Ian Steele: Developments in History Teaching

The vocabulary in common use in the history classroom is of an abstract nature while the great majority of children in secondary schools are thinking at a concrete operational level and depend largely on their immediate experience of understanding.
The efficient use of language is fundamental to good history teaching. It might be called “the enabling factor in education’ and it is certainly true that the use of language is critical in concept formation and the movement towards the higher levels of thinking.
The implications of psychological research for history in the classroom:
1. Vocabulary lessons at the beginning of the study of a new topic might be rather dull, but points out that a quick check of the understanding of basic terms might be achieved through the use of duplicated sheets showing varying definitions of terms and requiring children to tick the one they think appropriate.
2. Where words of high level of abstraction (political causes, economic causes) have to be used it is recommended that the pupil works up to, rather than down from them.
3. Historical evidence in the field is another greatly neglected source which would be used to develop historical skills in a systematic and interesting way.

The place of motivation:
The modern trend is to teach more modern history on the basis that the students will be more highly motivated because they see it as relevant… However, Musgrove suggests that it is the distant past which has the greatest appeal to children.

Strategies for developing an understanding of time:
Since the concept of time is abstract and cannot be acquired quickly, practice in using a time scheme should be spread over several years, the optimum period being when the concrete operational level of thought is well advanced.

Language and understanding:
Where words of a high level of abstraction have to be used it is recommended that the pupil works up to, rather than down from them.
Pupils in secondary schools up to the age of sixteen are still thinking at a concrete operational level and thus, if they are to understand a new term, or a variation in the definition of a term with which they are already familiar, they must be able to relate it directly to their own experience.

Aims and objectives in history teaching:
The pupils should therefore be encouraged to watch and read with understanding to find and analyse evidence for themselves and should be trained to discuss issues intelligently. A greater emphasis on oral work in examinations may therefore be called for. The key point is that the examination is simply the instrument used to establish whether the objectives are being achieved. It must be the servant rather than the master.

The training of the history teacher:
One of the basic factors restricting innovation in schools is the teacher’s unwillingness to concede that he is ‘uncertain’ about what he does. He identifies strongly with the knowledge and skills he already possesses and because, in innovating, he is likely to be asked to acquire new skills, he must acknowledge incompetence in these areas.

Freeman (1879) commented ‘It is because history is so untechnical a subject, a subject so open to all, a subject seemingly so easy, a subject on which everybody can talk and write and form an opinion, that the way in which it is commonly taught is so unsufferably bad.’ The teaching of history is in fact a skilled and complex process which demands a highly professional approach.