Picture of Luisa de Bivar BlackHistory education has been a recurrent field of debate where different actors have different ideas on what, why and how it should be taught. Currently, other questions are being raised, namely on the purpose of history education, when historical facts are accessible on the Internet, and on omissions of painful, controversial and sensitive issues from history curricula. These questions are overrated in the media, and acutely on social media, which hampers a fruitful debate.

In the short paper you can find below, Luisa de Bivar Black intends to address both issues and contribute with a number of reflections to a serious debate rather than to amplify presentist discourse.

Luisa de Bivar Black is a former university teacher of history and teacher education, currently expert and consultant on history and civic education for the Council of Europe, EUROCLIO, OSCE and UNESCO. She is also a member of the expert group who drafted the Council of Europe’s Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture.

Link to the full article
Written excerpt - Introduction

Teaching and learning about COVID 19 and looking at the bigger picture of pandemics throughout history has been a concern of history educators across Europe even before confinement measures started. There is abundant source material online, including visual sources [1], many of which were used to understand what COVID 19 pandemic was and why it occurred. Teachers organized social media groups to share sources, lesson plans and concerns, especially when it was internalized that face-to-face lessons were replaced by online lessons for a long period of time.

This was a bigger challenge for all educators, because online teaching was a new field for the vast majority. This disruption, which history will consider a turning-point, could also be an opportunity to explore other issues with learners. Instead of focusing primarily on the content of history lessons, teachers could use this time to reflect on what is history, what is the learning potential of history and what are the main challenges of learning history.

Below is an example of how such reflection could be promoted, whether face to face or online.

  1. History teacher asks students what they think is the most challenging thing about studying history; students write down 2 or 3 challenges.
  2. Teacher organises a class discussion of such challenges. The discussion helps teachers align their practice with the students’ main concerns and contributes to reduce students' levels of anxiety. It also fosters the developing of students’ self-efficacy (e.g. writing down what they felt as difficulties) and tolerance of ambiguity (e.g. understanding that colleagues have different challenges).
  3. Teacher pays attention to the words students use, to understand the emotions behind the words, and whether the words translate positive or negative feelings related to the learning of history.
  4. Teacher uses such information to improve (regulate) own teaching, and thus develop own competences, e.g. empathy, critical thinking, openness and adaptability.
  5. The analysis of positive feelings also informs teacher about what triggers students’ motivation, which is key during this period for designing well-structured assignments.
  6. This kind of reflection improves the learning process.

 

Teaching about COVID 19 involves history, the pandemics in the past, and other subjects, such as biology and philosophy. Studying what effects pandemics had throughout history has a scope that goes beyond the discipline of history. However, the specificity of history teaching offers educators and learners the opportunity to reflect on the importance of historical knowledge by answering questions that are specific to history - this is the focus of this paper.

 

[1] Infographics that are easy to consult: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/history-of-pandemics-deadliest/ (Accessed 22.06.2020)