The Quality of History Teaching in Primary Schools - Essay Example

Education HISTORY EDUCATION IN PRIMARY SCHOOLS INTRODUCTION: Among the oldest of formally taught subjects, History education has often been a core portion of children’s education worldwide. Though with the advent of formal educational institutions and a more dispersed pool of subjects, History itself has become a very generic term with countless subparts becoming vast areas of study. The sociopolitical events of the past century had prompted a paradigm shift towards teaching history starting from primary school students, using it as a tool to enhance the analytical acumen of its recipients. Traditionally, during the pre-globalization era, history was often taught to reinforce notions of ethics and values using historical figures and events. The pedagogical imperative of such historic education was to harbor conformity, rather than the modern notion of enabling critical though. 1 Colonialism and the World Wars brought about a change in how history would be taught, especially after Education became the state’s function. The emphasis then shifted towards a nationalistic approach of teaching history, what we term as propaganda. We now we live in an era where history is studied in a global context, with the supplementary aim of creating a sense of multiculturalism and diversity. Among the roles of history education, especially in the current context of increased cross cultural interaction, the role of History Education includes: 2 Schools as Social transmitters Promoting active Citizenship Making History Real Promoting Positive Values The same study suggests that debate on the role of history education usually occurs on: Nature of truth Tempering truth Avoiding Moral Relativity While the methodology and focus of history education might be a matter of debate, the importance of this area of study remains uncontested, particularly from a functional aspect. FOCUS OF HISTORY EDUCATION: The focus of history education has often been a matter of debate between politicians and the academia, the crux of which has primarily been the purpose of teaching history. Politicians like the British education secretary, Michael Gove3, claim that the purpose of history education is to inculcate a sense of nationalism in the students so that they are in touch with their political and cultural roots. A score of policy makers believe that the history currently being taught in schools deviates from important British history and is more inclined towards European history and global events. This would obviously imply trimming and framing the curriculum with selected facts and information that would reinforce patriotic sentiments in the targeted students. Academians like Dr Marcus Collins, of Loughborough University, claim that such a selective approach of history education is reminiscent of a subtle form of propaganda, that has been a feature of undemocratic nations. This school of thought believes that the most pressing issue with history education isn’t the curriculum, but the amount of time that is devoted to teaching history. Where history education should be made compulsory to higher levels of education, policymakers are bent towards further curtailing the time that is allotted to teaching history. If this notion is translated to educational policies, then history education will indeed become impotent in imparting the necessary analytical skill set it sought out to cater to. It is believed that British history cannot be isolated from European history as much of Britain’s political activity took place beyond its borders, across continents. This debate is part of the government’s frustration over the liberal academic approach that is prevalent in schools, citing a lack of focus and discipline as major issues. As a consequence, the government4 has erected a new program where military officials will be planted as teachers in school to maintain decorum and cement a more focused approach to teaching with the notion of the ‘British citizen’ in mind. The national history curriculum is very important for any country because the subject matter and the methodology can very well determine whether such knowledge is used in promoting conflict or is being used for social reconstruction. 5 TEACHING PRACTICES: The effectiveness of history education is contingent on how it is taught, especially in its ability to extract interest from the students even if the subject isn’t compulsory. In order to formulate a particular strategy, the objectives of teaching should be kept in mind. For children, specially at the primary level, history is a useful tool to create a sense of time. According to Devine, an advisor to the Scottish government on history education, "one of the most important things about the discipline is to convey a sense of change over time, to do which you must present events chronologically". There have been two major approaches in terms of history education: An emphasis on facts and figures, and an emphasis on more analytical inferences. This difference in approach is in part a result of the perceptions of utility, when it comes to teaching history. With education increasingly being seen a source of income generation in the future, the emphasis on subjects like history that have lesser immediate tangible benefits, is increasingly diminishing. 6 The utility of history education lies in its ability to foster skills of observation, connection and analysis within the students. According to Hillary Cooper of St. Martin's College, Lancaster, In order for these skills to develop history lessons should be interactive and the teaching dynamics should be geared towards the process of enquiry; students being able to infer and relate. This means that the children should be able to attach their lessons to their experiences in life, and be able to relate the past to their current present, and how events of yesterday have gradually evolved to what we have today. In this process, a sense of time is created by the chronological arrangement of events. The modern education system revolves around ‘Inquiry Learning’ which is based upon mutual interaction between students and teachers rather than a traditional one-way narrative approach. Inspired by educationists such as Edwin Fenton, schools are increasingly engaging students in the learning process. (Stearns 19987) And with a subject as theoretical as History, interaction has been indentified the key to creating interest and increasing the retention rate of what is learnt in class. The focus has also shifted from mere rote learning of facts and figures to being able to analyze and deconstruct various historical events. Students should be able to penetrate the given information to make individual assessments, this practice gets reinforced very frequently due to the diversity of historical accounts, and students pick up the ability to objectively assess what they study rather than confirm to what has been etched. If this methodology is adopted then inevitably, thinking skills being condensed in history education rather than existing independently as another dimension. Thus, according to Peter N. Stearns, history education should be able to work on the following skills: The Ability to Assess Evidence.  The Ability to Assess Conflicting Interpretations Experience in Assessing Past Examples of Change. A recent report by Ofsted, ‘History for all’, initiated in 83 primary schools and 83 secondary schools between April 2007 and March 2010 suggested that History was actually a popular subject among the students and the teaching methodologies were adequate. As part of the study, rating was established as good or outstanding in the majority of the schools, with 63 in primary and 59 in secondary falling in the aforementioned category. While the given analysis stands out as a positive indicator, several areas have been identified as having further room for improvement, particularly history teaching in primary schools, where the subject is compulsory. According to the study, while students recognized historical lessons in isolation, they didn’t seem to well aware of the linkages and connections and their knowledge was confined to the domains of the respective lectures. The curriculum structure is partly to blame for that, but the major weakness was found in the ability of the teachers, whose training was limited to the material that was part of the curriculum, resultantly their scope could not go beyond and this discrepancy seems to have transferred to the students. Another study by Ofsted, ‘History in the Balance’, yet again emphasizes the need for upgradation of standards in the teaching and learning methodologies. It renders the old system of teachers as obsolete because of the lack of versatility in training, specially with curriculum being demanding. The funding limits and prioritization of other subjects further adds to the problem as many teachers aren't provided opportunities for further training. Christine Gilbert, the Ex- Head of Ofsted, suggested that, 'Pupils need to experience history as a coherent subject which develops their knowledge, thinking and understanding, especially their chronological understanding, and I hope the current review of the National Curriculum will recognize the importance of this.’ SOURCES OF LEARNING: Keeping in mind the rather theoretical nature of History education and the requirements of young children, Secondary sources of learning apart from books are very important to create interest in the students through a medium they can relate to. Children are more comfortable with concrete notions, rather than abstract concepts, thus visual, iconic or physical sources provide the required spacial dimensions for the students to relate to what is being taught. In this regard informal methods of teaching such as field trips are very important. For young children, they provide the necessary material manifestation of what is being taught in class. (Nicholas J. Meiers, 2010) For history lessons, museums serve as visual archives of the history that is taught in class. In the words of Michel Foucault, they are Heterotopias, spaces that exist beyond time. Thus, children can observe material objects and can relate them to what the have in the present as part of their individual comparative analyses. According to figures presented by the National museums, a governing body for British museums, • 80% of parents believe that museums are a very important resource for educating their children. • 85% of parents believe visits to museums should be part of the National Curriculum • National museums are responsible for over a million educational sessions per year and expect to host and inspire 1.72 million this year. • A quarter of all museum visits are made by children. Apart from museum visits, Role playing is an effective tool in imparting history lessons. A real life simulation of actual historical events, role plays offer a multidimensional space for students to engage in learning with the combined audiovisual stimuli provided. The effectiveness of role plays lies in the the fact that the onus of delivering a good role lies on the students and their efforts to understand the requirements of the character. This includes the background of the character, the event that is to take place, the dialogues and the visual props that are used. Often teachers mix a bit of humor in the role plays to create interest in the students and make the experience enjoyable. 8 MEDIUM TERM PLANNING: Having studied the dynamics of history education in primary schools, I have formulated a medium term plan for teaching Ancient Greeks to year 5 children in primary schools. This plan is in line with the current requirements and standards as laid down by the research from Ofsted and aims to cater to the intellectual requirements and capacities of the mentioned students. Works Cited Elizabeth A. Cole and Judy Barsalou, ‘Unite or Divide? The Challenges of teaching History in Societies emerging from Violent Conflict’, Special report, United States institute of Peace, 2003 Hilary Cooper (St Martin's College, Lancaster ), ‘History in primary schools’, Institute of Historical research Kathleen Anderson Steeves, ‘Building Successful Collaborations to Enhance History Teaching in Secondary Schools’, American Historical Association, 2007 Peter N. Stearns, ‘Why Study History ?’, American Historical Association, 2008 ‘A Manifesto for Museums -Building Outstanding Museums for the 21st Century’-National Museums Nicholas J. Meiers (Middlebury College), ‘Designing Effective Field Trips at Zoos and Aquariums’,, 2010 Penelope Harnett, ‘History in the Primary School: Re-Shaping Our Pasts. The Influence of Primary School Teachers' Knowledge and Understanding of History on Curriculum Planning and Implementation’, International Journal of Historical Learning, Teaching and Research, Volume 1, Number 1, 2000 Lori Jarvis, Kathryn Odell, and Mike Troiano, ‘Role-Playing as a Teaching Strategy’, Strategies for Application and Presentation, 2002 Ofsted Report- History in the balance-History in English schools 2003–07 Ofsted Report- History for all- History a successful subject in schools-2010 Read More