Mark Baildon is a Visiting Clinical Associate Professor in Curriculum & Instruction in Indiana University’s School of Education. He was previously a professor of Foundations of Education and Coordinator of International Collaborations and Partnerships in United Arab Emirates University’s College of Education. He was a professor of Humanities and Social Studies Education for 16 years with the National Institute of Education (NIE) in Singapore. He served as Associate Dean of Partnerships and Analytics and the Head of the Humanities and Social Studies Education Academic Group and led several innovative interdisciplinary curriculum and technology development projects. He has published five books and many scholarly articles about global citizenship education, literacy education, and inquiry-based learning. His latest books are How to Confront Climate Denial: Literacy, Social Studies, and Climate Change (w/ James Damico, TCPress, 2022); The Role of Language in Content Pedagogy: A Framework for Teachers' Knowledge (w/ Seah & Silver, Springer, 2022); and Research on Global Citizenship in Asia: Conceptions, Perceptions and Practice (w/ Tracey Alviar-Martin, IAP, 2021). Address: Office 3270, Department of Curriculum & Instruction School of Education, Indiana University
By many accounts, societies, their institutions, and citizens are not doing enough, and with the ... more By many accounts, societies, their institutions, and citizens are not doing enough, and with the necessary urgency, to address the climate crisis. While higher education institutions have embraced the rhetoric of sustainability and contributed to climate science, the development of renewables and other climate solutions, and a host of policy reforms that aim for greater sustainable development, this paper argues that particular forms of climate denial have impeded more transformative directions in higher education. These denials include denying the depth and magnitude of the problems that the planet and people around the world are facing, the unsustainability of continued limitless growth, and a denial of the contexts, legacies, and discourses that have often served to impede important reforms in higher education. Using a climate denial lens, this paper examines the role of different forms of denial in higher education, such as the role climate denial funding sources in universities and how historical legacies and modern neoliberal discourses continue to limit possibilities for more transformative reforms in higher education. The paper concludes by sharing how these forms of denial might be addressed to advance a stronger response to the climate crisis.
Chronology, or putting past events in temporal order, is a starting point for making sense of the... more Chronology, or putting past events in temporal order, is a starting point for making sense of the past (Seixas & Morton, 2013). However, sequencing the past into chronological order requires more than the memorization of events and their dates. Chronological thinking is central to historical reasoning because it enables us to organize our thinking about the past, consider relationships between events, determine cause and effect, and identify the structure or “plotline” of stories told about the past (i.e., those contained in accounts or historical narratives). It entails more than simply filling out a timeline, although timelines are essential tools for helping students understand chronological order and cause and effect relationships, and other patterns in history.
While scientific consensus about human‐caused climate change has been clear for decades, denial o... more While scientific consensus about human‐caused climate change has been clear for decades, denial of this science and denial about the need for timely, responsive action continue in the United States and around the world. The Climate Denial Inquiry Model can help educators grapple with the complex components of this denial with critical literacy+ and eco‐civic practices of deliberation, reflexivity, and counter‐narration to help investigate climate denial texts, stories, contexts, and philosophies. This charts a pathway toward ecojustice‐centered stories‐To‐live by.
Edited by: William B. Russell III, Ph.D., University of Central Florida and Stewart Waters, The U... more Edited by: William B. Russell III, Ph.D., University of Central Florida and Stewart Waters, The University of Tennessee SECTION III: FILM AND THE SOCIAL SCIENCES (NONHISTORY): This Changes Everything! Critical Literacy and Climate Change in Social Studies , James Damico, Mark Baildon, and Alexandra Panos.https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/tedfacbooks/1000/thumbnail.jp
Singapore has prospered since independence by developing its human resources under a distinctly S... more Singapore has prospered since independence by developing its human resources under a distinctly Singaporean meritocratic system. Recent developments in public discourse, and findings from interviews with leading Singaporean personalities, however, point towards the system's increasing undesirability. Among other problems, our study participants blame the system for worsening class divisions in society; for damaging the mental well-being of students; and for leading to a narrowing of society's definitions of success while leaving Singaporean workers unprepared for challenges of the future economy. Our paper shows that for Singaporeans to be ready for these challenges and to find purpose and meaning in the future economy, the current meritocratic systems require reform. We argue for a new kind of political decisionmaking to allow Singaporean society to reorder its basic values and priorities towards a more democratic, inclusive and compassionate meritocracy.
This paper begins by framing the concept of historical agency as a complex relationship between s... more This paper begins by framing the concept of historical agency as a complex relationship between structural forces and individual actions. We then describe general features of historical fiction and consider ways of using this type of text in classrooms. Using the concept of historical agency, we examine three historical fiction texts for upper elementary or middle level readers (Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, The Fighting Ground, and Dragon's Gate). The analysis reveals the similarities and differences in the ways the authors construct historical agency. The paper concludes with a set of four key questions that teachers and students can apply to historical fiction to help students refigure the ways in which they construct knowledge about the past.
Journal of Research in Curriculum Instruction, 2016
As social studies teacher educators we have a responsibility to prepare future teachers who are g... more As social studies teacher educators we have a responsibility to prepare future teachers who are globally aware, culturally and linguistically responsive, and pedagogically reflective. This study seeks to better understand how a collaborative practicum experience with a local immigrant English/Civics community program is preparing pre-service social studies teachers (PSSTs) for their future work with culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) secondary school students by asking the following question: [How] does the practicum experience develop pre-service teachers’ knowledge, attitudes, and skills for becoming globally aware and culturally and linguistically responsive educators? Using a lens of global mindedness and culturally and linguistically relevant pedagogy, we analyzed and interpreted PSSTs reflections. Findings revealed that PSSTs experienced significant changes in their professional and personal growth.
A network of fossil fuel industry-led organizations, foundations, associations, and industry-fund... more A network of fossil fuel industry-led organizations, foundations, associations, and industry-funded politicians have challenged climate science, sown public doubt and confusion about climate science, and impeded effective climate policy action. This article offers an instructional model, the climate denial inquiry model (CDIM), to frame and guide work that literacy and social studies educators can do with students. Drawing from our own teaching over the past decade, this model is rooted in critical literacies and social studies education in ways that support teachers to engage students in four core practices: 1.) Identify two distinct types of climate denial that operate in texts: science denial and action denial; 2.) Investigate and understand how climate denial texts are shaped in and through contexts that promote or perpetuate climate denial; 3.) Examine individual and group ecological philosophies or ecosophies; and 4.) Discern and deconstruct destructive “stories-we-live-by” (Stibbe, 2021) as well as identify, promote, and cultivate ecojustice “stories-To-live-by (Damico & Baildon, 2022).
Singapore has prospered since independence by developing its human resources under a distinctly S... more Singapore has prospered since independence by developing its human resources under a distinctly Singaporean meritocratic system. Recent developments in public discourse, and findings from interviews with leading Singaporean personalities, however, point towards the system's increasing undesirability. Among other problems, our study participants blame the system for worsening class divisions in society; for damaging the mental well-being of students; and for leading to a narrowing of society's definitions of success while leaving Singaporean workers unprepared for challenges of the future economy. Our paper shows that for Singaporeans to be ready for these challenges and to find purpose and meaning in the future economy, the current meritocratic systems require reform. We argue for a new kind of political decisionmaking to allow Singaporean society to reorder its basic values and priorities towards a more democratic, inclusive and compassionate meritocracy.
This study uses a sociocultural lens to investigate 16 Singaporean teachers' perceptions of resea... more This study uses a sociocultural lens to investigate 16 Singaporean teachers' perceptions of research in practice through semi-structured interviews and an inductive analytical approach to develop findings. Results illustrate that most of the teachers perceived research as having low utility but did express aspirational views that research could inform practice and support education system goals in instrumentalist terms. Particular tensions arising in the contexts of practice were surfaced that accounted for efficiency-driven perceptions of research usage. Greater attention to the contexts of policymaking, research knowledge production, and conditions for research use by teachers is suggested by the findings.
International handbook on education development in Asia-Pacific, 2022
Global citizenship education (GCE) is an educational paradigm that is both ubiquitous and contest... more Global citizenship education (GCE) is an educational paradigm that is both ubiquitous and contested. Education reform efforts have reflected curricular and cultural perspectives of dominant national identities and competitiveness in the global market. In various Asian societies, legacies of colonial rule, depoliticized approaches to civic education, and persistent social inequalities further complicate the nature of schooling, teaching, and how students build an understanding of their roles as members of the global community. This chapter provides key findings from literature and case studies to identify classroom practices that support more critical, democratic, and cosmopolitan forms of GCE in Asian societies. In particular, it points to the ways educators in some Asian contexts
Embracing new perspectives in history, social sciences, and education (ICHSE), 2022
This paper examines the role cosmopolitan theory and practice can play in history and social scie... more This paper examines the role cosmopolitan theory and practice can play in history and social science education and research. It highlights traditions of cosmopolitanism in Asian contexts and suggest ways these perspectives can be drawn upon to help address Grand Challenges that face humanity and the planet in the 21st century. The keynote emphasizes the need for more multi-and trans-disciplinary approaches in education and research to enable citizens and societies to better understand and address complex, interconnected, and transnational problems we are now facing. The paper draws on cosmopolitanism as a transformative project that calls for new forms of knowledge, education, and social practices to create more just and sustainable futures.
Restructuring leadership for school improvement and reform, 2023
In this chapter the authors briefly highlight key ideas and principles of developing and enacting... more In this chapter the authors briefly highlight key ideas and principles of developing and enacting vision statements; they then argue that vision statements must be truly visionary – bold, powerful, inspiring, imaginative, and collectively constructed. They should direct school improvement toward transformative outcomes for both individuals and society. Vision statements need to become truly visionary by pointing the way toward new educational purposes, values, policies, programs, and practices that help people think and act in new ways. Vision statements can help individuals and schools pivot toward new beliefs and behaviors at all levels of education; they can guide the everyday decisions and actions of people in schools; and they can be used to modify structures, policies, and processes that improve schools in powerful and bold directions (Dufour et al, 2008). Statements that are visionary convey a strong sense of moral purpose, a vision of powerful learning for ALL learners, and a social vision of learning committed to understanding and addressing the challenges individuals and societies are facing. The authors conclude by suggesting how more visionary vision statements might be co-constructed with stakeholders using a tri-focal perspective that conveys: 1.) a moral vision of care, responsibility, and responsiveness committed to helping all young people develop their full capabilities; 2.) a vision of authentic and meaningful learning; and 3.) a social vision guided by principles of equity, inclusion, and sustainability.
“Crisis” has become a prominent feature of contemporary social, cultural and political reality (M... more “Crisis” has become a prominent feature of contemporary social, cultural and political reality (Milstein, 2015). However, as scholars point out (e.g., Cordero, 2017; Koselleck, 2006; Milstein, 2015), the meaning of “crisis” is not always clearly defined. Historian Reinhart Koselleck (2006) has noted that in the last two centuries, “there has been an enormous quantitative expansion in the variety of meanings attached to the concept of crisis, but few corresponding gains in either clarity or precision” (p. 397). As Milstein (2015) reiterates, this lack of clarity and precision is still evident in the “crisis talk” that is used almost everywhere and about everything, from “global crisis” to “financial crisis”, “international crisis”, “ecological crisis”, “crisis of democracy” and so on. The media “turn every event into a crisis” with crises becoming daily or even hourly events, notes Gamble (2014, p. 28). However, once everything is perceived to be in more or less unending crisis, according to Holton (1987), then we are losing our capacity to discriminate between social pathology or breakdown, on the one side, and social normality and social order on the other. In this sense, crisis loses its overtones of danger and urgency for change, becoming a normal aspect of capitalist development (Rikowski, 2021).
ICT-based learning innovations for the 21st century: Scaling change through apprenticing and ecological leadership in Singapore, 2021
This chapter shares efforts to conceptualize, develop, and implement two signature labs to suppor... more This chapter shares efforts to conceptualize, develop, and implement two signature labs to support Humanities education in Singapore-the Historian's Lab and the Sustainability Learning Lab. In particular, we focus on lessons learned in innovation (e.g., the necessity of creative and collaborative synergies among disciplinary experts, curriculum specialists, ICT designers, and teacher leaders, among others) and managing the challenges and constraints of educational innovation in a centralized, results-oriented system that at the same time continually encourages innovation.
Fieldwork in humanities education in Singapore , 2021
History pervades public culture and everyday life: through family histories, political discourses... more History pervades public culture and everyday life: through family histories, political discourses, popular culture and media, classroom instruction, museum experiences, and commemorative events. Historical sites, such as memorials, museums and heritage places can be interpretive sites to help students actively participate in public debates about the meaning of the past and how the past is represented. Well-designed historical fieldwork offers students authentic learning experiences in historical investigation, and gives them opportunities to more fully consider the "variety of voices in which the echo of the past is heard" (Gadamer, 2006, p. 285). This chapter provides a framework based on the systematic questioning of historical sites to support rigorous fieldwork as a central part of history education to develop students' historical reasoning skills, conceptual understanding, and knowledge about the past. It focuses on the ways history is represented, and how it has been used to communicate meanings about identity (individual and collective)-past, present, and future (Nordgren, 2016). The chapter calls for an interpretive approach to fieldwork to help students think about the ways different historical sites represent the past, the ways they "work" to convey particular pasts, and the different kinds of "readings" that can be done to more critically interrogate these representations. Inquiry-based fieldwork can support this kind of work by scaffolding students to more critically question sites as "representations" of the past and providing them with the means to consider how histories get constructed, for what purposes, and for whom.
By many accounts, societies, their institutions, and citizens are not doing enough, and with the ... more By many accounts, societies, their institutions, and citizens are not doing enough, and with the necessary urgency, to address the climate crisis. While higher education institutions have embraced the rhetoric of sustainability and contributed to climate science, the development of renewables and other climate solutions, and a host of policy reforms that aim for greater sustainable development, this paper argues that particular forms of climate denial have impeded more transformative directions in higher education. These denials include denying the depth and magnitude of the problems that the planet and people around the world are facing, the unsustainability of continued limitless growth, and a denial of the contexts, legacies, and discourses that have often served to impede important reforms in higher education. Using a climate denial lens, this paper examines the role of different forms of denial in higher education, such as the role climate denial funding sources in universities and how historical legacies and modern neoliberal discourses continue to limit possibilities for more transformative reforms in higher education. The paper concludes by sharing how these forms of denial might be addressed to advance a stronger response to the climate crisis.
Chronology, or putting past events in temporal order, is a starting point for making sense of the... more Chronology, or putting past events in temporal order, is a starting point for making sense of the past (Seixas & Morton, 2013). However, sequencing the past into chronological order requires more than the memorization of events and their dates. Chronological thinking is central to historical reasoning because it enables us to organize our thinking about the past, consider relationships between events, determine cause and effect, and identify the structure or “plotline” of stories told about the past (i.e., those contained in accounts or historical narratives). It entails more than simply filling out a timeline, although timelines are essential tools for helping students understand chronological order and cause and effect relationships, and other patterns in history.
While scientific consensus about human‐caused climate change has been clear for decades, denial o... more While scientific consensus about human‐caused climate change has been clear for decades, denial of this science and denial about the need for timely, responsive action continue in the United States and around the world. The Climate Denial Inquiry Model can help educators grapple with the complex components of this denial with critical literacy+ and eco‐civic practices of deliberation, reflexivity, and counter‐narration to help investigate climate denial texts, stories, contexts, and philosophies. This charts a pathway toward ecojustice‐centered stories‐To‐live by.
Edited by: William B. Russell III, Ph.D., University of Central Florida and Stewart Waters, The U... more Edited by: William B. Russell III, Ph.D., University of Central Florida and Stewart Waters, The University of Tennessee SECTION III: FILM AND THE SOCIAL SCIENCES (NONHISTORY): This Changes Everything! Critical Literacy and Climate Change in Social Studies , James Damico, Mark Baildon, and Alexandra Panos.https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/tedfacbooks/1000/thumbnail.jp
Singapore has prospered since independence by developing its human resources under a distinctly S... more Singapore has prospered since independence by developing its human resources under a distinctly Singaporean meritocratic system. Recent developments in public discourse, and findings from interviews with leading Singaporean personalities, however, point towards the system's increasing undesirability. Among other problems, our study participants blame the system for worsening class divisions in society; for damaging the mental well-being of students; and for leading to a narrowing of society's definitions of success while leaving Singaporean workers unprepared for challenges of the future economy. Our paper shows that for Singaporeans to be ready for these challenges and to find purpose and meaning in the future economy, the current meritocratic systems require reform. We argue for a new kind of political decisionmaking to allow Singaporean society to reorder its basic values and priorities towards a more democratic, inclusive and compassionate meritocracy.
This paper begins by framing the concept of historical agency as a complex relationship between s... more This paper begins by framing the concept of historical agency as a complex relationship between structural forces and individual actions. We then describe general features of historical fiction and consider ways of using this type of text in classrooms. Using the concept of historical agency, we examine three historical fiction texts for upper elementary or middle level readers (Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, The Fighting Ground, and Dragon's Gate). The analysis reveals the similarities and differences in the ways the authors construct historical agency. The paper concludes with a set of four key questions that teachers and students can apply to historical fiction to help students refigure the ways in which they construct knowledge about the past.
Journal of Research in Curriculum Instruction, 2016
As social studies teacher educators we have a responsibility to prepare future teachers who are g... more As social studies teacher educators we have a responsibility to prepare future teachers who are globally aware, culturally and linguistically responsive, and pedagogically reflective. This study seeks to better understand how a collaborative practicum experience with a local immigrant English/Civics community program is preparing pre-service social studies teachers (PSSTs) for their future work with culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) secondary school students by asking the following question: [How] does the practicum experience develop pre-service teachers’ knowledge, attitudes, and skills for becoming globally aware and culturally and linguistically responsive educators? Using a lens of global mindedness and culturally and linguistically relevant pedagogy, we analyzed and interpreted PSSTs reflections. Findings revealed that PSSTs experienced significant changes in their professional and personal growth.
A network of fossil fuel industry-led organizations, foundations, associations, and industry-fund... more A network of fossil fuel industry-led organizations, foundations, associations, and industry-funded politicians have challenged climate science, sown public doubt and confusion about climate science, and impeded effective climate policy action. This article offers an instructional model, the climate denial inquiry model (CDIM), to frame and guide work that literacy and social studies educators can do with students. Drawing from our own teaching over the past decade, this model is rooted in critical literacies and social studies education in ways that support teachers to engage students in four core practices: 1.) Identify two distinct types of climate denial that operate in texts: science denial and action denial; 2.) Investigate and understand how climate denial texts are shaped in and through contexts that promote or perpetuate climate denial; 3.) Examine individual and group ecological philosophies or ecosophies; and 4.) Discern and deconstruct destructive “stories-we-live-by” (Stibbe, 2021) as well as identify, promote, and cultivate ecojustice “stories-To-live-by (Damico & Baildon, 2022).
Singapore has prospered since independence by developing its human resources under a distinctly S... more Singapore has prospered since independence by developing its human resources under a distinctly Singaporean meritocratic system. Recent developments in public discourse, and findings from interviews with leading Singaporean personalities, however, point towards the system's increasing undesirability. Among other problems, our study participants blame the system for worsening class divisions in society; for damaging the mental well-being of students; and for leading to a narrowing of society's definitions of success while leaving Singaporean workers unprepared for challenges of the future economy. Our paper shows that for Singaporeans to be ready for these challenges and to find purpose and meaning in the future economy, the current meritocratic systems require reform. We argue for a new kind of political decisionmaking to allow Singaporean society to reorder its basic values and priorities towards a more democratic, inclusive and compassionate meritocracy.
This study uses a sociocultural lens to investigate 16 Singaporean teachers' perceptions of resea... more This study uses a sociocultural lens to investigate 16 Singaporean teachers' perceptions of research in practice through semi-structured interviews and an inductive analytical approach to develop findings. Results illustrate that most of the teachers perceived research as having low utility but did express aspirational views that research could inform practice and support education system goals in instrumentalist terms. Particular tensions arising in the contexts of practice were surfaced that accounted for efficiency-driven perceptions of research usage. Greater attention to the contexts of policymaking, research knowledge production, and conditions for research use by teachers is suggested by the findings.
International handbook on education development in Asia-Pacific, 2022
Global citizenship education (GCE) is an educational paradigm that is both ubiquitous and contest... more Global citizenship education (GCE) is an educational paradigm that is both ubiquitous and contested. Education reform efforts have reflected curricular and cultural perspectives of dominant national identities and competitiveness in the global market. In various Asian societies, legacies of colonial rule, depoliticized approaches to civic education, and persistent social inequalities further complicate the nature of schooling, teaching, and how students build an understanding of their roles as members of the global community. This chapter provides key findings from literature and case studies to identify classroom practices that support more critical, democratic, and cosmopolitan forms of GCE in Asian societies. In particular, it points to the ways educators in some Asian contexts
Embracing new perspectives in history, social sciences, and education (ICHSE), 2022
This paper examines the role cosmopolitan theory and practice can play in history and social scie... more This paper examines the role cosmopolitan theory and practice can play in history and social science education and research. It highlights traditions of cosmopolitanism in Asian contexts and suggest ways these perspectives can be drawn upon to help address Grand Challenges that face humanity and the planet in the 21st century. The keynote emphasizes the need for more multi-and trans-disciplinary approaches in education and research to enable citizens and societies to better understand and address complex, interconnected, and transnational problems we are now facing. The paper draws on cosmopolitanism as a transformative project that calls for new forms of knowledge, education, and social practices to create more just and sustainable futures.
Restructuring leadership for school improvement and reform, 2023
In this chapter the authors briefly highlight key ideas and principles of developing and enacting... more In this chapter the authors briefly highlight key ideas and principles of developing and enacting vision statements; they then argue that vision statements must be truly visionary – bold, powerful, inspiring, imaginative, and collectively constructed. They should direct school improvement toward transformative outcomes for both individuals and society. Vision statements need to become truly visionary by pointing the way toward new educational purposes, values, policies, programs, and practices that help people think and act in new ways. Vision statements can help individuals and schools pivot toward new beliefs and behaviors at all levels of education; they can guide the everyday decisions and actions of people in schools; and they can be used to modify structures, policies, and processes that improve schools in powerful and bold directions (Dufour et al, 2008). Statements that are visionary convey a strong sense of moral purpose, a vision of powerful learning for ALL learners, and a social vision of learning committed to understanding and addressing the challenges individuals and societies are facing. The authors conclude by suggesting how more visionary vision statements might be co-constructed with stakeholders using a tri-focal perspective that conveys: 1.) a moral vision of care, responsibility, and responsiveness committed to helping all young people develop their full capabilities; 2.) a vision of authentic and meaningful learning; and 3.) a social vision guided by principles of equity, inclusion, and sustainability.
“Crisis” has become a prominent feature of contemporary social, cultural and political reality (M... more “Crisis” has become a prominent feature of contemporary social, cultural and political reality (Milstein, 2015). However, as scholars point out (e.g., Cordero, 2017; Koselleck, 2006; Milstein, 2015), the meaning of “crisis” is not always clearly defined. Historian Reinhart Koselleck (2006) has noted that in the last two centuries, “there has been an enormous quantitative expansion in the variety of meanings attached to the concept of crisis, but few corresponding gains in either clarity or precision” (p. 397). As Milstein (2015) reiterates, this lack of clarity and precision is still evident in the “crisis talk” that is used almost everywhere and about everything, from “global crisis” to “financial crisis”, “international crisis”, “ecological crisis”, “crisis of democracy” and so on. The media “turn every event into a crisis” with crises becoming daily or even hourly events, notes Gamble (2014, p. 28). However, once everything is perceived to be in more or less unending crisis, according to Holton (1987), then we are losing our capacity to discriminate between social pathology or breakdown, on the one side, and social normality and social order on the other. In this sense, crisis loses its overtones of danger and urgency for change, becoming a normal aspect of capitalist development (Rikowski, 2021).
ICT-based learning innovations for the 21st century: Scaling change through apprenticing and ecological leadership in Singapore, 2021
This chapter shares efforts to conceptualize, develop, and implement two signature labs to suppor... more This chapter shares efforts to conceptualize, develop, and implement two signature labs to support Humanities education in Singapore-the Historian's Lab and the Sustainability Learning Lab. In particular, we focus on lessons learned in innovation (e.g., the necessity of creative and collaborative synergies among disciplinary experts, curriculum specialists, ICT designers, and teacher leaders, among others) and managing the challenges and constraints of educational innovation in a centralized, results-oriented system that at the same time continually encourages innovation.
Fieldwork in humanities education in Singapore , 2021
History pervades public culture and everyday life: through family histories, political discourses... more History pervades public culture and everyday life: through family histories, political discourses, popular culture and media, classroom instruction, museum experiences, and commemorative events. Historical sites, such as memorials, museums and heritage places can be interpretive sites to help students actively participate in public debates about the meaning of the past and how the past is represented. Well-designed historical fieldwork offers students authentic learning experiences in historical investigation, and gives them opportunities to more fully consider the "variety of voices in which the echo of the past is heard" (Gadamer, 2006, p. 285). This chapter provides a framework based on the systematic questioning of historical sites to support rigorous fieldwork as a central part of history education to develop students' historical reasoning skills, conceptual understanding, and knowledge about the past. It focuses on the ways history is represented, and how it has been used to communicate meanings about identity (individual and collective)-past, present, and future (Nordgren, 2016). The chapter calls for an interpretive approach to fieldwork to help students think about the ways different historical sites represent the past, the ways they "work" to convey particular pasts, and the different kinds of "readings" that can be done to more critically interrogate these representations. Inquiry-based fieldwork can support this kind of work by scaffolding students to more critically question sites as "representations" of the past and providing them with the means to consider how histories get constructed, for what purposes, and for whom.
Inquiry-Based Learning in Singapore: Challenges, Constraints and Opportunities, Suhaimi Afandi, and Mark Baildon., 2023
Inquiry plays a vital role in history as a discipline which constructs knowledge about the past a... more Inquiry plays a vital role in history as a discipline which constructs knowledge about the past and it is a vital organizing principle in history education in many countries around the world. Inquiry is also much debated, however, and although it has prominent contemporary advocates around the world, it also has prominent critics in education studies. This volume in the International Review of History Education explores the role of historical inquiry in history curricula and in history classrooms and addresses a series of linked questions, including the following:
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Papers by Mark Baildon
statements need to become truly visionary by pointing the way toward new educational purposes, values, policies, programs, and practices that help people think and act in new ways. Vision statements can help individuals and schools pivot toward new beliefs and behaviors at all levels of education; they can guide the everyday decisions and actions of people in schools; and they can be used to modify structures, policies, and processes that improve schools in powerful and bold directions (Dufour et al, 2008). Statements that are visionary convey a strong sense of moral purpose, a vision of powerful learning for ALL learners, and a social vision of learning committed to understanding and addressing the challenges individuals and societies are facing. The authors conclude by suggesting how more visionary vision statements might be co-constructed with stakeholders using a tri-focal perspective that conveys: 1.) a moral vision of care, responsibility, and responsiveness committed to helping all young people develop their full capabilities; 2.) a vision of authentic and meaningful learning; and 3.) a social vision guided by principles of equity,
inclusion, and sustainability.
“crisis talk” that is used almost everywhere and about everything, from “global crisis” to “financial crisis”, “international crisis”, “ecological crisis”, “crisis of democracy” and so on. The media “turn every event into a crisis” with crises becoming daily or even hourly events, notes Gamble (2014, p. 28). However, once everything is perceived to be in more or less unending crisis, according to Holton (1987), then we are losing our capacity to discriminate between social pathology or breakdown, on the one side, and social normality and social order on the other. In this sense, crisis loses its overtones of danger and urgency for change, becoming a normal aspect of capitalist development (Rikowski, 2021).
statements need to become truly visionary by pointing the way toward new educational purposes, values, policies, programs, and practices that help people think and act in new ways. Vision statements can help individuals and schools pivot toward new beliefs and behaviors at all levels of education; they can guide the everyday decisions and actions of people in schools; and they can be used to modify structures, policies, and processes that improve schools in powerful and bold directions (Dufour et al, 2008). Statements that are visionary convey a strong sense of moral purpose, a vision of powerful learning for ALL learners, and a social vision of learning committed to understanding and addressing the challenges individuals and societies are facing. The authors conclude by suggesting how more visionary vision statements might be co-constructed with stakeholders using a tri-focal perspective that conveys: 1.) a moral vision of care, responsibility, and responsiveness committed to helping all young people develop their full capabilities; 2.) a vision of authentic and meaningful learning; and 3.) a social vision guided by principles of equity,
inclusion, and sustainability.
“crisis talk” that is used almost everywhere and about everything, from “global crisis” to “financial crisis”, “international crisis”, “ecological crisis”, “crisis of democracy” and so on. The media “turn every event into a crisis” with crises becoming daily or even hourly events, notes Gamble (2014, p. 28). However, once everything is perceived to be in more or less unending crisis, according to Holton (1987), then we are losing our capacity to discriminate between social pathology or breakdown, on the one side, and social normality and social order on the other. In this sense, crisis loses its overtones of danger and urgency for change, becoming a normal aspect of capitalist development (Rikowski, 2021).