History and the History Curriculum
The second edition of a journal is in some ways more significant than the first. When we
launched the idea of a dedicated journal on the theory and practice of history teaching and
related learning, its future was unclear. The universally positive response that we have
received to the first edition is reflected in the quality of the papers that are included in this
volume, organised around its major theme on children’s understanding. A premise of any
teaching is that it must map on to our understanding of the cognitive development of children
in relation to what is being taught. Thanks to the support and help of Hilary Cooper, the
journal contains a number of papers that address this central issue.
A crucial factor is the impact of pedagogy upon the quality of children’s thinking. Indeed, if
there is no ‘learning affect’ or ‘value added’ in terms of how children think and develop their
understanding of both contemporary and historical problems and concepts, there seems little
point in the teaching of history. Keith Barton’s Primary children’s understanding of the role
of historical evidence: Comparisons between the United States and Northern Ireland is an
extremely suggestive comparison of the quality of children’s understanding of the nature and
role of historical evidence in the U.S.A. and Northern Ireland. Explicitly, the Northern Irish
pupils have a much clearer understanding of the evidential basis of historical accounts and
interpretations than comparable American pupils. The main causal factor appears to be the
absence of a syntactic dimension of the American history curriculum, with its predominantly
transmissive mode of instruction and learning. This is reflected in the relative absence of an
understanding of the role of evidence as an element in historical understanding. Peter Lee, in
History in an Information Culture, addresses the whole question of progression in relation to
explanation in his presentation of findings from a study funded by the British government,
Project Chata: Concepts of History and Teaching Approaches at Key Stages 2 and 3. The
eight progressive levels of pupils’ explanatory thinking that his paper suggests should have a
major impact upon creating a pedagogy which aims to develop and accelerate such
explanatory thinking in children. Yosanne Vella, in Extending Primary Children’s Thinking
through the Use of Artefacts, examines the role of artefacts in developing pupil thinking. Her
conclusions highlight the interventionist role of the teacher in developing pupils’ skills,
processes and concepts that underpin their understanding. The application of a Vygotskian
model of intervention has some suggestive conclusions as to the levels and nature of
children’s intellectual development when compared with development through a noninterventionist model.
How children think in the context of their history education lies in the top layer of the
educational process. Underneath it is the thinking of teachers as a crucial element in their
pedagogical knowledge. The last decade has highlighted the importance of teachers’
knowledge bases, with the crucial orienting features being the attitudes, values and beliefs
that teachers bring to the classroom. Beliefs encompass a knowledge and understanding of the
nature of a discipline, its skills, processes and related syntactic concepts. Beliefs can be
culturally determined: a Marxist and Islamic views of history are substantially different from
those of an empiricist; all three differ markedly from the mentality of a postmodernist. The
education and training of teachers needs to take fully into account the mental map of the
teachers of a subject – what they know and understand about the nature of what they are
teaching. Isabel Barca’s Prospective teachers' ideas about assessing different accounts is both
rich and suggestive in dealing with the issue of educating and training teachers. It suggests
that without a due emphasis upon developing an understanding of the nature of the discipline,
and related attitudes towards its teaching, meaningful curricular progress is doomed to failure.
Teachers will fall back upon their existing knowledge of what the subject involves, a
knowledge that is atavistically culturally determined.
The remaining contents of this edition address some other seminal issues of concern to
teachers, teacher educators and curriculum experts. Peter Brickley’s paper Postmodernism
and The Nature of History complements Isobel Barca’s study. Peter reviews the debate that
has been raging about the nature of the discipline over the past decade. The post-modernist
stress upon the importance of narrative, authorial perspectives and constructivism has major
implications for teaching the discipline.
Carley Dalvarez in The Contribution of History to Citizenship Education summarises the
current situation relating to the introduction of Citizenship as an element in the English
National Curriculum. Her paper raises many questions that we need to consider; it is
particularly pertinent as she is a Newly Qualified Teacher about to enter the profession. Paul
Goalen’s article The Drama of History places this major element in the history teacher’s
repertory into its historical context, as well as reporting on contemporary cutting edge
developments in the field.
The International Journal of Historical Learning, Teaching and Research is still evolving. In
the next edition we hope to introduce the concept of life histories, looking at the contribution
of key players to the development of the teaching of history. We would also like to print
contributions from new entrants to the profession like Carley Dalvarez – freshness;
spontaneity and originality are the life-blood of history teaching.