National history standards : the problem of the canon and the future of teaching history / edited by Linda Symcox and Arie Wilschut.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Symcox, Linda, editor.

Wilschut, Arie, editor.

Series:

International review of history education.

International review of history education

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

History--Study and teaching.

History.

Curriculum planning.

Education--Standards.

Education.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (333 pages)

Place of Publication:

Charlotte, N.C. : Information Age Pub., 2009.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

As educators in the United States and Europe develop national history standards for K-12 students, the question of what to do with national history canons is a subject of growing concern. Should national canons still be the foundation for the teaching of history? Do national canons develop citizenship or should they be modified to accommodate the new realities of globalization? Or should they even be discarded outright? These questions become blurred by the debates over preserving national heritages, by so-called 'history wars' or 'culture wars,' and by debates over which pedagogical frameworks to use. These canon and pedagogical debates often overlap, creating even more confusion. A misconceived "skills vs. content" debate often results. Teaching students to think chronologically and historically is not the same as teaching a national heritage or a cosmopolitan outlook. But what exactly is the difference? Policy-makers and opinion leaders often confuse the pedagogical desirability of using a 'framework' for studying history with their own efforts to reaffirm the centrality of national identity rooted in a vision of their nation's history as a way of inculcating citizenship and patriotism. These are the issues discussed in this volume.Today's students are citizens of the world and must be taught to think in global, supranational terms. At the same time, the traditionalists have a point when they argue that the ideal of the nation-state is the cultural glue that has traditionally held society together, and that social cohesion depends on creating and inculcating a common national culture in the schools. From an educational perspective, the problem is how to teach chronological thinking at all. How are we to reconcile the social, political and intellectual realities of a globalizing world with the continuing need for individuals to function locally as citizens of a nation-state, who share a common past, a common culture, and a common political destiny? Is it a duty of history education to create a frame of reference, and if so, what kind of frame of reference should this be? How does frame-of-reference knowledge relate to canonical knowledge and the body of knowledge of history as a whole?

Contents:

Acknowledgements / Linda Symcox and Arie Wilschut

Series Introduction: International review of history education, volume 5 / Rosalyn Ashby, Stuart Foster and Peter Lee

Chapter 1. Introduction / Linda Symcox and Arie Wilschut

Section I. New curricula in a post-national world

Chapter 2. The evaporated canon and the overvalued source: History education in Belgium: An historical perspective / Kaat Wils

Chapter 3. Internationalizing the U.S. History curriculum: From nationalism to cosmopolitanism / Linda Symcox

Chapter 4. The two world histories / Ross E. Dunn

Section II. The persistence of traditional curricula

Chapter 5. Yearning for yesterday: Efforts of history professionals in Europe at designing meaningful and effective school history curricula / Joke van der Leeuw-Roord

Chapter 6. Containing and regulating knowledge: Some thoughts on standards and canonization as a response to the complex demands of a globalizing world / Hanna Schissler

Section III. The educational debate over how to teach history

Chapter 7. Canonical standards or orientational frames of reference? The cultural and the educational approach to the debate about standards in history teaching / Arie Wilschut

Chapter 8. Drinking an ocean and pissing a cupful: How adolescents make sense of history / Denis Shemilt

Chapter 9. Two out of five did not know that Henry VIII had six wives: History education, historical literacy, and historical consciousness / Peter Lee and Jonathan Howson

Section IV. The debate over how students learn history

Chapter 10. The denial of desire: How to make history education meaningless / Keith Barton

Chapter 11. Competence in historical thinking, mastering of a historical framework, or knowledge of the historical canon / Bodo von Borries

Chapter 12. Closing comments / Wijnand M. Mijnhardt

About the authors.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references.

Print version record.

ISBN:

1-282-18677-9

9786612186776

1-60752-192-X

OCLC:

704520930