The Teaching of History 1

The Teaching of History 1

The Teaching of History

 

Author: Ernest C. Hartwell

 

 

CONTENTS

 

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION

 

I. SOME PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS

 

II. HOW TO BEGIN THE COURSE

 

III. THE ASSIGNMENT OF THE LESSON

 

IV. THE METHOD OF THE RECITATION

 

V. VARIOUS MODES OF REVIEW

 

VI. THE USE OF WRITTEN REPORTS

 

VII. EXAMINATIONS AS TESTS OF PROGRESS

 

OUTLINE

 

 

 

 

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION

 

 

This volume is offered as a guide to history teachers of the high school

and the upper grammar grades. It is directly concerned with the teaching

methods to be employed in the history period. The author assumes the

limiting conditions that surround classroom instruction of the present

day; he also takes for granted the teacher's sympathy with modern aims

in history instruction. All discussions of purpose and content are

therefore subordinated to a clear presentation of the details of

effective teaching technique.

 

The reader into whose hands this volume falls will be deeply interested

in the ideals of teaching implied in the concrete suggestions given in

the following pages, for after all the value of any system of special

methods rests, not merely on its apparent and immediate psychological

effectiveness, but also on the social purposes which it is devised to

serve. It must be recognized at the outset that history has a social

purpose. However much university teaching may be interested in truth for

its own sake, an interest necessarily basic to the service of all other

ends, the teaching of the lower public schools must take into account

the relevancy of historical fact to current and future problems which

concern men and women engaged in the common social life. So the

elementary and secondary school teachers of the more progressive sort

recognize that the way in which historical truths are selected and

related to one another determines two things: (1) Whether our group

experiences as interpreted in history will have any intelligent effect

upon men's appreciations of current social difficulties, and (2) whether

history will make a more vital appeal to youth at school.

 

Certainly children, whose interests arise not alone from their innate

impulses, but also from the world in which they have lived from the

beginning, will be eager to know the past that is of dominant concern to

the present. It is clear gain in the psychology of instruction if

history is a socially live thing. The children will be more eager to

acquire knowledge; they will hold it longer, because it is significant;

and they will keep it fresh after school days are over because life will

recall and review pertinent knowledge again and again. There can be no

separation between the dominant social interests of community life and

effective pedagogical procedure; the former in large part determines the

latter.

 

Such educational reforms in history teaching as have already won

acceptance confirm the existence of this vital relation between current

social interests and the learning process. The barren learning of names

and dates has long since been supplanted by a study of sequences among

events. The technical details of wars and political administrations have

given way to a study of wide economic and social movements in which

battles and laws are merely overt results reinforcing the current of

change. History, once a self-inclosed school discipline, has undergone

an intellectual expansion which takes into account all the aspects of

life which influence it, making geographical, economic, and biographical

materials its aids. All these and many other minor changes attest the

fact that a vital mode of instruction always tends to accompany that

view of history which regards the study of the past as a revelation of

real social life.

 

The author's suggestions will, therefore, be of distinct value to at

least two groups of history teachers. Those who believe in the larger

uses of history teaching, so much argued of late, will find here the

procedures that will express the ideals and obtain the results they

seek. Those who are not yet ready to accept modern doctrine, but who

feel a keen discontent with the older procedure, will find in these

pages many suggestions that will appeal to them as worthy of

experimental use. It may be that the successful use of many methods here

suggested may be the easy way for them to come into an acceptance of the

larger principles of current educational reform.

 

 

 

 

THE TEACHING OF HISTORY

 

I

 

SOME PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS

 

 

_Assumptions as to the teacher of history_

 

This monograph will make no attempt to analyze the personality of the

ideal teacher. It is assumed that the teacher of history has an adequate

preparation to teach his subject, that he is in good health, and that

his usefulness is unimpaired by discontent with his work or cynicism

about the world. It is presupposed that he understands the wisdom of

correlating in his instruction the geography, social progress, and

economic development of the people which his class are studying. He is

aware that the pupil should experience something more than a

kaleidoscopic view of isolated facts. He recognizes the folly of

requiring four years of high school English for the purpose of

cultivating clear, fluent, and accurate __EXPRESSION__, only to relax the

effort when the student comes into the history class. He knows that the

precision, logic, and habit of definite thinking exacted by the pursuit

of the scientific subjects should not be laid aside when the student

attempts to trace the rise of nations. Let us go so far as to assume a

teacher who is both pedagogical and practical; scholarly without being

musty; imbued with a love for his subject and yet familiar with actual

human experience.

 

 

_Actual conditions confronted by the teacher_

 

There are from one hundred and eighty to two hundred recitation periods

of forty-five minutes each, minus the holidays, opening exercises,

athletic mass meetings, and other respites, in which to teach a thousand

years of ancient history, twenty centuries of English history, or the

story of our own people. The age of the student will be from thirteen to

eighteen. His judgment is immature; his knowledge of books, small; his

interest, far from zealous. He will have three other subjects to prepare

and his time is limited. Also, he is a citizen of the Republic and by

his vote will shortly influence, for good or ill, the destinies of the

nation.

 

The purpose of this monograph is to discuss the means by which the

teacher can engender in this student a genuine enthusiasm for the

subject, stimulate research and historical judgment, correlate history,

geography, literature, and the arts, cultivate proper ideals of

government, establish a habit of systematic note-taking, and possibly

prepare the student for college entrance examinations.

 

 

 

 

II

 

HOW TO BEGIN THE COURSE

 

 

Very obviously each moment of the child's time and preparation should be

wisely directed. Each recitation should perform its full measure of

usefulness, in testing, drilling, and teaching. There will be no time

for valueless note-taking, duplication of map-book work, ambiguous or

foolish questioning, aimless argument, or junketing excursions.

 

 

_What should be done on the day of enrollment_

 

The day that the child enrolls in class should begin his assigned work.

In the first ten minutes of the first meeting of the class, while the

teacher is collecting the enrollment cards, he should also gather some

data as to his students' previous work in history. This information will

be of considerable assistance to the teacher in letting him know what he

may reasonably expect of his new pupils. The class should not depart

without a definite assignment for the next day. Let the preparation for

the first recitation consist in answering such questions as:--

 

1. What is the name of the text you are to use? (Know its precise

title.)

 

2. What is the name, reputation, and position of the author?

 

3. Of what other books is he the author?

 

4. Read the preface of the book.

 

5. What do you think are the purposes of the subject you are about

to take up?

 

6. Give the titles and authors of other books on the same period of

history.

 

7. What has been your method of study in other courses of history?

 

 

_What should be done at the first meeting of the class_

 

On the second day when the class assembles, let as many of the students

as possible be sent to the board to answer questions on the day's

assignment. The pupil will immediately discover that the teacher

purposes to hold the class strictly responsible for the preparation of

assigned work. The teacher will face a class prepared to ask intelligent

questions about the course they are entering upon. The class will

discover that work is to begin at once. The inertia of the vacation will be immediately overcome.