Historical significance

Last updated
Some would say the Ferranti MRT is "just" a clipboard with a built in calculator, but others claim it has historical significance as "the world's first application-specific handheld computer". MRT100CreativeCommonsRelease23June15(m).jpg
Some would say the Ferranti MRT is "just" a clipboard with a built in calculator, but others claim it has historical significance as "the world's first application-specific handheld computer".

Historical significance is a historiographical key concept that explores and seeks to explain the selection of particular social and cultural past events for remembrance by human societies. This element of selection involved in both ascribing and analyzing historical significance is one factor in making the discipline of history distinct from the past. [1] Historians consider knowledge of dates and events within and between specific historical periods the primary content of history, also known as "first-order knowledge" or substantive concepts. In contrast, historical significance is an example of a subject specific secondary key concept or "second-order knowledge" also known as a meta-concept, [2] or disciplinary concept, [3] which is typically used to help organize knowledge within a subject area, frame suitable areas of inquiry, provide the framework upon which substantive knowledge can be built, and map learner progression within a subject discipline. [4] Specifically with regards to historical significance, the way dates and events are chosen and ascribed relative significance is not fixed and can change over time according to which criteria were used to form the judgement of significance as well as how those criteria were chosen themselves in the first place. This aspect to significance has been described as:

Contents

“a flexible relationship between us and the past”. [5]

Historical significance is often regarded as involving judging why a particular person or event is remembered and why another is not, it is this aspect of reasoned and evaluative judgement about historical significance that makes history writing differ from being simply a record of past events. [6]

"as soon as we turn to questions of significance—of why something happened versus the mere fact of its happening—history becomes an act of judgment." [7]

This emphasis on exploring what has been deemed significant by certain societies in contrast to what has been left out of the historical record has led to historical significance often being paired with the concept of historical silence, which looks at why and how certain social class, racial, and/or ethnic groups have not featured in the historical record or whose contributions have not been seen as significant at particular times, and in particular contexts. [8] [9] [10] [11] Thus historical significance is not an intrinsic or fixed property of a particular historical event but rather more of an assessment of who, why, and how that event was judged significant enough to be remembered. [12] With this potential fluidity in mind, it therefore follows that any assessment of historical significance should not be seen as fixed or permanent. [13]

"historical significance is not an enduring or unchanging characteristic of any particular event. It is a contingent quality that depends on the perspective from which that event is subsequently viewed." [13]

Relevance

A key concept for the study of history and public life in most societies regardless of topic, historical significance makes judgements about what is important to be remembered about the past and why, through its reflections on historical aspects to contemporary culture and society [14] including historical reputations, events, issues, [15] monuments, [16] and what is chosen to be emphasized in history writing itself. [9] Examining what has been included and what has been left out of the historical record can be an effective tool for guiding students to understand how cultural background affects their perception of history. [17] The teaching of how to assess what has been considered significant and what has been left out has been described as:

"surely a fundamental corner-stone of a liberal and democratic education and a pre-requisite for effective citizenship." [18]

The relevance of historical significance can also be demonstrated by its near ubiquitous appearance in provincial, national and international history curriculums including, but not limited to: the Singapore National Curriculum, [19] the English National Curriculum, [20] the IB Diploma History Guide, [21] the New Zealand National Curriculum, [22] and the Australian National Curriculum. [23]

Definitions

There are many definitions of historical significance. For example, UNESCO includes any site as a world heritage site, provided it:

"bear[s] a unique or at least exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition or to a civilization". [24]

Other notable examples include the following, the International Baccalaureate Diploma History Guide which includes historical significance as one of its six historical concepts alongside the other five: Perspectives, Change, Continuity, Causation and Consequence. The IBO define historical significance as including:

"the record that has been preserved through evidence or traces of the past, and/or the aspects that someone has consciously decided to record and communicate". [21]

This definition has overlaps with that provided by the Historical Thinking Project which includes significance as one of its six key concepts of historical thinking:

"A historical person or event can acquire significance if we, the historians, can link it to larger trends and stories that reveal something important for us today". [25]

Criteria for assessing historical significance

Historical significance is typically assessed by judging an event against pre-defined criteria and numerous criteria for assessing historical significance have been proposed. [12] [26] [27] [28] [29] However, these criteria are always subjective, and therefore debatable. [24] There can also be important differences between what is seen as significant in terms of the dominant national narratives of particular countries, what is taught in schools, and how certain groups such as minority groups may see the significance of a particular event. [30] Thus describing any event as historically significant or non-significant remains open to challenge. [24] Typically significance teaching models are not designed to be used as checklists but rather unique disciplinary lenses or principles for examining relative historical significance commonly attached to a historical event or historical personage's actions. [12] These could include different subdivisions of significance such as: contemporary significance, causal significance, pattern significance, symbolic significance, revelatory significance, and present significance. [31]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Learning theory (education)</span> Theory that describes how students receive, process, and retain knowledge during learning

Learning theory describes how students receive, process, and retain knowledge during learning. Cognitive, emotional, and environmental influences, as well as prior experience, all play a part in how understanding, or a worldview, is acquired or changed and knowledge and skills retained.

Science education is the teaching and learning of science to school children, college students, or adults within the general public. The field of science education includes work in science content, science process, some social science, and some teaching pedagogy. The standards for science education provide expectations for the development of understanding for students through the entire course of their K-12 education and beyond. The traditional subjects included in the standards are physical, life, earth, space, and human sciences.

In multiple countries' curriculum, social studies is the integrated study of multiple fields of humanities, the arts, and social sciences, including history, economics, geography and political science. The term was first coined by American educators around the turn of the twentieth century as a catch-all for these subjects, as well as others which did not fit into the helps the models of lower education in the United States, such as philosophy and psychology. One of the purposes of social studies, particularly at the level of higher education, is to integrate several disciplines, with their unique methodologies and special focuses of concentration, into a coherent field of subject areas that communicate with each other by sharing different academic "tools" and perspectives for deeper analysis of social problems and issues. Social studies aims to train students for informed, responsible participation in a diverse democratic society. The content of social studies provides the necessary background knowledge in order to develop values and reasoned opinions, and the objective of the field is civic competence. A related term is humanities, arts, and social sciences, abbreviated HASS.

Bloom's taxonomy is a set of three hierarchical models used for classification of educational learning objectives into levels of complexity and specificity. The three lists cover the learning objectives in cognitive, affective and psychomotor domains. The cognitive domain list has been the primary focus of most traditional education and is frequently used to structure curriculum learning objectives, assessments and activities.

Critical thinking is the analysis of available facts, evidence, observations, and arguments in order to form a judgement by the application of rational, skeptical, and unbiased analyses and evaluation. The application of critical thinking includes self-directed, self-disciplined, self-monitored, and self-corrective habits of the mind, thus a critical thinker is a person who practices the skills of critical thinking or has been trained and educated in its disciplines. Philosopher Richard W. Paul said that the mind of a critical thinker engages the person's intellectual abilities and personality traits. Critical thinking presupposes assent to rigorous standards of excellence and mindful command of their use in effective communication and problem solving, and a commitment to overcome egocentrism and sociocentrism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mathematics education</span> Mathematics teaching, learning and scholarly research

In contemporary education, mathematics education—known in Europe as the didactics or pedagogy of mathematics—is the practice of teaching, learning, and carrying out scholarly research into the transfer of mathematical knowledge.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Curriculum</span> Educational plan

In education, a curriculum is broadly defined as the totality of student experiences that occur in the educational process. The term often refers specifically to a planned sequence of instruction, or to a view of the student's experiences in terms of the educator's or school's instructional goals. A curriculum may incorporate the planned interaction of pupils with instructional content, materials, resources, and processes for evaluating the attainment of educational objectives. Curricula are split into several categories: the explicit, the implicit, the excluded, and the extracurricular.

Historical thinking is a set of critical literacy skills for evaluating and analyzing primary source documents to construct a meaningful account of the past. A large-scale experiment in San Francisco high schools compared traditional textbook-driven instruction to instruction focusing on the analysis of primary source documents. After six months, students in experimental classrooms improved in historical thinking as well as reading comprehension compared to students in regular classrooms.

A concept inventory is a criterion-referenced test designed to help determine whether a student has an accurate working knowledge of a specific set of concepts. Historically, concept inventories have been in the form of multiple-choice tests in order to aid interpretability and facilitate administration in large classes. Unlike a typical, teacher-authored multiple-choice test, questions and response choices on concept inventories are the subject of extensive research. The aims of the research include ascertaining (a) the range of what individuals think a particular question is asking and (b) the most common responses to the questions. Concept inventories are evaluated to ensure test reliability and validity. In its final form, each question includes one correct answer and several distractors.

Founded in 1920, The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) is a professional organization for schoolteachers of mathematics in the United States. One of its goals is to improve the standards of mathematics in education. NCTM holds annual national and regional conferences for teachers and publishes five journals.

Theory of Knowledge (TOK) is a compulsory core subject of the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme covering, for example, epistemological topics. It is marked on a letter scale (A-E) and aims to "provide an opportunity for students to reflect on the nature of knowledge, and on how we know what we claim to know." Students who attain an E will not be able to receive their final IB Diploma.

Authentic assessment is the measurement of "intellectual accomplishments that are worthwhile, significant, and meaningful," as contrasted with multiple-choice tests. Authentic assessment can be devised by the teacher, or in collaboration with the student by engaging student voice. When applying authentic assessment to student learning and achievement, a teacher applies criteria related to “construction of knowledge, disciplined inquiry, and the value of achievement beyond the school.”

Inquiry-based learning is a form of active learning that starts by posing questions, problems or scenarios. It contrasts with traditional education, which generally relies on the teacher presenting facts and their knowledge about the subject. Inquiry-based learning is often assisted by a facilitator rather than a lecturer. Inquirers will identify and research issues and questions to develop knowledge or solutions. Inquiry-based learning includes problem-based learning, and is generally used in small-scale investigations and projects, as well as research. The inquiry-based instruction is principally very closely related to the development and practice of thinking and problem-solving skills.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History</span> Study of the past

History is the systematic study and documentation of the human past.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Classical education movement</span> Renewal of a traditional liberal arts education

The classical education movement or renewal advocates for a return to a traditional education based on the liberal arts, the canons of classical literature, the fine arts, and the history of civilization. It focuses on human formation and paideia with an early emphasis on music, gymnastics, recitation, imitation, and grammar. Multiple organizations support classical education in charter schools, in independent faith-based schools, and in home education. This movement has inspired several graduate programs and colleges as well as a new peer-reviewed journal, Principia: A Journal of Classical Education.

Thomas S. Popkewitz is an professor in the department of curriculum and instruction, University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Education, US. His studies explore historically and contemporary education as practices of making different kinds of people that distribute differences. He has written or edited approximately 40 books and 300 articles in journals and book chapters translated into 17 languages. Recent studies focus on the comparative reason of educational research as cartographies and architectures that produce phantasmagrams of societies, population and differences. The studies entail theoretical, discursive, ethnography, and historical studies that explore school, professional identities, and the relation to conceptions of differences inscribed childhood, learning and cultural differences.

Genocide education refers to education about patterns and trends in the phenomenon of genocide and/or about the causes, nature and impact of particular instances of genocide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Holocaust education</span> Efforts to educate populace on the Holocaust

Holocaust education is efforts, in either formal or informal settings, to teach about the Holocaust. Teaching and Learning about the Holocaust addresses didactics and learning, under the larger umbrella of education about the Holocaust, which also comprises curricula and textbooks studies. The expression "Teaching and Learning about the Holocaust" is used by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.

Phenomenon-based learning is a multidisciplinary, constructivist form of learning or pedagogy where students study a topic or concept in a holistic approach instead of in a subject-based approach. PhBL includes both topical learning, where the phenomenon studied is a specific topic, event, or fact, and thematic learning, where the phenomenon studied is a concept or idea. PhBL emerged as a response to the idea that traditional, subject-based learning is outdated and removed from the real-world and does not offer the optimum approach to development of 21st century skills. It has been used in a wide variety of higher educational institutions and more recently in grade schools.

Aotearoa New Zealand's histories (ANZH) and Te Takanga o Te Wā are documents for use in English- and Maori-medium New Zealand curriculums from 2023 to guide the explicit and compulsory teaching about the country's history. Although the final documents, released in 2022, were part of reviews of the New Zealand education system by the newly elected Labour government from 2017, there had been pressure building prior to this for the focus of the reforms to be on developing a curriculum that truly reflected the history of New Zealand. This had included a petition taken to parliament in 2015 by high school students expressing concerns about how the New Zealand wars were being taught, ongoing debate in the media amongst academics and educationists and another petition urging teaching of New Zealand histories to be compulsory. In response to this, the government created an advisory group in 2018, and in 2019 initiated a recommendation from the group to establish an agreed process for updating the National Curriculum. After a process of consultation, draft documents were trialled and reviewed in 2021 and the final copies launched in March 2022, with the expectation that schools will have the reforms implemented by 2023.

References

  1. ↑ Bergman, Karin (2020-10-20). "How younger students perceive and identify historical significance". History Education Research Journal. 17 (2). doi: 10.14324/HERJ.17.2.03 . ISSN   2631-9713. S2CID   228960478.
  2. ↑ van Drie, Jannet; van Boxtel, Carla (June 2008). "Historical Reasoning: Towards a Framework for Analyzing Students' Reasoning about the Past" (PDF). Educational Psychology Review. 20 (2): 87–110. doi:10.1007/s10648-007-9056-1. ISSN   1040-726X. S2CID   18301284.
  3. ↑ Ofsted. "Developing disciplinary thinking through disciplinary concepts". Research review series: history. Retrieved 22 March 2022.
  4. ↑ Cambridge Assessment (18 March 2022). "Getting started with Key Concepts". Cambridge Assessment International Examinations. Retrieved 18 March 2022.
  5. ↑ Seixas, Peter (2013). The big six : historical thinking concepts. Tom Morton, Jill Colyer, Stefano Fornazzari. Toronto: Nelson Education. p. 17. ISBN   978-0-17-654154-5. OCLC   809317321.
  6. ↑ Coffin, C (2006). Historical Discourse: The language of time, cause and evaluation. London: Continuum. pp. 129–130. ISBN   0826487769.
  7. ↑ Wineburg, Samuel S. (2001). Historical thinking and other unnatural acts : charting the future of teaching the past. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. pp. 249–250. ISBN   1-56639-855-X. OCLC   45304687.
  8. ↑ Levstik, Linda S. (2008). Researching history education : theory, method, and context. Keith C. Barton. New York. pp. 273–291. ISBN   978-1-4106-1676-0. OCLC   1022560730.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  9. 1 2 Trouillot, Michel-Rolph (2015). Silencing the past : power and the production of history. Boston: Beacon Press. p. 27. ISBN   978-0-8070-8053-5. OCLC   924271500.
  10. ↑ Miles, James (2019-05-27). "Historical silences and the enduring power of counter storytelling". Curriculum Inquiry. 49 (3): 253–259. doi: 10.1080/03626784.2019.1633735 . ISSN   0362-6784. S2CID   201328431.
  11. ↑ Misco, Thomas (2008-04-01). ""We did also save people": A Study of Holocaust Education in Romania After Decades of Historical Silence". Theory & Research in Social Education. 36 (2): 61–94. doi:10.1080/00933104.2008.10473367. ISSN   0093-3104. S2CID   144534854.
  12. 1 2 3 Counsell, C. (2004). "Looking through a Josephine-Butler shaped window: Focusing pupils' thinking on historical significance". Teaching History, 114: 30–36 – via Historical Association.
  13. 1 2 "Significance". Historical Association. Retrieved 17 March 2022.
  14. ↑ National History Day. "Historical Significance" (PDF). NHD Rule Book: 8.
  15. ↑ Wrenn, Andrew (2011). "Significance". Debates in History Teaching. Routledge. pp. 148–149. ISBN   978-0-203-83145-8.
  16. ↑ Harcourt, Michael; Fountain, Gregor; Sheehan, Mark (2011). "Historical significance and sites of memory" (PDF). He W H a K A a R O a N O: 26–31.
  17. ↑ Stephanie Levesque (Winter 2005). "Teaching second-order concepts in Canadian history: The importance of "historical significance"" (PDF). University of Western Ontario. Archived (PDF) from the original on 30 April 2017. Retrieved 14 March 2019.
  18. ↑ Phillips, Robert (1 March 2002). "Historical significance – the forgotten 'Key Element'?". Teaching History 106.
  19. ↑ Singapore Ministry of Education (2021). "HISTORY TEACHING AND LEARNING SYLLABUSES" (PDF). The Singapore National Curriculum: 6.
  20. ↑ Department for Education. "History programmes of study: key stage 3 National curriculum in England" (PDF). Retrieved 18 March 2022.
  21. 1 2 Baccalaureate, International (2015). Diploma Programme History Guide. IBO. p. 93.
  22. ↑ New Zealand Ministry of Education. "History Glossary". NCEA Education. Retrieved 19 March 2022.
  23. ↑ The Australian National Curriculum. "Historical knowledge and understanding strand". Australian Curriculum. Retrieved 18 March 2022.
  24. 1 2 3 "Debating Historical Significance" (PDF). Edge Hill University. Archived (PDF) from the original on 15 March 2019. Retrieved 12 March 2019.
  25. ↑ Centre for the Study of Historical Consciousness. "Historical Significance". THE HISTORICAL THINKING PROJECT.
  26. ↑ "Lesson notes". Cambridge University. Archived from the original on 13 January 2017.
  27. ↑ Fulton, David (2014). The Guided Reader to Teaching and Learning History. Routledge. pp. 108–14. ISBN   9781136472848.
  28. ↑ Partington, Geoffrey (1980). The Idea of an Historical Education. NFER Publishing Company. ISBN   9780856332029.
  29. ↑ Cercadillo, Lis (2006). "'Maybe they haven't decided yet what is right:' English and Spanish perspectives on teaching historical significance". Teaching History (125): 6–9. ISSN   0040-0610. JSTOR   43260148.
  30. ↑ Lévesque, S (2009). Thinking historically: Educating students for the twenty-first century. University of Toronto Press. pp. 54–56. ISBN   978-1442610996.
  31. ↑ Cercadillo, L. (2006). "'Maybe they haven't decided yet what is right': English and Spanish perspectives on teaching historical significance". Teaching History, 125: 6–9.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.