Developing ‘big pictures’ of the past 

Lukas PerikleousDepartment of EducationUniversity of Cypruslukasp@ucy.ac.cy

Challenges of orientating in time

Students do not posses coherent pictures of the past to use to make sense of the past, the present and the future (Lee, 2004).

Their knowledge about the past tends to be fragmented and in most of the cases limited to fragmentary knowledge of events, periods and people without an understanding of how these factual fragments might be connected to each other or to the present (Lee, 2004; Shemilt, 2000)

Understanding of what they do know tends to be distorted by their misconceptions about the past or how we can come to know about it.

Challenges of orientating in time

Students are not able to integrate new factual knowledge with the one already posses. The result of this is usually the displacement of older knowledge in favour of the new one (Lee, 2004).

While they are engaged in activities to learn to work with second order concepts (this usually happens in studying small scale topics), they encounter history in the large scale in a fixed and given form (Shemilt, 2001)

The fact that they encounter an already pre- organised (in topics) past encourage them to believe that the goal of history is to agree a final account of the past (Shemilt, 2001)

Although they acknowledge the existence of different (end even opposing) accounts, they still believe that there is one homogeneous big picture of the past (Shemilt, 2001)

The case of Cyprus

Classroom experience in Cyprus, at least, suggests that the above descriptions apply in the case of Cypriot students also and this claim is also supported by anecdotal evidence of teachers’ perceptions: concerns about students’ inability to connect the knowledge of different historical periods and about the tendency to confuse chronology and to ‘misplace’ people and events in time appear frequently in history teachers’ everyday discussions (Chapman and Perikleous, 2001)

Historical frameworks

Students need to develop coherent historical frameworks

This frameworks will be used to organize fragmented knowledge to larger groups to form big pictures of the past

These frameworks should not become another kind of official narrative

They should take the form of polythetic and multiperspective developmental narratives

Suggestions for framework development Frameworks cannot be built only through teaching the details of

history but with viewing also long term patterns of change This requires teaching broad generalisations about how human

societies have developed The development of second order understanding is also

important They must be rapidly and often revised so students can

assimilate new substantive knowledge to the framework and also assimilate the framework itself.

Frameworks must be open to change, improvement, modification or even abandoning in favour of a better ones.

(Lee, 2004)

Suggestions for framework development Students should be taught and re-taught summaries of the

whole human history Thematic studies over long span of time should be included in

syllabuses Reviews and analysis of overviews of various degrees of

resolution (20, 160, 700 years etc.) When planning lesson, data that are meant to be incorporate

into students’ developing narrative framework must be identified and distinguished from others (those indented for stimulating interest or to develop higher order thinking)

Key data should be often revised and summarised (Shemilt, 2001)

Suggestions for framework development (Lee, 2004; Shemilts, 2001)

At the beginning of a course: The framework must be taught very quickly at the beginning of a course Starting and finishing points should be identified Establish key thematic changes over a long period (at least 1000 years)

between states of affairs.

 

During the course: Students should return to the initial overview and identify landmark changes At each return the thematic changes will be further filled out Students asses the importance of changes and suggest their own questions to

establish landmarks of change

Depth studies: Can be used to test the framework They find a place to fit into the framework’s big picture

Health warning!

Not a sedimentary model where new knowledge is placed over the previous

but A metamorphic model in which new

knowledge is made active by fitting into the historical framework

There are no established ‘recipes’ of developing historical frameworks

The example of New History Curricula in Cyprus (primary education)

Based on the synoptic framework approach (Lee, 2004, 2007; Lee and Howson, 2009; Shemilt, 2011)

Overviews and depth studies Overviews are taught at the beginning of the

school year (4x80’ lessons) Re-visited systematically during the school

year Emphasis on large scale changes and

continuities during depth studies

Four key questions

Overviews and depth studies are organized under four key questions How and why do we move?

Movement and Settlement How do we spend our day

Everyday life What do we think

Ideas and Beliefs How do we organize

Political and social organization

How and why do we move?Movement and Settlement

Why do people move? How and where do people move? Where and how people build their

houses?

How do we spend our day? Everyday life

What do people eat and wear?Which technology do people use?How do people spend their day?

What do we think? Ideas and BeliefsWhat do people think?How do people express their

ideas?

How do we organize? Political and social organization How big are groups of people? Who are the leaders of the groups? What are the relationships between

groups?

An example of an overview in Year 3 history How do we move from the Paleolithic Era to

the 21st century

How do people move and where do they stay?

Paleolithic Era(The old era of stone)

Neolithic Era(The new era of stone)

Copper (bronze) Era

Today(Present- Now)

Paleolithic EraWhy do people move?

We need to leave this place tomorrow to search for food.

You are right. There is no food left in this area.

We need to find a place where we will be protected from

cold.

Hopefully no one is going to force us to leave this new

place.

Paleolithic EraHow do people move?

Paleolithic EraWhere do people live?

Tomorrow we will leave this place.

We will have to move again in a few

days.

Neolithic EraWhy do people move?

This was a great place to build our village.

Yes, it has everything we

need. Father, why did we have to leave our previous village?

Another group attacked us and

forced us to leave.

Neolithic EraHow do people move?

Neolithic EraWhere do people build their villages?

Fortunately the river is pretty close to the

village. This a great place to grow our plants.

Building the village on that hill was a great idea. From there we can spot anyone who wants to

attack us from a distance.

The forest is close so we can hunt.

Neolithic EraHow do people build their houses?

Copper EraWhy do people move?

Yes, it’s next to the sea and has everything we need.

This was great place to build our city.

I had to move with my family here because our village was destroyed by some people who attacked us.

Tomorrow we have to sail for Egypt to sell copper.

Copper EraHow to people move?

Copper EraWhere do people build their towns and villages?

We are close to the sea so we can travel with

our ships.

The land here is good for our plants.

There is a lot of copper in this area.

There is a forest nearby where we can hunt.

The river is close to the city and it’s easy to get our water from there.

Copper EraHow do they build their houses?

Comparing the erasHow do we move and where to we

live? Sort the 4 eras starting with the one during which people change their place of living more often.

Sort the 4 eras beginning with the one during which it’s easier for people to move.

Sort the 4 eras beginning with the one during which moving is most dangerous.

During which era(s) people live in one place permanently?

Change and continuity How do we move and where to we live?

Colour the boxes

On foot

With vehicles (e.g. cars)

On land

In the water

In the air