Transcript THE SOUTH AFRICAN SOCIETY FOR HISTORY TEACHING

THE SOUTH AFRICAN SOCIETY
FOR HISTORY TEACHING
14th Annual Conference, 25-26 September 2009
Crawford College (Sandton, Gauteng)
The value of History within the context of
a science and technological age
Arend E Carl
Faculty of Education, Stellenbosch University, Private Bag X1, MATIELAND
(Stellenbosch) 7602
[email protected]
Why History? A short trip down
memory lane
 History teacher
 My first SASTH: 1987 (Martin Trümpelman, Frik
Stuart, Pieter Kapp et.al.) History in a
multicultural society
 1988: Conference in Stellenbosch: History:
The road ahead.
 21 years down the road still a need to research
and promote History
 Article: Ban the Bullet-Point! (Maxwell, Nov 2007):
How should PowerPoint be best used in the
classroom.
My first SASHT-paper, 1987
The possible value of History: Is it still
relevant for 2009?
 LESSONS FROM THE PAST
– Can the past really provide lessons for the
future/ current contexts?
– Can what applied for a specific time
context, be applicable to the present?
– Mistakes should act as warnings.
– Assist with ensuring more relevant problemsolving for current problems/issues
 EXPLAINING/UNDERSTANDING THE PRESENT
– Understanding the present by studying the
past
– Making links between the past and the
present to be able to gain greater
perspective
– “… it can act as a touchstone against which
human values can be measured or tested,
reaffirmed, or modified so that a perspective
of a desired future might emerge.” (Tooke,
1989:2-3)
– Develop skills to be able to understand the
present
FORECASTING/PROJECTING THE
FUTURE
 Can one really use History to forecast the
future? I believe NO.
 Each organised social group can be led by
knowledge of the past, meaning that it can act
as guide (Wesley and Wronski, 1966:452)
 Act as a basis for decision-making
 Guidelines
 Impossible to forecast because of rapid
changes/ different people/ timelines/conditions
 Man placed within time and context
SELF-UNDERSTANDING OF EXISTENCE
 Man/ women is the result of his/her history
 The learner must be able to understand where
he/she comes from and develop an
understanding for their existence
 History is more than just the study of cause
and result/ having a better understanding may
lead to a more critical and clearer
understanding of social responsibilities
 The human is so much poorer without this selfknowledge and understanding
SOURCE OF VALUES
 Certain norms and values exist within a
society.
 Objective judgment of these values and
develop one’s own values, based on
facts and critical thinking
 Assist in making the right decisions
VOCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES
CONCEPTUALISATION
 Concepts/ framework
SOCIAL RELATIONS AND LOYALTIES
– Patriotism, democracy, loyalty, citizenship
– Can History develop these attributes? Or
only strengthen them? Should only the
positive be stressed? What about the
mistakes? Be honest about the past?
Impact of this open and honest approach?
PERSPECTIVES
 Learners should see trends and what
happened in the past, in perspective so
that they are able to link the past and the
present
 Where do I fit in, in the big picture of a
nation which is characterized by
diversity of such an extensive nature?
 Cultural shaping (Kapp, 1986: 507) may
lead to respect and appreciation for the
own and the other.
OBTAINING KNOWLEDGE AND SELFKNOWLEDGE
 The study of history increases self-knowledge, not just
general knowledge
 Thirst for knowledge can be satisfied and in the
process self-knowledge grows
 Opinions and judgments must be based on knowledge
obtained through investigation and verification.
 Personal-individual investigations and provides
exercise to work with abstract concepts and how to
analyse knowledge
 Search for the truth! Not to know what took place
before you were born, is to remain forever a child (Cicero,
quoted by Marwick, 1970: 12-13).
 Self-knowledge is necessary to know and understand
others
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CRITICAL AWARENESS
Intellectual curiosity and critical
awareness
Question what has happened in a
positive way to understand the past
Distinguish between fact and myth
Critical thinking
Does content promote this attribute?
POLITICAL LITERACY
 Learners must be politically literate
– One who has an understanding of the past and
present
– Aware of rights, responsibilities, citizenship
– One who has an understanding of the
integratedness of systems and structures
– One who is tolerant to and open regarding other
views and opinions
– One who understands the diversity of one’s country
– One who values justice, equality, equity
– One who accepts that evolving changes can occur
through involvement and rationale debating
– Positive changes through order and stability
(Trümpelman, 1986: 201021)
CULTURAL MATURITY
 Knowledge and understanding of and
respect for the own and other cultures
(Kapp, 1987)
 Man in society is part of many social
groupings
 Inclusivity: Appreciate the own, but is
also part of a greater community which
consists of many cultural groupings
 Cultural community
 How do we accommodate this?
Decline in History?
 Decline in History is not unique to
SA
 Since 1908 there has been a concern
 Position in NCS (GET &FET)
 Position compared to the so-called
“bread and butter” subjects
(Sciences, Maths) (see Schoeman, 2006: 22-23)
 If there is a decline, what is the
general impact on what can be
achieved through History?
WHAT DOES THE NCS: HISTORY SAY?
 Helps to build the capacity to make informed choices
in order to contribute constructively to society and to
advance democracy
 Personal empowerment
 Understanding of human agency
 Knowledge that as humans we have choices … to
change the world for the better
 Rigorous process of historical enquiry and to think
critically about society/ support democracy/ vehicle for
human rights
 Increasing conceptual knowledge as a framework of
analysis/ interpret and construct historical knowledge/
(DoE, 2003: 9-10)
THE TEACHER AND THE ELECTRONIC AGE
Pachler, Daly & Turvey, 2010: 6)
“BECAUSE OF THE MEDIA-DOMINATED
CULTURE IN WHICH WE LIVE, MANY
EDUCATORS RECOGNIZE THAT MANY
OF OUR STUDENTS’ IDEAS ABOUT THE
PAST ARE CONSTRUCTED THROUGH
THE HISTORICALLY-THEMED FILM AND
TELEVISION PROGRAMMES THAT THEY
WATCH” (Woelders, May 2007: 363).
 We cannot ignore the pervasiveness of electronic media
 We should acknowledge film and television as the great
history educators of our time
 Film is unmatched in its capacity to provide ‘emphatic
reconstruction to convey how historical people witnessed,
understood and lived their lives’ (Weinstein, 2001: 27-28)
 Film is fun and it can involve students in history and
increase their enjoyment of the subject
 As they progress, confronted with the profound question
that face historians: “How do we determine the truth about
the ever-changing past?”
 Looking at the past through the prism of a film, poses
intriguing questions: Does it deviate from the “true”
history? How is history spun, adapted and adjusted to
accommodate audiences and times? Criteria used to
determine the legitimacy of the sources? How does the
view and substance of history change from one period to
the other? (Weinstein, 2001: 30-31)
POSSIBLE VALUES
 The use of PowerPoint with the
interesting title of Ban the Bullet-Point:
Content-Based PowerPoint for Historians
(Maxwell, 2007: 55-62)
 “PowerPoint is evil”
 Style of PP: Bullets or Content-based
(fuller texts?
 More comprehensive text must
complement the spoken lecture
POSSIBLE CONTRIBUTIONS OF MEDIA
AND TECHNOLOGY
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Contribution towards understanding the past
Learning their history from media, rather than the written word?
Americans are learning most of their history from the media (O’Connor, 1988:1201)
The role of FILM (analysis, orchestration of events for the sake of the camera,
propaganda and strategy, film-culture connection)
Media environment (an electronic milieu within the culture): Events captured can
become central in the broader social and cultural environment (Kennedy’s
assassination, first steps on the moon, Madiba walking out of prison, etc). First
contact with Black children through TV? (O’Connor, 1988:1203)
Media events raised historical issues for discussion in living rooms as never
before
The film e.g. as an artifact considers the production background/ original intention
of film/ examination of what it meant who saw it at the time/ the CONTEXT
Reception of spectatorship: The way in which class, gender and political
associations influence the understanding of a film’s signs and symbols
Historical analysis
Should films be seen as shaping social values or reflecting them? (O’Connor,
1988:1207)
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Think analytically about what they see (critical thinking)
THE FILM AND THE TEACHING OF
HISTORY
 History is an exercise of imagination (we can only
observe our subjects through surviving documents
and images)
 Film captures the sweep and movement of history,
by definition the story of people, their (and our)
failures and accomplishments
 Movement through time and no other medium can
manipulate time in as kinetic a fashion as film
 Popularity of film is itself of interest. Looking at an
interpretation of history (Weinstein, 2001: 41-42)
 What elements of historical interpretation are
presented? How does the film (if at all) relate the
past to the present? How do the inherent limits of
the medium restrict the ways that a story can be
told? Have the characters been unnecessarily
simplified? Has time been collapsed or the order
of things changed and to what extent do the
fictional element intrude on the historical material?
How does the material conform with the available
historical literature?
 Visual literacy: Media is also literature. The
filmmaker/author writes with his camera as a
writer writes with his pen” (Weinstein, 2001: 41)
(O’Connor, 1988:1208)
Unpredictable outcomes or unintended effects on
audiences:
– Whatever final rationale was on the producers minds,,
these images once released, became the property of
the viewers, who could do with them what they willed,
make of them what their lives and experiences prepared
them to make of them
– In 1954, a group of young men saw the film The Wild
one. One related later “We could all see ourselves right
there on the screen. We were all Marlon Brando”
– Shortly after, the Hell’s Angels Motorcycle Club was
born – surely not the intention of the makers of the film!
(Weinstein, 2001: 41)
“THE GOAL OF HISTORY TEACHING, LIKE JOURNALISM,
MUST BE TO GO BEYOND SIMPLY INFORMING
PEOPLE (CHRONICLING EVENTS OR PASSING ON
THE TRADITIONS OF A CULTURE TO NEW
GENERATIONS) TO GIVING PEOPLE THE
WHEREWITHAL TO THINK OUT IMPORTANT ISSUES.
IT SHOULD BE GIVEN … THAT WE TEACH OUR
STUDENTS … AS STIMULI TO THOUGHT. … BUT TO
UNDERSTAND (IT) FOR WHAT IT IS, AS ONE OF MANY
AVALAIBLE SOURCES OF INFORMATION, A SOURCE
WITH INEVITABLE PERSONAL, INSTITUTIONAL AND
TECHNOLOGICAL LIMITATIONS ON WHAT IT TELLS
AND HOW IT TELLS IT, A SOURCE THAT REQUIRES
THE INTELLIGENT VIEWER TO HAVE SOME FACILITY
WITH VISUAL LANGUAGE” (1209)
ALL HISTORY CLASSROOMS SHOULD BE
LESSONS IN CRITICAL THINKING (1209)
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Carl, AE. September 1991. Die moontlike waarde van Geskiedenis as skoolvak
binne ‘n multikulturele Suid-Afrikaanse samelewing (English translation: The
possible value of History as a school subject in a multicultural South African
society). Yesterday and Today: Journal for History Teaching. 22: 1-5.
Deapartment of Education. 2003. National Curriculum Statement Grade 10-12
(General) History. Pretoria: Seriti Printing.
Kapp, PH. 1986. Enkele gedagtes oor die onderrig van Geskiedenis (English
translation: A few thoughts on the teaching of History). Presentation at ELOS-inservice training of History teachers.
Maxwell, A. November 2007. Ban the Bullet-Point! Content-Based PowerPoint for
Historians. The History Teacher. 41(1): 55-62.
O’Connor, JE. December 1988. History in Images/ Images in History: Reflections
on the importance of film and television study for an understanding of the past.
The American Historical Review. 93(4): 1200-1209.
Pachler, N, Daly, C & Turvey, A. 2010. Teacher professional development practices.
The case of the Haringey Transformation Teachers programme.
Schoeman, S. December 2006. In defence of History as a school subject. Acta
Academica. 38(3): 22-47.
Weinstein, PB. November 2001. Movies as the gateway to History: The History and
Film Project. The History Teacher. 35(1):27-48.
Woelders, A. March 2007. Using film to conduct Historical inquiry with Middle
School Students. The History Teacher. 40(3): 363-396).