Download romanian history learning between change and

ROMANIAN HISTORY LEARNING
BETWEEN
CHANGE AND PERSPECTIVES
CRISTEA NICULAE
TEACHER
ROMANIA
How do we teach history?


as a subject in which the essential
historical events, didactically transposed,
are presented in their interdependency,
underlying the didactical aspects in the
formative-applicative sense
or
as a subject rich in information,
chronologically strong, with positivist and
positive deeds, in which memorization and
fear of details have the precedence?
2
History as a subject, in Romania, at
the beginning of the 90’s
history’s four dimensions:

factual-event like dimension

the systematic one

the cultural one

finally the serial dimension
3
In Romania, considering the European
recommendations, teaching history
stipulates:





- to focus on teaching each pupil
- to study history by understanding its role
in the present life
- to study history by assuming critically
the role coming from the affiliation to
different identities
- to study history by identifying and
removing the national, racist, religious
prejudices);
- to study the local and national history in
a general course
4
Qualitative aspects that intervened at the
level of normative school documents as well
as the evaluation and management

the new Law of Education no. 84/1995

education planning

syllabi

textbooks
5
The appearance of the new plan
caused the creation of syllabi
characterized by:

Humanity

Instrumentalism

A feeling of affiliation

Decreasing the number of the classes
6
The history schoolbooks



“holly” books written before 1989
after 1990 the ideological aspect was
removed
History and Tradition of Minorities → a
new expression of the national
multiculturalism
7
Internal and external aspects related to
formation of teachers






rich illustrative and auxiliary material
added
international seminars
aspects of the History of The Black Sea
teaching the History of Communism in the
Ex-Communist Countries
the Alternative History Textbooks
teaching Holocaust
8
The National Office for Evaluation and
Examination’s (S.N.E.E) tasks



exam planning and the structure of
their subjects
planning the structure of the
subjects for the Olympics
the national standards
9
The new education plan


for secondary school and The School
of Arts and Craftsmanship (SAM)
the X-th form as the last form of the
mandatory general education hey
suggested even at the level of The
national Committee different
patterns of teaching-learning history
that are still under project.
10
The principles of conceiving new
history syllabi:



they should be further focused on objectives or
competences supporting the real performances
and the personal and professional development;
there should be issued some programme that can
have a control system of the quality in education,
by formative evaluation and examinations
focused on performances not on repeating
knowledge;
the central idea of the programmes that is they
should be achieved ( the selection of the
contents) by underlying the long time results
and not necessarily the results used at present
(learning to get marks or for examinations).
11
To the principle “I know what to do”
and not “ How much I should know”



1.Modules that comprise general directory guide lines of
history that should be studied chronologically and
thematically but they should allow several epochs and
phenomena to be studied in detail.The comprised contents
in the same module would be the information both in the
world history and Romanian history.
2.The second proposal aims at the study of some essential
problems of mankind in the three forms in secondary school
( for example The State, Institutions, Wars etc) in which
the general phenomenon should be presented,
particularized in examples of world history and of our
country’s.
3. Finally the third proposal reiterates the study of
problems of the world history in two years’ time and in the
final year the study of the national history with the accent
on four big problems : origin, continuity, struggle for
12
emancipation and unity.
Measures regarding the textbooks





introduction of formative courses for the authors of
the textbooks considering that such courses have
not existed at all so far.
competition for authors not for printing houses;
choosing the contents and images should not
favored the clichés, prejudices or racism;
images should not be chosen to make the textbook
more attractive but to arouse discussions to
illustrate and complete the text and help evaluate
it;
there should be a right balance between narration
and analysis, exercises and documents in the
history textbooks and they should allow the
individual and formative learning. Let us not forget
that the textbook belongs to the pupil and we
teach historic pedagogy not academic science in
class.
13
Evaluation



should be achieved from evaluation
objectives that are based on national
performance standards.
the national evaluations: reintroduce the
status of mandatory subject, for history
for both national examinations
investigation and project
14
Formation of
the teachers of history

project and evaluation

more auxiliary didactic materials

to use the computer
15
The new direction regarding teaching
history in school



the formation of competence, abilities,
values and attitudes in pupils
a more flexible curriculum
removing the pressure exercised upon the
study of history that is coming from the
politics .
16