scanned census documents can make the process of searching easy.

Basic Questions

What year was this census taken?

Where was this census taken (Street(s), Enumeration District, Town, County, State)

What is the identification or page number of this census sheet? Does there seem to be more than one page numbering system in place?

What is the name of the person who wrote down the census information (canvasser)?

How many family groups are listed on this sheet? How can you tell?

Who is the oldest person on the sheet?

Who is the youngest person on the sheet?


What was the average age and range of ages of residents on this sheet or in this town?

Compare the percentage of residents that were male or female.

What percentage of residents are foreign born? What percentages of residents come from which countries?

What is the literacy rate among adults on this sheet or in this town?


What is the most common occupation? (Look up any unfamiliar occupations).

What is the apparent average life span in this town in 1910?

What is the typical family structure in this town?

List families by type of work (farming, specific trade, merchant, etc.). Examine the kinds of occupations for men and women. Are they sex-typed? Compare with modern family structure and gender roles.

Tally the number of families and of household structures. Often the families exceed the number of homes, and in addition, many homes had only one bedroom. Let the students think about what those numbers mean and discuss questions of personal privacy, family groupings, homelessness, and comparisons with today.

DOCUMENTS

History comes alive when students are engaged with primary source materials. Original documents, whether public or private, help to provide context for historical events because they were created by people who participated in or witnessed the events of the past. For the purposes of this template, primary source documents include local first person accounts (e.g. diaries, memoirs, correspondence) and public documents (e.g. correspondence, treaties, laws, speeches.) Using primary source documents helps students develop cognitive skills including analysis, interpretation, perspective, empathy and self-knowledge.

Teaching Tips

Because of preservation concerns, there are often


limitations on how much, or whether, original documents can be handled by students. Digitised copies of original documents can serve as working versions for examination, transcription, etc., and have the added benefit of being enlargable, printable and annotatable. However, whenever possible, arrange for students to see the original up dose at least once. So much of modem life is in facsimile that it can be important for students to viscerally understand that historic documents are real artifacts related to real peoples' lives.

Town derks, local librarians and historical society staff are sometimes able and willing to collaborate with schools in digitising select documents for educational use. Scanned documents can be posted on a local website for many classes to use. Although younger students may have difficulty reading primary source documents, they can sometimes participate in the excitement of "decoding" old handwriting by working in pairs on a small portion of a document. Using an alphabet chart to help decipher just a few words, each team contributes decoded phrases to the whole.

Basic Questions

Is this document a primary or secondary source? How do you know?

Who wrote this document and why?

What do you know about this author/creator?

When was it written? If no date is listed, what clues are there that could help date it?

Where was it written and where is the document now found? (owner, repository)

What is the document about? (title/subject)


Who was the intended audience?

Was the document meant to be public or private?

What tools were used to write it and what is its appearance? (handwritten with quill, pen, pencil? Typewritten? Printed?

What type of paper was used?


For whom was the document created?

What sorts of information does the document supply?

Under what circumstances was the document created? What did the creator hope to accomplish by creating this document? How would this influence the content of the source?

What were the opinions, motivations, or interests of the creator?

How does his or her point of view compare to other writers of the period? What kind of impact would this have on the content of the source?

How reliable is this document for historical accuracy? What criteria can you use to determine historical accuracy?

Can you trust the source's content at face value? Did the creator wish to inform, persuade, or deceive his or her audience?

What did you already know about the subject of this document and how did this knowledge affect the way you read it?

What additional information is needed to help you understand the subject more fully?


What questions would you like to address the author of this document?

How can you find out more about the context of this document?

VISUAL IMAGES

Human beings process visual (non-textual) information better than textual or numeric information. Through the use of visual images students can develop a sense of both place and time. Visual images from drawn from students' current or historical surroundings can elicit creative thinking and writing in the classroom.

Teaching Tips

Paper-based ("low tech") images and digital images can both be used effectively in the classroom. Original or paper images have the advantage of immediacy, while digital images can be printed, enlarged, projected and annotated. In addition, images can be saved to disk, then copied into folders and saved on classroom computers or onto school websites.

Basic Questions

When was this image created?

What is the image type or format (drawing, cartoon, painting, photograph)

Is this a primary or a secondary source? How can you tell?

When was this image created? If there is no obvious date, what clues can help you date the image?

Where is the original image stored?



Why was the image created? What is the point of view of the image? Whose story is it telling?

What interest do you think the photographer has in this subject? What is the creator's point of view? Does this tell you why the image was created?

What does the image reveal about its subject?

What did you already know about this subject before viewing the picture that might have affected the way you read it?

What is the setting of the image?

What sorts of details does it include or emphasize?

What sorts of details does it exclude?

What are the underlying messages of the image and motives of the image's creator?

How long after the event was the image created? How does this influence the image's content or perspective?

Why do you think the image was taken or drawn at this particular moment in time?

What questions would you like to ask the photographer or artist to find out more about the subject of the image?

What questions would you like to ask a person(s) in the image?

How could you do further research on this subject?

MAPS

A map is a visual representation of a place on a flat surface. Maps can help us understand our community's


location in space and time. In addition to teaching geographic understanding, maps can: illustrate change over time, personalise history by giving evidence of familiar landmarks in the setting of the past, and by demonstrating the attitudes of people and their beliefs about the area they live in, as well as the political policies of past eras. Exploring and creating maps can hone students' abilities to analyse, think and learn.

Maps have traditionally been limited to paper media, which could be difficult to obtain for local areas. Digital solutions provide a range of new choices for searci-.1ng, manipulating, viewing and analysing maps, although paper maps can still be used very effectively in the classroom when available.

Teaching Tips

In general, try to select maps which are not too complicated, or 'noisy' for students to comfortably explore. Experiment with map websites and CD-ROMs before students use them to be sure you are familiar with navigating, zooming in and out, saving and printing maps. Some map sites require special browser plugins, for instance the "MrSid" plugin for Library of Congress maps, to make best use of their maps.

Most maps have a title, which often includes informatior. about the time period that the map illustrates. Maps have orientation, which includes compass direction and geographic relationships within an established area. Maps have a source, or author, which often gives insight about its intended purpose and reason for creation. Maps may have a legend explaining the symbols used and a scale showing how distance is represented. Many maps use grids to show lines of latitude and longitude.

Teaching Tools Jor Local History 63

Types of Maps:

Political maps represent the political units of the world, showing names of localities and boundary lines.

Physical maps use shaded or painted relief to illustrate a region's major landforms, including mountain ranges, deserts, glaciers, rivers, valleys, etc.

Topographic maps are general reference maps showing coastlines, cities, and rivers that use contour lines to show elevation differences. Such maps are helpful to hikers because they can show elevation changes along a trail.

Atlas maps can show anything about anywhere. An atlas can contain collections of political, physical, satellite, and thematic maps. Countries, states, towns have produced atlases that describe all aspects of that locality.

Historical maps can be maps created in the past, reproductions of past maps, or modem-day creations illustrating past events or places.

Basic Questions

What is the title/subject of this map?

Who was the cartographer (creator)? What do you know about this cartographer/creator?

When was it prepared? If no date is listed, what dues are there that could help date the map?

Where was this map originally produced and where is the map now found? (owner, repository)

What was the purpose of the map and its intended audience?


What tools were used to prepare it and what is its appearance? (Black and white, hand drawn with pen etc, or printed in colors, etc., type of paper or print?)

Describe what you find on this map: spe.cific information and symbols.


How can yo~ tell if this map is accurate? What sources would you use to verify it?

What do you think was the intent of the map creator and why it was written? What is stressed and what is omitted? Do you think any bias was shown in its creation?

What additional information is needed to help you understand the map information more fully?

What questions would you like to address to the creator of this map?

What would you like to learn more about to better understand the context of this map and how would you get this information?

Compare maps of town in past and present. Draw a map illustrating the town in the future. Use a Venn Diagram to explore similarities and differences between the three illustrations. What things remained the same? What things changed? What things do people have control over (e.g., transportation, housing style), and what things cannot be easily changed, barring unforeseen technological breakthroughs (e.g., climate, soil, natural resources)? How realistic do you think your future map is?

MATERIAL CULTURE

Material Culture is a fancy way of saying "stuff". Often


when referring to objects used and created by people, students are taught to call them "artifacts". Historians use the terms "artifacts" and "material culture" interchangeably. There are as many ways to use objects in the classroom, as there are objects to use. The most essential part of using objects in a classroom setting is in invoking their storytelling power. Objects can tell many tales and are subject to diverse and divergent interpreta tions.

Teaching Tips

The use of objects as teaching tool is particularly profound when trying to elicit non-linear responses or stories. For example, when doing oral histories with grandparents, students should ask their subjects to tell them about objects that are on the piano or by their bedsides rather than asking a straight list of "Where were you when ... " questions. Objects bring up emotional responses and memories easier than linear questions.

Additionally, when teaching in the history classroom, objects have the power to tell tales and link students to the history of other time periods. For example, if students are studying several eras in history, consider linking them together by telling the story of one type of item that across time would be used daily (ex. Shoes, kitchen goods, etc.) Watching how these items changed, including their use and production, provides students with a concrete representation of the abstract changes in society.

All of the information here is designed to help teachers integrate some form of material culture into their classroom, so there is no one set of questions that will effectively cover all the possible angles that a teacher could use with a particular object. Depending on the article you choose, you may need to find questions in other templates


that better lead your discussion of the object in question. The essentials for teaching with an object are simply knowing the story you want that object to tell and asking the questions that will help them uncover it. Being comfortable with Socratic questioning is one of the best prerequisites for teaching with material culture.

Basic Questions

What is it?

What is it made of?

What is it used for?

Who would use it?

How would they use it? How do you know that?

What symbols or markings does it contain?

What does this tell you about the person/people who used it?

What aspect of society does this relate to: work, home, religion, etc.?


In order for this object to exist, what else needs to exist within the society that created it?

What does this object say about the people who made it? What do they value?

What emotions or reactions does this object inspire in you? Would every generation have the same reaction to it? Why or why not?

What does this object tell you about the social rank, status or class of the individual that used it? What does it say in general about people of that rank, status or class?


What other objects from this society would you like to see in order to confirm or refute your theories about this object?

News and Cartoons

Newspapers, whether recent or historic, can be very useful teaching tools. They can bring the past alive by adding a human dimension, historical context, drama and a sense of immediacy to textbook accounts of events.

Teaching Tips

Some topics are better suited than others for newspaper research. The best topics are those which can be connected to specific events, while the least suitable topics are those which show up not in events but in trends, long-term developments, or social movements. Local political, government and military issues, public works projects, labour union strikes, natural disasters, eyewitness accounts of landmark events, local personalities, advertisements (including personal advertisements) are just some of the topics that can be readily researched in local and regional newspapers. In addition, political cartoons illustrating local social and political issues can be good sources for exploration and analysis. Commercial advertisements, classified and personal ads, social pages and obituaries are also fertile sources for local history research in newspapers.

As with any primary source, newspapers, broadsides and cartoons invite students to hone their critical thinking skills, to determine the objectivity and accuracy of a given source. In the case of newspapers, partisanship, boosterism and the possibility of heightened controversy for circulation reasons must all be considered as factors that influence the content and tone of the news.


Basic Questions

What is the topic of the article or cartoon?

Who wrote it (author/creator/artist)? What do you know about this author/creator? If the creator is unknown, are there clues to help identify him or her?

How reliable is this article or cartoon for historical accuracy?

What biases can writers, artists and other_s bring to their work?

When was it created? If no date is listed, what clues are there that could help date it?

Where was it written and where is the article or cartoon now found?

Who was the intended audience?


What were the opinions, motivations, or interests of the creator? What did the creator hope to accomplish by creating this article or cartoon?

Is the creator of this document deliberately anonymous? If so, what factors might have contributed to its being published anonymously?

Did the creator wish to inform, persuade, or deceive his or her audience?

How does the creator's point of view compare to other writers and artists of the period?

What kind of impact would the artistic context of the era have on the content of the source?

What questions would you like to address the author of this article or cartoon?


For whom was the article or cartoon created?

What sorts of information does the article or cartoon supply?

What did you already know about the subject of this article or cartoon and how did this knowledge affect the way you viewed or read it?

Can you trust the document's content at face value?

What additional information is needed to help you understand the subject more fully?

Advertisements and Broadsides:

What is being promoted by this ad or broadside?

What information does this ad or broadside contain?

Describe any claims of fact, reality or results the document makes.

Who is the target reader?

How has advocacy for this product changed over time?

What social changes are reflected by changes in presentation of this product or issue?

TIMELINES

A timeline is an ordered representation of events, generally displayed on a time scale. Many teachers have discovered the value of using timelines to help put curriculum in perspective. Timelines are efficient graphic organisers that provide a tool for studying periods of time ranging from a day, a year, a century, or the span of an individual's life or of era.


Teaching Tips

Researching and creating timelines appeals to students' visual, mathematic, and kinesthetic intelligences. Timelines can organise research materials in a variety of ways, from storing primary source data about a topic over time to documenting the time frame of a novel or the span of an individual's life gleaned from an oral history interview. Completed timelines can include multimedia elements and can be effectively displayed in a variety of formats, from wall hangings, to 3-dimensional"clothesline timelines", to computer slideshows.

Basic Questions

What is the purpose of this timeline?

What is the basic unit of measurement for this timeline - hour, day, month, year, century?

What local events were occurring during the period represented by this timeline?

Critical Thinking Questions (for older students)

What trends, or changes over time does this timeline suggest?

Would the trends look different if the scale, or unit of measurement, were changed?

Select 2 events on the timeline and explain what they do and do not have in common.

How were events selected for this timeline? What was left out? Would missing elements change the timeline's representation of this time period?

Which events on this timeline "caused" other events to occur? Explain.


TOWN AND CITY RECORDS

Most Massachusetts residents and organisations left a paper trail documenting their existence. In most cities and towns, the local library, historical groups, preservation societies, and museums serve as excellent starting points for locating documentary materials about local communities. On the state level, historical societies, archives, and museums are valuable depositories for useful primary materials. Many of these agencies offer specific programmes for students, and many would welcome suggestions for joint projects.

Teaching Tips

Make sure that the historic records you select to use are readable and age appropriate for your class. Be sure the record content is long enough to provide the information you want your class to absorb, but not so long that it overwhelms them. Select materials and activities that are likely to motivate and inspire your students, that are related to current events, anniversaries, their own interests and hobbies.

Basic Questions

Is this document a primary or secondary source? How do you know?

How reliable is this document for historical accuracy??

When was it written? If no date is listed, what clues are there that could help date it?

Where was it written and where is the document now found? (owner, repository)

What tools were used to write it and what is its appearance? (handwritten with quill, pen, pencil? Typewritten? Printed? A filled-in form?


What type"of paper was used?


Whose names are on this document? What are their roles?

What were the opinions, motivations, or interests of each person related to this document?

Why was this document created?

How can you find out more about the context of this document?

What sorts of information does the document supply?

Under what circumstances was the document created?

What were the results, benefits, disadvantages of this document being created??

Can you trust this document's content at face value?

What evidence is there that this is an "official" document?

What does this document tell us about life in this community?

Does this type of document still exist? How is it the same or different?

4 Teaching World History

World history stretches beyond the boundaries of nationstates or civilisations to form a macro history of the human story. Just as the history of the United States is more than the history of 50 individual states, world history is the study of the global human experience and changes in that experience through time.

World historians study global forces and large historical themes such as climatic change, the spread of religions, and the expansion of the market economy. For example, Columbus in world history is not simply the story of Columbus discovering a "new world." Instead it is the "Columbian exchange," a story of human migrations, transatlantic trade, and the exchange of plants, animals, diseases, art, and technology between the eastern and western hemispheres. World history enables us to improve our understanding of how humans have interacted with each other and the planet in the past to shape the present.

World history became an established field of study with the founding by historians and educators of the World History Association in 1982. This field is in its infancy. Scholarship in world history, as in biological research, is expanding rapidly because of international,

74 Teaching of Histonj

collaborative research via the Internet; the increasing number of resources available to world historians; and cross-disciplinary studies with anthropologists, archaeologists, geographers, and others in the social sciences.

Globalisation of the market economy and the development of the international "pop" culture with its bewildering amalgam of many cultural traditions have increased the demand for world history. Yet much remains to be learned. And that is the excitement of world history. When world history class becomes a laboratory where teachers and students form a partnership to investigate what is known to question the unknown, the study of the human story escalates from passive memorisation to inquiry and discovery.

WORLD HISTORY IN THE SCHOOL CURRICULUM

Each age writes its own history. The nineteenth and twentieth centuries were periods of Western influence in politics, economics, and culture. The twenty-first century, however, will belong to world politics, economics, and culture. Consequently, a new history of the world and its people is being written.

Why should this new story be told? Why should it be at the core of the school curriculum? There are many reasons, which pertain to:

citizenship -- creating a body of informed citizens capable of making global decisions for the world body politic at large;

business -- understanding the economiG, cultural, and political environment of many countries in order to participate more fully and effectively in the global market place;

Teaching World History 75

humanity -- thinking more deeply and broadly about the whole human experience rather than its provincial parts as a means of deeper and broader human interconnection;

patterns of thought -- developing historical thinking skills; and

basic knowledge -- understanding who we are, how we got that way, and where we are going.

In the interconnected world, the need to share a common history as well as a particular one is a global phenomenon that involves us all. A history of the world experience, as well as the national and local experience, can provide a forum through which, aided by the study of world history, we develop common ideas that transcend cultural and political boundaries.

Teaching and Learning World History

Certain universal historical themes shape the common human experience. Bound by neither time nor space, they appear broadly across the globe and centuries. These themes form the basis of world history. They include:

manipulating and changing the physical environment;

developing tools and technology;

peopling the globe;

diffusing and exchanging ideas, tools, and other facets of culture;

ending old frontiers and developing new ones; and

creating increasingly more complex systems of politics, economics, and social interactions.

The study of world history develops certain habits of mind needed by individuals to function in a twenty-first century


world of interaction, diversity, and rapid change. These habits of mind include:

seeing the big picture;

discerning the common phenomena;

identify41.g the spread, exchange, and acceptance or rejection of new ideas;

making sound historical comparisons; and

collaborative testing of an historical hypothesis from multiple points of view.

Teacher Preparation and Instructional Strategies

Teacher preparation in world history must involve strategies to expand both teacher expertise as well as the knowledge base of students. Given the lack of world history preparation of most students (secondary and postsecondary) and the narrow focus of world history in most teacher preparation programmes, exploring a comprehensive world history requires research and reflection by instructors and students alike.

Redefining the relationship of teachers and students as a partnership facilitates this educational process. Most social studies teachers started their teaching careers with course work in Western civilisation or area studies. Teaching a global world history , however, requires reconceptualisation of the subject. Together the class can examine both common themes and the uniqueness of societies within a chronological framework constructed for the course.

A study of .world history must encompass both breadth and depth. Most courses focus either narrowly and deeply or broadly and shallowly. A cross section of the two is possible through class lectures and discussions

Teaching World Histonj 77

around broad social, political, economic, or cultural themes integrated with focus groups in which students can examine various regions of the world in depth to learn how themes have unfolded during specified eras. This preserves a sense of chronology of events and movements over time, yet also allows for comparisons of societies in different eras or in different regions as the course proceeds. Inquiry is grounded in historical knowledge placed in a broader context.

This structure serves several purposes. First, it makes the overwhelming subject of world history more manageable for students and teachers, particularly with the limitations of time restraints in any course. Second, it reduces the chance of a "one fact after another" approach where students are challenged merely to recall isolated facts covered in the textbook and the teacher lectures without a clear sense of what those facts mean. Third, it promotes critical thinking, a necessity in a democratic system.

Discerning fact from opinion and identifying multiple perspectives in cross-cultural encounters are desirable outcomes of instruction in our increasingly interconnected world. Fourth, themes provide a framework for reading for meaning and for the relevance of historical topics. Learning information simply because it is in the textbook does not motivate today's s~dents to become competent, or even interested, in world history. Fifth, the approach can incorporate the wealth of resources available through technology. Using these resources can greatly enhance textbook information, but students must be taught simultaneously how to discriminate between reliable and unreliable resources.

Acquainting students with human history is a daunting task. The overwhelming assignment can be made


more manageable, however, if one provides for in-depth regional studies set in the context of a wider realm of human experience. This de-centered approach promotes comparative studies, multiple perspectives including voices of women and minorities, and a more comprehensive understanding of human and environmental events. Analysing the effects of the past on contemporary life and recognising the problems of present-minded thinking and the limits of our own perspectives will promote competency in historical thinking.

AN INTERNATIONAL FRAMEWORK

Since English is the medium of instruction for world history in both the United States and Australia, one would expect a fair degree of portability. By allowing both Australian and American course content to be set in international play in a controlled electronic environment, both can be tested and enhanced according to crosscultural applicability. We envisaged that a "virtual forum" of American and Australian students would facilitate the internationalisation of the unit content through mutual feedback and cross-fertilisation between identical reading material and responses to facilitator questions. An international framework might illuminate diverse responses to the same world history texts depending upon the cultural location of the students involved, and that it might lead to new cross-cultural understandings of the material through listening to alternative and divergent opinions and interpretations.

For teaching material dealing with the Atlantic world, this seemed particularly interesting. Atlantic world history courses have a long genealogy in the United States due to their "home-grown" status as regional histories of cultural exchange and interaction where the U.S. is positioned in a broader global paradigm. Hence, this area of world


history teaching has straddled both the national curriculum and the need for studies that place America in a wider world. However, this sense of familiarity cannot be extended to Australia. The teaching of the Atlantic world in Australia is a relatively recent phenomenon, with no sense of physical or cultural proximity involved and, indeed, few "overlaps" with national interests or studies of Australia's place in its own region.

Hence, one can assume that studies of the Atlantic world in the U.S. and in Australia serve different ends and have been grounded in different pedagogical frameworks. While in the u.s. studies of the Atlantic world emerged from a re-evaluation and broadening of the national history paradigm, in Australia such studies are interwoven in the broader emergence and popularity of world and global histories per se. What happens when these two perspectives meet? Even if identical scholarly books and articles are used, are they read in the same way and with the same sets of cultural assumptions and investments?

Related to this desire to test the international portability of world history curriculum was our desire to encourage our respective sets of students to tackle the world history syllabus not only from the perspective as "Americans" or as "Australians" but also from the "bird'seye" perspective of perceiving themselves as world historians. While world history students in their respective countries must learn the skills that enable them to compete and thrive in a local environment, there also remains a need to prepare our students with transnational skills that equip them with the necessary competencies to be citizens of the world. Hence, the creation of an international learning environment which facilitates the transfer of general skills in reading, writing, and the comprehension of historical processes on a global scale is the first step

80 Teachillg of Histonj

towards providing the framework for training in crosscultural understanding.

Due to the sheer physical distance of Australia from the main centers of world history pedagogy in Europe and the U.S., physical exchanges with foreign countries have been the traditional modes by which Australian students acquire these cross-cultural skills. Exchange agreements and travel opportunities to other centers where world history is taught enable Australian students to feel as if they are a part of the global pedagogical scene. However, due to the relative expense of air travel, the highly competitive entry criteria for student exchange programmes, and the time needed for the proper planning and execution of overseas travel, the tyranny of distance often hinders the full participation of Australian students in global learning initiatives.

While international world history programmes seem well-placed to respond to the contemporary demands of creating the environment needed for the internationalisation of general skills, only a few world history students are given the opportunity to study abroad on exchange programmes. Even then, the cost is high. Thus there remains a real urgency to make the internationalisation of world history teaching and learning both accessible and more economically feasible.

Globalisation of Education

In theory, online units of study promote information exchange and mutual support amongst students and enable skills to be updated and transferred to vocational settings. In countries such as Australia, sympathetic commentators on the viability of online learning say that it addresses educational disadvantage by widening educational opportunities to a broader and more diverse


body of students while simultaneously addressing social isolation due to the sheer scale of physical distances.

In the United States, online distance education courses have multiplied significantly in recent years with campuses making significant advances in the area of e-Iearning strategies to increase student numbers and reach students in rural areas. Likewise, in Australia, the promotion of external units of study to students who work during the day or who live in remote areas has resulted in the growth and sustainability of the Open Universities Australia (OUA) network. The University of Southern Queensland has pioneered the use of online learning as a means to offer courses to students living in remote areas of the Australian outback.

Spain's Salamanca University, the University of Porto in Portugal, and the University of Groningen in the Netherlands have all been noted in the literature for their borderless e-Iearning environments that maximise the transfer of resources through unit content portability. However, the specific teaching and learning needs of world history require students to think and act in a global context due to the cross-cultural nature of the subject material, while current e-Iearning solutions often remain linked to local and national contexts. In this sense, the internet allows for the seamless delivery of information and seems to be well-placed (in theory) to offer world history teaching solutions in an environment that addresses the equity issues of international student exchange. It also provides a context for testing the portability and flexibility of world history programmes.

On the one hand, the internet creates an international framework for the cross-cultural transfer of general skills and, hence, heralds an exciting new phase in the potential internationalisation of world history curricula. As John


Field argues, "as borders open up across the globe to traffic of almost every kind, so distance open learning flows increasingly across national frontiers." Robin Mason from the Open University in the U.K. goes further with his celebratory view:

At its most visionary, the ideal of global education is one of a movement away from the bounded classroom, seen as a haven from the world, to a dynamic synergy of teachers, computer-mediated instructional devices and students collaborating to create a window on the world.

On the other hand, the promise that world history can be taught in a global utopia that widens international participation and enhances equity is contingent upon the premise that the historical move from localised and nationalised centers of learning to the "global virtual university" is a good one and is, indeed, historically inevitable.

There are cognitive, educational and social arguments for caution to be displayed in the laisseZ-faire argument that the globalisation of world history curricula based on American, European or Australian models will somehow widen participation and erase disadvantage. In his book, Digital Diploma Mills, for example, David Noble provides a sharp critique of the intention of online learning programmes which are interwoven into the logic of the expansion of global capital where the unrestrained commodification of education for the pursuit of profit looms large.

While online learning and teaching courses have multiplied across the world, as previously noted, they have done so in tandem with the privatisation and corporatisation of higher education per se. College campuses have often emphasized the "democratisation" of education in order to justify the increase in online


learning programmes when their real intention is to tap into a lucrative international education market and reduce overall labour costs. The casualisation of online teaching, questions concerning quality control, and the overall lack of standards has led Noble to draw parallels between these new learning "innovations" in the twenty-first century to the mechanisation processes that accompanied the first phase of industrial capitalism in the West.

The question of equity is a very important one. Do all of the world's college students have access to the internet in order to engage in a "global" learning environment? Do we want world history to become the "internationalised" preserve of the privileged? The challenges faced by students in the developing world as well as the question of the feasibility of internet classrooms for the socially and economically disadvantaged are very real in a global society where the gulf between the "information rich" and the "information poor" is widening at an ever-increasing rate. In this sense, the enthusiastic embrace of the "global virtual university" and "democratisation" has serious socio-economic and sociopolitical implications.

GLOBALISED TEACHING WORLD HISTORY

In social terms, the homogenisation of world history teaching could lead either to the weakening of studies of cultural specificity and local perspectives or, indeed, to the erasure of the important role of a national perspective on education in postcolonial contexts where there is a real urgency to shake off imperial legacies.

While the above problems are very real, we nevertheless maintain that the internet can provide an effective environment for conducting innovative crosscultural teaching methods in world history that require


us to think beyond the old binary of "national" versus "global" and to engage in a significant pedagogical network which brings local communities of world history students from different parts of the globe into dialogue with one another. This may lead, as Mason suggests, to a relativist comprehension of world history approaches that are not static or unitary, but multiple, contested and based on how one sees the world at a given place, time and context depending on where one is standing.

Indeed, living with twenty-first century technology requires students to think and act in terms of both national and transnational identities. Furthermore, through a process of cross-cultural contact and interaction, online environments have the potential to create international spaces where the subject content will be interpreted in fresh and innovative ways.

To be sure, on-line world history teaching across national boundaries through this type of virtual interaction has some viable and exciting outcomes which can be adapted and built upon by practitioners in the field. Whether to do so, however, at the expense of commodifying world history learning in an era where the "virtual classroom" is under greater scrutiny as a multinational commercial enterprise rather than as a global pedagogical tool is the more urgent question at hand.

Geyer and Bright's prognosis that world history needs to be anchored in the "actually existing" world of the contemporary age sounds good enough in terms of fostering transnational interactions of the kind fostered in this experiment. H,owever, the issues of cultural homogenisation and the corporatisation of higher education learning, and where world history programmes should fit into this new virtual order, needs more sustained debate from practitioners in the field. Without


careful consideration of the historical and economic context of late capitalism and its relationship to new online teaching collaborations, the project of globalisation itself could risk being glorified in clearly unintentional ways.

Geyer and Bright rightly predicted that lithe central challenge of a renewed world history at the end of the twentieth century is to narrate the world's pasts in an age of globality," but it seems that the new challenge for the twenty-first century is to find a way of fostering global interactions in our world history teaching while retaining a commitment to fostering educational standards, widening social access, and observing cross-cultural ethics.

What is World History? Ask this question of a group of researchers, educators or students and it is unlikely that you will be given a unified response. Their disagreement may stem from terminology, with some insisting on a 'global' approach, and others arguing for 'world systems.' They may even argue for a 'new' to be placed in front of 'global' or for a hyphen to be inserted between 'world' and 'systems.' But more fundamentally, they may hold different understandings of the spatial and temporal parameters of the field, and of the phenomena it seeks to explain. One person may associate world history with the study of the movements of one person across an ocean, another may encourage us to go back and reflect on human population growth and even the origins of the universe 13.7 billion years ago.

Lack of agreement about the nature of world history can be exasperating for both those familiar with, and those new to the field alike. Doesn't all of this disagreement, it might be asked, come at the expense of productivity? If we cannot agree on the meaning of world history, then how can we design syllabuses or textbooks or engage in collaborative research projects? For those of us interested


in historiography, however, disagreements like these signal the potential of world history as a teaching and research field.

Historiographers study the nature and purpose of histories. Quite often, historiography is treated as an addon or as an ancillary to historical studies. It is assumed to be the preserve of advanced undergraduate or graduate students, or something that precedes or follows historical research. Sometimes, historiography is even treated as an impediment to research, undercutting the findings of those who labour long and hard with primary archival materials. These views of historiography as supplementary are mistaken, because every activity undertaken in the course of historical research or teaching is shaped by assumptions about what history is and what it is for.

Some of these assumptions vary widely across time and space, and others appear to be universal and beyond question. All of these assumptions are open to question, whether they are debated or held widely. Bringing assumptions about history to light is no easy matter, but it is worth undertaking for at least three reasons. First the assumptions historians make or affirm have ethical implications: that is, they privilege certain peoples and activities over others and overlook some phenomena altogether. Historiography can bring these patterns of privilege and exclusion to light and prompt us to address them in research and teaching. Second, it gives us the opportunity to clarify and explain our understanding of the field to others. Third, the historiographical analysis of world histories has broad social significance because world histories inform public culture.

World histories are used in a variety of ways, such as supporting or promoting visions of community and environment, guiding economic programmes, or enhancing


feelings of social security or disorder. Exploring what is expected of world histories, when, and by whom, may help to cast critical light on contemporary geopolitical discourses such as that on the health and clash of civilisations.

As Patrick Manning has noted, it is hard to call to mind any particular methods or materials that distinguish world history from other fields. Indeed the range of works covered in his Navigating World History is so wide that it is difficult to detect where the territory of world history ends and other approaches to historical research (eg. transnational, imperial, regional, and diasporic) begin. Is this a problem just for world historians?

People in many times and cultures have made histories of their 'world': a realm or domain taken for an entire meaningful system of existence or activity. Those 'worlds' may correspond to the globe as we view it, or to one part of it, such as the shores of the Mediterranean or the north of Australia. It is also important to note that world histories have been made with a variety of media, from print to pictures to dances and songs. People use a variety of labels to describe those histories, including 'holistic history,' 'universal history,' 'general history,' 'ecumenical history,' 'regional history,' 'comparative history,' 'world systems history,' 'macrohistory,' 'transnational history,' 'big history' and the 'new world' and 'new global' histories.

Histories of world-history making traditionally begin with 'universal' history.' 'Universal history' has in ancient and modem contexts denoted, first, the production of a comprehensive and perhaps also unified history of the known world or universe; second, a history that illuminates truths, ideals or principles that are thought to belong to the whole world; third, a history of the world


unified by the workings of a single mind; and fourth, a history of the world that has passed down through an unbroken line of transmission.

Ephorus is generally cited as the first universal historian, and the rise of the genre is linked to the cosmopolitanism fostered by the conquests of Alexander of Macedon. Universal histories, however, are not simply a Western imperial product imposed upon the rest of the world: they probably have a relationship with the creation stories told by peoples around the world. Ancient universal history making flourished after cultural interactions, military campaigns, the advent of standardised systems of chronology and the spread of monotheistic religions such as Christianity and Islam.

Universal history became one of a number of competing visions of 'world history' in the twentieth century, and persists today in philosophies of history and the sub-field of big history. Of particular interest was the fate of Western civilisation, which was given an optimistic appraisal in modernisation works such as E. L. Jones' The European Miracle. Neo-Marxist dependency and worldsystem scholars such as Andre Gunder Frank took issue with this assessment, noting that European activities often fostered states of economic dependency in 'periphery' states.

Positive achievements in the 'West,' it was argued, came at the price of achievements in other parts of the world. Postcolonial and feminist scholars like Michael Adas and Judith Zinsser added to these criticisms, arguing that the language, concepts, periodisation and structure of world histories can minimise and even mask the historical activities of those 'outside' of the masculine West. Dependency, world-system, and postcolonial world histories formed part of the wider shift in the twentieth


century towards the study of relations between peoples across the globe. This shift is epitomised in the scholarship of W. H. McNeill, who is widely acknowledged as one of the architects of present-day world history research.

Human interaction on the largest scale-over the globewas also the subject of global (and new global) historical studies. Transnational, comparative, new imperial, and new world historians were also interested in human interaction, but on a smaller scale. There is no single culture, method or purpose that has shaped the making of world history. Nor do academic historians alone produce it.

The Macquarie Programme

Since the mid-1990s, world history education at Macquarie University has opened with not one, but two surveys that work on different scales and with different methods and materials. The first, HIST112: An Introduction to World History is the unit that launched big history. Described first in an article for The Journal of World History called 'The Case for "Big History",' David Christian set out his arguments for the use of world history education to tell the biggest story"of all, that of the origins and evolution of human beings, life, earth, and the universe some 13.7 billion years ago. The course today still offers 'thirteen billion years in thirteen weeks.' A number of the students who take HISTl12 are puzzled and even shaken by their first encounter with big history. They come to university with expectations about what history is, with little recent experience in the study of science, and sometimes with firm religious beliefs. 'This is not history as I know it' is a common comment offered in the first weeks of semester. This is to be expected, because Christian's approach, as Alfred Crosby has noted, is an act of provocation.


Contemporary historiography asks to be wary of coherent or even large stories in world history, portraying them as 'metanarratives' that legitimate some views and gloss over others. Further, few historians would see the territory of their discipline extending back before the appearance of writing, let alone before Homo' sapiens sapiens. That, however, is the point of Christian's work, for he wants us think carefully about our commitment to models of world history and history making that in his view make little use of the many scales of view that are available to historians, underplay the interactions between humans and the biosphere, and give short shrift to people who are not literate or who do not reside tidily within the boundaries of particular empires or nation states.

HISTl12 is akin to a roller coaster ride, and not all students are initially happy about having their beliefs about history shaken. All but a few hang on, though, and their reward for persistence is an expanded view of science, history, world history and their own critical thinking skills. And while the majority of students start out worried about big history, they tend to end the unit very firmly in favour of its J.rguments and methods. On the one hand, this might be considered an educational success. On the other hand, the treatment of HIST112 as a sufficient treatment of world history masks the existence of other world histories.

To address this problem, staff and students work to put HISTl12 in' context. Perhaps the most important factor in encouraging students to see big history as one of a number of competing approaches to world history is a second survey, HIST114: The World Since 1945 from an Australian Perspective. With its comparatively tiny timescale and use of a national frame, this unit provides a strong contrast to big history. It clearly announces


through its title that it is not a continuation of, and does not use the same approaches and ideas as, HISTl12. In combination, these surveys embody the 'play of scales'the combined use of large and small scale analysis-thaIcan show students the possibilities of world history writing and research. The combined use of two surveys also highlights the pliable form of world histories, and shows students that they are constructed worlds.

Drawing connections across units of study and highlighting differences in focus and method continues in upper level units that focus on the 'Atlantic world' after 1492, war and peace in the ancient and modern world, travellers and travel writing from the eighteenth century, and the spread of Indian ideas and practices in South-East Asia. Macquarie resembles many other universities in Australia and abroad in its use of thematic frames for upper level world history education.

How it differs from other programmes, though, is that these thematic studies are not the end of world history study. At the highest level of undergraduate study and in the Masters programme, historiographical and historical questions relevant to the field come to the fore as focus shifts from 'world history' to 'world histories.' The undergraduate and MA unit, 'World Histories', offers students the chance to uncover and reflect on the shapes of world history making in many different social and historical contexts.

Working through chronologically arranged lectures and thematic tutorial (class) and online discussions held in conjunction with the global studies programme at Leipzig University, students discuss labels such as 'global history' and 'universal history,' methodologies, scales of research and writing, where scholars begin and end their world histories, approaches to gender, and debates on


postmodernist and postcolonialist world histories. They also study the relationships between the makers, distributors and readers and auditors of world histories.

One of the major aims of the unit is to show that current historiographical surveys of the field rely too heavily on a limited body of works by European writers, and that they may be revised and expanded in at least five ways, through the extended consideration of world histories made before 14006; through world histories made outside of university settings by male and female writers for adult and child audiences; through traditions of world history making in China and Islamic centres; through world histories made by social and natural scientists in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries; and through 'holistic' histories of indigenous groups such as Aboriginal Australians. This expanded view helps to highlight the decisions made by historiographers about how world history is to be understood and shows us that European and North American world histories are thus only some among many ways of world making.

In HIST 359/MHPG912, students are encouraged to see that historiographers of world history, as well as world historians, make worlds. But more importantly, they begin to reflect on their own potential contribution to world history making. Students design their own research project and fashion critical questions in response to the classes and readings. Further, they hear a series of mini-lectures by postgraduate students working in the field of world history. Far from being an ancillary or purely abstract pursuit, historiography can show students that world history is manageable, topical, and something that connects with cultures around the world.

At Macquarie, research and teaching in world history go hand in hand. Research students lecture, findings are


taken to classes, and student questions become the basis for smaller and larger research projects. And the programme continues to grow. While the emphasis has been on offering a complete programme for undergraduate and graduate students, it has now shifted to historiographical internationalisation. That is being addressed through internationally collaborative research on the history of world history making and the provision of opportunities for students at Macquarie and overseas to discuss ideas via online teaching and study abroad exchanges. Much work remains to be done, though, if the cultural and historical scope of research and teaching in the historiography of world history is to match that of world history itself.

Macquarie University's undergraduate and postgraduate programme in world history is open to students in Australia and around the world. Single units may be taken on a 'Non Award' basis and studied on campus or externally via the web, or students can study at Macquarie for a semester as part of its 'Study Abroad' programme. Australian and international students are welcome to undertake degree programmes. Students with outstanding honours or Masters results are welcome to apply for PhD scholarships and PhD graduates with strong publication records are welcome to inquire about Postdoctoral fellowships.

Teaching Global and Local History

This section explores ways in which the global is also local. It raises the question of whether a course in World History is truly such if it fails to incorporate our students' hometown connections to persons, places, objects, activities, or events that reflect the emergence and growth of North America as one hub of the new, modem world system. Teachers and textbook authors, of course, are


mindful of the highly visible, broad strokes of revolutionary change that everywhere signify modernity, but no single one of them can possibly deal with the multiple ways in which these changes were locally realised or experienced. To convey this sort of history in the classroom, it is necessary to examine the pasts of the localities in which our students reside, with an eye toward connecting their lives and those places with the rest of the world.

Indeed, China and India, especially, were the "center of gravity" at the time of the modern hub's emergence, and their influence will loom large in our students' economic futures. Africa and Native America constitute two other axes of crucial importance to local and regional developments. Teachers must therefore subvert the institutionalised divisions that exist between national histories, grade levels, and even disciplines. Such categories and habits of mind, still deeply entrenched, only instill and reinforce students' perceptions of a false disconnect between their own worlds and those of people far away or long ago.

Over twenty years ago, a professional historian and Berlin town resident wrote that "historically, in other than a local context, Berlin has no great significance," and that indeed, "no stirring events" had ever occurred there. From a conventional perspective, this is undoubtedly true, but from an anthropological perspective, it is precisely the mundane and the ordinary that constitute one of the unifying, core subjects of world history. In his classic examination of the material culture of early American life, In Small Things Forgotten, archaeologist James Deetz showed how even the most un-noteworthy of everyday objects, including ceramic ware, could be made to reveal how people of the past viewed themselves and their world.


Along these lines, the relatively widespread diffusion of North America's first tin-plated pots, pans, and other utensils, and the development of a unique mercantile system for distributing them, can be traced to an event that occurred in what is now the town of Berlin. This was the decision, made around 1740 by the Scotch-Irish immigrant Edward Pattison, to manufacture tinware there instead of farming for a living.

Since the English colonies were commercial ventures connected to the triangular webs of the Atlantic economy almost from the very start, Pattison's idea to make money by going into business for himself was hardly revolutionary. Having learned the relatively new trade in his native England, from which a good supply of the otherwise rare metal could be mined and exported, Pattison went from house to house in the Berlin area selling his stock. After some years, other town residents followed his example, with the result that soon "most of the homes [in Berlin] had a trained tinsmith and his apprentices." Individuals in neighbouring towns soon also established shops, but it was Berlin that earned a reputation as the most noisy "bang-all" place to live.

By the early 19th century, "so much tinware was being produced that it became necessary to dispose of it beyond the local market," and it was thus that Berlin became the home of the original "Yankee Peddler," whose ubiquity in the early 19th century can perhaps be seen as a precursor to Wal-Mart. The new technology, products, machinery, and distribution system that gradually emerged had a significant impact on the domestic economy of both rural and urban-dwelling American families, replacing utensils made of iron, pewter, and wood.

Enshrined today on Berlin's town seal and laying the foundation fur a manufacturing network and distribution


system "that enabled them to re-supply their stock at warehouses and Connecticut-managed workshops from Ohio to Georgia," the early tinsmiths, blacksmiths, peddlers (and eventually, the manufacturers of tools and machinery for making tinware), it could be argued, established Berlin as one harbinger of New England's transformation from a rural to an industrial landscape.

Simeon North, originally a farmer, turned an old sawmill into a forge where he started making tools and eventually pistols under United States' government contract. Eli Whitney may be better known for the first "assembly line," and Hartford's Samuel Colt for firearms, but it was North who invented a milling machine for the shaping of metal that made interchangeable parts and mass production possible. Eventually new turnpikes for wagon transport, canals for river freight, and finally railroads widened the market for these entrepreneurs' products, which remained vigorous until the late 19th

century when competition from Malaysian mines and cheap Chinese labour negatively impacted the industry. For a long time, until only recently with the publication of research dealing with "the myth of northern innocence," Connecticut's tales of tinplate bangers, blacksmiths, peddlers, and inventors formed part of the "American" self-image propagated by New Englanders who vaunted their own values of industriousness and entrepreneurship as superior to those prevalent in the slave-holding and foundationally racist South.

Some native buyers, not knowing how to extract the spice, apparently thought that Connecticut peddlers cheated them by selling them nutmegs made of wood rather than the genuine article. Indeed, the story of nutmeg makes for a fascinating tale in world history, but apart from the manufacture of tin nutmeg grinders, there isn't much of local significance that can be hung onto it. Central


Connecticut, however, does have deeper, less well-known ties to persons and events that reflect four major topics relevant to the world's transformations in both early modern and more recent periods: genocide, slavery, civil wars heralding the decline of one empire (China) and the rise of another (the U.S.), and the long-distance migration of large numbers of people. It is to these that I now turn.

Genocide

Whether or not Jared Diamond's conclusions about the causes of world inequality as presented in Guns, Germs, and Steel are accepted, the course of modern world history has everywhere involved the domination of the have-nots by the haves, and often the outright immiseration of indigenous populations by more powerful newcomers. Because of its associated cultural genocide and species depletion, extinction, and exchange, the rise of the West entailed uses of political and economic power that differed substantially from how these were deployed in either the so-called simpler societies or the civilisations that were, before 1500, at about equal levels of technological development. After this date a New World environment was in the making socially as well as geographically, as the growth of the Atlantic economy created boundless opportunities for self-made men "to rival the old landed elites in wealth."

These forces are evident in even the earliest colonial history of Connecticut, when treaties stipulating land cession after both the Pequot War (1636-37) and King Philip War (1675-76) removed the inconveniently located Indians (estimated to have been fewer than 5000 in number) outside the zone of English settlement, despite -initially "friendly" encounters and the apparent desire of the local Indians to have English settlers nearby as a buffer aga~nst their Mohawk and Pequot foes. The first Dutch


and English inhabitants of Connecticut possessed precisely the advantages over Native Americans that Diamond identifies as crucial to the making of the modern world's asymmetries: firearms that changed completely the nature of warfare and hunting, bacterial immunities that changed completely the region's demography, and the metal tools and specie that transformed the meaning and distribution of wealth.

While the Dutch at Hartford in the 1620s and 1630s sought mainly to trade, English settlement in the Connecticut River Valley followed the pattern established earlier in the Massachusetts Bay, where as early as 1620 (Plymouth's founding), "the thriving, populous agricultural villages [of natives] that [were earlier] seen were empty and deserted," replaced by a new communal and economic enterprise. Throughout southern New England, the Indians' adoption of a more nomadic lifestyle corresponded with an increase in the number of beaver pelts demanded by the foreign traders, and the settlers' introduction of new livestock and seeds on the most desirable lands. The net result after contact was to make them dependent upon the manufactured goods that trade with Europeans brought, which were then incorporated into indigenous systems of cultural meaning as they "began to participate in the systematic slaughter of animal populations with which they had formerly cultivated symbiotic and spiritual relationships."

Southern New England's fur resources would, in the end, prove limited compared to those that could be hunted elsewhere, and even those larger quantities of beaver pelts proved only secondarily important to the accumulation of European capital. Timber and fish would soon replace it as the colony's first cash-producing commodities. Yet, in Connecticut they were briefly the focus of an intense confliCt between Holland's mainly commercial pursuits


and the desire of the English United Colonies to remove the natives entirely.

By 1667 the Dutch forfeited their claims in North America, but the role played by Native American hunters in adorning, if not actually creating the Netherlands' "embarrassment of riches" is noteworthy. At the very least, upon being shown a Vermeer or perhaps some other Dutch genre painting from its Golden Age, a student could be led to inquire if a woman's fur collar or the felt for the hat worn by some "merry cavalier" came originally from an amphibious rodent that may have once lodged not far from his or her own home!

Indian defeats cleared the way for the Connecticut colony to take its part, albeit much smaller than that of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, in the Atlantic Triangular Trade. Bloody conflicts early established the abusive pattern of treatment that expanding American government eventually would apply to all Native Americans. The Pequot War demonstrated English military superiority to the Indians and dispersed those it did not kill. There was some lingering resistance, evidenced by the imposition of a fine by the colony's General Court of a half fathom of wampum upon "whatsoever Indean shall medle with or handle any Englisheman's weapens of any sorte," and eventually it was forbidden to trade any items made of metal to the Indians who "growe insolent and combyne themselves together, being suspected to prepare for war."

Yet by the late 1660's, "the independent and roving existence of the Indians had ceased ... they were little more than the subjects and tenants of the white men." Among "the little sagamores [who] sold land and performed other acts of sovereignty on their own authority" at that time was a certain Terramuggus, "chief of the Mattabesett," a clan of the Wangunks, from whom


militia Sergeant Richard Beckley (today deemed the first settler of what would later be Berlin) "purchased" a tract of some 300 acres around 1660 (an act which nevertheless did not free him from the danger of theft). Fear of Indians remained widespread, and in 1687 militia Captain Richard Seymour built, for the inhabitants of "The Great Swamp Settlement" of Christian Lane (Le., the church society of Kensington, now part of Berlin), a fort of palisades sixteen feet high as "protection against sudden attack from Indians or wild animals."

Travel to worship under armed guard also kept parishioners safe. Gradually, however, as they did everywhere throughout New England, the Indians in central Connecticut "settled into anonymity, constructing brooms, bottoming chairs, weaving woodsplint baskets, and carving pudding spoons that they traded in Yankee towns." In Berlin, Indian men might occasionally be seen well into the 19th century, "begging for cider" or for food and a night's lodging in the barn, and being given it, for "people were careful not to offend [them] .. , with their long memories and revengeful dispositions, one never knew when the blow might fall."

As for females, "a lone Indian woman, probably one of the last of the Mattabesett tribe" was known to inhabit a grove along the Sebethe River, where "her occupation must have been stringing beads and making baskets" for sale to the whites. Other Indians in Berlin are known to have made baskets which they "sold ... in Hartford for rum and when they returned the squaws used to go and stay with Mrs. Goodrich until the braves were peacef~l again." Though anecdotal, such references to itinerant and "disappearing Indians" were common in the early 19th

century. It is known that in the 18th century, Indian servitude survived in Connecticut "as a curious relic," probably as the result of a law requiring that the indigent


"be disposed into service." All such data evince the modern, globally-visible pattern of indigenous reduction, impoverishment, and socio-cultural if not entirely physical disappearance as a result of conquest by more powerful outsiders.

Slavery

After agriculture, shipbuilding was one of Connecticut's largest industries in the lSth and 19th centuries. Shipyards located in the ports of Mystic and London and at various locations along the Connecticut River specialised in making "cotton packets" of 700-1000 tons that sailed to the Gulf of Mexico. Mr. Norris Peck, a Berlin selectman, farmer, and merchant with ties to Alabama cotton growers and thus to African slaves and their African-American descendants, was but one of the many Connecticut investors in the cotton packet trade.

Other local merchants conducted business with counterparts in North Carolina, including members of the Wilcox family, who would later play a leading role in turning the town of Meriden, next to Berlin, into a center of "International Silver." Such ties were neither new nor distasteful to early Puritan or later Congregationalist minds, for West Indian cotton was available for spinning by New Englanders as early as the 1640's. It is possible that the first cotton thread to be made in America was hand-loomed in a Berlin shop owned by one of Pattison's sons.

Much later, in what is now called East Berlin, Elishama Brandegee (whose father had sailed the seas and brought back" a little negro boy from Guinea" ) established a large spool cotton and thread ,mill that "gave employment to forty girls" and is the 1fubject of a rustic factory landscape painted by Charles Doratt in 1840. It,


too, was but one of the many textile or textile-related factories that proliferated throughout Connecticut in the early 19th century and that owed their existence to "the millions of pounds of slave-grown cotton they imported from the Southern states."

Still another connection to the larger Atlantic world is suggested by one of the several other nicknames for Connecticut besides "The Nutmeg State," one which is not as well-known or remembered. Despite the collapse of the American economy during the revolutionary war, farmers in Connecticut supplied substantial foodstuffs for the Continental Army, which made it "The Provision State." However, another meaning can be attributed to this name, less enshrined in the public's awareness of identity and history. Again, although Connecticut's share of shipping was small compared to that of other colonies/states, its navigable rivers put at least some of the products of its fields and forests into the larger webs of the Triangular Trade.

Indeed, apart from domestic subsistence, some production for the local market, and the production of flaxseed for export to Ireland, it was the West Indies that were for a long time "the one main market" in farmers' minds. Connecticut's urban merchants, like so many others throughout New England, thrived at least partly because they traded the foodstuffs and forest products of the rural areas to England's "sugar islands" of the West Indies, without which the slave plantation economies could not have survived. Local farmers produced com and kiln-dried it, while mills in Kensington and East Berlin ground it into flour. Some quantity of that meal was sent by teams to Middletown or further south to New Haven, and then shipped to the Caribbean where, along with dairy products and preserved fish, it was used to feed slaves.


A local historian who was active in the early 20th

century, and who was descended from a sea captain who later owned a store that "ran vessels from Rocky Hill to the West Indies," informs us that "com was ground [in Berlin] and meal dried and shipped to the West Indies ... great trunks of trees were sawed into lumber," but it is impossible to know how much. However, "shipping

Irecords indicate that farms were feeding West Indian slaves by the tens of thousands," while forested areas throughout central Connecticut were cleared in order to provide the shingles, barrel staves, and casks in which the corn meal was stored.

New England Puritans had actually begun trading for slaves with the West Indies in 1638 and initiated direct trade for slaves in Africa as early as 1644. At first, Indian slaves were imported from other colonies, but they were difficult to control and the practice was soon abandoned in favor of Africans, who "had no place to run to, no tribe to assist them in a rebellion, and ... seemed more able to adapt to European ways." Special recent supplements to the Hartford Courant and a newly-published book have been devoted to what has been, until now, the utterly neglected topic of slave-holding and the economics of slavery in Connecticut. And despite its small part in the trade, Connecticut had the largest number of slaves (6,464) in New England on the eve of the Revolution.

Twenty-two Africans were officially counted as living in Berlin in 1801. Exactly what they did and who they did it for cannot be known without further research, but their work was undoubtedly servile and some were most likely owned by traders or merchants. It is known that about a half-century earlier, "as far as possible from the pulpit," seating was reserved in one church "for the negro servants [sic] ... not because [it was] thought they had any


souls worth saving but because [their owners] did not like to leave them at home."

Even after the American Civil War, fortunes were made in the state on the backs of the countless African slaves who carried ivory tusks to Zanzibar, from where they were transported to factories on the Connecticut River that turned them into piano keys, combs, and brush handles. It might be added that without West Indian molasses, spices, and rum, and the risks associated with its importation, Hartford would not have become "The Insurance Capital" of America. But those are other places and other stories, and do not fit within the scope of this article.

Civil Wars

As is well known, the British went to war twice against China in the first half of the 19th century because of an unfavorable balance of trade and the Qing Emperor's refusal to allow Canton's merchants to continue exchanging beneficial products (silk, tea, porcelain, human labour) for harmful ones (opium and life as a "coolie" in the Americas). Demand for silk was so great that attempts were made during the late 18th and early 19th centuries to replicate Chinese success in the American colonies.

Americans in large numbers started planting mulberry. trees, breeding silkworms, and spooling the silk. Ezra Stiles, president of nearby Yale College, was one enthusiastic promoter of silk production, and among the notable results of his efforts was the formation, in 1788 in the town of Mansfield, of the first U.S. corporation devoted to manufacturing. The 1820's and 1830's, in particular, witnessed a sericulture "craze" that prompted dreams of fast riches through home production throughout New England.

Teachi1lg World History 105

In the Berlin/New Britain area, Elijah Tinsdale had a mulberry orchard and a silkhouse that was, following a pattern common since King James' command that silk be produced in Virginia, promoted and partly subsidised by state government. The mother of Elishama Brandegee, the aforementioned factory owner whose other business interests were in the West Indies, not only ran the family general store but raised silkworms and tended a mulberry orchard on Worthington Street while doing so, exemplifying both the adoption of Chinese technology and the tendency, at this time, of New England women of all social classes to "[define] their lives through work."

But once again, as with the tin industry, local enterprise was thwarted by conditions prevailing far away, and colonial silk production reached a dead end: "The hitch appeared when it became clear that, even with the cost of freight ... factored in, New Englanders would not perform the delicate work of unwinding cocoons for rates that could compete with Chinese wages." The one major Connecticut success story was that of the Cheney Brothers, who turned Manchester into a company town with a silk mill that remained active until the early 20th century.

America's maritime Clipper Age coincides with the defeat and humiliation of the Chinese "Celestial Court" by the British, and the onset of a long period of foreign intrusion and civil war in China. Connecticut shipyards built many of the vessels that sailed out of New York, and many sea captains of the China trade came from Connecticut families. The town of Berlin plays a part in one profoundly American and virtually unknown story from that period. In 1852, one year after the founding of the rebel Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace and somewhere along the endemically hungry, flooded, people-exporting coast of southern China, a Chinese boy of about ten years old was sold to Captain Amos Peck,

106 Teaching of HistonJ

son of the aforementioned Norris Peck. On the return voyage round the Hom, the cabin boy was named "Joe" by the ship's crew, and was brought back to Berlin along with whatever goods Amos purchased as his father's agent.

Joe was raised together with Amos Peck's younger siblings in his parents' home (an 181h century central chimney house that is still standing). Joe attended school with them, but instead of taking the Peck family name he was given the surname "Pierce," after the President then in office. Years later, family members would tell conflicting versions of why, where, and even for how much Joe was purchased. But Connecticut had officially abolished slavery in 1848, the Pecks were-at least in principle-locally known to be against it, and Joe was neither thought of nor treated as a slave during the years he spent in town.

Pierce grew to manhood in Berlin, and, following President Lincoln's call in 1863 for "300,000 more," enlisted in the 14th Connecticut Volunteers. Manchurian pigtail tucked under his blue Union kepi, he saw action at Gettysburg and elsewhere, ultimately witnessing Lee's surrender at Appomattox. After the war, he married into and lived entirely within central Connecticut's white American society, eventually finding employment (undoubtedly through Peck family connections with the Wilcoxes) at the nearby Meriden Brittania Company. Besides teapots and spice boxes, Meriden Brittania made all kinds of vessels and utensils for the burgeoning railroad, steamship, restaurant, and hotel industries whose development corresponds with increasingly tightening webs of modem world interconnectedness.

As a highly-skilled engraver of Britannia and silverplated holloware, Pierce's custom work differed vastly from the labour of virtually all the other Chinese who


labored bitterly as mere coolies in the United States in the decades prior to and during the infamous years of official Chinese Exclusion. Still, despite his wartime service and his adoption of Yankee identity, he could not become a citizen, nor is it likely that other Americans allowed him to forget that he was "yellow." Pierce died in 1916, leaving a wife and two sons, but apparently no trail other than documents related to his residence, employment, and military service.

Migration

Finally, evidence of more recent connections between the near and the far may be seen up and down the Berlin Turnpike, which prior to the completion of the federal interstate highway system in the 1960's was part of the main route connecting New York, Bridgeport, New Haven, Middletown, Meriden and Hartford.

Decades of commercial decline along this highway ended with the influx, since the late 1970's, of what is now a significant bloc of local commercial property owners and tax-payers. Families from western India's Gujarat state (mainly the areas around Surat and Ahmedabad), with centuries of experience in property ownership and crosscultural trade, are today the proprietors of motels, filling stations, convenience stores, and "Gandhi Plazas" virtually everywhere.

This demographic pattern has been replicated along secondary roads throughout the United States. Elsewhere throughout the area (and through much of New England) small Chinese take-outs, owned and run by families from Fujian Province, have become ubiquitous. In 2004, more persons of Asian Pacific race/ethnicity re&ided in Berlin than the total of Native Americans and African-Americans combined, and these are mainly South Asian Hindus and


Muslims. Because of its central location in the state, Berlin is also the home of Connecticut's largest mosque.

It is too early to tell what future trends may connect local realities to Asia even further, but at least one local multiplex now features regular screenings of "Bollywood" films, while perhaps as many as two hundred thousand Connecticut jobs in both low-tech (manufacturing) and high-tech (information) sectors have been outsourced to Asia. It is estimated that by 2008, U.S. corporate involvement in India alone will involve 1.2 million workers and $23 billion in revenues. One hint of things to come may be seen in the recent growth of the Chinese population in the town of Norwich.

Relocated to New York City's Chinatown from Fujian, and then to eastern Connecticut after the devastating impact of the events of September 11th, 2001 on businesses in lower Manhattan, their main source of livelihood now lies in the casino, resort, and entertainment industries developed over the past fifteen years or so by Pequots and Mohegans. If the past is prologue, this particular confluence of people and economic opportunity is truly mind-boggling.

Yet Connecticut's connections to India specifically did not begin with the emergence of what is jokingly called the "Patel Motel Cartel." Though it may seem tenuous, without a link to South Asia there would have been no such thing as a Yale education-legal, divinity, or otherwisefor many central Connecticut luminaries of the 18th and 19th centuries. Born in the New Haven Colony in 1648, Elihu Yale's gift to a school that was at first located in the town of Saybrook included 1/25 pieces of garlic (a kind of cloth), 18 pieces of calico, 17 pieces of worsted goods, 12 pieces of Spanish poplin, 5 pieces of plain muslin, and 2 pieces of black and white silk crepe," which, when sold, raised 562 English pounds for the construction of the new CoJJege Ln Nt>w Haven."

5 Teaching Effective World History

World History has developed as a teaching programme, mainly through survey courses at both high school and first-year college level, a number of objections have been raised in US. Many area studies specialists have worried about the feasibility of such a vast subject, and particularly about the distortions and simplifications a world history programme might entail in their specialty. Here was one source of the resistance to world history in Ivy League and comparable institutions. Sheer routine posed another set of barriers, long compounded by the lack of specific training possibilities for world history teachers.

Many high school teachers were and are intimidated by world history and also remain attached to subject matter they have long taught and have come to love. The agonies, for example, about what to do with the beloved Italian Renaissance, when prodded to convert from European history to world history, form a case in point. But it is the cultural resistance to world history that has been most interesting and probably, in the long run, most telling in its curricular impact, sometimes compounded of course by sheer routine-mindedness.


A number of educators, and even more patrons and observers of education, are convinced that world history threatens the values and knowledge they find central to a well-conceived history programme. For them, the two central pillars of such a programme involve, first, a special emphasis on American history, usually conceived (at least implicitly) along lines of American exceptionalism, and second, an appropriate dose of Western civilisation.

An educated person, according to this argument, must know a daunting number of facts about both fields-1,200 or so in U.S. history, and over 1,000 for Western civ, according to conservative education guru Chester Finn. More broadly, American citizens generally should have a unifying exposure to some common stories about the West and about American history, and a fairly explicit sense of the superiority of these traditions over (usually unnamed) alternatives.

These attitudes reflect, first, a national establishment that has had no reason-in obvious contrast to current counterparts in the European Union-to rethink the importance of specifically nationalist frameworks for history curricula. Recent federal legislation promoting the teaching of strictly American history and proposing mandatory training on topicS such as the U.S. constitution show the continued vitality of state-serving national history. And while increasing numbers of professional historians are eager to "internationalise" the American history survey to make it more compatible with companion world history courses, there is little official sponsorship for these efforts.

The widespread attachment to Western civ, the more direct competitor to world history, is less self-evident, for obviously the programme here is not strictly national. Western civ courses became curricular staples, first at

Teaching Effective World History 111

prestigious universities headed by Columbia, then by reflection as European history survey courses in many high schools, from the 1920s onward. They reflected a successful campaign by many historians of Europe, headed by James Harvey Robinson, to urge Western civ as an essential backdrop and legitimizer to what was, after all, a rather brief, strictly national, experience.

The United States was also seen in terms of maintaining the European cultural and political tradition at a time, between the world wars, when Europe itself seemed unable to do the job. Here again was a reassuring assignment for an upstart transatlantic republic. Western. values-and the emphasis in the Western civ tradition rested on intellectual and very general political heritage, not messy details-were fundamental to American development, and the United States had its additional role as preserver as well as heir.

S=urricular history itself, then, explains much of the conservative attachment to Western Civ and resentment of world history as interloper. Because world history necessarily reduces the space available to the West and treats the Western tradition as one among several major and valid civilisational experiences, it is inherently suspect. Add the not-inconsiderable dose of West-bashing associated with some world history efforts, designed to trim the West down to size, and the conflict escalates. Indeed, something of a vicious circle is often established, with world historians all the more eager to point out flaws in the West given their opponents' adamant insistence that West is best.

History curricula, then, become one of the battlegrounds in the notorious American culture wars, between defenders of a clear tradition, eager to maintain established landmarks for assessing the knowledge of an


educated student, and the advocates of the greater breadth and considerable relativism of world history.

Conflict is all the more acute given the relationship between history curricula and two of the major forces impinging on the contemporary United States. First, there is the unprecedented flow and diversity in the immigrant population. For many world historians, an increasingly diverse student body has been a vital asset, providing voices insisting on historical treatment of traditions besides that of the West. But for their opponents, this same mixture makes. it all the more imperative that students be exposed to standard single stories about the national and the Western traditions-history is designed to Americanise, and world history distracts from and possibly subverts this task. The same divergence applies to growing complexities in the United States' world role in a post-Cold War environment.

To world historians, national involvement in global rather than predominantly European interactions dictates world history as essential perspective. But for their opponents, this same complexity requires an even fiercer emphasis on the certainties and superiorities of Western values. This clash gained additional illustration immediately after 9/11: while most people saw the attacks as a reason for new curricular attention to Islam and to central Asia, conservatives like Lynn Cheney explicitly argued that America besieged required ever-stricter emphasis on the Western verities, without the dilution involved in dealing with the larger world. The wars continue.

Several features of world history, as a teaching programme, have complicated the disputes. Despite some previous research pedigree, world history long developed in the United States primarily as a teaching field, not


buttressed by major research claims. Even the achievements of the field, in significantly revising our understanding of historical developments particularly between about 600 C.E. and the 19th century, have not always been highlighted. This may generate unfavourable contrast with the more familiar research pedigree of Western civ-beginning with scholars like Robinson himself.

Again in contrast to Western civ., world history programmes took earliest and widest root in state colleges and public high schools, rather than the most prestigious universities that clung to well-established Western civ offerings. Again, some potential clout was lost as a result. These features are transitory, already being amended; the recent move in the Ivy League toward formal world history programmes, though a belated response rather than a leadership gesture, is a striking case in point. And research credentials advance steadily as well, along with, more haltingly, available training programmes.

The central question, of course, is how much the ongoing culture wars over world history have mattered. On the surface, despite the rhetorical storms, surprisingly little. Worries that official condemnation in 1994 would dampen the world history surge proved largely groundless. The Standards document itself continued to be widely referenced by secondary school teachers, at least for several years. Two other developments were particularly noteworthy.

First, in the wake of the partial collapse of the national standards movement, a variety of states issued standards statements of their own, sometimes with assessment mechanisms attached. Distressingly (though perhaps understandably given the Standards controversy) professional historians were relatively rarely involved in developing these materials.


Nevertheless, most state standards referenced world history, not European history. The state of Texas, perhaps surprisingly, so emphasized world history that the opportunity to teach strictly European history in high school programmes withered; a somewhat similar situation prevailed in California. And many individual school districts, for example in Maryland, Virginia, and Massachusetts, opted strongly for world history goals under the umbrella of a slightly vaguer state mandate. The second development, still more recent, involves the installation and rapid success, numerically at least, of the Advanced Placement World History course. The course was launched four years ago, to the largest student audience of any AP programme at roughly 20,000; it has grown massively, with roughly triple the original number of students involved in the programme this year.

This growth has challenged many teachers, some of whom have doubtless been hastily chosen-in some cases, the least experienced teachers were dragooned-or incompletely trained. But teacher response to training opportunities has been impressive as well. Finally, though numerical data are less firm here, college programmes have continued to spread as well.

Despite the culture wars, in other words, world history curricula have advanced. Programmes like the AP effort and many college courses have been progressively refined, so that there are many illustrations of careful periodisation, calibrated balance among comparative approaches, emphasis on contacts, and focus on global forces-moving well away from the parade of one society after another that remained common just a decade ago. Diligent efforts by world historians themselves, at both college and secondary levels; awareness of exciting issues in research and teaching in the field; the need to respond to the increasing diversity of the student body; and above


all the overwhelming imperative to provide historical perspective on the complex network of global relationships with which American students will be engaged, as citizens certainly and often as workers-all these factors have promoted the world history programme even as the culture wars continue to distract.

This is not to say, however, that cultural dispute and other retardant factors have lost their force. Several distortions remain significant.

First, obviously, world history surveys have not spread as widely as would have occurred with less opposition, particularly at the introductory college level. While European surveys had never been ubiquitous, and while they varied far more than Western civ proponents sometimes acknowledged, it remains true that world history has yet to achieve the standard place that European surveys could boast two decades ago.

More importantly, and here particularly at the secondary sch<)ol level, the combination of routine mindedness and the vigorous promotion of Western values has produced many world history titles that are hollow, misleading or even intellectually dangerous. The average high school world history course and textbook-aside from Advanced Placementis still 67% Western, which means that other societies and larger, global forces receive both inadequate and inconsistent treatment. The world is still seen in terms of Western preponderance and initiative, and occasionally significant response elsewhere. Distortions are particularly great in the modem era.

The state of California, for example, offers an imaginative world history programme in the early grades, running up to 1500, at which point it abruptly


turns on its heels and becomes elaborately and rather conventionally Western. And there is always Texas: a state with world history requirements on paper, but where conservative assessments of textbooks, among other things eager to slam religions other than Christianity, can constrain presentations for the whole country because of the power of this particular state adoption pr:ocess for texts. Or another example: Virginia's standards of learning in history have a world label, but the facts they require are almost entirely Western; school districts that seek a world history experience face a difficult juggling act, and a two-year window, in order to give students both some real world history and a decent chance to pass the SOLs. One can debate, of course, whether a bit of world is better than nothing, but there is reason to fear that many students are being encouraged to think they know the world when they do not; honest labeling, of what are still largely Western courses with a smattering of the West and the rest, might be preferable.

Given the conflicts, there has been little intelligent discussion of how to relate Western and world history. Proponents on both sides, eager to overwhelm the other, talk in terms of either-or. Sequential possibilities have been little explored. Both sides seek to capture both high school and college entry survey courses, risking among other things some redundancy for able students. Compromise, other than the unacceptable West-and-rest approach, may be impossible, but it has not even been seriously advanced. In my own judgment, a sensible world history approach, genuinely global but not West-bashing, allows important insights into Western history not available in turgid European history surveys by themselves; but


amid conflict there is little opportunity to probe the comparative advantages of newer approaches, particularly at the high school level-Given the conflicts, there has been little intelligent discussion of how to relate Western and world history. Proponents on both sides, eager to overwhelm the other, talk in terms of either-or.

Sequential possibilities have been little explored. Both sides seek to capture both high school and college entry survey courses, risking among other things some redundancy for able students. Compromise, other than the unacceptable West-and-rest approach, may be impossible, but it has not even been seriously advanced. In my own judgment, a sensible world history approach, genuinely global but not Westbashing, allows important insights into Western history not available in turgid European history surveys by themselves; but amid conflict there is little opportunity to probe the comparative advantages of newer approaches, particularly at the high school level.

Conflict has also retarded appropriate teacher training. Too many prospective teachers, who will be called upon to do something in world history in their high school post, attend colleges where world history is not offered at all, or is poorly developed. The disjuncture between teacher needs and many major programmes can be shockingly great, and those college instructors who stubbornly oppose even world history options are doing their charges, and ultimately their charges' charges, a serious disservice.

Though some hopeful signs have emerged, conflict has also limited discussion of linking American and world history at the curricular level. So much energy is taken


up merely defending world history in the first place, against cultural opposition, that the inevitable challenges of adapting the teaching traditions in American history have been largely sidestepped. Here too, there is repair work to be done.

Finally, while conflict has not prevented the growth of world history and-as the best college texts now attest-some serious thinking about curricular options, it has tended to unduly confine most discussion of world history in teaching to the survey course level. As teachers, most world historians are so busy trying to install and defend their course in the schools or in colleges, that they have paid surprisingly little attention to a larger world history curriculum beyond the entry stage. Exception is noted for a growing number of graduate programmes or graduate tracks, but at the level of undergraduate majors the judgment stands.

Usually, the student, interested in world history, who inquires about what to do after the survey courses is simply shunted to a series of non-Western civilisation surveys. Not a dreadful recourse, but frankly inadequate. Here is where, aside from continued growth, an ability to escape the snares of cultural conflict will have the greatest payoff in extending world history curricula and the perspectives they provide on past and present alike.

TECHNOLOGY IN WORLD HISTORY TEACHING

As the digital media wave began to roll over history classrooms in the mid-1990s, it seemed that the new technologies would substantially and rapidly transform the ways teachers teach the survey course. In just a few years, previously unimaginable amounts of historical


information-texts, images, music, video-became available to the students (and us) at the click of a mouse.

As just one example, the American Memory Project of the Library of Congress alone now offers more than 7 million digitised primary sources drawn from 100 different archival collections. And sometime in the mid 1990s administrators and many faculty members became convinced that infusing information technology into a course would improve learning outcomes. With that conviction came the inevitable pressure on teaching faculty to "ramp up" their courses.

This compulsion is not new. Charles McIntyre, writing in the Journal of Higher Education, argued:

It should not be necessary at this time to elaborate the reasons that the effective integration of technological developments into educational practice may be highly desirable, if not essential. They apparently provide the means, if we have the will and the wit to use them appropriately, of making Significant improvement in the efficiency of our instructional procedures .. .1 do believe that there is evidence that by the use of [new] media (a) the effectiveness of the superior teacher can be extended to more students with little or no diminution; (b) instruction can be systematically structured, revised, and improved in the light of measured student achievement toward agreedupon goals; (c) the time of teachers can be diverted from lecture, demonstration, and drill and put to better use in instruction requiring the interaction of teacher and student, and (d) teaching can be enriched with a variety and depth of experiences not otherwise available to students. The grant funds which may have helped at the beginning are no longer available for day-to-day operation, and the full implication of the cost of operating [such] new facilities may, for the first time, become clear to the university administration.

This is not all to say that the arrival of digital media in the teaching and learning of World History is a bad thing. On the contrary, carefully constructed digital media can give


the students access to immediate multimedia experiences that conventional teaching cannot provide-encounters with still and moving images, music, data, and text more or less simultaneously. Common sense tells that these media have the potential to .change both teaching and learning in substantial ways. This prospect alone offers a genuinely revolutionary possibility for the teaching and learning of World Hi~tory, especially if students might actually be pursuing. different lines of inquiry simultaneously and interactively in an increasingly networked environment.

A recent Coogle search on "Latin American history" and "primary sources" turned up 3,130 hits when the terms were delimited. The good news is that the first site to come up in such a search is the Modern History Sourcebook-a reasonable, albeit imperfect choice. The bad news is that the next ten possibilities are all library sites offering useful links.

A diligent student will move beyond the first ten results of such a search, but as we have all experienced, even the most diligent student often ends up at a site of questionable quality. For example, if one types "Adolf Hitler" into the Coogle search engine, the fifth website to appear in the rankings is the Hitler Historical Museum. This website can seem like a reasonable choice for research. After all, it appeared in the second position in the Coogle rankings, its production values are fair, and the site offers visitors:

a non-biased, non-profit museum devoted to the study and preservation of the world history related to Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist Party. True to its role as an educational museum, these exhibits allow for visitors to understand and examine historical documents and information for themselves ... No biased judgments, slanderous labels or childish name calling exist here as they do in most of the writings on this topic.


Only a careful reading of the website indicates that it is clearly a production of those who believe that Hitler was on the right track and has gotten a bum rap over the years. This simple example demonstrates how desperately teachers need to train the students to use the resources that are available to them on the Internet. At the same time, it must also be said that a minority of the students are doing very interesting work in the vast online archive teachers are creating for them-producing essays, multimedia presentations, weblogs, and other results that are quite impressive.

Given the many challenges and opportunities teachers face in bringing digital media to the World History course. There are three main points that will guide what they do in the coming five to ten years as they infuse more and more technology into the courses.

Most faculty members would agree that the students are incredibly intermediated, they are wired to one another in ways none of us would have imagined just ten years ago. Most will also agree that when the students are given a new assignment, the first (and too often only) place they look for answers is online, going to the library only in extremis. This problem raises the question of what, exactly, they know for sure about how students learn using information technology. The answer is very little when it comes to higher education and only a little bit more when it comes of secondary education.

As Esther Dyson pointed out in a recent radio interview, access to information should not be confused with education. Given this situation, until teachers know more about how the actual learning takes place online, teachers need to be very explicit in designing resources for their students that promote the kinds of skills with technology that they think are essential to their success in


the courses. In the same way that a generation ago they gave their students library skills building assignments, they now need to create similar exercises that take advantage of what the technology offers us.

The pressures of professional practice are already such that only a few historians will ever have the time or energy to devote to learning how to produce Flash movies or write MySQL/PHP code. Instead, what is more important is that the colleagues be trained in how to use the resources that exist. What teachers need is training in how to use the resources that exist to train the students to engage in historical research and analysis, and how to teach their students to find and use appropriate resources.

At present, such training is largely non-existent. Not one of the many NEH-funded summer seminars for faculty in 2005 provided this sort of training. In the American history survey course the number of syllabi posted online has doubled each year between 1997-2004. As evidence of how reluctant faculty teaching history survey courses are to use online resources, Daniel J. Cohen's analysis of U.S. history syllabi posted online shows that only 6% of 2004 syllabi posted online included links to online resources other than the website associated with the course's textbook.

The third issue remaining to be addressed on the campuses is the continuing lack of sufficient technology infrastructure for those faculty who do want to make full use of digital media to do so without having to cart their own projectors and laptops with them from class to class, or for their students to have sufficient access in the classroom. Despite a massive investment in infrastructure, most campuses in the United States still have only a few classrooms, relative to the total number on campus, that are fully enabled for students and faculty to maximise their


experience with new media. Because the share of new students on the campuses who come from economically and educationally disadvantaged backgrounds continues to grow, many of these students find it difficult to access technologically-enhanced learning opportunities in the same ways that their more advantaged peers can.

These are familiar challenges, all of which are primarily administrative in nature and all of which can Be overcome by increased investment in curricular change, technology infrastructure, and the equalisation of student access to technology. The path to their solution may be expensive, but is not especially complicated. Thus far this essay has sounded like a lot of bad news. Fortunately, there is a lot of good news to balance the bad. Most encouraging is the growing number of high quality web sites that provide researchers-whether students or faculty-with sophisticated access to large libraries of primary source material.

As more and more of these websites place their source materials into databases rather than folders of flat html files, powerful searching software makes it possible for visitors to these web sites to manipulate the information they contain in ever more sophisticated ways. New resources like the Web Scrapbook, created by Daniel Cohen, allow users of these web sites to capture and organise what they find there with increasing ease. Tools such as these allow students to create and pursue their own lines of inquiry and to engage in the kind of research previously reserved for advanced graduate students and faculty. Seven years ago Randy Bass wrote about these "novices in the archive" to describe what the availability of a vast library of primary source materials online meant for the students. Access to large collections of primary sources is a potentially wonderful thing, Bass wrote, but


having access to the sources is not the same thing as being able to work with those sources effectively.

Digital media are also transforming the way that students write about the past and participate in collective knowledge production. Since the late 1990s various forms of the discussion forum (WebCT, BlackBoard, etc.) have become common on college and university campuses. These "older" forms of online collaboration are being pushed aside by the expanding blogosphere and the surging popularity of tagging at websites such as Flickr.com and deLicio.us. Where once students had websites of their own and used discussion forums and chatrooms tb exchange information, now they link their lives-personal and academic-through weblogs, "live journals," tagging, and other forms of digital communities.

The website LiveJournal.com counts more than 2.5 million active users, most of whom are between the ages of 15-23 and more than two-thirds of whom are female. This one example demonstrates how comfortable the students are expressing themselves online. At the same time, online writing is transforming the way they write. Catherine Smith argues that students "take real-world writing more seriously when it is done on the web, where it might actually be seen and used." For World History teaching, which relies so heavily on students being able to think across time and space to draw together examples from disparate cultures, this integrative style of writing seems especially important.

The final big question when they think about the integration of digital media into the World History course is perhaps the most difficult to answer. When new media are added to a course, do the students learn better, more, or differently? In other words, is there some sort of measurable beneficial outcome from all the time and money


invested in ramping up a course? The World History survey seems a particular apt laboratory for this sort of research because in We-rld History they demand that the students cross national, regional, methodological, and temporal boundaries on a daily basis and the digital world facilitates this sort of boundary-crossing.

Fortunately, a growing number of researchers spread across a range of disciplines are inching toward answers to this vexing question, and their answers are rooted in their own epistemologies, rather than being solely the property of cognitive psychologists and schools of education. Historians, literary theorists, chemists, mathematicians and many others are engaging in 'more and more assessment of the impact of technology on learning in their courses. While some of this research is being conducted by individuals working in isolation, a substantial portion of the inquiry into what is really different about teaching and learning with new media is occurring in collaborative endeavors like the Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (CASTL) and the Visible Knowledge Project based at Georgetown University.

As a participant in both of these efforts over the past several years, the researchers affiliated with both projects have made significant progress in the framing of the right questions to ask about technology and learning, and some have even begun to offer interesting, albeit tentative conclusions.

CURRICULUM REFORM IN GERMAN SECONDARY EDUCATION

Despite the recent "cultural wars" over the introduction of National Standards in the U.S. and the fact that neither standards nor textbooks show much reflection of the transcultural, global, and comparative approaches of world


history research, froII'l: the German perspective the U.S. world history curriculum development since its beginnings in the early nineteenth century looks like the story of an easy success. The impressiveness of world history teaching in the American classroom, especially after the introduction of AP courses, makes the neglect of this subject in German secondary education all the more obvious.

Although Germany can look back on a long tradition of world history writing, it never really reached the school curriculum except in two cases. First, during the nineteenth century, textbooks on world history had been written and used in schools, but this practice ceased once the imperial age arrived. Second, in East Germany world history in the shape of Western Civ - albeit based on Marxist theory and with different ideological aims - was part of the school curriculum. But in genera1, a nation-centered view has dominated the German history curriculum.

Although the biased nationalistic and chauvinistic curriculum changed after World War II, neither the abandonment of all Nazi ideology in textbooks nor the overall reform of the history curriculum led to a replacement of the nation-orientated history instruction in Germany. Only as a result of the European unification process and the numerous attempts to revise history textbooks by the Council of Europe did a thematic broadening of the curriculum since the 1970s occur. The conferences of the German ministers of education in 1978 and 1997 decided to set up guiding principles aiming at the creation of a "European consciousness as pedagogical task of the school." But world history has still not found its way into school curricula.

Before elaborating further on this phenomenon, a few words on the structure of the German school system are necessary. To begin with, this system is very


heterogeneous due to the fact that the federal government has no regulatory authority over the schools; each of the sixteen German states develops its own system. Primary school generally starts at the age of six and goes to grade 4. Based on merit, the students are then sent to one of four secondary schools that end either at ninth or tenth grade (secondary level I), or the twelfth or thirteenth grade (depending on the state and encompassing secondary levels I and II), with the best students continuing the longest.

History is obligatory from the sixth through tenth grades and two classes a week are taught. Depending on the school type, it can be combined with other subjects. Traditionally, curricula are issued by the state government and are input-oriented, and there is a free market of stateapproved textbooks. Beyond grade 10 (i.e., secondary level II), history is no longer mandatory. As a reaction to P1SA and to a general school reform debate reflecting the international discourse on general education, school quality, autonomy, and assessment, among other topics, various German states are reforming their curricula.

One example is the new history curriculum of BadenWuerttemberg, which was introduced as part of the socalled Bildungsplan in 2004. With respect to the Gymnasium (which is the secondary school type for the best students to grade 12 in this state) this new curriculum reveals at first glance a change in the traditional approach. As an output-oriented curriculum focusing on standards and school autonomy it means a shift away from the traditional curriculum. The introduction of specific school- and subject-related standards, the definition of a core curriculum, a specific school curriculum autonomy, which can be set up by each school individually, and the merging of different subjects into one seem to offer new ways of teaching history. The basic goal of history instruction is


now stated as such: "The acquisition of basic knowledge about important events, persons, developments, structures, terms, and epochs of regional, national, and European history, as well as world history, is indispensable for history instruction."

If one has a closer look at the history standards, however, it becomes obvious that world history is hardly treated and that a transformation from a nation-centered perspective to a global approach has not taken place. From grades 6 to 9 the curriculum is characterised by a chronological, Western culture-based survey; grade 10 deals with contemporary history of the twentieth century. After national history, European history has a second narrative line. The advanced courses in grades 11 to 12 -so-called Leistungskurse that are comparable to the American AP courses - focus on Modern Europe and neglect non-European history, decolonisation, and other global topics with the exception of the Chinese Revolution. Problems af globalisation, migration, environment, economy, and trade are treated in the Hicherverbund (the merging of subjects into one curriculum) of geography, economics, and social studies. Altogether, the new curriculum turns out to be only a trimmed version of the old curriculum and formulates standards on a very abstract level.

In contrast to the general goal of history teaching cited above, world history is only treated peripherally, and problems of globalisation are assigned to subjects other than history. By no means does the new history curriculum incorporate a change of the basic narrative. Recent studies on the history, geography, and civic instruction textbooks and curricula carried out by the Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research in Braunschweig confirm that the national approach still prevails and that nonEuropean perspectives are only integrated selectively.

Teachillg Effective World History 129

Europe, however, does tend to playa more visible role in teaching.

Teaching Historical Consciousness

The U.S. debate on the history curriculum revision has not yet arrived at the German schools. Only in the past two years have educators started debating the revision of the history curriculum. Whereas the introduction of the U.S. National Standards could be justified by major changes within American society and was promoted by various pressure groups, the impulse of a history curriculum reform in Germany is based on the idea of the general mission of history instruction: to produce knowledge about the past and to develop a historical consciousness and identity that provides a basis for orientation in society.

History, in short, plays a major part in the historicalpolitical socialisation of adolescents. Since the globalisation process has changed life and world perspectives dramatically, the nation-centered history is no longer sufficient to guarantee the identity and orientation function of history instruction and, therefore, does not correspond to the needs of youth in a global world, according to the advocates of world history in Germany.

These normative assumptions are not yet proved empirically, however. The international comparative study "Youth and History" of 1995 investigated the historical consciousness of some 32,000 ninth-grade students in 27 European countries. Without going into the details of this study, one of the results identified was that "connections between conceptions of the past, perceptions and evaluations of the present, and expectations for the future are visible but not strongly developed." It is evident that the impact of daily experiences on the historical consciousness is much stronger than vice versa. This means that the supposed orientation and identity function


of history has to be seen rather as a confirmation of experiences than a cognitive processing of the past. Other studies reached similar results, for example the sociological studies on the effects of the European unification process on a "European" consciousness and identity.

Recent empirical investigations in the field of youth and adolescence research show, however, that youth cultures are influenced to a large extent by global developments and that they react to them in various ways. Furthermore, the twelfth Shell Study confirms that adolescents reflect globalisation and its challenges in a very realistic and pragmatic way. It seems to be evident that life experiences and future expectations shape the social actions of young people more than historical consciousness does. It is therefore an empirically open question as to what degree history instruction in general and world history instruction in particular contribute to the socialisation process of youth in comparison to family, tradition, culture, and peer group. It is not really known what the needs of students for orientation and identity in a global world are and how they reflect globalisation, or whether a world history-centered curriculum can serve these needs better than a traditional one.

Further research needs to be done on what exactly constitutes aI/global-oriented historical consciousness" and what kinds of skills - cognitive, social, methodical, or subject-related - have to be developed to transform historical consciousness. These are important questions for a prospective curriculum reform.

What models should Germany look to for reforming this nation-centered curriculum? Simply adding nonWestern civilisation courses into the cUlriculum does not seem to be very successful, as the history of Western Civ courses at U.S. colleges indicate. The method of implementing a separate world history course besides the


traditional national history course - as in the case of the AP courses - carries with it the danger that there is no link between the two narratives. The alternative path of teaching national history within the context of world history has not yet been attempted. Regardless of how one tries to implement world history into the curriculum, it poses the additional question of how to define world history.

Such a justification seems to have become a crucial point considering the competition with other subjects that history has to face, and in the U.S. this competition is also present. The discussion about core curricula and knowledge standards will have effects on how much space subjects will be allotted in the curriculum. The position of history is by no means secure. A glance at the specifics of the German school system and the fact that history at the highest secondary level (grades 11 to 13) is voluntary confirms that the impact of history instruction on identity should not be overestimated. In addition, studies on the preferences of students reveal that 25 percent of all students dislike history courses and that it is ranked third after mathematics and physics in the scale of unpopular subjects. There is also a significant difference between teachers and students regarding the goals of instruction. Whereas teachers assume that the "explanation of the present through history" and the teaching of "democratic values" are most important, students put "knowledge of important historical events and care of traditions" first.

The low rank of history among school subjects coincides with the lack of appropriate teacher training. This problem is more pronounced in the U.S., as Diane Ravitch has recently shown. In Germany the education of high school history teachers at the university is not undisputed in the context of a general discussion on teacher training but it does follow a certain curriculum and is, as teacher


training is in general, divided into two parts: academic (within the university) and pedagogical-practical (at teacher seminars). However, since world history has not been institutionalised at German universities, there is no special training in world history.

Finally, if history can defend its position within the school curriculum and if world history is able to justify its implementation into the history curriculum, the question remains how such a curriculum change might look and what kind of curriculum definition one refers to. Setting aside the German debates on what constitutes a curriculum, it can be stated that most experts agree that learning goals and teaching strategies are content-directed elements of the state's control of instruction and that the curriculum therefore serves political strategies of legitimisatio:t;l.

Studies on civic education in the U.S. show that a link between history instruction, the teaching of political and cultural norms, and the life experience of adolescents leads to greater success in the development of a historical consciousness and identity than traditional curricula and textbooks. It is, therefore, crucial for world history teaching that life experiences of the students in a global world correspond to the knowledge they receive in school in order to act responsibly in society.

6 Teaching Medieval Castles

Castles are 'tangible' monuments that exert a powerful hold on the imagination of students and academics alike. In Britain, the medieval castle is therefore a potentially valuable teaching resource. Castles can provide an excellent starting point for the study of medieval history, especially for those students who, due to the constraints of school curricula, are only familiar with twentiethcentury history. The variety and distribution of castles across Britain ensures that they can offer tremendous potential for fieldtrips and seminars in the field. Alongside the familiar role of military fortress, castles also provide potential for the study of topics as various as the household, attitudes to authority, lordly lifestyles, landscape design and spirituality.

Alongside the undoubted benefits, teaching the medieval castle also prevents certain problems. The study of the castle frequently does not fit easily into 'traditional' undergraduate units in medieval history or archaeology. This is due, in part, to the multifarious nature of the castle itself. Castles hpd a multiplicity of roles in the medieval period and, according to the demands of the undergraduate unit in question, often appear in only one of their many forms: as military fortresses, estate centres,


as part of the infrastructure of government, as tools of conquest. Only rarely is the unified concept of 'the medieval castle' tackled in undergraduate seminars.

Moreover, various structural problems ensure that teaching castles can be, frankly, difficult. Many castles are physically inaccessible to campus-based undergraduates and this is compounded by the fact that students themselves, particularly those registered on history degree programmes, often find it difficult to interpret complex architectural arguments or follow the nuances of archaeological reports.

It is often the case that before the really interesting questions concerning castles can be attempted, it is necessary to wade through a vast mass of material on architectural history, archaeology and contextual social history - something that seems to take us away from the castle itself. What follows here is intended as a guide to how the castle can be put at the centre of teaching and used as a vehicle for exploring wider issues and problems in the study of medieval society. It is by no means prescriptive, but hopefully highlights some of the key points of debate in recent years and direction on key pieces of work. The focus is very much on England and Wales, but the bibliography does include material from Continental Europe and the Holy Land.

CHANGING CASTLES STUDIES

In recent years, castle studies have been dramatically transformed. Scholars from a variety of backgrounds have seriously questioned, and in many cases rapidly overturned, much of the received wisdom about castles that has been handed down to us by previous generations. The main focus of this new thinking has concerned the military role of the castle. Rather than judging castles as

Teaching Medieval Castles 135

primarily military buildings, the historiographical trend is now to see them as noble residences built in a military style. This is undoubtedly a shock to most undergraduates as the 'battering rams and boiling oil' approach of the military engineer is still the dominant perception of the medieval castle.

The clearest way of explaining when and why this change came about is to discuss in some detail castle historiography. This also serves as a platform for the various teaching topics suggested below, all of which relate back to a theme that has been at the centre of debate for over a century: what were castles actually for?

Such has been the pace of change within castle studies that it has been fashionable in recent years to sum up the historiography of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries with reference to what has come to be known as the 'castle story'. In essence, this represents the overarching analytical framework within which castles and castle development could be explained and it represented the orthodoxy for many years. Although now open to question at almost every turn, the 'castle story' is one that is elegant, highly persuasive and remarkably enduring. Even for students encountering castles for the first time, much of the story is familiar and provides a good basis from which to begin further study.

Castle Story

The 'story' begins when the castle (together with feudalism, the social organisation which supported it) was introduced into England in 1066 during William the Conqueror's invasion of England. In the Norman settlement that followed the victory at Hastings, William and his followers studded England with castles in order to pacify a potentially rebellious population. These castles


were chiefly of motte and bailey type (the motte being an artificial mound of earth and the bailey the adjacent enclosure) which had the advantages of being quick to build and offered good protection for the invaders.

Once the immediate danger of the Conquest had passed, however, new threats emerged, this time from the Norman barons themselves, who used their castles for private war as seen during the reign of King Stephen. If the monarch was not powerful enough to subdue them, barons would usurp royal authority and fight each other (and the king), using their castles as bases. It was only in the late twelfth century, as siege weaponry developed, the costs of building in stone became prohibitive, and royal authority was strengthened, that the evils of private castlebuilding began to be curbed.

Thereafter the development of castles became something of a Darwinian evolutionary struggle between attacker and defender and the form of the castle changed in response to the demands of siege warfare. Round towers came to replace square towers in order to counter the threat of mining; the development of the gatehouse reflected the need to protect the weak point of the castle gate; water defences grew more extensive to prevent attacking engines from reaching the wallsi concentric lines of defensive walls maximised the castle's defensive firepower. These developments in military science achieved their high point in the late thirteenth century with the castles built in North Wales by King Edward 1. Castles like Conway and Beaumaris represented the high point of medieval military architecture.

In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the castle went into decline. Conflict was more likely to be resolved by pitched battle, rather than by the siege (as during the Wars of the Roses), and cannon made the castle


increasingly obsolete. In response, the castle increasingly made concessions to domestic comfort. The late medieval castle might still reflect a concern to deter local violence, but the classic fortified residence of the medieval regional magna,te was slowly evolving into the country house. By the early sixteenth century, the strong Tudor monarchy had brought the medieval baronage to heel and the construction of a chain of artillery fortifications by Henry VIII showed that it was now the state that had responsibility for war and national defence. The age of the castle, and thus the castle 'story', was over.

Historiographical Study

The origins of the castle story (at least in its modern ,form) can be found in the late nineteenth century. At this time, castles were studied almost exclusively as fortifications and a new category of reference - 'Military Architecture' -provided a structure within which they could be studied. Castles were the medieval equivalent of the artillery forts and bastions that had been built in Europe from the sixteenth century and seventeenth centuries. The warlike image of the castle also dovetailed well with then current ideas about the nature of medieval European society. In an age where life was nasty, brutish and short, the castle was the lair of the robber baron.

In British historiography one of the first major studies in castles and castle-building was G. T. Clark's Mediaeval Military Architecture in England (1884-5). This work comprised a detailed survey of sites in Britain and France but an extended introduction charted castle development. Clark saw castles primarily as military structures and his interpretation of many individual buildings owed much to his background in civil engineering. Clark's work was highly inventive, but it was two books published in 1912 that would dominate castle studies for decades. The first


was Ella Armitage's The Early Norman Castles of the British Isles.

Armitage, armed with a combination of Ordnance Survey maps and references to early castles culled from documentary sources, demonstrated that it had been the Normans who had introduced the castle to England. This was not an entirely new idea - the historian J. H. Round had also written on this subject some years earlier - but Armitage and Round had certainly blown out of the water the idea that mottes belonged to the Roman, Viking or Anglo-Saxon period. Armitage also discussed the siting and distribution of Norman sites and offered a tentative analysis of their landscape context. In this, and in many other senses, her work was ,pioneering.

The second crucial work in the development of the castle story was A. Hamilton Thompson's Military Architecture in England during the Middle Ages. This was primarily a study of the architectural evidence and in a particularly persuasive argument, the book charted the evolution of the castle across several centuries. The engine driving forward castle development was the need to keep intruders out.

In a characteristic remark he explained 'it is obvious that, in the history of military architecture, any improvement in defence is the consequence of improved methods of attack' and much of his work follows this logic. By the early decades of the twentieth century, then, the castle was firmly established as a 'Norman import' and there was a template with which to explain the changing form of the castle from the eleventh century to the end of the Middle Ages.

Development of an Orthodoxy

The inter-war and immediate post-war periods saw the


further development of this military interpretation of castles. The decades after 1945 were dominated by the work of three scholars - A. Taylor, R. Allen Brown and D.J. Cathcart-King. Arguably in the work of the latter two figures, the military interpretation of castles was taken to its logical conclusion. The period after the Second World War was a time when new research produced significant quantities of information about castles: the publication of the medieval volumes of the History of the King's Works marked a watershed in terms of information on royal castle-building and Taylor and Brown both published ground-breaking work on patterns of royal castle-building in England and Wales.

At the same time D. Renn published his study of Norman castles, which provided valuable new information on castles of the earlier period. An enormous amount of documentary research and fieldwork allowed King in 1984 to publish his massive Castellarium Anglicanum, an inventory of castle sites in England and Wales, and, later, The Castle: An Interpretative History.

In terms of their ideas on the function of castles, Brown and Cathcart-King in particular closely allied themselves to the basic tenets first formulated by Armitage and Hamilton Thompson. Brown's bestknown work, English Medieval Castles leaves no doubt as to the military rationale that he believed governed castle development. The chapter headings to English Medieval Castles adhered to the familiar narrative: the development of keeps is described in a chapter entitled 'The Perfected Castle', that for the Edwardian castles of North Wales is entitled Apogee', but hereafter the castle goes into 'Decline'. The

extended introduction to King's Castellarium Anglicanum perhaps owed more to the work of Armitage, in that it deals substantially with issues such as siting and


distribution, but again the military character of castles as private fortresses was not in doubt.

This is not to say that the residential functions of castles were unappreciated or ignored at this time. Particularly innovative in the 1950s and 1960s was the work of P. Faulkner, who analysed castles in terms of their internal domestic arrangements and tried to relate the design of castles to their residential purpose. It is also worth noting that even some of the greatest exponents of the military school were puzzled over the seeming weakness of even some of the most famous castles. King speculated over castles such as Portchester, where a Norman keep stands in the corner of a Roman shore fort.

The Roman structure exhibited the military advantageous rounded towers that allowed flanking fire, but the Norman architects ignored this design and chose to build in an inferior square style. King concluded that siege warfare must have been in its infancy at this time if builders could apparently disregard such obvious weaknesses. R. Allen Brown was also troubled by the fact that much of his own documentary research pointed to the conclusion that the majority of castles spent most of their time at peace and were badly prepared for conflict. It was the puzzles that presented themselves at this time that would ultimately be responsible for the change in attitude that would come later.

Military Interpretation

The military interpretation of castles first began to be questioned in the 1960s when archaeological research began to address the problem of castie origins. As a result of systematic field survey, it was realised that many of the very earliest Norman castles were not of motte and bailey type but were ringworks (an oval enclosure with


bank and ditch). In 1966 B. K. Davison pointed out that there seemed to be a lack of mottes in Normandy prior to 1066 and that the motte and bailey may have only developed during the course of the Norman conquest of England.

In 1967 he went further and suggested (before a major series of archaeological excavations at a number of early Norman castles designed to test the point) that ringworks must have been known in pre-Conquest England and implied that if a castle was defined as a 'fortified residence of a lord' then, de facto, the idea of private fortification being new to England in 1066 was incorrect. This provoked a fierce backlash from R. Allen Brown who vigorously restated the case for the castle being a Norman import and suggested that;. Ella Armitage had answered all the major questions over origins a generation earlier. As it transpired, the series of excavations in the late 1970s did not come to any clear-cut conclusions on the issue but an important line of future enquiry had been put on the agenda.

An article by Charles Coulson entitled 'Structural Symbolism in Medieval Castle Architecture' (1979) was the starting point for much of the 'new thinking' on castles that has emerged over recent years. Coulson suggested that the 'military' architectural features of castles might not necessarily have served a utilitarian function, but instead some kind of symbolic purpose. While acknowledging the need for domestic protection, Coulson suggested that the construction of a crenellated building could be intended to stand as an emblem of lordly status, rather than a response to military insecurity.

Moreover, it was suggested that one of the dominant themes of castle architecture was the element of nostalgia, and not the desire to build the most perfect military


structure. Not only were castles aesthetically pleasing to the medieval eye, but also their construction embodied 'the moeurs of chivalry, the life-style of the great, and the legends of the past'. The idea that arrowloops, gunports and battlements might have been designed within these frames of reference was a major departure from previous arguments. Perhaps surprisingly, the wider academic community largely ignored this article and the 1980s saw a steady stream of work but nothing which hinted at the turnaround in thinking that was to come later.

Coulson continued the themes of his 1979 article, particularly on the topic of fortress customs. Platt's The Medieval Castle stuck to the traditional narrative but the chivalric elements to castlebuilding informed much of the discussion on the castles of the later medieval period. M. W. Thompson's The Decline of the Castle offered a valuable survey of later medieval building, but its title reflected the orthodox view of the period. King's The Castle in England and Wales was perhaps the last monograph that can be said to fit easily within the military mould.

By the late 1980s, although important elements of the military interpretation had been queried, it could not be said that a new orthodoxy had been developed or that the wider academic community had necessarily accepted any of the new thinking. In the early 1990s, however, the debate over the military role of the castle suddenly came to the fore and the debate crystallised over one castle in particular: Bodiam in Sussex.

The Battle for Bodiam

Bodiam has always been a well-known castle; it is remarkably well preserved and its watery setting makes it extremely photogenic. Although its description as 'an old soldier's dream house' was coined as early as the


1960s, the castle has traditionally been seen as one of the last military buildings of its kind, a final salute to a martial role that had diminished over the previous century. The purpose of Bodiam is seemingly evidence in the license to crenellate granted to Sir Edward Dallyngrigge in 1385 'to make into a castle his manor house of Bodiam, near the sea, in the county of Sussex, for the defence of the adjacent country'. The design of the castle itself also superficially displays a utilitarian, military purpose. The moat prevents anybody gaining access to the curtain walls, the symmetri~al design allows flanking fire and it also contains early gunports - its up-to-date design even allows provision for the weapons that would ultimately make the castle obsolete.

The scholarly assault on Bodiam came from two directions. Charles Coulson offered a critique of the documentary evidence for the castle and its architectural remains, while Paul Everson and Christopher Taylor, as part of a survey of the castle for the Royal Commission for Historic Monuments, examined the landscape context of the site. Although working independently of each other, the conclusions theses scholars reached were remarkably similar.

The martial language of the licence is explicable given the aristocratic obsession with military culture that existed throughout the medieval period. When it comes to the building itself the defensive provision is in fact highly suspect. The gunports and murder holes are impractical and could never be militarily effective, the battlements are too small, the moat is shallow and easily drained, access around the parapets is difficult and the whole site is overlooked by higher ground.

Rather. the castle's architecture is deliberately nostalgic; it harks back to the thirteenth century and the


perceived 'golden age' of castle-building during the reign of Edward 1. Considerable effort went into improving the castle's external appearance; the provision of a moat ensures that the building looks larger than is actually the case, an impression heightened by the size of the windows and the battlements, which are proportioned to give the impression of strength. The relatively cramped domestic courtyard is something of an anticlimax: in reality, it is a medieval manor house. Confirmation of this analysis was suggested by a survey of the landscape context of the site. Rather than a defence against mining, it was suggested that the castle moat was an ornamental lake, setting the building off to maximum visual advantage. In addition to the moat, the castle was surrounded by a series of further ponds.

Any visitor wishing to approach the castle did so via a circuitous route from which the aesthetic appeal of the building and its surroundings could be appreciated. This latter characteristic seemed cO'1firmed by the reinterpretation of the earthworks on the rising ground above the castle as a viewing, rather than an artillery, platform. Taken together, the historical and architectural evidence suggested that Bodiam castle was a residence built in a martial style - its 'military' elements part of an architectural language of display - all standing at the centre of a contemporary 'designed landscape'. This is certainly a long way from the idea of a fortress intended to inhibit French raiding.

The 'Battle for Bodiam' was something of a cause celebre within castle studies but, such has been the pace of change, it is now something of a cliche. Nevertheless, it did kick-start a serious debate. Although the problems with the military orthodoxy had already been signalled some years before, Bodiam became the central focus of the discussion. A particularly influential review article by


David Stocker, 'The Shadow of the General's Armchair', put Bodiam at centre stage and gave credence to the revisionist line; it was suggested that what had hindered the stu~y of castles was the retrospective application of modern tactical thinking to a period where such ideas never existed.

Post Bodiam

The ten years or so since 'the battle for Bodiam' have been fruitful as far as publications on castles are concerned. A number of general narrative accounts and specialised monographs have appeared. J. Kenyon's Medieval Fortifications summarised much archaeological work on castles in England and Wales and this year also saw the publication of N.J.G. Pounds' The Medieval Castle in England and Wales, a massive study of castlebuilding largely based on documentary research. M.W. Thompson's The Rise of the Castle stuck closely to some older interpretations but included valuable chapters on castles as settlements. In 1992 T. McNeill's Castles rejected a traditional chronological approach in favour of the social and cultural dimensions of castle-building. The same year saw the publication of P. Barker and R. Higham's study Timber Castles, which was the first major survey of earth and timber castles and dispelled the idea that such fortifications were the poor relation of their masonry counterparts.

The 1990s also saw a progressive stream of publications all overtly contributing in some way to the debate kick-started by Bodiam. Indeed, such has been the pace of change that as early as 1996 warnings were sounded about a 'bandwagon effect', whereby 'status' replaced 'war' as a simplistic buzzword for the development of castles. Considerable analysis and reinterpretation of key buildings in the 'castle story' took


place at this time. One of the most influential was T.A. Heslop's study of Oxford castle in Suffolk where the traditional military rationale of Henry II's keep was rejected in favour of a more ideological explanation for the design of the building.

Work by P. Dixon and P. Marshall has drawn attention to the elements of courtly chorography in the way guests entered and experienced the interior of castles and suggested new ideas for the function of keeps. Bodiam generated a good deal of interest in the landscape context of castles and the number of 'designed landscapes' of medieval date identified has risen significantly. One of the most significant general advances has been the extension of the 'revisionist' arguments back chronologically from the later medieval to the Anglo-Norman period. Arguments made ten years ago about fourteenth-century castles such as Bodiam are now being applied to castles such as Dover, built two centuries earlier.

Very recently a series of books have emerged dealing with the revisionist theme directly. Oliver Creighton has .prod1J.ced a much welcome full-length study on the theme of castles and landscapes, Matthew Johnson a volume on the material role of castles in medieval society and Charles Coulson a massive historical study on the social character of fortifications in the Middle Ages. A significant body of literature now exists that details specifically with the 'revisionist' agenda and it is now possible for students not only to write about, but also to critique, the newer questions posed about castles and castle-building.

7 History Teaching through Reflective Practice

History teaching is largely concerned with the transmission of an agreed body of historical knowledge. The student's role was essentially passive: to assimilate and reproduce the information delivered by tutors. Whilst this has long ceased to be the most dominant pattern of teaching and learning in universities, in recent years the 'transmission model' has come under particularly sharp attack.

As postmodern critics have underline the contingent and contested nature of historical knowledge, so too has research on student learning emphasised the need for students to interact actively with material and transform it in order to make it personally meaningful and useful. This has pointed to the importance of understanding the ways in which students learn in their subject, of understanding their perspectives on learning, and of encouraging them to explore their own conceptions of teaching and learning so that they can become moreeffective critical thinkers of the sort most valued in a History education. The result has been a growing trend towards teaching methods which put the student at the centre of learning, and in the 1990s this has been a prominent thread in most major developments in History


teaching, whether in lecture and seminar work, assessment practices, or work on transferable skills.

Developing students as critical and reflective thinkers clearly requires us to become more reflective about what we do as tutors, and this is the subject of this newsletter. It is intended as an introduction to an increasingly important area in teaching and learning, and to provide some guidelines to assist individuals and small groups in the processes of investigating their own teaching.

REFLECTIVE PRACTICE

Paul Ramsden suggests, 'the aim of teaching is simple: it is to make student learning possible'. Nonetheless, the effective teaching of History demands a high level of knowledge and skills, particularly as students learn in many different ways and no two teaching situations are ever identical. Developing these abilities requires clear awareness of one's actions, what Donald Schon in his pioneering studies of the education of professionals has called 'reflection in action' ('thinking what they are doing when they are doing it'). In the context of 'traditional' disciplines, he writes:

"A reflective practitioner must be attentive to patterns of phenomena, skilled at describing what he observes, inclined to put forward bold and sometimes radically simplified models of experience, and ingenious in devising tests of them compatible with the constraints of an action setting."

This involves systematic observation, reflection and experiment, and the application of theory in the sense in which Noel Entwistle has neatly defined it: 'the bringing to bear of critical intelligence upon practical tasks'. Whilst terms like 'reflection' are open to multiple interpretation and clearly involve a complex web of skills, at the centre of reflective practice is the ability to recognise and understand one's underlying assumptions about the

History Teaching through Reflective Practice 149

meaning of teaching and learning in the subject and one's habitual responses to teaching situations, and the ability to interrogate the relationships between these. Failure to do this can lead to common problems in teaching.

For example, in History teaching it is taken as axiomatic that a principal goal is to encourage students to think critically, deeply and independently. However, even today, seminars are sometimes still (and often unwittingly) dominated by tutors who, in effect, transmit an 'agreed' body of facts and interpretations to the students who see it as their job to absorb as much of this information as they can.

This may be a misconception on the part of students, but at least part of the problem may be our own, often unconsciously-held habits and assumptions about teaching, which lead students to adopt relatively superficial approaches to learning. Improving what we do as History tutors, therefore involves examining what we are actually doing to encourage student learning in the light of what we think we are or should be doing, and then changing or adapting our practices in the light of what we have learned. Here, an awareness of recent developments in the field of research on teaching and learning can prove helpful in focusing attention, generating well-founded ideas and providing a wider framework for understanding what is happening in a teaching/learning interaction. However, most important is returning to one's own experience: that complex of habits, beliefs and meanings that informs any single teaching situation and to which the individual tutor has best access.

Here is the most quoted passage from Schon's work:

"There is a high, hard ground where practitioners can make effective use of research-based theory and technique, and there is a swampy lowland where situations are confusing 'messes' incapable of technical solution. The difficulty is


that the problems of the high ground, however great their technical interest, are often relatively unimportant to clients or to the large society, while in the swamp are the problems of greatest human concern. Shall the practitioner stay on the high, hard ground where he can practice rigorously, as he understands rigor, but where he is constrained to deal with problems of relatively little social importance? Or shall he descend to the swamp where he can engage the most important and challenging problems if he is willing to forsake technical rigor?[oo.] There are those who choose the swampy lowland. They deliberately involve themselves in messy but crucially important problems and, when asked to describe their methods of inquiry, they speak of experience, trial and error, intuition, and muddling through".

EXPLORING EXPERIENCE

Broadly speaking, this involves the following cycle, adapted from Kolb's 'Learning Cycle'. The key stages of the process are observation, reflection, planning, and action. These stages must be followed in sequence, but the cycle can be entered at any point for different purposes. So, to improve our teaching we might start by examining a particular aspect of our current practice (maybe something that works very well in our seminars, or something that is not as effective as we would like), then thinking through issues and problems (perhaps in consultation with others) in order to formulate a plan of action.

Clearly, all stages of this experiential cycle require close critical attention, and it is all-too-easy to fall back on well-worn responses (often unconsciously). What then can hard-pressed tutors in History do to develop reflective practice? The suggestions which follow have been divided for convenience into three broad and overlapping areas: self-evaluation, working with colleagues, and research into teaching and learning.

8 Teaching the 20th-Century History

In the 8th grade, students study the Constitution to World War I, followed in the 11th grade with a continuation, focusing primarily on 20th-century United States history, following a required review of the previous course. One of the Bradley Commission's recommendations is that 8th_ grade students study United States history through the Civil War and 11th-grade students continue the study of United States history after 1865. The National Commission on Social Studies in the Schools report, CHARTING A COURSE, suggests 8th-grade students study the United States, with a world view, and in the 11th grade, students concentrate on world and American history and geography since 1900.

These suggestions have been and will continue to be discussed and reviewed. However, the reality of most United States history classes today is that each begins with colonialisation and continues, in some cases, all the way up to the Great Depression. The simple explanation for not covering the rest of 20th-century United States history is lack of time. The school year ends before the students can be exposed to several key events of the 20th century. Frequently, 8th_ and 11th-grade United States history classes cover almost identical material. It is not surprising that


students often find the study of history redundant, irrelevant, and boring.

Yet, another obstacle to adequate teaching of 20thcentury United States history is the textbooks. More than other subjects, social studies textbooks influence the content of the course and the motivation of the students. The strengths and weaknesses of the textbooks tend to be the strengths and weaknesses of the course, and ultimately the students' knowledge of the subject. An analysis of five of the 1991 high school United States history textbooks and five new 8th-grade United States history texts revealed weaknesses in coverage of 20th-century U.S. history.

Coverage in the 8th-grade texts varies between 3-4 units, an average of 248 pages out of 771 total pages. All of the textbooks cover the same information, in more or less the same glossy, 4-color, yet narratively lacking format. The five 11th-grade textbooks generally offer the same information, again in a riot of colors and numerous accessories, overwhelming the story. The 11th-grade textbooks present 20th-century U.S. history in an average of 368 pages out of 1049 total pages. Most of the 11thgrade texts attempt to include some type of in-depth coverage of one or two important events or people. These attempts are laudable and should be strengthened and expanded.

Gagnon argues for careful selection of content: "But because recent history in most textbooks is recounted so blandly, and in such bewildering detail, a clear focus on only three or four selected themes is all the more important." He argues there is simply too much history to cover every little detail and offers six topics around which to study 20th-century U.S. history. One of the Bradley Commission's recommendations for the middle and secondary schools, Pattern D, puts a two-year

Teaching the 20th-Celltury History 153

sequence together at the 10th and 11th grades. This allows the students a better opportunity to retain what they have learned in the previous year. This also alleviates the need to take precious time rehashing what students learned previously, leaving more time to reach and study the 20th

century.

CONSEQUENCES FOR STUDENT LEARNING

The consequences for inadequate treatment of 20th-century United States history are appalling and have been reported in national assessments. Students said they had studied the U.S. history of the 20th-century, yet fewer than 40 percent of them knew the invasion of Normandy took place during World War II. THE U.S. HISTORY REPORT CARD demonstrated that less than half of the 12th-grade students were able to associate Martin Luther King, Jr. with the Montgomery bus boycott. Students' lack of interest in the subject matter adds to that deficiency. Badly written and misguided textbooks exacerbate this situation. Many of our students do not know what side Germany fought for in World War II. Half of our high school graduates have little concept of the issues and events leading up to the Vietnam War. The Civil Rights movement is, for many students, little more than what they might have seen at the movies or on network television programmes.

Assessments have indicated that today's students are not familiar with events that have taken place in history since 1945. Many of our students have no idea of the substance and significance of the 1954 "Brown v. Topeka Board of Education" decision, while personally experiencing busing and enforced desegregation. In THE U.S. HISTORY REPORT CARD, the NAEP reported that the students responding to the survey's questions displayed a particularly weak understanding of the 20th-

154 Teachi/lg of History

century events that helped shape our country, as we know it today. Less than 30% of the students responded correctly to questions dealing with the temperance and suffrage movements, and to questions about World War I. A significant number of our students are not remembering the history they have studied; they are not integrating it into their repertoire of background knowledge. In other words, history is poorly learned.

The problem of lack of student knowledge ,')f 20th_ century United States history has been reported. Now is the time to start reversing this appalling trend.

IDEAS ON IMPROVEMENT OF TEACHING AND LEARNING

Even with the constraints on the amount of time to teach 20th-century United States history, there are examples of interesting lessons that involve and excite high school students. These exemplary lessons show that history is much more than a survey of names, dates, and other facts about past events. The lessons also teach how and why events happened and trace their effects on subsequent events and developments. Furthermore, exemplary lessons teach that contemporary events have been shaped by actions of people in the past and that people today have the capacity to shape the future.

Obvious aids in the teaching of recent United States history are the mass media, including newspapers, radio, and television. But going beyond a merely passive view of the media is the important lesson for students. It is essential to teach students how to view and read critically, and not to accept thoughtlessly whatever is told to them. Teachers must exploit the television curriculum, or it will exploit them. The wide variety of education-based cable channels greatly increases the opportunity to use television to teach 20th-century United States history. For example,

Teaching the 20th-Century History 155

two recent television programmes suitable for high school history students were an in-depth biography of Robert Kennedy and the award-winning Civil Rights movement documentary, "Eyes on the Prize."

Teaching the use of primary sources is of critical importance. One type of primary source, newspapers, offers readily available reports of current events and provides data for student research projects. Copies of the front page of THE NEW YORK TIMES the day World War II ended in Europe and the Pacific are easy to obtain and can be used to broaden the coverage of events. Having students write their own newspaper articles (emphasizing, succinct, direct writing) describing key events, such as the first moon landing, involves them in actually gathering, interpreting, and synthesizing data. Videocassettes perhaps offer the best opportunity to capture students' attention about the recent past. One excellent example is liThe Road to Brown," the story of racial segregation and the brilliant legal assault on it that launched the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Video camcorders can be used to record classroom reenactments of significant public issues cases, such as the Senate Watergate hearings.

Another 20th-century event of wide interest and concern is the Vietnamese conflict. Many lesson plans deal with teaching about the Vietnam War. In April, 1984, Jerold M. Starr announced the establishment of the Center for Social Studies Education, after trying, unsuccessfully, to find enough supplemental curriculum materials to teach a course on the Vietnam War. This eventually led to the publication of THE LESSONS OF THE VIETNAM WAR.

Another way to capture students' attention is to teach history by utilising one of their favourite pastimes--rock 'n roll music. Paul Hoffman describes, in the April 1985 OAH MAGAZINE OF HISTORY, how he uses rock music as a primary source to teach history. He uses the common

156 Teacllillg of History

themes of 1950s music, e.g., school, cars, first love, and summertime, to tie together, for students, the post-war optimism. The 1960s protest songs reveal the historical significance of the Civil Rights movement and the antiwar sentiments. The controversy over rock lyrics of the 1980s can be utilised to discuss issues about limits to freedom of expression. There are multiple resources from which to draw interesting and educational 20th-century U.S. history lessons. Emphasis on issues and ideas will help to enliven the history classroom.

Teaching 20th-century United States history effectively is a difficult task. Time constraints, flawed textbooks, and student apathy are a few of the obstacles. However, teachers can make history come alive by using television documentaries, news programmes, and oral or written primary sources. By carefully selecting and synthesizing a variety of media, sources, and teaching strategies, teachers can meet the challenge of teaching 20th-century United States history to today's secondary school students.

TEACHING ORAL HISTORY

Oral history is a stimulating classroom activity and an exciting process designed to increase student involvement in a United States history class and improve student understanding of the historical topic. Further, oral history involves students directly in a method of historical inquiry, which includes the organisation and presentation of data acquired directly from another person.

Conduct an Oral History Project

An oral history project, regardless of the historical topic being investigated or its duration, helps students understand all phases of designing, implementing, and completing an activity. Students of all learning and comprehension levels can use the oral history process to


increase their active involvement in the study of United States history.

An oral history project is an attempt to preserve a small segment of a relatively recent historical period as viewed through the eyes, experiences, and memories of people who lived during that time. Capturing their experiences and memories on either video or audio tape is invaluable. Over a period of time, memories can fade and those feelings or emotions associated with the events can easily be lost or altered by time.

An oral history project involving local participants is an exciting method of providing students the opportunity to "experience" history firsthand, which makes the learning of United States history a more valuable experience and places local history within the overall context of United States history. Participants are eager to share their experiences with students. Students are enthralled to hear the stories of the participants and usually cannot wait to share them with the rest of the class.

Oral history projects add to the collective knowledge of local and national history, because such projects document citizens' participation and memories concerning a specific event or time period. Students begin to understand that United States history is not simply a series of isolated events from the pages of a textbook, but rather it is composed of life experiences and memories of many Americans just like themselves. Students learn that history is in essence the collective memories of actual events that have directly affected the lives of their friends, acquaintances, and relatives.

Instructional Goals

An oral history project has a multitude of instructional goals for the students. Students will increase their

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understanding of a specific historical event. First-person information about any historical event makes it much more relevant to their lives. Students will create and administer various interview instruments. They must pilot the interview instrument to better understand that various questions may elicit unanticipated, unexpected, and unintended answers.

The selection of the participants will result in comprehension of the dynamics of time, continuity, and change among age groups. Students will improve their questioning skills as they ask the various questions and follow-up questions of the "what" variety, and the probing questions of "how" and "why." Students will improve their writing skills as they become cognisant of how people use their language skills. Students will enhance their listening skills by accurately listening to what was said, and by listening for how and why the person being interviewed chose to describe an event as he/she did. Students will gain organisational skills pertaining to their use of time, energy, and information. Finally, the students' proofreading skills will be enhanced as they read and reread their final product to insure accuracy.

Various topics involving events that are national, state, or local in scope and importance can be used for an oral history project. Students need to be aware of the dynamics of age and time as they select a historical period. If students select a topic involving the Depression or World War II, they must remember that the participants to be interviewed typically are 65 years of age or older. However, a topic such as the assassination of JFK or the Vietnam War could involve participants as young as 40. The potential pool of participants can be affected by the topic chosen. The level of recollective ability and historical accuracy also can dramatically be affected by the age of the participants being interviewed. Hence, the selection of


participants is a critical component for an effective oral history project. Students will soon discover that some participants are simply better interviewees than others. Students will usually approach relatives or friends as their first potential interviewees and then expand their pool of people to be interviewed.

An oral history project can be as simple as a student interviewing one person, writing the responses of the participant, and reporting those survey responses to the class. Another project could involve audio- or video-taping of the participant and the student composing a written account of the dialogue. But a more sophisticated and encompassing oral history project could involve the entire class during a semester or school year. The class would conduct taped interviews throughout the school year, type the dialogue of the interviews, and print the results in a book format. The culmination of the year's project would be to publish the interviews and make the books available tu interviewees, students, libraries, and interested individuals in the community.

Conducting an Oral History Project

The oral history project is a process-oriented activity. The students are responsible for the entire project. It is imperative that students have adequate background knowledge of the historical topic and time period before interviewing the participants. Good content knowledge will enhance their understanding of the historical topic or era and vastly improve their questioning skills; thereby, they will have a better understanding of the person being interviewed.

Students must design the interview instrument focusing upon questions that will elicit much more information than merely "yes" or "no" answers. Practice interviews must be conducted to test the interview


instrument, which allows students to practice their interview skills and insures the validity of the questions and answers. Students will learn that some questions simply do not ask what was intended.

Students select their own participants to be interviewed and set up an interview time, which helps to enhance their organisational skills. Interviews can be conducted during school time or on the student's time, whatever is convenient for both the student and the participant. It is imperative that the student obtain from the interviewee a signed release form giving the class and the school the right to publish the oral interview. This is important because of the legalities involved in publishing an interview.

All interviews are done with audio or video tape, and typewritten transcripts are made by the students from the recordings. This element of the process takes a considerable amount of time. Students proofread their own material, as well as other students' material, to insure spelling accuracy, historical accuracy, and common formatting.

An oral history project, regardless of the topic, grade, or academic level of the students, or sophistication of the final product, is an extremely rewarding experience for the students, participants, and classroom teacher. Because a variety of teaching methodologies and strategies is a vital component of any successful United States history class, an oral history project can be a significant instrument for success. A project of this extent enhances students' understanding of any historical era and improves the quality of teacher instruction. Students will realise through an oral history project that historical events affect the lives of people they know and love. Years after the students have left the classroom, they are more likely to remember the oral history project than other aspects of their United States historY c1ass .

.I

9 Teaching Conflict Resolution

Transitional justice processes, such as the establishment of truth commissions and legal tribunals, may be implemented to help a country try to construct new historical narratives. Those who establish these processes, however, generally pay little or no attention to whether or how history is being taught in schools. Nor do they plan to allot sufficient resources to implementing curricular and pedagogical reforms when these new historical narratives are formulated and need to be publicized.

Re-establishment of security, constitutional reform, elections, and transformation of judicial and political institutions tend to take precedence. Transitional justice processes, such as the establishment of truth commissions and legal tribunals, may be implemented-often to help a country construct new historical narratives. But usually they show little or no regard to whether or how history is actually taught in schools or to devoting significant resources to implement curricular and pedagogical reforms.

The United States Institute of Peace is an independent, nonpartisan federal institution created by Congress to promote the prevention, management, and


peaceful resolution of international conflicts. To explore these issues, the Institute's conference focused on the following questions:

History, identity, and education: What is the relationship between education, historical memories of violence, and the formation of cultural and national identity? What can and should history education try to achieve in deeply damaged societies to foster moral and civic development in young people and transformation of attitudes toward former enemies? Can the teaching of history help transitional societies become more democratic? In societies in which some groups were targeted for marginalisation and disenfranchisement, can it contribute to development of empathy for, or even social cohesion among, former enemies? Can history teaching reinforce other transitional justice processes, such as truth telling and legal accountability for crimes committed? Can it promote belief in the rule of law, resistance to a culture of impunity, and greater trust in public institutions, including schools themselves?

Post-Conflict Reconstruction and HistonJ education: Where does the reform of history and civics curricula intersect with the work of those planning reconstruction and reform of the larger educational system, including nationwide exams or financing of public education? How has integrating segregated schools or classrooms been handled, and to what effect? How should 'officials make decisions about whose languages are used in school systems? What relationship, i.f any, exists between educational reform and other transitional justice mechanisms, such as truth commissions, tribunals, lustration, and commemoration? What is the optimal timing and

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sequencing of different transitional justice processes and educational reform?

The Content of Post-Conflict History education: What problems arise in developing and adopting new history curricula? Among those who experienced the violence directly (generally during the first two decades after major violence ends), who decides what version(s) of history will be taught? What impact do those choices have on promoting stable, cohesive, and tolerant societies? What is the relationship between the (re)writing of history by academic historians and the development of secondary-school history textbooks? What impact do transitional justice processes have on the development of new secondaryschool history textbooks and the way history is actually taught in schools?

Pedagogic Challenges: What challenges do teachers face in the classroom when addressing controversial historical subjects, and what are some of the different approaches they use? How can teachers be trained or prepared to address these subjects, and how can they be supported and protected in environments where disagreements over history might give rise to violence? Given limited resources, should teacher training take priority over curricular reform?

Evaluation: What is the best way to evaluate the impact of curricular reform and history teaching on individual students and the broader society? Which forces other than formal education-such as the media, religious institutions, popular culture, and stories conveyed through families and local communities-influence how schoolchildren think about themselves and their country's history? How do we account for context-the immense differences between types of conflicts, the


cultural settings in which they took place, and the methods by which conflict was reduced-while recognising the practical and ethical need to assess what methods work and how best to use scarce resources? What do we currently know about what "works" in history education and what approaches might even be harmful?

In addition to the above themes, we posed the following crosscutting questions: What are the appropriate roles of "insiders" (locals) and "outsiders" (people from outside the country)? What are the specific ethical and practical pitfalls facing outsiders? How do insiders and outsiders negotiate the process of establishing and sustaining relationships? How can outsiders help introduce changes that insiders otherwise find difficult or impossible to make on their own? What are the limits to and constraints on the involvement of outsiders?

On the following points there was general agreement:

Schools as Social transmitters: Schools are among the primary social institutions that transmit national narratives about the past; they also constitute the site of many past and present inequities. Educational systems have both overt and hidden agendas by which groups (such as the Tutsi in pre-genocide Rwanda) can be marginalised or included. Schools can both reflect and reinforce social divisions. In exclusionary education systems, for example, history education develops and protects narrowly defined ethnic, religious, and cultural identities that can be used to legitimate violence against marginalised groups. After violent conflict ends, educational systems, which generally are very slow to change, often reflect or preserve the memory of older unjust systems, such as Apartheid.

Teachillg COllflict Resolutioll 165

Promoting active Citizenship: Teachers and students in societies emerging from violent conflict often display fear, passivity, fatalism, and pessimism. Teaching history can help students become engaged, responsible citizens, even in societies where ethnic divisions, poverty, mistrust, and low-level violence remain endemic. History should be taught in a way that inspires young people to believe in their own ability to effect positive changes in society and contribute to a more peaceful and just future.

Making History Real: Through history education, students can see how they, their families, their ethnic groups, and their communities fit into depictions of their country's history. Teaching should encourage students to explore the variegated experiences of different groups affected by the violence. In this conception, students focus on the everyday experience of historical actors and the choices individuals can and must make to affect historical outcomes.

Promoting Positive Values: History education should avoid marginalising and demonising particular groups. Learning from the experience of postApartheid South Africa and other countries, history education should have two aims: to support democracy and mutual respect for the "other" and to include the histories of the formerly marginalised.

AREAS OF DISAGREEMENT

Despite consensus on the above issues, conference participants disagreed about the following pOints:

The Nature of truth: The relationship between transitional justice, educational reform, and teaching history was the focus of considerable discussion and critical analysis., Of particular interest was the question of


how reports produced by truth and reconciliation commissions could be used in teaching history. Participants differed philosophically, however, about how one defines the truth and whether it is appropriate or feasible to construct a single, "true" historical narrative. Some participants noted that the records of trials and truth commissions can establish certain facts that'the public then accepts as reasonable truth.

In conflicts in which many parties committed acts of violence, commissions can prove not only that many have blood on their hands, but also that some bear relatively greater responsibility for causing death and destruction. They also can demonstrate how certain institutions were deeply implicated in promoting injustice, so that the violence cannot be explained away as the work of a few "bad apples." The most successful truth commissions and history education programmes underscore the complexity of truth telling.

Tempering truth: Participants debated whether certain truths must be tempered in the interest of promoting reconciliation and inclusion. Even when one party to the conflict clearly is more responsible for promoting or creating the structural conditions that led to violence, history education can make a positive contribution by acknowledging that all the parties participated in the violence and pointing out the relative roles of the different groups.

Doing this could lay the groundwork for a common identity, desire for repentance, and vigilance against future violence. This is the approach taken by the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Its champions believe that a narrative that strays too far in the direction of "angels and maggots," to use the phrase of Polish political activist Adam Michnik, is not most useful for a

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post-violence society. Although the narrative should not be distorted, it can and should be molded to suit the needs of a society engaged in creating or recreating the most basic levels of social trust.

Avoiding Moral Relativity: A major controversy at the conference concerned how to encourage students to explore differing narratives without straying into moral relativity ("There are no fixed standards of morality, so an act one individual or group considers evil may not be evil to another-it all depends on one's point of view") or nihilism ("No moral values exist at all"). It is clear that history education at the secondary-school level should be informed by historical scholarship that widely respected researchers on both sides of a conflict have produced-if it exists.

Nation Building: Another controversy developed about what history education can and should try to achieve. Is it a tool in nation building or state building? To what degree should it serve the "national" project? Ambassador Robert Beecroft, the foi-mer head of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe's office in Bosnia and Herzegovina, suggested that history in divided societies must be a tool for state building, for creating a common civic consciousness. But for history professor Amal Jayawardene of Sri Lanka, developing new, progressive approaches to teaching history in ethnically separate schools might help separate nations within a state grow and flourish. That is, they might permit the development of particular ethnic identities within a society at the same time as they promote a common national identity.

Healing: Should history education have therapeutic aims in a society that has experienced widespread suffering? Can it contribute to the creation of empathy and the lessening of hatred and the desire for revenge? Are


history classes the place to promote moral values or critical thinking? No one in the assembled international group of experts questioned the relationship of history education to citizenship formation or championed a rote-learning approach to history; but some supported history education as a means of teaching moral values more strongly than others.

Reconciliation: Although those working in the field of history education agree that it should contribute somehow to the development of more thoughtful and optimistic citizens in a better society, how precisely to envision the goals of history education in post-conflict societies remains elusive. Reconciliation as a goal is problematic because of the vague nature of the term and the perceived tension between reconciliation and the achievement of justice through legal and other forms of accountability. Conference participants used other, related concepts-such as "social reconstruction," II social cohesion," and II deeper democracy" -without reaching full agreement.

Timing Issues

As Argentine sociologist Elizabeth Jelin pointed out, the idea that rancor between enemies fades as time passes is not necessarily true: Time does not heal all wounds, and returning to the contentious past occurs for many reasons and at different stages in the lives of different societies. New political developments and conflicts continuously change the meaning of earlier events. If society does not address the origins of the conflict effectively, they tend to be the bases of future instability and conflict.

Sometimes one sector-religious institutions or nongovernmental groups, for example-can deal more openly with the past conflict, while others cannot. Popular culture-film, theater, music, and literature-often leads the way in helping a society face uncomfortable truths. But

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educational systems often are among the slowest public institutions to make significant changes. It is crucial for those working in history education reform to take into account the problem of time, because understanding when certain interventions can and should occur is an important part of their success or failure.

Time also must pass before developments in other sectors filter down to classrooms. An example is the work of historical and history textbook commissions: Findings from the Polish-German Textbooks Commission, considered one of the best in Europe in terms of its academic quality and apolitical character, took ten years to reach Polish and German history programmes and textbooks. A similar time lag usually exists between the work of academic historians and the development of secondary-school history texts based on their scholarship.

Generational change is an important element of timing. The example of post-Franco Spain makes it obvious that the history of a conflict can be taught one way when the conflict is only recently "over" and another way when half-a-century has passed. Even five or ten years can make a difference. In the first five years after the conflict, the students, together with their teachers and parents, probably have direct experience of violence. Ten years after, students entering high school may have vague memories of the conflict in which their teachers and parents were involved; fifteen years after, students may find the conflict practically irrelevant to their own lives. This reality shapes history education programmes and the extent to which they can tackle contentious events.

Another temporal problem is the perception that a conflict "ends" when certain events take place: A regime changes, a peace accord is signed, a victory by one side is acknowledged. But the reality is that conflict almost always


continues at some level, and violence takes new forms. In South Africa, for example, criminal, gang, and sexual violence continues to be a major problem. Economic inequity, which may be the root of much violence, rarely changes dramatically when high-level violence ends and can threaten to undermine unstable "peace."

The search for new approaches to history education often takes place in situations where past violence that constitutes the object of historical study continues in different forms in the present. Ongoing economic injustice, ethnic segregation, and unequal access to public resources (such as funding for education that privileges one ethnic group over another) may continue to define and undermine the entire educational sector.

Structural Issues

Determining which languages shall be used to instruct schoolchildren is one of many issues for post-conflict school systems and is particularly problematic in divided, multiethnic, and multilingual societies. Although it is important for children of a multilingual country to learn the language (and, by extension, culture) of other main groups of citizens in addition to their own mother tongue, having too many official languages in the schools can promote semiliteracy, poor performance, high repetition, and high dropout rates. At the same time, the rising importance of English as a useful language in the global marketplace is increasingly influencing language policies.

Ethnic segregation or integration of schools also is an important structural aspect of education. When different ethnic groups are educated separately within the national education system, and especially when one ethnic (or gender) group receives more educational resources than another, such arrangements can convey important overt or hidden messages to students. Some educational systems


permit the use of different history texts in ethnically segregated classrooms. In this case, history instruction in Macedonia is the same for Albanians and Slavs-but only in the sense that each group separately learns a remarkably similar history of victimisation by the other, and each claims the same distinctions, such as a longer presence in the region.

State and national examination systems, on which grade advancement, school graduation, or university admission depends, pose another, nearly universal challenge for history education reform. In East Asia, school systems stress rote learning and memorisation to improve students' chances on exams that reward this type of pedagogy. Such exam systems generally do not encourage innovation in history education.

In many regions, including Europe and, increasingly, the United States, the pressure on teachers to "teach to the exam" makes it difficult for them to use elective and supplementary materials beyond the state-approved textbooks. While the latter may have education ministry approval and are less likely to be innovative, supplemental texts can avoid politically charged approval processes more easily and address controversial historical subjects in new ways.

Another challenge is the decreasing priority given to the teaching of history and the humani.ties by post-conflict societies intent on preparing their students to compete in the global marketplace. In much of Africa and in postShining Path Peru, for example, history, social studies, and the humanities are relatively low priorities in education, with more emphasis on subjects seen to have practical value, such as foreign languages, math, science, technology, and vocational training. Thus the potential for schools to promote social reconstruction through history


education in post-conflict societies is not being fully realised.

A further structural issue is the importance of primary schools in developing countries. Most children in Africa, for example, do not continue their education beyond primary school, so educators considering introducing crucial material for a post-conflict society must think of how to present it on that level, not only in middle and high school. In addition, in many post-conflict settings, girls' education is consistently undervalued, especially where demobilised boys and young men are a priority. The absence of girls from school or their high dropout rates cannot help affecting the success rate of post-conflict educational programmes designed to promote social reconstruction and peacebuilding.

In the most devastated societies emerging from violent conflict-including a number of African countrieswar has virtually destroyed entire national school systems. In Rwanda, for example, 75 percent of schoolteachers were killed or imprisoned in connection with the genocide. Students may want to return to schools that no longer exist, or to classrooms where all the books have been destroyed. In some places-such as Mozambique, Angola, Somalia, Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo-and especially where school systems were weak even before the war started, school reform initially must take a backseat to basic school reconstruction. Despite rhetoric about the urgent need for educational reform at different levels, little or none takes place because of a paucity of financial and professioBal resources and competence in curriculum development.

Regardless of the setting, political resistance to change, scarce resources, and short attention spans impede structural educational reforms. The fact that educational


reform, done properly, is a long-term and costly proposition deters not only local actors but also outside donors interested in promoting post-conflict reconstruction. If the political establishment does not support reform goals, or if they \jew them in politically charged terms, the reforms are likely to fail.

Role of Outsiders

In post-conflict countries receIvmg substantial foreign attention, post-conflict reconstruction increasingly tends to be transnational, although "insiders," or locals, are the ones who will have to live with, and take responsibility for, the long-term results of reconstruction and reform work. Outsiders who work on history-education reform tend to be from nongovernmental organisations rather than transnational organisations or foreign governments; some academics from foreign universities also are becoming involved. Often, however, powerful outside actors, particularly funders, view education as a domestic issue that "insiders" are best qualified to tackle. They consider other transitional justice processes, such as trials and elections, worthier of their time and support, as well as more appropriate for outsider involvement.

Predictably, outsiders' contributions to educational reform efforts are both positive and negative. On the positive side, outsiders can get insiders engaged in reform processes that are too contentious for locals to handle on their own, bringing together groups otherwise disinclined to work together. For example, in Rwanda, where the teaching of national history was still suspended a decade after the genocide ended, outsiders played a catalytic role in encouraging the education ministry to begin reforming the history curriculum.

In that case, the Human Rights Center of the University of California, Berkeley, worked to connect and


convene stakeholders of different age groups and levels within and outside the official education hierarchy, including NGO representatives, government officials, representatives of different ethnic and linguistic groups, returned exiles, and internally displfced persons. The Berkeley group then worked closePy with Rwandan historians, curriculum designers, teacher trainers, and officials from the education ministry to plan curricular materials outlining local understandings of history, teaching guides, and teacher workshops that focused on handling difficult discussions in the classroom. In a USIP grant report, UC Berkeley Professor Harvey Weinstein reported, "The Director of the National Curriculum Development Center thanked us for ending a ten-year drought in the teaching of history in Rwanda and giving the Ministry of Education the courage to confront difficult issues." An American NCO called Facing History and Ourselves subsequently organised training workshops for Rwandan master teachers on how to use the new curricular materials.

Outsiders can ask questions that seem naIve or obvious to insiders but provide insiders with opportunities to reassess or challenge received wisdom. They also can help convene groups that have rarely or never worked together before. In the Rwanda project cited above, outsiders helped high-school teachers work with and challenge socially elite, university-level, academic historians and education officials in ways that would have been difficult without such encouragement.

Even in the most supportive environments, local resources may be too scarce to realise well-intentioned reform efforts. In post-Apartheid South Africa, for example, Facing History and Ourselves assisted a local education project called Shikaya in bringing together for the first time teachers assigned to teach new, multicultural

Teachillg COllflict Resolutioll 175

civics curricula. Most of these teachers had never interacted on a professional basis with colleagues from different races or socioeconomic classes. Resources brought into the educational system by outsiders were necessary to make such meetings possible.

Outside groups also can offer resources for reform projects that local governments will not fund because they are controversial or politically risky. For example, the Georg Eckert Institute in Germany provided meeting places in Germany and Turkey for an Israeli-Palestinian group that worked unofficially to create new history materials that outlined contending Israeli and Palestinian historical narratives.

On the negative side, outsiders can inadvertently complicate educational reforms. An example of the "law of unintended consequences" resulted - from the Washington and Dayton agreements, which gave impetus to replacement of Bosnia's prewar, unitary education system. In its place, a complex, segregated system developed consisting of 13 separate education ministries with no overriding state coordination. The agreements' negotiators did not intend to create a polarising educational system, but constructing a Bosnian government through negotiation with warring parties made the education system truly unworkable.

When the international community tried to rectify the situation eight years later, its top-down approach in Bosnia further complicated the situation. The results were decidedly mixed because those who opposed reunifying the education system successfully galvanised opposition among parents and teachers against further educationsystem restructuring.

In other places, outsiders have played complicated or even compromising roles. In the words of George

176 Teacllillg of History

Washington University historian Daqing Yang, Americans in post-World War II Japan were "implicated outsiders," whose efforts to promote new approaches to history education were undermined by the fact that they were part of the victorious, invading, or "liberating" army, and their neutrality was questionable. In such cases, as in Japan, the likelihood of a backlash years later is high.

Even "non-implicated" outsiders often overlook local teaching methodologies and knowledge. For example, outside interventions promoting peace education in Africa often are not based on local experience or cultural traditions, and they make little lasting impact. Outsiders who "parachute in" and "parachute out" for short-term educational reform projects may leave behind texts and equipment that are not adapted to local circumstances and that no one knows how to use. Even more serious are cases in traditional societies where outsiders teach methodologies, such as talk therapy for severely traumatised victims of violence, that may be culturally inappropriate or ineffective.

Curriculum Content

The revision of history textbook content is inextricably linked to larger political debates about which narratives of history are true. Secondary-school history textbooks rarely, if ever, playa pioneering role in tackling highly sensitive issues or changing historical narratives that are not widely accepted in society. A key problem for educators is achieving agreement on historical narratives. Social consensus must be reached to ensure approval and adoption of history textbooks that break with old myths glorifying one group and demonising others. How much consensus is necessary to change problematic history textbooks that feed the cycle of violence, and how can consensus ever be achieved?


Especially in contexts where the conflict has not yet been "resolved," some history educators believe that searching for consensus on historical truth will bring only disappointment. Educators at least can begin by aiming to persuade each group in a conflict to look-in the words of Tel Aviv University historian Eyal Nayeh-at its own historical myths with irony. This goal precedes any attempt to help contending groups understand and accept the narratives of groups defined as current or former enemies.

The challenges of reaching consensus about past violence are immense. First, political leaders, and many citizens as well, have a vested interest in retaining simple narratives that flatter their own group and promote group unity by emphasizing sharp divergences between themselves and other groups. They are highly resistant to histories that include the presentation of the other side's point of view.

In addition, much of history depends on the viewpoint of those writing it. Although post-conflict societies could benefit from accounts of history that play down the differences between former enemies, some truths do exist: the so-called forensic truths, the "who did what to whom" facts that human rights investigators seek to illuminate. Denying them results in dangerous moral relativism-for example, equating mass killings by a state's military and police forces with fewer killings by guerrillas or resistance groups, as in South Africa or Guatemala. The challenge in these situations is to teach history that acknowledges these facts while finding enough common ground for former enemies to work toward a shared future.

Projects attempting to explore middle paths between extreme positions provide a basis for hope. For example, the previously mentioned, small-scale, unofficial project of


which Tel Aviv University historian Eyal Naveh is the Israeli director has brought together two teams of Palestinian and Israeli teachers, each headed by a historian, to write essays on common themes. They then exchange and discuss the essays. The only rule the group made was that no incitement to violence could appear in the essays. With the aim to help everyone understand that each side has its own narrative, the project has produced supplemental materials tested not in classrooms but in informClI discussion sessions with students. The project is proceeding with teacher training funded by external donors.

In the "Scholars Initiative," Purdue University historian Charles Ingrao is working with an international consortium of some 280 academic historians and social scientists from 26 countries in the Balkans, Western Europe, and the United States to examine contentious historical narratives relating to the Yugoslav conflicts of the 1990s. Historians from contending groups work together on eleven research teams devoted to particular controversies. Each is cochaired by a Serb and a non-Serb scholar whose responsibility is to produce a report identifying areas of consensus, as well as unresolved issues that require additional research. The reports are then posted on a Web site for comments by the project's other scholars. Ingrao bases his approach on the belief that academic narratives must be consistent with the historical record before secondary-school history can follow suit-and this can be achieved through serious scholarship.

Scholars are also at the heart of East Asian projects in existence since 1965. One group, composed of Japanese, Chinese, and U.S.-based scholars, is publishing in the three countries collections of scholarly articles on Sino-Japanese relations that resulted from their joint meetings. In addition, in 2005 a group of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean


historians, working outside the media spotlight that focused on Japanese textbook revisions and demonstrations against them in China and Korea, produced a supplementary high-school history reader in Korean, Chinese, and Japanese.

Some education reformers have sought to produce new curricula based on representative personal stories rather than more traditional, academic historiography. Drawing on victims' stories from the Guatemalan Historical Clarification Commission (CEH), one project created booklets designed to be inserted in regular textbooks and used as supplemental material. Despite a controversial framework that obscures the roots of the conflict and focuses on the absence of violence, rather than the struggle for justice, as a goal, the materials, largely funded by international donors, provide compelling narratives for students about Guatemala's civil war.

In South Africa, the "Facing the Past, Transforming Our Future" curriculum, based on Facing History and Ourselves' methodology, uses two case studies to promote student involvement and personal agency. The case studies-on Nazism and the Holocaust and on Apartheidwere selected mainly because they provide a framework for students to understand the importance of making individual choices and taking risks to resist persecution and tyranny.

Reforming Pedagogy

One of the most important insights from the conference is that reforming pedagogy-the way history is taught-should take priority in many contexts over curriculum rev~ion, especially when resources are scarce. Pedagogy that emphasizes rote learning, uncritical thinking, and the authority of a narrowly- defined, "true" narrative is unlikely to permit new understandings of former enemies


and promote social reconstruction. Yet few postconflict societies are ready to accept an approach that promotes critical thinking, since it is often perceived as flying in the face of traditions that respect expertise, seniority, and authority and promote group honour as more important than any forensic truth.

A number of conference participants stressed the importance of focusing on pedagogy. Some noted that the most devastated educational systems may lack even basic textbooks, and sufficient time and money are often unavailable to produce them quickly. In such situations, the immediate focus should be on helping teachers gain the necessary skills and confidence to help their students address the past through open inquiry and critical thinking, even without new textbooks.

Given the time it takes to develop new textbooks, even when more resources are available to do so, teachers can use old texts to produce "teachable moments" by helping students understand how the texts promoted narrow historical interpretations that directly or indirectly incited violent conflict.

Conference participants also pointed out that in many societies disrupted by violent conflict, teacher training has often suffered; some teachers may have received little, no, or inappropriate instruction on how to teach before they entered the profession. In Rwanda, for example, teachers were trained in a rigid, passive pedagogy that still encourages them to resort to corporal punishment. Conference participants reported that secondaryschool histQry teachers in Lebanon and South Africa often are not well-trained compared to teachers of other subjects, even though training in academic history at the university level meets much higher standards. In such situations, even the best curricular materials may be wasted in the

Teaching Conflict Resolutio1l 181

hands of teachers unprepared to use them well in the classroom.

As a strategy, pedagogical reform is attractive because it may be less controversial or threatening than attempts immediately after conflict to change historical narratives through curriculum reform. But pedagogy reform is most effective when combined with curriculum reform. Violeta Petroska-Beska, a Macedonian educator at Sts. Cyril and Methodius University, developed one such experimental programme. She is working with teachers from the Albanian and Slav communities to design history curricular materials that present each group's historical perspectives, with similarities and differences offered for analysis and discussion. Petroska-Beska also is innovating by mixing the two ethnic groups in professional teachertraining workshops. Her goal is to open teachers' minds to accepting the presentation of different historical perspectives in the classroom, even when the teachers do not agree with the contending historical narratives.

Teachers participating in the conference noted that history teachers generally are under enormous pressure in post-conflict societies to play too many roles-from psychologist and guidance counselor to conflict resolution expert and mediator. Education reformers, particularly those from outside, also typically expect teachers to be agents of fundamental social change. Yet evidence from Northern Ireland shows that teachers are not comfortable being leading agents of social change, and they doubt that anything they teach can counter what the history students learn at home. In the most extreme cases, in highly charged political contexts where adopting new teaching approaches or texts may lead to threats to teachers' physical safety, they will be especially likely to shy away from innovation.

Teachers need strong support from parents, school administrators, and other authorities to teach new curricula


and use new pedagogies. Such support must be ongoing, as teachers suffer from burnout, especially in high-stress situations. Shikaya, the nonprofit South African educational group that works on integrating the "Facing the Past, Transforming Our Future" curriculum, is pioneering ways to fill South Africa's gap in teacher training, particularly through in-service training and continuous support that includes online and personal contact to develop teaching skills, resources, and personal growth.

In supportive environments, teachers may use very different methods to achieve the common goal of encouraging their students to think critically. In teaching about her country's ongoing civil war, Colombian history teacher Carolina Valencia Varga uses news clippings and mission statements of the various parties to the conflict to pose three sets of core . questions to students: (1) "Who are the 'bad guys?' " (2) "Were they born paramilitaries (or guerrillas, narcotraffickers, etc.)? Why would someone join such a group? Did they have a choice, and what would you have done in their place?" and (3) "Is there anything I can do about it?"

The discussion of teaching methods revealed an important disagreement among teachers about using graphic or heart-wrenching photographs, documentary films, and firsthand accounts in classrooms, particularly with younger students. The group Facing History and Ourselves has pioneered careful use of such materials in classrooms, but some participants feared they might backfire, especially with young children and boys, and would not produce empathy. Moreover, the reception of such materials may be culturally conditioned. Overall, we do not know enough yet about commemoration among children and adolescents, nor how best to achieve a


balance of "head and heart," based on intellectual and affective cognition, among students.

HISTORY EDUCATION AND TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE

The connections between transitional justice and educational reform, especially of history education, have been underexplored and underutilised. Conference participants agreed that education should be considered as a major tool of transitional justice, because without meaningful educational reform, the work of other transitional justice mechanisms is likely to be "top-down" and have limited impact.

Traditional transitional-justice interventions-such as truth commissions, tribunals, and memorials-potentially offer a great deal to history educators. Because they are officially sanctioned, trials and truth commissions can provide materials that even skittish governments cannot forbid in the classroom; examples include the report by the Guatemalan Historical Clarification Commission and accounts of trials of Argentine generals that history teachers in those countries have used. War crimes trials have inherently dramatic qualities that hold students' attention and can form the basis of powerful curricular materials. The strongest didactic material may lie in truth commission testimonies, as they present the voices of ordinary people with compelling stories to tell. It is crucial, however, that such materials represent a range of voices and experiences. In addition, memorials and museums are powerful sites for teaching history, both in and out of the classroom.

The potential has not been fully realised in the classroom of using materials derived from transitional justice interventions. Part of the problem is that few commissions-except for the Guatemalan and Peruvian


truth commissions-have made a conscious effort to produce educational materials.

Some Educational Approaches

Immediately after conflict, some societies develop new courses-on civics, peace education, human rights, conflict resolution, democracy, and tolerance, rather than historyand may seek to help students develop new skills as active citizens.

Civics education often is linked closely to history teaching. For example, in post-Soviet Kazakhstan, history teachers also teach civics; and, as education scholar Carolyn Kissane found, history teachers have tried to integrate new ideas and pedagogy in their history teaching from civics workshops run by international NGOs. Although it usually does not focus on the past, peace education may model new pedagogical approaches useful for history teaching, but in a much less controversial curriculum.

For example, in Lebanon, teaching about the civil war remains stalled because of lack of political will and consensus about the war's causes, as well as inadequate teacher training and curricular materials. Although pedagogy in Lebanon remains very traditional, development of a peace education manual under the leadership of Lebanese American University Professor Irma Ghosn allowed local educators to experiment with the new pedagogical approaches it gently introduced.

Human rights education presents special challenges. Few would dispute the value of promoting knowledge of and respect for human rights in the abstract, but doing so has raised interesting problems in Guatemala and Argentina. In those countries, by avoiding discussion of marginalised groups' political resistance and continuing


economic exclusion, human rights educational materials have presented a narrative of "innocent" victims who passively endured violence instead of actively trying to end their marginalisation. Efforts to introduce human rights education have been more successful in South Africa, where human rights is welcomed as a crucial part of citizen formation and is a crosscutting theme in many subjects.

Impact of History Teaching

Evaluating the impact of history teaching on individual students and the larger society is extremely difficult. The problem begins with a lack of clarity about what should be evaluated. Students can be tested to see what they know about a conflict and those defined as former enemies. Evaluating their attitudes about tolerance and reconciliation is more difficult; even harder is assessing what impact a particular .educational course or programme (as opposed to other social influences) has had on forming or changing those attitudes at the individual and social level.

Efforts to evaluate the effects of education programmes often fail because of lack of larger vision of what a society wants to become and how to get there. Is the purpose of education reform to produce social cohesion, legitimise differences, acknowledge the existence and narratives of others, foster reconciliation, or encourage commitment to democracy? If so, how does education create or reinforce such values? In short, effective education reform and evaluation require consensus on what constitutes the common good and the programmes to achieve it-precisely what is lacking in many post-conflict societies.

Despite the fact that education and social reconstruction are long-term, ongoing processes, few


evaluations of educational impact have a comparative framework designed to capture attitude change over significant periods. Both quantitative and qualitative methods need to be used, since quantitative methods alone may produce but not explain paradoxical findings. For example, recent surveys in Northern Ireland have revealed widespread desire for more integration, even as reliable studies show Northern Irish society to be more segregated now than at any previous time.

TEACHING HISTORY THROUGH CONFLICT: A NORTHERN IRISH

EXPERIENCE

The idea was that the Northern Irish experience of teaching history through thirty years of the 'Troubles' might be scrutinised as an effective model of practice, responding as it did to a situation characterised by contested national identities, each supported by selective and partisan versions of past events. The underlying premise was that by experiencing the use of an enquirybased curriculum, like that used in Northern Ireland and throughout Britain, teachers who find themselves contending with the competing-and often conflicting-historical narratives prevalent in divided societies might see the value of moving away from materials and methods of instruction that emphasised the transmission of 'objectively' true accounts of the national past. Instead, they might focus on engaging students in the examination of evidence and the analysis of varied historical interpretations.

In effect, this was similar to the rationale behind a seminar held in Northern Ireland in 1997 under the auspices of the Council of Europe entitled The Teaching of History in a Divided Community. On that occasion thirty-one participants from twenty countries attended. The


formal input for the seminar came entirely from Northern Irish presenters with delegates then asked to respond as to the applicability of the initiatives they had seen for their own working context.

Three factors prompted a re-thinking of the purpose and structure of the seminar. The first concerned the proposed title. It was discovered that the characterisation 'divided societies' had little resonance in other countries. Although it was initially thought the phrase was somewhat extraneous-what society isn't divided in some way-it seemed to evoke a negative response, and it was ultimately changed from 'divided societies' to, first, 'societies emerging from conflict' (which also implied a greater degree of divisiveness than many were comfortable with), and ultimately, 'societies which have recently emerged from conflict.'

The second cause for re-thinking was a more substantive one. It surrounds the claims of the Northern Irish History Curriculum to be held up as an exemplar for other educational systems seeking to respond to divisions in society through the formal curriculum. The aims and structure of the History programme in Northern Ireland have been documented in detail elsewhere but briefly they are characterised by the following:

A values base provided by two crosscurricular themes, Education for Mutual Understanding and Cultural Heritage encouraging greater respect and cultural understanding

Emphasis on a process that encourages an enquiry approach whereby students have the opportunity to investigate historical issues and to arrive at personal viewpoints provided they are substantiated by historical evidence


The fostering of a range of concepts and skills to enable young people to view historical events critically

The consideration of multiple perspectives to historical events, and alternative interpretations of events

A prescribed content that sets important periods of Irish history in a wider framework of the history of the British Isles and Europe.

Therefore, the considerable achievement of the curriculum is that by adopting the enquiry principles of the 'new' history that emerged in the United Kingdom in the 1970s and 1980s a way has been found to circumvent the necessity to 'tell the national story': a story that, of course, would be highly contested. Instead, from 1990 teachers in a largely segregated system hav~ followed a common programme and pursue common learning outcomes which place an emphasis on applying critical thinking and enquiry to contentious aspects of Irish history.

History teachers in Northern Ireland deserve great credit for the professional way that they have gone about implementing the new curriculum. Evidence from the Education and Training Inspectorate and other sources suggests that, whatever the setting of the school and background of the practitioner, history teachers, in the vast majority of instances, strive to present the past in a balanced and objective manner to their students. In a divided society this is a considerable achievement and it is legitimate that the model developed should be shared with other educational systems, particularly those wrestling with history curricula that tend to promote one particular, partisan interpretation of the past.

These arise from doubts as to how far the history curriculum in Northern Ireland, as taught, actually succeeds in challenging the myths and partial truths


prevalent in the segregated cultural environments in which many students are grounded. And to what extent does it really encourage students to apply learning about the past to their understanding of the situation in the present? These concerns surfaced at the Council of Europe 1997 seminar. There, Carmel Gallagher, then officer for history in the Council for Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment in Northern Ireland (CCEA) questioned whether the majority of students are capable of transferring the intellectual skills honed in history to the contentious world outside the classroom without teacher guidance. It was her view that unless young people are encouraged to apply those intellectual skills and processes to their own stereotypes and prejudices they are unlikely to make that 'brave and disturbing intellectual transfer' for themselves.

Her challenge as to how far the social responsibility of Northern Irish teachers really stretches touched a raw nerve with several local teachers present. The rapporteur concluded that, In Northern Ireland and elsewhere, a fundamental ter.sion has yet to be worked out. On the one hand there are those who feel most comfortable with a history programme that emphasises enquiry, evidence, objectivity and the teacher as neutral arbiter. On the other there are those who reject detachment (both in time and methodology) as an illusory quest. They wish to see students' critical skills applied to contemporary issues through their historical studies.

Other evidence supports the contention that teachers, generally, in Northern Ireland have been reluctant to engage with more sensitive cultural and political issues. A more recent empirical study of the relationship between the history curriculum and students' sense of national identity conducted with 253 young people, aged 11 to 14, carried out by two of the organisers of the UNESCO


seminar further questions the effectiveness of the curriculum in challenging deeply held opinions. The study found that more students in the third year of secondary school identified with historical events they associated as representing their particular communal identity than did so in years one and two.

Yet, in year 3 students are expected to gain understanding of 20th Century Irish history and, by implication, the roots of the most recent phase of the 'Troubles'. Instead, the research found that some students used their school learning selectively to support partisan communal identities. The researchers concluded that not enough was being done to mediate between attitudes acquired through informal learning in the community and the learning of the formal history curriculum.

Education for Social Cohesion

Professor Smith opened by acknowledging that there was no longer a clear line between situations of conflict and non-conflict, given that more lowlevel conflict exits today between governments and sections of their own society than is defined by declarations of hostilities between recognised states. His presentation was premised on the analysis that education either can be part of the solution to conflict or can exacerbate or even cause conflict. He argued that the study of the role of education should be an integral part of the analysis of conflict.

There is a structural relationship between the two. If conflict is interpreted as a transformative stage then education is also a transforming force and the two interact at all levels and stages. Further, internal conflict can occur in highly educated societies as well as in developing countries, suggesting the nature of the education system can contribute to division.


Education is almost always run by the state and the state is likely to be a party to the conflict. Smith classified education systems and their institutions as:

Assimilationist (single institutions operating according to the values of the dominant tradition, with minority rights and interests neglected)

Separatist (separate institutions each serving different constituencies with relatively homogeneous populations; processes within institutions mayor may not acknowledge broader diversity outside the institutions)

Integrationist (common or shared institutions with diversity represented within the population of each institution). He then cited from the work of Kincheloe and Steinberg to address the dynamics within institutions, detailing how they come to terms with pluralism in practice.

Conservative pluralism stresses what people have in common, seeks to create neutral spaces and avoids potential controversy. Liberal pluralism acknowledges differences and celebrates diversity but is unlikely to address the potential causes of conflict. Critical pluralism both recognises similarities and differences between people and also acknowledges unequal power relations between groups and is willing to take action to address social justice. By implication the latter offers the best opportunity for trust building and the alleviation of conflict.

In formulating policy it is vital for governments to acknowledge their obligations under the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child. With regard to education, Article 28 affirms the right of every child to primary education provision. But, the quality of that education is also defined. Under Article 29 the aims of education


should include 'respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms' and 'the preparation of the child for responsible life in a free society in the spirit of understanding, peace, tolerance, equality of sexes and friendship among all peoples, ethnic, national and religious groups and persons of indigenous origins.'

This in turn has' implications for the nature of the curriculum. Content orientated syllabuses founded on the transmission of knowledge are unlikely to fulfil this mission. Rather the emphasis should be on a process orientated curriculum promoting learning outcomes embodying key skills and values. This is especially important for the 'national' subjects of art, music, literature, history and geography, which encroach on identity issues of language, culture and religion.

History, for example, can be part of the problem where the government defines the 'national story' and manipulates the curriculum and textbooks for political purposes. On the contrary, it might contribute to solutions where its learning outcomes are enquiry determined and the emphasis is placed on multiple perspectives and interpretations. If the latter approach is adopted it must be recognised that there are significant economic implications, particularly for the provision of learning resources and teacher education.

Professor Smith offered the classification framework outlined above as a tool for analysing education systems emerging from conflict but stressed that each situation has unique features and each requires systemic analysis. He also acknowledged that more serious attention needs to be given to evaluating and monitoring the 'efficacy' claimed for preventative education across a range of international contexts.


In addition to the input from Northern Ireland six case studies were presented - South Africa, Sri Lanka, Cyprus, Latvia, Estonia and Russia. Each national grouping was given ample space to discuss the social, cultural and political context in which its history teaching is set, to describe current policy and curricula and to identify aspects of innovative practice contributing to the alleviation of conflict and the promotion of democratic values. It is not the intention here to describe each contribution in detail nor was it the function of the seminar to carry out an analysis of the causes of ethnic conflict. Rather, cultural and political backgrounds were used as a backdrop to understanding the responses of the respective educational systems.

When exploring situations in individual countries it was, indeed, cle:ar that each had very particular circumstances and 'the variants present in each, in turn, helped shape what was felt desirable, and what was practical, in terms of educational responses. Geographically, the countries present varied in size from the huge expanses of Russia and South Africa to the small territories of Latvia, Cyprus and Northern Ireland. Obviously, the logistics associated with size greatly influences policy provision. Additionally, countries like Russia and South Africa are multi-ethnic in composition and have to accommodate many cultural aspirations (in the case of Russia up to a hundred) whereas the conflicts in Cyprus and Northern Ireland, respectively, are largely played out by just two cultural groupings.

In some cases a majority grouping is numerically dominant as in the Baltic States and Sri Lanka providing particular democratic challenges whereas the opposing communities in Northern Ireland and Cyprus are more evenly balance-cd. In the Cypriot situation segregation including schooling is almost total. This is a significant

194 Teachilzg oj History

factor in Northern Ireland, also, whereas in the ex-Soviet states separation through education is only partial. In all but the Northern Ireland situation the presence of different languages is a potential source of division, though in South Africa, Sri Lanka and Cyprus, in education settings at least, English is fostered as a common, 'link' language. Given the title of the seminar the most transparent categorisations of countries present were those that had recently suffered violent conflict and those that had not.

Four of the case-study areas-South Africa, Sri Lanka, Northern Ireland and, arguably, Cyprus are emerging from conflict as a result of ethnic / national/religious division. Violence, and the resultant trauma, provides particular challenges in dealing with the emotional dimension of student responses and in fostering a climate of reconciliation. In contrast, the post-Soviet transition toward democratic structures in Latvia, Estonia and Russia has been largely peaceful. Initially, participants from those areas had doubts about their credentials to be present at the seminar.

Yet, common themes emerged across all countries and by the conclusion the delegates from the ex-Soviet bloc had come to identify with many of the issues raised in those states that had experienced recent violence. This suggests that for educators formulating new approaches to history in the context of building new democratic structures similar challenges arise: but that the legacy of violence intensifies difficulties. One factor present, to a greater or lesser extent, in each of the countries represented, is an increasing diversity of people.

Partly as a consequence of the impact of globalisation even in societies like Northern Ireland and Cyprus, characterised by bipolar conflict, there has been a significant influx of immigrant groups in recent years. In


each country examined by the seminar new democratic structures are struggling to give minority groupings equitable representation. Representing minority perspectives within the history curriculum presents special challenges. This report identifies that this is made more complex when the minority is a once dominant group whose power and position has been eroded or usurped by groups seeking 'liberation'.

In each situation history and history teaching were identified as significant factors in contributing to national consciousness with the capacity both to perpetuate division and, through curriculum reform, foster greater social cohesion. It was clear that all participants took for granted that history education should serve social purposes. That is, no one suggested that the topic was a purely 'academic' one, or that the curriculum should be based solely on the concerns of university-based scholars. This stands in contrast to those history educators who reject the suggestion that history should play a role in efforts to promote peace and reconciliation and dismiss such goals as 'social engineering' and inappropriate for the educational system. It also stands in contrast to the perspective of some educators in Britain and in North America who argue that the essential purpose of history is to introduce students to disciplinary ways of thinking.

The particular social goals participants thought history should serve'and the implications they saw for the teaching of history, varied enormously. All spoke in the language of enquiry and the use of evidence, and all thought that students should be actively involved in learning: no one suggested that history should take the form of transmissionoriented lectures, although they unsurprisingly reported that many of their colleagues back home taught in such ways. Yet, as the presentations continued it became clear that participants attached a wide

196 Teaclling of History

diversity of meanings to the terms, enquiry and evidence. Participants from some countries hoped to use these methods in order to teach students a single, consensual story of their nation's past, one that all students would accept as part of the national heritage, regardless of their own ethnicity or their status within the country; in some cases, this kind of national history was explicitly meant to counter political claims based on ethnicity.

Interestingly, participants were quick to challenge each other-and the seminar organisers-whenever a claim was made that minority viewpoints could be dismissed or incorporated into a single national story: yet, clearly applying this in practice to your own country presents huge challenges especially when the prevailing political hegemony comes under scrutiny.

Other participants-particularly those from both sides of Cyprus-saw history's value as lying not in the promotion of a shared national identity, but in its ability to present a neutral and balanced view of the events of the past. Because history can be used in such highly partisan ways, inspiring emotional and entrenched prejudices, these educators felt that students would benefit most from learning a complete and unbiased account of the past. If students learned history in this way, and came to recognise that the historical accounts that support divisive political positions are incomplete or inaccurate, they might be more supportive of efforts at reconciliation.

And finally, some participants saw the full significance of history education's potential to engage students in developing interpretations from multiple accounts and evidence to enable them to reach their own conclusions, without regard to any single, sanctioned view of the past. Educators from one country, for example, in constructing a sample inquiry project for students,


suggested that they interview older people and examine government documents and other published sources in order to answer the question, 'What was life like in the. Soviet Union after World War II?' The goal of history for these teachers was to produce students capable of independent and critical thought.

So there was agreement that history should serve the goals of society, but less accord over what those goals should be or how history might be designed to contribute to them. Differences in perception were most stark when sensitive issues within respective national histories were addressed. Even in those societies not wracked by communal violence specific historical events were identified that are seen very differently by respective communities: and that such interpretations are often mutually exclusive. The Soviet 'annexation' of the Baltic States in 1939 emerged as an example.

In discussing the handling of contentious history it became clear that the internalisation of enquiry within the history curricula represented varied: also that there was considerable avoidance of difficult issues even within those education systems that might be perceived as having responded strongly to promoting democratic change. The initial resistance to follow an external examination module at aged 16 dealing with the recent phase of the 'Troubles' in Northern Ireland was cited as an example. It was recognised that teachers, curriculum developers and policy makers, too, are products of contested societies and unless they embrace the values and process inherent ip enquirybased history proposed change will be no more than aspirational.

In the case of teachers it was recognised that they are invariably part of a larger social context, and they cannot be expected to produce levels of enlightenment or


tolerance missing in their society at large. At times, teachers may hold the same limited historical perspectives that have contributed to conflict in the first place: more often, they may fear the community repercussions of addressing controversial issues in the classroom, or be unprepared to deal with the emotional responses such issues can provoke in students.

Most teachers have not been trained to teach histo~y in this way, and even though they may have good intentions, they are unlikely to take such risks without a great deal of support. Under these circumstances, avoidance of controversial topics is the safest course, and most, if not all, participants agreed that such avoidance characterised history teaching in their own countries.

In the context of multiple perspectives and handling controversial issues one less obvious barrier was identified through discussion. This is the particular difficulty arising when addressing sensitive material with once dominant ethnic or cultural groupings whose position has become threatened. This has special significance when the historical material being addressed illustrates past abuses of authority and power. The positions of the Unionist people in Northern Ireland, the Afrikaners in South Africa and Russian emigrants living in ex-Soviet Bloc countries were cited as examples.

In Eastern Europe such tensions have often been disguised because overt violence has not been a factor but the Baltic participants acknowledged them as significant. In these situations history practitioners face important challenges: how to confront the realities and implications of such events yet to do so sensitively to avoid burdening, targeting, humiliating and alienating young people from those backgrounds. Differences also emerged regarding perceptions as to which students should have access to


enquirybased history across ability and age ranges. Despite recognition of the social utility of history teaching there was still a sense from several of the presentations that the demands associated with an enquiry approach to the subject were more appropriate to those young people engaged in academic study.

Further, there was an assumption that addressing multiple perspectives, issues related to identity and national events deemed contentious was a pursuit for the later school years. Generally, it was considered appropriate for younger students to continue to learn facts about the nation's past in a relatively straightforward way. Only in the South African and Northern Irish contexts was there a clear sense of progression on such issues through primary and secondary education. It is possible that this lack of attention to the needs and abilities of younger students may present an obstacle to thinking about how history can meet the needs of society.

On one final issue there was also substantial consensus. Participants agreed that the lack of available resources was a significant obstacle to new forms of history teaching. In most of their countries, collections of multiple sources of evidence or conflicting source material were simply not available, nor were texts written from, or including, different perspectives. In fact, one common complaint was that the available history texts were written by university historians or others who had no experience working with students, and thus the books were either poorly written or inappropriate for the developmental level of students.

In one country, participants reported that no publisher had been found who was willing to print updated versions of even the most basic history texts for students, much less more complicated materials. Technological resources


were also limited. The constraints resource provision had on development was a recurring theme of the seminar reemerging during the external presentations on textbooks and online computer conferencing.

External Presentations

The themes were chosen for the external presentations on the grounds that they offered support for those seeking to promote the handling of contentious issues in history. Historiography in Irish History, the theme of Professor Jeffery'S talk, was selected because, in the context of Ireland, the work of revisionist historians in challenging the anti-colonialist, pro-nation building version of the country's history, has been deemed a significant prerequisite for the multi-perspective approach adopted by the school curriculum in the 1990s. His viewpoint was interesting in that he placed less emphasis on the revisionist interpretations themselves and more on the impact that the modelling of healthy historical debate in public has on the image of history as popular discourse.

Therefore, discussion at an academic level can translate through the experience of the historical training of students into the adoption of an enquiry approach in the classroom. In the discussion that followed the extent of the influence the academy has on the school curriculum was identified as an important issue, especially in those countries where the 'science' of history was perceived as the pursuit of absolute truth. This presented particular obstacles to educational changes in many of the emerging democracies in Eastern Europe. Professor Hopken's presentation was of central importance to the seminar.

History teaching in the United Kingdom has, to a considerable extent, freed itself from the 'tyranny' of the textbook. Commercial publishers produce books and teachers have the freedom to choice texts they deem


appropriate. Often, schools operate using more than one text on a particular topic and in doing so present students with alternative interpretations. Other countries often have not developed such a culture and, in any case, have not the resources to invest in such an approach. The presentation advocated that it was critical that textbooks in societies recently emerged from conflict reflected enquiry, and multiple perspectives. Further, they should be produced by practitioners, and ideally by partnerships representing different perspectives. However, Professor Hopken warned against the naivety of thinking that a well-constructed textbook alone could safeguard against propagandist history and transform practice.

Teacher education was also critical as a catalyst for change if textbooks were to be used as resources for critical enquiry. He identified five pre-conditions as necessary for textbooks to have potential as agents of reconciliation:

1) Conflict has to be at an end. Otherwise, in his opinion, there is a stark divergence between the values embedded in the text and the reality of the violence in the streets. Here, he cited an Arab-Israeli project he was engaged with. In such circumstances a multiperspective approach loses credibility or pupils may accept it as an abstract principle only

2) Political elites must show absolute commitment to the mUlti-perspective approach to textbook writing and must refrain from interference. In Bosnia, for example, Bosniak, Croat and Serb politicians have hindered progress

3) Society, in general, has to agree on the underlying principles by adopting a selfreflective attitude to the country's past. This is a huge challenge in a society emerging from conflict were the 'vicious circle' of recrimination is still fresh. The cohesion necessary is often accepted in theory but not in practice


4) Even when conditions 1-3 are in place the raw emotions that are the legacy of conflict still pose the question as to whether school textbooks are the best medium to deal with recent events. In might be argued that since such incidents feature in the media it is important that they are mediated in the comparatively critical arena of the classroom. On the other hand are more extreme acts of genocide negotiable in the classroom? Might their mediation be deemed a violation of victims' grief? In such circumstances it may be important to declare a moratorium on educational practice. In Rwanda, for instance, the teaching of history was suspended for two years after the conflict

5) Echoing Alan Smith's reservations regarding the international community's interventions in conflict situations Professor Hopken emphasised the importance of such initiatives being acceptable to the society in which they are being introduced. Too often they are 'top down' in approach and prove out of step with the political situation on the ground. When constitutional questions remain unaddressed, educational aspirations toward creating greater social cohesion are likely to remain unfulfilled.

For most participants Dr Austin's use of computer conferencing as a tool for generating discourse around historical issues was an innovative experience. His reference to 'crossing boundaries' had an obvious literal significance in the context of the seminar but also has echoes of Giroux's vision of the capacity of critical pedagogy to break down structural barriers in society. Work between students in Northern and Southern Ireland was cited as an example of establishing links across geographical, cultural and political space. The possibilities for bringing young people together in an electronic forum


appealed both for its capacity to overcome issues of travel and security and also to offer an alternative medium to share views in a potentially less confrontational and emotionally charged environment.

The Cypriot representation was especially enthused by its possibilities but the politically motivated lack of direct electronic links between both parts of the island were a significant barrier. As with all the resource issues raised during the week access was a major constraint in most of the educational systems represented. This harked back to the Council of Europe seminar in 1997.

Then, one delegate, when commenting on what she had seen of Northern Ireland history provision, likened herself and many of her colleagues to 'poor children before an expensive shop window. They could look but not buy'. There was evidence in this seminar, also that education provision in the emerging democracies was moving forward but that resourcing was still a major constraint. Those promoting an enquiry-based, multi-perspective approach to teaching the subject must recognise that for it to be effective it requires extensive support.

The field visit to Derry ILondonderry incorporated a presentation by Dr Crooke on the role of museums in societies recently emerged from conflict, followed by a visit to the Tower Museum. Participants also walked the city's 17th Century walls, observed its residential segregation and examined some of its politically motivated wall murals, many of them adopting an historical theme to convey their messages. The day proved of great value to the seminar in that, in a tangible form, it allowed participants to travel along the interface between school history and a divided community. Dr Crooke's talk illustrated that museums in such situations have the potential both to contribute to the abuse of history or to


facilitate greater understanding and reconciliation. In the case of the former there is the danger that funding dictates support for the position of the state: or, alternatively, in seeking consensus and popularity, the emphasis is placed on nostalgia and tourism.

If museums are to have a role in reconciliation she suggested that the critical question was whether or not the public are prepared for them to be politically engaged with the communities in which they are set. The Tower Museum is one of the few heritage establishments in Northern Ireland that has courageously attempted to deal with the recent conflict: but even here the exhibits, a display case of artefacts and a video, are presented to visitors in a passive and, to an extent, a non-judgemental way. Doubts were expressed as to whether this type of presentation could have a transformative function.

The District Six Museum in Cape Town was used as an example of a museum that interacts with the public. There, former residents have helped, physically and symbolically, to recreate a township community bull-dosed in the apartheid era. In turn, other visitors have the opportunity to contribute reflections on exhibits which portray past abuses of power. The hope is that such interventions can contribute to healing in society.

After Dr Crooke's presentation, as seminar participants walked around the divided city and took in the murals, they had time to reflect on the challenges facing history teaching in such situations. On each side of the sectarian divide the past is used as a weapon to orientate and bind political identity and to justify partisan, if deeply held, political positions. Visually, the murals play on the emotions by appealing for loyalty and solidarity. As well as developing critical thinking history teaching must engage with this emotional dimension if it is to have an impact on such strong mindsets.

10 Research-Teaching Relationships

Researchers have explored the nature of academic disciplines as distinctive epistemological and social communities, and revealed the importance of disciplinary identity in shaping the ways in which research and teaching are conceptualised. In his researches into these cultures Becher observed that historians demonstrated a particular propensity to describe themselves collectively as a 'community of scholars'.

QUALITY OF HISTORY EOUCAnON

For most academic historians, irrespective of institutional affiliation, not only is high-quality scholarship a principal goal but research and teaching are regarded as inseparable; complementary and mutually supportive dimensions of an academic career. Although the history of the discipline in higher education demonstrates that such an intimate relationship has not always been so prominent in conceptions of professional identity, since the early decades of the twentieth century the close connection between the two has been increasingly emphasised as a key characteristic of a 'higher' education in the subject and a yardstick of the quality of a history education.


The link has been perhaps most overtly apparent in the responsiveness of the history curriculum to trends in historical research during the last half century. Thus, for example, the rapid growth of research into social history in the 1960s and 70s was reflected in the growing diversity of curriculum content, with the introduction of new themes such as social protest, crime, family, childhood and leisure. Since then the growth of research in the field of cultural history has further broadened the undergraduate and postgraduate curriculum in terms of both content and theoretical approaches, with themes such as identity, consciousness and mentalities entering the mainstream curricul um.

In a discipline often considered, even among its practitioners, as 'not very self-reflexive', the nature of the relationship between research and teaching has tended to be regarded as axiomatic. As such it has constituted a mostly implicit yet tenaciously held element in the common assumptions that frame the discipline. In the last two decades, however, a pervasive culture of audit encompassing both teaching and research has enveloped British higher education and, for all its ill effects (and there are many), external pressures to ensure 'value for money', 'transparency' and 'accountability', have ensured that the issue of the research-teaching nexus has become more visible in public discourse.

Almost unanimously history departments stated in their self-evaluations the centrality of the link between research and teaching in their course provision. Indeed this was praised by peer reviewers as a key aspect of good practice, particularly in respect to curricula that were upto-date and aligned with current trends in research such as gender, ethnicity, cultural history and multi-disciplinary issues. The best history teaching, the subject overview report suggested, was informed by up-to-date scholarship

Research-Teaching Relationships 207

and research, and awareness of current debates in the subject was emphasised as a particular feature of effective learning in the subject. Perhaps unsurprisingly, sixteen of the seventeen 'excellent' verdicts delivered on undergraduate programmes were awarded to history departments in pre-1992 'research-led' universities.

Despite considerable dissatisfaction in the discipline with the way in which the exercise had been conducted, it was notable that three years later in a report to the Quality Assurance Agency on standards in history degree programmes, the opportunity offered by the TQA exercise and the national Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) of 1996 to link research and teaching in a direct and forceful fashion was eagerly seized upon. In this report by a national subject association, based upon widespread consultation across the sector, it was stated:

In constructing their programmes, departments and subject groups draw heavily on the research interests of their members. The Working Party believes that on the whole the best teaching is likely to come from people active in publication, research and scholarship. This is born out by the combined results in History of the RAE and the TQA.

Throughout a protracted period of public scrutiny during the 1990s, however, the exact nature of the link between research and teaching remained only thinly sketched out within the diScipline. When demanded by external stakeholders, statements about the teaching-research connection were largely articulated in terms of curriculum content and the subject expertise of academic staff. One historian put this dominant view succinctly in a response to an annual survey of university history published in the magazine History Today. 'The range (of courses) here', he commented, 'is largely determined by the research expertise of staff; we believe that it is essential for students to hear it from the experts ... as research underpins teaching so much'. Nor has the shorthand of 'research-


led', 'research-informed' and 'research-oriented' teaching helped the clarity of discussion; for all of these terms are used interchangeably by departments seeking to assert the indivisibility of the link.

Griffiths suggests that a distinction might be made between research-led teaching, where the tutor's own research interests fashion curricular content and students learn by transmission from the 'expert' tutor; researchoriented teaching, where students learn about the processes of research, the processes of knowledge creation are emphasised as much as knowledge acquisition in the curriculum, and the research experiences of staff are brought to bear in a more diffuse fashion; and researchbased teaching, where students themselves learn as researchers through an enquiry-led curriculum. In making an explicit effort to reduce the terminological confusion in this area, these distinctions provide a useful starting point for the clarification of terms needed in History.

Public statements about the research-teaching nexus, such as those used to illustrate disciplinary attitudes so far, rarely, of course, reflect the complexity of private discourse. This is revealed in the following survey of views in a single history department during the run-up to an external evaluation of teaching. Asked how they would describe the links between their teaching and research, the following represent the range of responses among the academic staff.

The key book (on several modules I teach) was researched, edited and largely written by me therefore the research element directly feeds into my teaching.

Major themes I teach are all areas I've researched and published in [gives long list of publications1.

The modules I teach have always been intimately connected to my research at the level of both empirical context and

Research-Teaching Relationships

theoretical framework ... my teaching is fully informed by the research I carried out for my monograph.

My researches have led to monographs and general surveys ... and my second and third year modules rely on these. My third year Special Subject and MA modules are infused with my engagement with recent developments in the field and my experience of researching and writing within it.

My research into medieval England feeds into all my teaching ... my knowledge of the subject and also of the current (and up to date) secondary literature enables me to introduce the latest concepts al'.d theories to first year undergraduates ... When I take my Special Subject, I draw on a body of primary sources and secondary work of which I am not only very familiar but to which I have contributed to myself through articles and books.

I have written widely on the area covered in my Special Subject and this enables me to give students a lot of help in deciding what topics to do in their dissertation and guide them in their reading.

My research interests are strongly represented in the modules and themes I teach at second and third year level. I do not believe I would be able to judge the quality of the books and articles that I recommend to students unless I was working actively in historical research myself. I would certainly not feel the same sort of active engagement with the material ... However, I would also like to stress that the relationship between research and teaching is not simply one way; discussion with students has sometimes opened my eyes to new ways of looking at historical issues and raised new questions, since their lack of experience allows them to 'think outside the box' of conventional scholarship.

I have always taught courses related to my research interests as I find this is a good way of sparking off interests in students: they enjoy criticising what I have written (and it may well reassure them that I know what I am talking about!).

In my teaching students do research themselves in year 2 and 3, not only in the dissertation but for seminars, and all these modules are based on current issues in the research on my period. Having to communicate your work also

209


makes you really think it through, and research I do on my teaching also influences the way I look at what they can do in class.

My research active status is an important feeder into my teaching. As well as keeping my students up to date with the 'cutting edge' of my field, research is partly what drives my energy and enthusiasm, key attributes of successful teaching.

These statements reveal a much richer, and more diverse, picture of the connection between teaching and research thar, appears in often formulaic public representations. Clearly there is a strong belief in the direct relationship between research and curriculum content; that research is reflected in the curriculum by the subject matter of the modules taught (though even this is seen in more and less sophisticated ways). But we can also see more complex lines of connection being expressed, albeit sometimes tacitly, not least between the skills acquired and employed in the research process and effective teaching and learning, between research and student (and staff) motivation, and between research and curricular progression. In two responses we can also see an explicit recognition of the two-way relationship between research and teaching; that teaching can inform research as well as the other way round, forcing the academic tutor to clarify his or her thinking and stimulating new ideas.

In one response a link is also made between subjectbased pedagogic research and classroom practice and to research-led learning through student enquiry. In all history curricula contestation of knowledge is central, and most conceptions of the curriculum see students progressing towards greater independence in learning through involvement in enquiry-led projects and research culminating in a final year dissertation, often associated with the Special Subject which provides the point at which teaching and research most clearly intersect. This


specialisation through research is extremely common, and in many history departments there is a related commitment to enabling students to become practising historians (a process which also involves them in learning many transferable skills). As MacLean and Barker point out in a small-scale study of progression in the subject, in these history departments I academics' construction of "progression" in student learning that goes beyond the acquisition of general skills are related to their constructions of what it is to do research in their discipline.'

Whilst public statements made about the links between teaching and research in History can appear rather simplistic, more complex connections are being made by practitioners, although these are often implicit rather than explicitly formulated. There are clearly many different ways in which disciplinary practitioners conceptualise the links between their research and teaching, and a growing international literature has begun to explore these differences and the contribution made to academics' conceptions by their disciplinary cultures. Links made, often implicitly, by historians include:

Content of modules is informed by academic staff research.

Theoretical perspectives from research influence approaches to teaching a topic.

Students learn about research methods from modeling by academic tutors.

Undergraduate research modules teach students how to do research.

Classroom teaching methods adopt a research-based approach, e.g. student-led seminars.


Students undertake (individual and group) research projects.

Teaching is used directly to test, refine and shape academic staff research findings.

Students assist staff with their research projects.

Students gain experience of applied research through e.g. work-based learning.

Academic staff conduct pedagogic research to enhance their teaching.

Without doubt, however, the nature of the relationship has received less systematic investigation in the discipline than it deserves. All the issues raised so far require greater investigation and exposure to community discussion and debate in a manner commensurate with standard research practice in a scholarly discipline. An example of just one question. Is there a necessary link between doing historical research and being an effective teacher of history? Clearly almost all the historians quoted above suggest an answer in the affirmative, and this is the dominant view in the discipline. However, Stearns suggests an alternative viewpoint, that 'many excellent [history] teachers do not themselves do research. They must, however, keep up with the findings of leading researchers lest their teaching stagnate.'

Might indeed today's vast number of postgraduate or part-time teaching assistants with limited research experience but an enthusiasm for teaching be better teachers than expert researchers whose focus of attention is not upon the history classroom? And what is so essential about being both a researcher and teacher? Is it the knowledge acquired, or the expertise, or the motivation? Will the answer we give be different if our primary purpose is to foster the acquisition of transferable skills


or if the goal is to enable students to become practising (or professional) historians? Similarly does the need for a strong connection vary according to year of study? How does it link to notions of progression? We need to explore such questions more carefully than we have so far done.

Some historians might maintain that any attempt to divide into two distinct roles - teacher and researcher. Most surveys, indeed, suggest that historians profess the satisfactions of both teaching and research and are distrustful of recent trends in higher education that seem to imply the need for the separation of these expressions of the passion they have for their subject. Yet this can appear a little ingenuous in its shifting of the focus of responsibility to outside agencies.

For while the personal satisfaction of both teaching and research is frequently recorded by academic historians, the separation of these two aspects of professional activity is deeply embedded in our disciplinary structures, not least in our systems of reward and recognition. In a recent survey of British history departments, for example, fiftyfive per cent of respondents reported that senior appointments were intended to get the best research candidates, and that 'in general a focus on research area and quality was a characteristic both of pre- and post- 1992 universities ... '

Similarly research was felt to be heavily-weighted in decisions about promotions. In such an ill-balanced and hierarchically separated relationship, it might be argued, the links between research and teaching at the discipline level are as much negative as they are positive, working to divert attention from serious attention to pedagogic matters and discouraging exactly the type of investigation that might enable us to forge more sophisticated links between research and teaching.

214 ," Teaching of History !

COMPLEX RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN RESEARCH AND TEACHING

In History we have only begun to explore the complex relationship between research and teaching. Indeed it might be argued that we have still much to discover about our disciplinary conceptions of the meaning of research, scholarship and teaching, and how the nature of these is changing. Serious investigation in this whole area is required, not least to enable the discipline to make a more powerful case for its value to external stakeholders in terms of its contribution to employability and active citizenship in the twenty-first century.

At the level of the individual history teacher there is a particular need to make clear to students our own conceptions of teaching and research, how they intersect, and why they matter. In other words, our often tacit knowledge and understanding needs to needs to be made explicit if our students are to become effective historians and learners. There is now some useful guidance on how we might do this and construct curricula that promote in a more developed fashion a link that is deeply felt by many academic historians.

1 1 Certification of History Teachers

History teachers who know their subject matter well are indispensable to schools striving to hold students to higher academic standards. This is a major concern for teacher education in history, according to a recent American national conference of teacher educators, academic historians, K-12 classroom history teachers, and members of state and local governing boards. The major theme of the conference was that if, according to the standardsbased strategy for democratic school reform, all students in every school are to be offered an equally solid and engaging study of history, then all teachers need equally rigorous preparation to teach them. The problems treated at the conference were how to explore the conditions under which subject matter mastery can be nurtured among history teachers, and how to determine the changes needed to bring about and sustain those conditions.

Suggested solutions pertained to better connections between history and education college faculty and the university and local schools. A six-part action plan was developed that centered on action by and for:


teachers;

education school faculty members and deans;

university historians and department chairs;

local school administrators and school committees/ board members;

representatives of state departments of education; and

members of state education and university governing boards.

TEACHERS

Conferees recommended that prospective teachers of history in middle and high school should have a college major organised around main topics and significant questions in United States history, the history of Western civilisation and of the world, and related studies in civics, geography, philosophy, literature, and the arts.

A further recommendation went beyond undergraduate preparation to the sphere of continuing education for practicing teachers; no matter how well prepared as undergraduates, teachers have a responsibility to themselves and to their students to continue their studies, both in state and local programmes for professional development and on their own. Moreover, the thousands of history and social studies teachers now in classrooms whose college preparation in history is weak must undertake intensive professional development, including summer institutes, to deepen their knowledge and pleasure in teaching history.

Colleges of Education

Conferees recommended that college of education faculty be given the authority to reduce the required number of

Certification of History Teachers 217

generic methods courses in order to offer more courses taught by teams of subject scholars and experienced teachers in the field. Furthermore, participants recommended that education faculties, together with colleagues from history departments, should redesign the undergraduate experience of prospective teachers to achieve a better balance between education courses and subject matter courses in history.

University administrators and trustees need to revise policies that make it difficult for education faculty members to mend the "jagged disconnect" between subject matter and pedagogy by joining colleagues in history departments in merged courses, doing student-teacher mentoring with historians and master teachers, and working with historians on professional development for teachers at neighbouring schools, preferably at school sites.

University Historians

These points were made by and to university historians and department chairs. Historians must press university administrators and trustees to establish sustainable personnel policies that end the disincentives for history faculty members to work with colleagues in other departments to educate and mentor prospective teachers. In addition, history faculties must review the character and requirements of their major and minor programmes (with advice from graduates who have become classroom teachers).

General education requirements for the freshman and sophomore years did not escape scrutiny; conferees recommended that historians must join their colleagues in the arts and sciences to refocus general education on basic core courses, including courses in United States history, Western civilisation, and world history for all students.


Teachers with bachelors' degrees, particularly those working in middle and high school, should not have last studied topics in world history as long ago as grade 9 or 10. Some specific recommendations were that history faculties must be authorised to:

reduce the number of highly specialised courses for undergraduates;

provide more upper-level, broad-based courses in major eras of United States history, the history of Western civilisation, and of the world;

model the use of primary sources and student inquiry in their own courses; and

forge regular working relationships with history teachers in neighbouring communities.

State Departments of Education

Conferees urged state departments of education to redesign teacher licensure and recertification examinations to test subject mastery. The examinations should be formidable; that is, they should be comparable to exemplary final examinations at the university level and should include evaluation of writing and speaking ability. State departments of education must consistently devote their priorities, review of regulations, and technical assistance to support steady, long-term local implementation of the state academic standards, which pertain to the core subjects, including history, and how to teach them.

In regard to professional development in history, state departments need to collaborate with local school districts and institutions of higher education to set criteria for approval of professional development providers of state or locally funded programmes. for classroom teachers in


academic subjects. Such criteria should include the providers' academic qualifications and experience and the relevance of proposed programmes to the curricular goals of states and localities.

Local School Administrators and Boards

To the extent that state boards and departments of education establish common curricular requirements, content standards, and performance benchmarks for statewide assessment of student achievement, state support and technical assistance must be available to local districts for a) implementing new curricula and courses in history; b) refreshing and extending teacher content knowledge in history; and c) instructing and re-integrating teachers who are displaced by curricular changes. School districts should establish regular procedures and criteria for evaluating teacher applicant}; who will be teaching history courses, including exploration of academic records and references for the history courses taken in undergraduate programmes and interviews dealing with candidates' scholarly interests in the various areas of historical knowledge.

Governing Boards

Members of state education and university governing boards must take responsibility for insuring the implementation of the above changes, focusing on those that state and local officers and university presidents and deans for many reasons often cannot make on their own. Vital among these necessary changes are stricter college admissions requirements, specific core requirements for the general education of freshmen and sophomores, reformed department majors, broader doctoral programmes to prepare college teachers, and revised incentives for faculties of education and arts and sciences.


Lay board members should engage and educate the media and inform the public and its elected officials on questions fundamental to the quality and equality of educational opportunities.

TEACHING HISTORICAL THINKING

Over the past decade, cognitive studies researcher Samuel Wineburg has conducted empirical studies to compare the way historians think about primary and secondary sources with the thinking processes of high school students and teachers. Wineburg's research demonstrates the importance of domain-based or subject-specific thinking in the teaching and learning of history.

Sourcing Heuristic and Corroboration Heuristic

Wineburg uses two key concepts -- the "sourcing heuristic" and the "corroboration heuristic" -- to explain how historians think as they read documents. When historians examine primary sources, they engage in the sourcing heuristic by asking questions about an author's credentials, motivations, and participation in events at the time a document was written and the audience for whom the document was intended. Historians contextualise the content of a document, which enables them to appreciate ways of perceiving and thinking that are quite different from conventional ways of perceiving and thinking today. When teachers and students use the sourcing heuristic, they can create a distance between their own views and those of the people of earlier eras.

Historians also use the corroboration heuristic to compare information learned from several documents. Historians make inter-text links while reading documents, noting corroboration among primary sources as well as among historians' interpretations. Wineburg's research


demonstJ:ates that some high school students who scored high on the SAT did not consistently employ the sourcing heuristic and the corroboration heuristic. While these students knew facts about the past, they did not approach a document in the same manner as the trained historians in Wineburg's study.

Wineburg's research also reveals differences among teachers in approach to documents. A teacher's history degree, Wineburg notes, does not always result in a teacher thinking in a historical context. For example, he compared the historical understanding of a teacher with a physics degree with that of a teacher with a history degree. Both teachers read documents about the LincolnDouglas debates of 1858 and the issue of racism. The physics teacher demonstrated better historical understanding than the teacher with a history degree. Wineburg's findings confirm that academic preparation in history does not necessarily guarantee that a teacher will be able to think contextually and historically.

In this instance, the teacher with a history degree was much more present-minded than his counterpart with a physics degree. Wineburg acknowledges the tentative nature of his findings; he explains, however, that this finding is not new to researchers who, in the early 1990s study "Findings on Learning to Teach," found that undergraduate students often failed to acquire a deep understanding of the academic discipline in which they majored. If we expect our students to think historically, we need teachers who can direct them toward historical thinking and consequent understanding of history.

Historical Thinking and Domain-Specific Knowledge

In "Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts," Wineburg resoundingly supports domain-specific knowledge and ways of knowing. He rejects the idea of a


monolithic model of thinking with a single set of skills, which transcends academic disciplines and thereby can be applied across the curriculum to different subjects. Wineburg strongly urges that history be taught in schools as a separate subject involving a particular way of thinking and knowing about social reality.

Wineburg's research emphasizes that knowledge of subject matter is central to teaching. Thus, an essential component of the preservice and inservice education of history teachers is teaching them "to comprehend and ponder the key ideas, events, concepts and interpretations of their discipline". Wineburg demonstrates that historical thinking -- whether directed to construction of contexts, critical analysis of documents in terms of contexts, or context-sensitive judgments of behaviour -- is enhanced by the quality and extent of the discipline-based "background knowledge" brought to the task.

Applying Historical Thinking to Reading and Interpreting Documents

Wineburg argues that the monitory reading strategy, with its emphasis on literal interpretation and comprehension, neglects the primary distinction of historical thinking, the use of the sourcing heuristic before beginning to read for comprehension. Literal comprehension of the words in a document is not enough. Students must understand the document as a source in a specific context. We can help students examine the source of a document, find an author's credentials, identify when a primary source was written (in most instances), and speculate about the intended audience. .

Analysis guides that draw students' attention to the sourcing heuristic are helpful in initiating historical thinking. Teachers can organise reading guides by five tasks: (1) identify the document, (2) analyse the document,


(3) determine the historical context, (4) identify the vital theme and narrative of the document, and (5) indicate the relationship of the document to a discipline in the social sciences/ social studies. Each task and its sub-tasks emphasize the sourcing heuristic, what historians do before reading for content comprehension; the corroboration heuristic, what historians do to relate one document to another document; contextualisation, the way historians describe the time frame and local and national conditions at the time a document was created; and comparison, which historians use to describe conditions in other parts of the world at the time a document was created.

Teachers must carefully select documents that will engage their students in historical thinking. The teacher can introduce students to a wide array of primary sources that include such written texts as letters, excerpts of speeches, diaries, and ledgers as well as visual materials such as photographs, paintings, maps, political cartoons, charts, and graphs. Capacity to find age-appropriate primary sources that embellish historical thinking is an important attribute of the effective teacher.

Generally speaking, teachers use primary sources in one of two ways. Some teachers incorporate a primary source into studying a historical topic, often to verify for students that the information they have presented is correct. Other teachers provide students with multiple primary sources to allow them to discover for themselves what the teachers and historians already know. This second way is more complex because a variety of sources are brought to bear on a topic in the classroom. We should not reject either approach. There is, however, a third way to use primary sources. This third approach is designed around first-order, second-order, and third-order documents. This third way of using primary sources


engages students in deliberative discussions beginning with a seminal document.

The teacher initially discusses the seminal (first order) document with students and asks them to suspend judgments about the past while trying to understand the context of the document. So students have a richer contextual understanding of the time period they are studying, the teacher then introduces additional documents that relate to the first order document (second order). Students are then invited to find documents on their own that pertain to their inquiry about a topic in history (third order). The third order documents that students bring to the discussions allow the teacher to assess students' dispositions and capacities to engage in historical inquiry. The assessment that takes place during the third-order deliberation intertwines deliberative discussions with the process of historical inquiry. To assist teachers and students in historical thinking, teachers can use primary source guides that are linked to Wineburg's sourcing heuristic and corroboration heuristic.

12 Future of Teaching History Research Methods

Historians need to train their students to do research in new ways to deal with the electronic age. As James B. M. Schick explains in his book, Teaching History With a Computer: A Complete Guide for College Professors, technology is providing new links between historians. "With it the relative isolation of schclars and the need for pilgrimages to document repositories may diminish as academia enters the global electronic community that links major corporations and government agencies."

Great libraries have been at the center of traditional universities, but all students and faculty have not been able to use those resources. Parker Rossman notes in The Emerging Worldwide Electronic University: Inforl1lation Age Global Higher Education that "one of the signs of the worldwide electronic university is an emerging global electronic research library system that is beginning to increase that use." Although this is only a dream at the present for some countries, "many students and faculty already participate in its beginnings."

This individual historian is more inclined to look backward than forward, and has no clear vision about


what the teaching of history using technology will be like in a decade or two. The class is not conducted completely /I on-line" but has mixed aspects of traditional pedagogy with some necessary emphasis on utilising computer technology.

CLASS ORGANISATION

The class is a compound of three related topics: The philosophy of history, methods of historical research, and the use of computer technology by historians. It is taught only during the Fall semester and meets once a week for three hours in the evening in a networked computer laboratory with access to the Internet. An attempt has been made to keep the three "threads" of the class-philosophy of history, research methods, and computer lab-as related as possible. For each of the sixteen weeks of the class, the syllabus lists the essays to be read about the philosophy of history, chapters to be read concerning research methods, and the topic to be dealt with in the computer lab. During the course of the class discussions, the professor tries to guide the students eventually to consider what the readings and computer activities mean for their indi vid ual research project.

PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY

The first major component of the class is about historiography and the philosophy of history. For each week the students read essays by notable historians on topics about the writing of history and share their comments about the readings on a computer" conference." Students can use the computer labs on campus or access their account on the university computer from their homes, dorms, or apartments. During the week before the class

Ii

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meeting, the students discuss the readings "on-line." The first two years that the class was taught, the discussions were conducted on a V AXNotes conference using guest accounts on a computer at another university.

For the third year, the Texas A&M UniversityKingsville Computer Center established a list ("HMethods") restricted to members of the class. A considerable lead time is necessary to prepare for teaching such a class. At this university it is necessary to start early to get the computer staff to establish the list before the first class meeting if the students are to get full benefits of the list. It is also necessary for the professor to learn the functions and operations of being a list manager-well before the class starts! During the first class meeting, the first lesson on the computer is to explain e-mail and lists, and to assist the students in subscribing to the H-Methods list.

Each week the professor posts a question concerning one of the essays for the students to discuss for the upcoming week. He usually posts it (distributes it to the list) early on the morning after the previous class. The question concerns some aspect of one of the essays the students are to read for the week. When students log on to the university's computer system, they find the question included in their e-mail. All replies which the students make to the list are distributed to all members of the class. The discussion by the students of the topic is a continuous, asynchronous conversation lasting up to the time of the meeting of the next class. At the end of each week, the postings on the list for that week are archived so the students can retrieve questions or comments on that topic for further reference.

Student participation in the dialogue on the list varies as greatly as if the discussion were held in a traditional


classroom. Some students are very active, posting numerous answers and adding questions and comments about postings by other students. Other students are "minimalists" adding only one posting a week. There are interesting variations from the participation expected from students. Some of the students who would usually be outspoken in class discussions are also active on the list. But some articulate students seem uncomfortable about the technology and participate much less on the list than they would in a classroom setting.

Most interesting, however, are students who are reluctant to talk in class who became very active in the discussions on the list. The capability of composing their answers, pondering about what they were saying, and then editing their answers before posting seem to make some usually reticent students more willing to contribute. Handicapped students, who might otherwise be selfconscious, have generally been especially active on the list.

The professor observes the discussions on the list, but does not actively participate. Occasionally, he sends e-mail messages to individual students about some aspect of their posting, but does not post comments about an individual student's answers on the list for everyone to see. The discussion is meant to be by and for the students with the professor an omniscient but silent observer. Students often encourage and discourage each other, moving the subject along, eliciting further comments, or bringing the dialogue back to the topic when someone strays.

In general, the students are much more civil than discussions on many of the lists on the Internet. Students seem to self-moderate the list themselves. There was only one occasion when a student made a personal, unnecessary, and unacceptable comment-to which several students made replies, discouraging further such

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comments. At the beginning of each class meeting, the professor tries to solicit further observations about comments posted during the week. The professor also asks students about their reactions to other aspects of the reading and to the other essays read but not included in the posted question.

Some of the students who were reticent" on line" feel more comfortable talking in a classroom setting and actively contribute more to the discussion. Because the students have already written answers to one question about the reading, they seem to have more completely internalised the material. Many seem to know the subject better for having organised and written about the subject. It is as if they had completed a take-home essay examination each week. During the class discussions, the professor asks the students frequently how the topics being discussed relate to their individual research project.

RESEARCH METHODS

A second major component of the class deals with the methods of history research. Each week the class is assigned one or more chapters in a textbook on researching a topic for history. Most evenings the students discuss aspects of the readings about doing research and describe progress on their research projects. Each student is expected to research and write a paper on a topic agreed to with the professor as an exercise in philosophy and methods. They are to investigate the topic, locate documents, interpret the information, synthesize their conclusions, and demonstrate their mastery by writing a term paper. This component is expected to be a "history laboratory" -demonstrating that they were familiar with the philosophy of history, history research methodology, and resources available to historians by computer technology.


The professor also assigns himself a research topic so that he can participate in the discussion-describing developments on his project during the semester as the students report on their progress. This is intended to be teaching by example. It is hoped that the students will discover a logic to the professor's pursuing particular avenues of information and will be able to apply the same approaches to their own research. Although it may be embarrassing for a professor to admit that some weeks his research has not been fruitful, it is a valuable and reassuring lesson for students who are just learning about the frustration of research, especially in archives and with primary sources.

To help prepare the students for their research papers, part of one of the early class meetings is a tour of the South Texas Archives. The archives are used extensively by many of the history classes as a teaching "lab" for research in history. Over the years a variety of projects have been developed to introduce history majors especially, but even general undergraduate students in U.s. history survey classes, to the qualities and utility of archives. History classes have used the South Texas Archives to research a variety of local subjects: the Kingsville Original Townsite Project, The Tombstone project, La Castaua Project, and The 75th Anniversary History of Texas A&M University-Kingsville project. Even if students locate archival collections relevant to their topics on the Internet, they still need the skills to locate the specific documents at an archive.

Although students might be familiar with library research techniques, they are usually unfamiliar with archival research which requires different and additional research skills because of the unique way in which the materials are categorised and filed. In addition to the tour of the South Texas Archives, a reading is assigned to the

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students, "Historians and Archivists: Educating the Next Generation." The tour and the reading are intended to give students a better understanding of what they should know about archival practices in order to do research successfully. Lists of potential topics that might be successfully researched in this archives are accumulated with the assistance and cooperation of the archivist. In this way the archivist can be of more assistance in teaching students how to ask for assistance in an archives.

Computer Technology

A third major component of the class is a weekly laboratory presentation about some aspect of computer technology, followed by a hands-on application of that skill. During the course of the semester, the students are expected to employe-mail during the list discussions; obtain documents by File Transfer Protocol (FTP) from the National Archives, Library of Congress, Texas State Library or elsewhere; use on-line public access catalogs; subscribe to one H-Net list (in addition to the H-Methods list on the campus); discuss history subjects on Newsgroups; demonstrate Gopher, Archie, Jughead, and Veronica searches; and employ W AIS and WWW searches. The emphasis and examples are on history resources available, not on other amusing but not relevant features of the Internet.

The professor has been interested in finding a book focusing on the history resources on the Internet. For the computer laboratory component of the class, there are many books dealing with the Internet in general which could be used as textbooks. But many of these books are technical, very large, expensive, and often deal with a great deal that is not necessarily useful to history students. For this part of the class there has been no textbook, but there are a series of handouts for the students. By the end of


the semester the students will receive approximately thirtyfive handouts, totaling one-hundred pages.

If the topic of the evening is public access catalogs, for example, approximately thirty minutes will be devoted to an explanation and demonstration by the professor followed by a step-by-step handout for the students to access several catalogs. One handout includes the steps to access the University of California System (MEL VYL) and other university catalogs. At first the students are taught to telnet to the libraries because many are able to connect to the university's computer from home, but lack PPP accounts. Later in the semester, they access the catalogs using Netscape Navigator and the World Wide Web. During the practice session following the professor's demonstration, the students search MEL VYL for books relevant to their personal research subject and e-mail the results to themselves as a beginning for their bibliography. Another handout is devoted to doing periodical literature searches in Wilson indexes at the Texas A&M University Library and in UnCover at CARL.

Because the students are doing original research on limited local topics so that the documents will be available in the archives, most of their sources are not found "online." Much of the background and larger context for their topic, however, is found in the library catalogs, databases, or other information on the Internet. As archives continue to automate, more documents will be electronically available in the future, from even the smallest archives.

Each class session covers topics on the philosophy of history, methods of research, and computer resources for historians. The syllabus lists the philosophy of history readings, topics to be discuss about research methodology, and computer activities for each class. There is at least one step-by-step handout for each evening's class dealing

Future of Teachillg History Research Methods 233

with the computer lab topic for the student to add to a ring binder. In addition to the step-by-step computer handout, frequently there are handouts on other relevant topics.

The students begin with an "on-line" discussion of the essay by Macauley on "History and Literature" in the week before the class meets. When the class meets, there is a review of the list discussion. The next part of the class that fourth class evening is an analysis of documents. There are three handouts: two handouts on documents and one handout about connecting to public access catalogs.

For the last part of the class, the students practice telnetting to the library catalogs of the University of California, Dartmouth, Harvard, Texas A&M University, and the University of Texas. Computer addresses can change quickly and the ones included in a handout one semester often become outdated by the next time the class is taught. The emphasis in this exercise is upon doing literature searches for research topics. Obviously, other public access catalogs could be used instead of the ones noted above. Frequently the professor asks the students to consider how to apply what they have just learned to the data they are locating for their individual research project.

Other Computer Lab topics

Class discussions of essays by historians and of research methodology are traditional for such a course and do not need further elaboration. The computer laboratory emphasis upon on-line resources for historians is not so traditional. On one evening the computer lab segment of the class deals with the topic of File Transfer Protocol (FTP). The students connect to computers at remote sites such as the University of North Carolina, Library of


Congress, Marshall University, Mississippi State University, and elsewhere to retrieve documents. In addition to the step-by-step handout for that evening class, a copy of an article by Michael J. McCarthy, "The Historian and Electronic Research: File Transfer Protocol (FTP)" is distributed to students.

Another laboratory session deals with lists and listservs, and the students subscribe to one of the H-Net lists appropriate for their interest in history. The professor gives a lengthy description, distinction, and warning about the difference between the list and the listserv. One handout for that evening is a copy of the article on "HNet lists" in History Microcomputer Review by Kelly Woestman. In late October, the computer lab exercise deals with Web sites, and the examples used that evening are timely, dealing with the Presidential election. The class uses Professor Woestman's article on political candidates, parties, and political issues Web sites and Newsgroups.

The students also learn how to telnet to sites which have a menu of options so that the student can connect to many different libraries in the United States and at universities in foreign countries. At Texas A&M University-Kingsville, the majority of the students in this class are Mexican-Americans, bilingual, and many are interested in Latin American history. They learn how to log on to the Rio Grande Freenet and to use it as a convenient gateway to Latin American sites through the Latin American Network Information Center (University of Texas).

On another evening, the lab is devoted to Archie, Jughead, and Veronica searches. A demonstration is given in which "Veronica" at Universidad Nacional Autimoma de Mexico (UNAM) is used to search for everything in which the word "museum" appears in the title. After

Future of Teaching Histon) Research Methods 235

several minutes, Veronica displays the first 200 items, but also shows that she had located a total of 3,582 sites, including: Maritime Museum of the Great Lakes, Gold Prospector Museum, National Railway Museum .... The students then spend the rest of the lab session trying Archie, Jughead, and Veronica searches of their own. During the course of their explorations, the students search for their individual research topics by searching for "slavery", "railroads", "Civil War", "ranching", or some other relevant term.

For one evening session, the handout is devoted to "virtual reference desks." There are many, sites and routes to those types of resources. The example used is to access some of the resources through the Rio Grande Freenet. From that base, the students examine dictionaries, encyclopedias, U.S. Census Data, Project Gutenberg, the Complete Works of Shakespeare, and so on. The computer lab session devotes an evening to an introduction to the World Wide Web. Web sites are popping up overnight like mushrooms.

The students receive a handout of several sites to visit and are encouraged to explore for sites relevant to their topics. There is too much to cover more than just a basic introduction to each type of activity, such as FTP, Gopher, or WWW in each computer lab. For each of the topics introduced in the computer lab sessions, it is expected that the student will continue to explore this aspect of technology for historians in the week following the class and throughout the remainder of the semester.

Sites on the Internet and the technology to access them change so fast that handouts become dated before the next time the class is offered. The professor would like to prepare all handouts before the class begins so that students can purchase a complete set from a photocopy-


store across from campus. It has proved almost impossible to prepare that far ahead for the class. Handouts prepared for a specific topic in the summer, when the professor has the "leisure" to review the overall organisation and materials for the class, have become partially obsolete by the time the class session devoted to that topic meets in November or December.

13 Evaluation of History Teaching

Eugen Weber once explained the appeal of the work of such historians as Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre by saying that 'books like these opened vast horizons. Here were new ways of doing history that brought the dead to life. Where historians used to stop on people's doorsteps, or timidly ventured to study or salon, Febvre and Bloch strode in to peer at bedrooms, kitchens, middens, and beyond them at ways folk thought and felt: mentalites.' Role-play asks students to consider this level of quotidian human and topographical detail in the past. It helps students to see the world as did those once living in itthrough their own words where possible-and thus to understand something of the difference of the past without fetishising the otherness of those who lived there.

By dwelling on the nature of human relationships in the past (indeed, perhaps being inescapably reduced to them), role-play communicates the humanity of medieval men and women and focuses student minds on the words and actions that were possible in the historical scenario in question. Role-play thus makes students realise that the outcomes of historical crises and processes have not been inevitable, but that 'people who live through the actual


happenings have difficulty in perceiving a pattern; rather, they often experience a sense of disorder, turbulence, and groping.

The staged 'groping' of the role-play exercise can produce is a greater 'historical-mindedness' in the student: it can 'provide students [with] a critical skill that they do not necessarily learn from listening to a lecture: historical perspective'. Finally, role-play necessitates a microhistorical approach in which interrogation of a particular crisis or debate can illuminate the broader historical landscape for the benefit of the student's deeper understanding.

There seemed to be many pedagogical reasons why the introduction of such role-play exercises made sense. The integration of primary source material into the curriculum and the emphasis on micro-historical episodes aside, educational researchers have argued that role-play sharpens students' analytical and presentational skills, builds confidence, encourages a shift from 'fact to factors' in their investigation of historical problems, and allows students to think beyond the accepted versions of historical developments as they imagine the available choices and mental frameworks which restricted the actions of historical agents.

The student responses provided through questionnaires generally provide a better guide to the effectiveness of role-play than this attempt to draw conclusions from student choice and performance in essay and exam. At least there we can learn, in their own words, how students felt about the teaching and learning environment, and consequently we can deduce which elements of the exercise (or its control counterpart) were perceived to be most helpful to students' learning. In this area, our initial suppositions were borne out: students like

Evaluatioll of Histonj Teaching 239

the structure that a role-play exercise offers, and the accompanying higher participation rates in the discussion; they like the way in which a close engagement with primary sources allows a deeper understanding of the concerns and thought processes of the historical actors involved and consequently makes conceptual issues (or, alternatively, the density of detail) easier to understand.

As far as students were concerned, the role-plays seem to have been effective in humanising the past and in making comprehensible views and actions that would otherwise seem alien to them. Harold Gorvine points out, some time ago from his own teaching experience that roleplay exercises are especially useful for topics concerning issues and decisions that students find 'immoral', such as the American government's decision to drop atomic bombs on Japan in 1945. As he points out, '[t]he aim is not to get them either to agree or disagree with what was done; they will do that in any case. Rather, this kind of role playing may enable them to understand why these men concluded at the time that such a decision was necessary.'

In all cases, the students also pointed to the more relaxed and informal atmosphere that many thought characterised the role-play session (perhaps ironically, since those sessions were probably more structured than regular seminars). The least popular elements of role-play concerned absenteeism among students, a lack of time for discussion and the slight frustration involved in having researched only one point of view. Yet, in all cases, it would seem that the enlivening effect that the role-play exercise had on the seminar environment heavily outweighed the latter concern. What do the student responses in the control cohorts tell us about the ingredients fur a good seminar? Do they allow us to isolate the role-play element in determining the answer to that question?


In other words, it would seem that students respond particularly well to a structured case-study approach which functions as a microcosm for the exploration of broader issues. Above all, they like a seminar environment in which all students-and not just the predictable few-are actively engaged in discussion. Perhaps, then, it is not the role-play element per se which pleases students, but the way in which a task-based and structured approach generally draws more students into the discussion, perhaps by increasing the sense of group responsibility among individual students.

HISTORICAL SCENARIOS

What do the student responses tell us about whether some historical topiCS or scenarios lend themselves better to a role-play treatment than others? Did the students taking the medieval courses respond differently from those studying later modern topics? In general, there was no discernible difference between the responses of each category of students. In fact, the student comments on the questionnaires in particular suggested that both groups of students liked and disliked exactly the same features of the role-play and control group seminars. Were there, in any case, significant differences in how the medievalist and later modernist role-plays were constructed?

A central feature of the role-plays has been giving students access to primary source material directly related to the scenario. It may be that it is the nature of the source material that determines how well suited to role-play is a given historical event or scenario. Illustrations of the venues or landscapes against which the role-play scenario is supposed to be unfolding also help to build a sense of immediacy for the students and to illuminate something of what was possible or likely to occur given the physical constraints of the environment.

14 Assessments to Improve the Teaching and Learning History

A history teacher's curriculum planning, choice of classroom methodology, and means to assess student learning are inextricably linked. Forms of assessment that involve only recall of discrete information are likely to encourage teaching methods that emphasize low-level cognition. Further, traditional forms of assessing students' knowledge of history neither prompt students to reveal all they know about the subject nor challenge them to learn more. Thus, teachers and researchers have concluded that traditional assessments must be complemented by new methods that can reinvigorate and improve the teaching and learning of history in schools.

ALTERNATIVE ASSESSMENTS

Alternative assessment can be a diagnostic tool to improve both a teacher's instruction and a student's learning of history by revealing information about three dimensions of a student's historical literacy. First, students who complete alternative assessment activities demonstrate their knowledge of historical facts, themes, and ideas. Second, students who complete alternative assessment activities


demonstrate their ability to reason; that is, to analyse, evaluate, and synthesize historical evidence. And third, students who complete alternative assessment activities demonstrate their ability to communicate their historical knowledge and reasoning to others.

Each dimension of a student's historical literacy has its own important characteristics that provide the structural frame teachers need to create an alternative assessment activity for their students. Knowledge of historical evidence is the prerequisite students need to demonstrate their ability in the other two dimensions. The Bradley Commission's "Vital Themes and Narratives" is a conceptual scheme that helps students organise their knowledge of the past. These themes serve as filters to help students differentiate between what is important and what is insignificant in the historical record. They provide direction for students to accurately identify, define, and describe important concepts, facts, and details.

Historical facts and themes, approached through informed questions, are points of departure for demonstrating a student's ability to reason. Reasoning makes the facts and themes meaningful and thereby brings about a deeper understanding of the subject. Reasoning certainly involves critical thinking and requires students to discover relationships among facts and generalisations, and values and opinions, as a means to provide a solution to a problem, to make a judgment, or to reach a logical conclusion.

Historical reasoning ought to be the principal aim of historical study and alternative assessment. The National History Standards (1996, 14-24) distinguish historical reasoning or thinking and historical understanding. The latter defines what students should know; the former makes it possible for students to differentiate between past,

Assessments to Improve the Teaching and Learnillg History 243

present, and future; raise questions; seek and evaluate evidence; compare and analyse historical illustrations, records, and stories; interpret the historical record; and construct historical narratives of their own.

The Bradley Commission's "Habits of Mind" provides a useful conceptualisation of historical reasoning, such as the ability of students to understand the significance of the past and the present to their own lives; to perceive events and issues as they were experienced by people at the time; and to recognise the importance of individuals who have made a difference.

Effective communication of historical knowledge and historical reasoning requires a student to organise, interpret, and express his or her thoughts. In recounting events of the past, a student must develop a clearly defined thesis and create an interesting narrative that tells what happened in an informed way. A well-organised presentation supplies relevant examples to support its main ideas and offers conclusions and a synthesis based on an analysis of historical sources. Furthermore, evidence of a student's knowledge and reasoning must always be apparent in an effective presentation.

Alternative assessment in history offers a wide variety of ways for students to communicate their knowledge and reasoning: analysing a primary source; drawing political cartoons; creating newspapers; participating in historical simulations; and writing research papers. As teachers create assessment activities they should ask the following questions:

Does the activity match my teaching goals?

Does the activity adequately reflect the "Vital Themes and Narratives" in its organisation of the historical content and the "Habits of Mind" that I expect my students to use in thinking about the past?


Does the activity enable my students to demonstrate their development in historical knowledge, reasoning, and communication?

Does the activity motivate students to demonstrate their capabilities?

Alternative Assessment Activities

For decades, good history teachers have been using projects and activities requiring students to blend skills and knowledge across disciplines. Often, the problem has been assessing the activity. Critics have rightly cautioned that alternative assessment is susceptible to corruptibility, possible lack of sensitivity to cultural and linguistic diversity, and psychometric issues such as generalisability and reliability. We should be aware of these important problems, but a more immediate concern for classroom teachers is: Will the teacher need to create a new rubric for each assessment activity?

Recently, a generic "History Rubric for Alternative Assessment" has been developed to help teachers assess their students' knowledge, reasoning skills, and communication skills. It is an analytic rubric which allows a history teacher to assess simultaneously student performance in each of the three interrelated dimensions: knowledge, reasoning skills, and communication skills.

Each dimension of the rubric is divided into six levels. Each level is defined by several criteria which reflect a student's abilities and skills. Collectively, levels 6, 5, and 4 are designed to differentiate among students whose knowledge, reasoning skills, and communication skills are developed. Collectively, 3, 2, and 1 represent knowledge, reasoning skills, and communication skills that are still developing. Level 6 represents work of a student who exhibits the most developed knowledge and skills; level 1

Assessments to Improve the Teaching and Leamillg History 245

represents the work of a student with the lowest level of developing knowledge and skills.

IMPROVING THE TEACHING AND LEARNING

A "History Rubric for Alternative Assessment" is especially appropriate and useful for assessment in history education, because the rubric benefits teachers and students alike. Teachers know that their students may perform at a more or less developed level in one dimension than in another. For example, when a student analyses a primary source document he or she may demonstrate knowledge at a level 6, reasoning at a level 5, and communication at a level 3. An analytic rubric allows teachers to take these differences into account when assessing their students. An analytic rubric benefits students by showing them their strengths and weaknesses in each dimension. Thereby, they learn where they must place their time and effort to improve their historical knowledge, reasoning skills, and communication skills.

The effective use of a rubric requires planning and practice by teachers and students alike. Moreover, teachers must share the rubric with their students because it contains the criteria that students will have to meet as they construct historical knowledge, engage in historical reasoning, and communicate what they know and understand. Successful acquisition of knowledge and development of skills in reasoning and communication demands that both teachers and students know in advance the criteria they are seeking in each dimension, and that the students are coached about the best ways to demonstrate their abilities. For teachers, the rubric serves as a diagnostic tool; for students, it establishes the parameters for attaining success.


As students attempt initially to meet t,e criteria of an alternative assessment activity, they may achieve developed levels (level 6, 5, or 4) in one dimension (knowledge, reasoning skills, and communication skills), while achieving a developing level (3,2, or 1) in the other dimensions. Reference to the rubric during consultation with their teacher will help students to organise their historical knowledge and reasoning and to consider ways to communicate effectively what they know and think about the past.

15 Future of Learn and Teach History

Inseparable from content in planning the present-day history~ curriculum, including its social dimension, is the issue of skills development. A dichotomy may have been perceived to exist be~een teaching history and developing students' cognitive and other types of skills, but the debate has now shifted to deciding on the emphasis that should be given to skills' promotion. Enhancing students' historical awareness and understanding, as well as fostering their interest in history, remain the key aims. Yet the issue has to be faced that only a small minority of students can follow careers in which they are able to use their historical knowledge to any appreciable extent.

Addressing the skills agenda, however, not only brings considerable advantage in achieving the key aims, but also in highlighting the u·se value of history degrees with regard to employability, especially when the wide range of occupations into which history graduates go, and the elevated positions to which they aspire, are taken into account. In addition to considerations of content selection and skills development are those of teaching and learning approaches. Whilst lectures and seminars continue to predominate, neither are strangers to criticism, particularly


because they are seen to be ineffective in the learning process. However, higher education historians are well to the fore amongst those !\,ho are devising and implementing more experiential and independent forms of learning, not least by encouraging students to engage with primary evidence.

Given the richness and variety of the source material at their disposal, social historians are well placed to participate in such activity. Moreover, in history as in other academic disciplines, active and independent forms of learning are being facilitated by the growing use of virtual learning environments, both to enhance provision of the resources with which students can work and to facilitate communication within the learning communities of which they are a part.

Adding to the list of curricular issues that must be addressed in relation to the future of social history teaching is that of how students should be assessed. Discussions about assessment embrace a wide range of concerns, including, for example, achieving consistency and transparency in grading students' work, a matter that seems generally to be addressed with the use of assessment criteria and accompanying statements of attainment. But of fundamental concern, too, is the balance that should be struck between examinations and coursework and about the form that both should take. In teaching all types of history, the ways in which these matters are handled can have a marked impact on student performance, the more so when they are specifically addressed in relation to student needs and aspirations.

A final area of consideration remains to be noted. It concerns the notion of progression. At issue here is how the teaching of social and other types of history can be made more challenging for students as they proceed

Future of Leam alld Teach History 249

through their programmes of study. Linked with it is the concept of differentiation, which deals with the learning increments that arise from level to level. Determining progression and differentiation should arguably be linked to each of the curricular dimensions outlined above.

Statements relating to them are vital in helping students to appreciate what is required of them as their historical understanding develops and in helping to ensure that a reasonable degree of commonality is achieved amongst teaching teams with regard to these requirements. The line of argument taken is that enhancing the appeal and relevance of social history to an undergraduate clientele will depend on taking careful account of students' needs, especially in terms of employability, and of reflecting these needs in both the way the curriculum is designed and in the learning and teaching approaches that are adopted.

CONTENT ISSUES

Whilst the extent to which social history is taught at all levels of education no doubt varies markedly from one institution to another, the overall impact it has made in curriculum terms may well be quite limited. From a United States perspective, Peter Stearns concedes that notable progress has occurred, with women and some minority groups gaining a place in standard history textbooks, but he remains concerned that social history topics are "squeezed into a largely conventional political framework," sometimes appearing sporadically without the opportunity for students to analyse major changes over time. He regrets, too, that "the behavioural findings in social history-the work on family, on leisure, or mannerssimply don't make it into mainstream teaching agendas ... ," so that "few students gain access to social history's explanatory power in assessing how current patterns


emerge from the past." And the scant attention paid to social dimensions in state history learning standards only heightens his anxiety.

How far similar observations to those of Stearns may be made in relation to the progress of social history in the British educational system is debatable. That, at undergraduate level, students in British universities can specialise to a far greater extent in history than their United States counterparts, plainly gives greater opportunity for their programmes of study to contain appreciable amounts of social history. And social history offerings are certainly well represented in the British undergraduate history curriculum, though with varying degrees of emphasis.

Moreover, that course unit planning in Britain tends not to be so strongly rooted in developing long-period perspectives on World History and Western Civilisation helps to give social history a strong curriculum identity in its own right. Even so, it may be the case in Britain that long-period course units dealing with world history still incorporate social history in a limited way, missing opportunity for students to grapple with such matters as social causation of events and the influence of social considerations in determining historical pe-riodisation.

Whatever the extent to which social history is being tau'ght, and whatever the level of education concerned, the fundamental question to arise in curriculum planning terms is precisely how much social history should students ideally study. Clearly, precise specification is as unnecessary as it is undesirable. But, as envisaged by history benchmarking in Britain, some reasonable balance between different types of history needs to be established. Achieving such an outcome is fraught with difficulty, however. Problems associated with how far different types

Future of Learn an~ Teach History 251

of history can anp should be seen as having discrete boundaries; the extr'etne specialisation that many historians bring to their teaching, especially, perhaps, in Britain; and the straightjacket that traditional approaches can impose on curriculum development, all cloud the issue.

Furthermore, from a student perspective, the question of whether some broad equality in studying various types of history, including social history, should be imposed in programmes of study raises profound concern. An element of compulsion to meet such an objective may well prove acceptable, most obviously, perhaps, in the early stages of programmes when new interests may be aroused and the marks awarded may not count towards final degree classification. Yet too much compulsion risks leading to reluctant learning and to students underperforming. Nor is excessive compulsion likely to help students gain growing control of their own learning agendas as they progress through their programmes of study.

Faced with these fundamental problems, the most appropriate way forward must surely be to find ways of ensuring that the study of social history maximises its appeal to students. In making the selection, one potential danger that can all too easily be overlooked is that of being essentially supply led. All historians have their own specialist interests and there is much to be said for teaching from research strengths. Yet the enthusiasms of teacher and taught, even within the confines of particular types of history, will not necessarily coincide. Moreover, research interests may well be highly specialised and not appropriate for early-stage studies, if for later ones. Nor can it be assumed that any themes that are thought crucial for students of social history to engage with will necessarily prove of riveting interest to them, even in the hands of gifted teachers with bountiful resources at their disposal.


At the very least, therefore, there is a need to consider what themes and issues are likely to be of high use value in generating interest amongst students. Discussion between social historians on the matter will certainly prove fruitful, as will securing the opinions of students who have actually experienced social history teaching. Themes that are much discussed with regard to present-day society, such as social inequality, family break-up and sexual values, will certainly need consideration, not only because they are so often of direct relevance to students in their everyday lives, but also because they are subjects about which students can be relied upon to have knowledge and opinions on which they can draw. In the same way that themes in political history are often used to juxtapose present with past so too, can those in social history. The question of how much choice in terms of subject matter can and should be given to students, even at the introductory stage of their studies, needs addressing.

It might be objected that too much can be done in terms of pandering to areas of likely student interest, even if these can be identified with any certainty. And there is much to be said for this view if a key aim is for students to gain a broad appreciation of the nature and concerns of the subject. Even so, ways have to be found of engaging students' initial interest in social history and attending to the introductory content of their programmes of study provides an important window of opportunity.

SKILLS DEVELOPMENT

Whilst addressing the skills agenda has become part of the stock-in-trade of higher education history teachers, whatever their areas of specialisation, questions arise as to precisely what skills should be taught and how far skills development should influence the design of the history curriculum. Fostering historical interest and understanding

Future of Learn and Teach History 253

remain the driving forces, of course, but engaging strongly with skills development can playa crucial role in achieving this aim, as well as offering fundamental help to students in career terms.

This is not the place to offer a detailed discussion of the nature of skills nor of skills classjfications, though, as far as any academic discipline is concerned, both need clarification for curriculum development purposes. What is of particular concern here is the type of cognitive skills that students need to acquire if they are to operate effectively as historians, such as critically analysing secondary historical literature and evaluating the reliability of historical evidence. Such skills no doubt have applicability beyond the academy, especially in the world of work, albeit for the great majority of students in nonhistorical contexts. And included within this group might be the basic presentational and study skills that undergraduate students need to acquire, but which they often lack, including the ability to be grammatically c.orrect, to take notes and to structure assignments appropriately.

How far historians should be involved in helping students to acquire these basic skills has become a matter of growing concern with the move towards mass higher education and may well require greater attention from historians even on those undergraduate programmes where basic skills are purportedly taught elsewhere. The question also arises as to how far skills that are not vital in studying history should also be given attention in the history curriculum. Working in groups provides a good example. Historical study can certainly provide plentiful opportunity for students to engage in group work, enabling them to support one another and, in large measure, to take responsibility for organising the learning activities they undertake.


Moreover, learning to work co-operatively within budget and to deadlines may well be of great value in providing the type of experience that commonly arises in the workplace. Yet benefiting from group work is by no means essential in studying history as an undergraduate, let alone to securing a good degree result, and r~latively few history graduates, even in recent years, may have had experience of working with others to any marked extent.

The notion of essential and non-essential skills in the study of history leads naturally into the issue of how far skills development should permeate undergraduate history courses and course units, including those dealing with social history. To a greater or lesser extent, each course unit will pay attention to skills acquisition, and skills concerned with, say, the analysis of historical issues and the presentation of findings will figure in all of them. The question arises, however, as to whether or not some units should be included in history offerings that have a much stronger skills orientation than others. They might, for example, enable students to undertake small-scale investigations into aspects of social history using various types of primary evidence, including that derived from field observation and oral testimony. Furthermore, with students' future careers in mind, they might relate, say, to devising practical work of the type that students intending to become teachers might undertake in schools with children of varying ag~s.

The key point about ~uch units is that, instead of being primarily concerned with historical content, they offer both the opportunity to enhance skills provision and to emphasise the importance of skills development. Additionally, skills-orientated units enable students to engage very directly in historical investigation and to do so in a sustained manner. With regard to social history, this point can be particularly well made. In terms. of theme,

Future of Learn and Teach History 255

available source material and investigative approach, socia1 history offers tremendous opportunities for students to undertake small-scale investigations that vary in nature and scope, enabling them to learn in depth through practical experience. That these investigations may be allowed to reflect students' particular interests only adds to the value they can have as learning experiences and hence to the appeal of social history.

Whatever decisions are taken about the inclusion of skills-orientated units in history programmes, the main consideration from a student perspective is that enhancing cognitive skills is of crucial importance in promoting both historical understanding and employment prospects. The idea that degrees which include major components of history are essentially non-vocational may well need challenging if history undergraduate provision is to thrive in a higher educational environment that is increasingly instrumentally driven.

Yet to strengthen this challenge needs consideration not only of the enhancement of intellectual skills that studying history brings, but also of the ways in which skills appreciated by employers can be highlighted in the activities required of undergraduate history students. Making reference to external drivers in this way may seem to be putting the cart before the horse, but the danger of teaching history without exploring how far a double coincidence of wants exists between employers and academics is to miss a key opportunity to demonstrate the use value that historical study can have.

Whether, as with the inclusion of particular content dimensions in history programmes, the implementation of the skills dimension requires the introduction of compulsion also needs consideration. Much may depend on whether, in general, course units are designed to


provide opportunity for students to engage in skills-based activities, as increasingly appears to be the case. Still the danger arises that attention to skills enhancement may be too limited if skills-orientated units are not required and made part of the compulsory component in history course offerings.

LEARNING AND TEACHING ApPROACHES

Whilst lectures and seminars may well continue to be the main means by which history undergraduate programmes are defivered, it seems probable that the tendency to emphasise experiential and independent forms of learning will intensify. Such approaches are particularly associated with students informing their studies through the analysis of primary source material, vast and growing amounts of which are readily accessible to !hem, especially in on-line form. That much of this material can be utilised in studying social history themes offers a great deal of scope for social historians to devise and implement these learning approaches, not only as normal elements in lectures and seminars, but also through tutorial guidance in relation to individual student projects.

Because of differences in student numbers, the introduction of experiential learning normally proves easier in seminars than in lectures. And the forms that seminars based on experiential learning can take vary considerably, examples including pyramiding/'buzz' groups, where a small group discusses ideas and then shares them with others, and syndicates, where students discuss issues working in parallel groups. Accordingly, a less intimidating environment is created for those who are verbally reticent, whilst each participant is given greater opportunity to contribute than would be the case with whole-class discussions. But group work in seminars also takes the form of practical workshop activities that require


students to explore historiographical issues with the aid of primary evidence, the work of each group perhaps being combined to permit a fuller analysis and to provide a firmer basis for plenary discussion.

Experiential learning also appears to be gaining greater favour in lectures, at least in those catering for relatively small numbers of students. Students questioning as the lecture proceeds, and giving them the opportunity to ask questions of the lecturer from time to time, are examples. So, too, are class debates and the polling of student opinion that can arise from them. What is important with these types of activity is that they enable students to participate more directly in the learning process than is the case with lectures that depend entirely on inputs made by the lecturer. Not all students may be reached through these techniques and some are likely to engage more strongly than others, but the overall impact may still be considerable, especially if the contributions of the more reticent are actively sought and valued as the lecture series proceeds.

Further opportunities to develop experiential forms of learning are being increasingly realised through the use of leT facilities. Provision of primary source material for use in seminar discussions and workshops, some in data base and spreadsheet form, offers useful possibilities here. So, too, do on-line seminars, which involve synchronous dialogue between the teacher and small groups of students, and asynchronous discussion, which can involve larger numbers of students and may require little teacher intervention. One advantage perceived to arise with the former is that they improve the quality of discussion, since, for example, all participants can respond simultaneously to a point, so no one is put off by having to wait and risk discussion moving ahead.


That such students may be less shy on-line seems to reflect the responsibility they feel they should take because they are less certain than in a face-to-face situation whether other students will respond. As to asynchronous discussions, a major advantage is seen to arise in that they provide a useful means by which groups of students can interact with one another outside the confines of designated face-to-face seminar times. In this way, an additional means of creating learning groups can be achieved, enabling students to discuss matters of concern with each other including and beyond those raised in seminar discussion. Furthermore, as T. Mills Kelly suggests, since students now communicate via technology to an unprecedented degree, they may actually prefer online approaches as a means of enhancing collaborative learning.

The broader advantage that on-line facilitates can bring with regard to enabling more flexible approaches to learning also needs recognition. That some provision is made available in flexible form can be of particular advantage to students with heavy employment and/or family commitments. Indeed, students can be freed entirely from attending face-to-face lectures and seminars, with tuition being provided for them solely on-line. But elements of flexibility might be built into many course units, freeing time for a greater amount of individual contact with students. Of course, such approaches are not dependent on using on-line forms of delivery, though online provision can prove highly convenient and cost effective, especially where substantial visual inputs are involved.

ASSESSMENT CONSIDERATIONS

The move towards more experiential forms of learning history at undergraduate level, especially with regard to

Future of Learn and Teach Histor~1 259

dissertation preparation, coupled with the delivery of the skills agenda, which has encouraged the growth of primary-source based activity, brings a far greater emphasis on assessing students by means of coursework rather than by examinations. How far this change should proceed, and what forms coursework assessment might take, are matters that have inevitably generated a good deal of discussion amongst historians. Part of the context for these deliberations has been the shortcomings that examinations are perceived to have as a means of assessment, especially in relation to experiential forms of learning, but there has also been a good deal of discussion about new ways that students can be assessed when tackling the skills agenda, with oral assessment being prominent amongst them.

That traditional written examinations based on unseen papers are thought to have telling advantages as a means of assessment, including testing students' ability to think quickly and to guard against plagiarism, helps to explain their persistence. Yet they obviously cannot be used to assess the full range of work that history students undertake, including oral presentations and dissertations, as well as having other well-known drawbacks.26 Accordingly, questions arise about how far assessment practices within history programmes as a whole should be based on coursework and whether all course-unit offerings within them should carry the same, or a very similar weighting between examination and coursework components.

Institutional practice may well impose constraints on how far particular types of assessment can be utilised, but, in as far as freedom of choice is available, much might be achieved by considering assessment practices from the perspective of their potential use value to students. Take oral assessment, for example. It is highly likely that


graduate history students in their working lives will be required to make periodic oral presentations. To give them experience in so doing, seminar presentations can be given a significant assessment weighting, with feedback being offered on strengths and weaknesses. The aims here might extend beyond those of developing oral skills into such matters as confidence building and reflection. The same type of argument might be used in relation to other forms of assessment, such as group work and report writing.

Viewed from an employment perspective, the relevance of the traditional dependence in undergraduate history programmes on assessing students according to their essay writing skills, both in examinations and in coursework assignments, may be questioned. How often in their future working lives will students be called upon to write essays? It may be that the skills involved in essay writing are, to an appreciable extent, transferable to report writing, certainly in relation to structuring information, maintaining relevance, synthesising and engaging in analysis. Yet report writing can require the application of skills that are not necessarily gained to any appreciable extent in writing historical essays, such as summarising and commenting on statistical data. Moreover, oral skills still need to be enhanced with future employment demands in mind, even though the temptation to assess every utterance that a student makes must plainly be avoided.

How far higher education historians would wish to proceed along the lines of implementing a more demanddriven assessment model, and how far they would be prepared to assess summatively other than by essay writing, will no doubt vary appreciably from individual to individual. Yet to consider types of assessment from the student perspective at least gives opportunity to decide whether amendments to existing practice might be usefully


made. And that students who do not score particularly good, marks in examinations may well attain higher performance levels by undertaking various types of coursework also needs recognition.

PROGRESSION

In curriculum planning terms, an additional consideration with regard to each of the curricular dimensions so far considered is that of progression. The essential point is how can the activities undertaken by history students, including those studying social history, be made more academically challenging for them as they proceed through their programmes of study. Of concern, too, is the question of differentiation, which deals with the variations in terms of academic challenge that are incorporated from level to level within these programmes. And these variations are articulated both with regard to the type of demands they make on students and the degree of change they bring.

Unless these issues are addressed and articulated, neither staff nor students will have a clear idea of how expectations change from level to level. Furthermore, unless considered in relation to each of the main curricular dimensions, opportunity to develop the maximum potential they can offer in enhancing the student learning experience will be lost. Beginning with content, the wellknown tendency is to move from broadly-based provision to more specialist study, perhaps thematic in nature and/ or occupying a relatively short time period.

Such an approach can be seen to have (advantage in that broadly-based introductory study provides the contextual knowledge and understanding that students need to move effectively into more specialist study; may well awaken new interests amongst students; helps students to make informed choices about their subsequent


programmes of study; can have particular value for students who have little or no historical background, including United States students enrolled on liberal arts or pre-professional programmes.

To provide an entire diet of such units may achieve desirable objectivesJ but, equally, others may be overlooked or underplayed, such as providing opportunity to undertake in-depth historical investigation using primary evidence. Moreover, whether the interest factor is likely to remain high amongst students when only broadly-based provision is made available may be doubted.

As far as the ways in which progression in skillsbased provision is achieved in history programmes is concerned, insights can be gained by considering how history courses involve students in the appreciation and use of primary evidence. In terms of enhancing the skills that historians need to deploy, history programmes that increasingly require students to utilise primary evidence in more sophisticated ways clearly make greater demands on them; in effect, students are being asked to work in the manner of research historians, albeit at a less sophisticated level of competence. To cite one possibility, students may be required to move from a position where, having become highly proficient in evaluating the reliability of various types of historical evidence, and considering the type of contexts in which it is used, they deploy this evidence critically to appraise differing historiographical perspectives.

In terms of devising skills-based progressions based on using primary evidence, there may be much to be said for beginning planning activity with a consideration of what will be expected of students during the final stages of their studies. At the forefront of thought may be the skills that students will need to have acquired to cope satisfactorily with preparing a final-level dissertation of their choosing.

Bibliography

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Crowley, P. and Drake, F. D., Teaching History in Inclusive Settings, T.H.I.S, 200l.

Guerin, G.R., Improving instruction for students at risk: Using history-social science textbooks, San Jose, CA: San Jose State University, Division of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, 1992.

Hodgkinson, K., "Using audio visual media with slow learners: a new approach in history", Teaching History 53, pp. 17-19, 1988.

Kinder, D. and Bursuck, W., "History strategy instruction: Problem-solution-effect analysis, timeline and vocabulary instruction", Exceptional Children 59(4), pp. 324-335, 1993.

Kinder, D. and Bursuck, W., "The search for a unified social studies curriculum: Does history really repeat itself?", Journal of Learning Disabilities 24(5), pp. 270-275, 1991.

Kinder, D. Bursuck, B. and Epstein, M., "An evaluation of history textbooks", Journal of Special Education 25(4), pp. 472-491, 1992.

Sebba, J., History for all, London: David Fulton Publishers, 1997.

Turner, A., Access to History: Curriculum Planning and Practical Activities for Children with Learning Difficulties, London: Fulton, 2002.


Ware, J. and Peacey, N., "'We're doing history": what does it mean?', British Journal of Special Education 20,(2), pp. 65-69, 1993.

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______ ., "The history curriculum for slow learners", Teaching History 32, pp. 11-13, 1982.

Index

Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD)42

Atlas maps 63

Bloch, Marc 237 Book navigation exercises 3 Bosnia's prewar 175

Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (CASTL) 125

Cemeteries 49 Census records 54 Council for Basic Education (CBE)

42 Council for Curriculum, Examina

tions and Assessment (CCEA) 189

Critical Thinking Questions 53 Cypriot representation 203

Documents 57 Domain-Specific Knowledge 221

Face-to-face lectures 258 Febvre, Lucien 237 Flash movies 122

German secondary education 126 Guatemalan Historical Clarifica

tion Commission (CEH) 179

High school history teaching 32 Historical maps 63 History curriculums 45 Human rights education 184

Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (INTASC) 36

K-12 classroom history teachers 215

K-grad classrooms 43 Kolb's learning cycle 150

Limited English proficiency (LEP) 38

Maps 61 Modernist role-plays 240

National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 26

National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification (N ASDTEC) 34

National Board for Professional Teaching Standards ' (NBPTS) 35

National Council for Accreditation of Teacher'Education (NCATE)34

266

National Council for the Social Studies (Ness) 35

National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) 33

National History Education Network (NHEN) 40

No Child Left Behind Act 28 Nuffield Exeter Extending

Literacy project (EXEL) 9

Off-Site Study 44 Organisation of American Histori

ans (OAH)40

Pictorial note-taking 9 Political maps 63 Post-World War II 176

Seminars 258

Teaching of Histonj

Shikaya 174 Sizer, Theodore 31 Slavin, Robert 31 Story-telling 15

Talk therapy 176 Text breaker 7 Timelines 69 TopfotoVisual images 11 Topographic maps 63

Venn diagram 64 Viking raids 11 Visual images 60

Weber, Eugen '137 Western civilisation 250 World History 250 World War II 126

Teaching of History

Documents

Transcript of Teaching of History