Conference:
ECER 2008
Format:
Paper
Session Information
PRE_B7, Preconference; Paper Session B7
Paper Session
Time:
2008-09-08
11:00-12:30
Room:
CE 04
Chair:
Thomas Lingefjärd
Contribution
What can be learned from studying the Enlightenment?
What historical content is of value for the students in secondary school? What knowledge and which abilities do we wish them to achieve? What constitutes that knowledge and those abilities? And how can a space of learning be created that makes that learning possible?
The project “What can be learned by studying the Enlightenment?” was carried out November 2007- March 2008. I worked together with three teachers in a Swedish secondary school. Three classes studied the course Historia A, which is a basic course in history, with about two study hours each week for a year. The idea of the project was to form a forum for pedagogical discussion and didactic development for the teachers involved, and an opportunity for the researcher to study different aspects of history teaching and history learning.
The theoretical ground for the project is Theory of Variation. A teacher decides what abilities and profiency he wants the students to achieve, the intended object of learning. He analyses those learning objects and decides how he will arrange the learning situation in order to make this learning possible. This intention meets the students in the classroom and the object of learning is manifested. A space of learning is created. What is enacted in the classroom is what is possible for the students to learn. This doesn’t mean that all students learn this, but the enacted object of learning is what was possible to learn. What the students actually learn differs from individual to individual and can be called the lived object of learning.
The participants of the project started by analysing the objectives of the subject of history. What should be taught and why? For whom? What does the student bring into the classroom? The teachers decided that the studies during the project period should deal with The Enlightenment and the American, the French and the Industrial revolution. The learning object should be the ability to analyse this period according to a model of Participants and Structure. Participants are persons acting in the historical events and the Structure is the society at that time. The Structure is seen to have four aspects: Technical structures, Ideas, Conflict of interests and Nature. Important features of the Enlightenment that the teachers wanted to focus was the thought of progress, and the change in society from a static society of estate and privilege to a dynamic society of classes.
A pre-test was carried out in order to assess the students’ thinking about Participants and Structure, using the earlier historical epochs, and the project ends with a similar test. The Enlightenment was studied during 7 weeks and about two thirds of the lessons were observed and filmed. The teacher commented every lesson focusing his intended object of learning and what learning he afterwards meant had been possible.
Expected Outcomes
The project is not completed at the time of writing, which makes it hard to draw any conclutions yet. It is obvious, though, that it is problematic for many of the students to understand structures of society. Many of them realise that if there wasn’t any good boats, then Columbus wouldn’t have travelled over the Atlantic and discovered America, but it’s much harder for them to grasp a power struggle between king and Parliament. It is also obvious that many students have problems with basic social concepts as “nobility” and “burghers”. Without understanding such concepts, it’s really hard to understand the big change in the revolutionary Enlightenment era.
References
Marton and Tsui (2004): Classroom discourse and the space of learning.Malwah, New Jersey. Holmqvist (2006): Lärande i skolan. Studentlitteratur, Lund
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