Curriculum History

This study draws from histories of “educationalisation” and neo-Foucaultian histories of English teaching in an archival analysis that revisits landmark pedagogical texts that coincided with the rapid expansion of the school subject English in between the 1894 Report of the Committee of Ten and 1918 Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education. The archival analysis considers these two reform documents along with the first comprehensive books on English teaching, which were published between the 1890s and 1920s. The study’s analysis adopts a selective focus on their explicit aims and rationales for teaching English, particularly in secondary schools, and the pedagogic logics and practices by which English was imagined as a governmental response to various social problems. This archival work recovers the largely overlooked ways in which the teaching of English was positioned to improve the moral and social condition of the population, to develop youths’ capacities for self-governance, to professionalise teaching through the psychological sciences, and to include “problem” populations within the corrective spaces of the English classroom. It also illustrates how distinctive approaches to teaching English language and literature were understood to attune youths’ “souls” to a range of governmental norms. This study bridges ideas from two historical literatures in order to unearth “educationalisation” problematics and “governmental” practices that traditional histories of English teaching have largely obscured, particularly in the United States.

Jory Brass (2016): English teaching and the educationalisation
of social problems in the United States, 1894–1918, Paedagogica Historica, DOI:
10.1080/00309230.2016.1151056. Available for free download at this link: share online access to your article with up to 50 colleagues by forwarding this eprint link http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/qRsJzCjhftKhJNxutZvv/full

Herbart's work informs scholars of education history and historiography that seek to understand the foundations of modern German-speaking Education. Scholars interested in education reform find guidance and clarity in Herbart's uncompromising commitment to pedagogy for and with the enlightened human being. This is of particular relevance in view of the current policy developments in the German-speaking world that move away from the roots of Didaktik and toward systems of accountability reminiscent of the past 40 years of U.S. education policy.

This article seeks to advocate the genre Curriculum History as a most promising way to conduct international and comparative research in education. Advocating Curriculum History as a Camino Real in education research this article is organized around two major questions or challenges: first, the historiographic challenge between the national and the global, and second the double team of constitution and curriculum. The first challenge is connected to the fact that Curriculum History owes its own emergence to particular cultural assumptions facing specific problems a century ago, namely the idea(l) of American citizenship and the challenges of massive immigration, modernization in terms of commercialization of life and the growth of large cities. In order to prevent a hegemonic export of this particular US-American construction of Curriculum History this article suggests to emancipate international research from these cultural assumptions and to define its central concepts, citizen, nation, and society, as floating signifiers that have been materialized in each case differently in the individual nation-states.

This article provides an historical case study of an abortive attempt to revise policy and legislation relating to Religious Education (RE) in English schools in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Drawing upon published sources, including parliamentary debates, as well as previously unutilised national archival sources from the Department of Education and Science, it comments upon events which have hitherto been omitted from the historiography of RE, but which help to contextualise significant changes in RE theory and practice at that time. Moreover, it demonstrates that the current parlous state of RE in schools is in part the result of latent and longstanding issues and problems, rather than a consequence of present-day government policy alone. Therefore, in reviewing and developing RE policies and practices, all stakeholders are urged to look more closely at both changes and continuities in the subject’s past and the contexts in which they occurred.

The question of why students think there are two kinds of American history taught—one in the K—12 system and one in the university system—can be examined critically using Emile Durkheim's (1973) description of the sacred and the profane. The history taught in K—12 classrooms often focuses on idealized accounts of the past that protect the status quo. K—12 history emphasizes the underlying values that Durkheim calls the sacred, which are reproduced through the development of a triumphal history. The sacred values in K—12 history emphasize selfless acts of people who sacrificed on behalf of society. In contrast, the curriculum emphasized in college courses often focuses on failings that do not reflect the highest ideals of society, which Durkheim calls the profane. The dissonance between these types of history is important for understanding why different types of history are taught and why social change can be difficult to accomplish.

This article historicizes 21st century personalized learning by tracing its lineage to 20th century technologies that were considered commercial and educational failures. It explores important and often ironic links between past and present attempts to personalize learning through technology to trouble claims that personalized learning is a fundamentally new model of education that has broken free of the “industrial model” of education reform. At the same time, personalized learning illustrates how democratic governance of education has been displaced by new policy networks, datafication, and algorithmic governance. This curriculum history wears away at grand claims about personalized learning and makes tactical use of past struggles over machine-based learning to provoke more rigorous debates about learning, digital governance, and the growing influence of venture philanthropy, technology companies, and intermediary organizations in educational policy-making and curriculum development.

My previous article in Kelleher's Collectors Connection introduced the concept of the Taxonomy of Cover Elements. In this third article, I discuss Postal History Research Sources & Methods. Traditional sources include specialized philatelic libraries and digitized journals, as well as Postal Bulletins, Laws and Regulations. This article also explores the use of governmental websites, genealogical sources, retroReveal.org, tools and techniques for conducting analytical philately, and non-philatelic archives. The article also proposes a curriculum for teaching courses in postal history to undergraduate history and economics majors, as well as a comparable curriculum at the high school AP level.

This document is my third column, as published in the July-August, 2016 issue of Kelleher's Collectors Connection and contains extracts from my forthcoming book, "Mastering Postal History".

Tyler, R. (2013). Basic principles of curriculum and instruction with Forward by Peter S. Hlebowitsh. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. (Original work published 1949)

Ralph Tyler’s (1949/2013) Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction (BPoCI) represented the perfect ideological tonic for culminating the historical epoch of curriculum theorizing between 1892 and 1958. Emphasizing the professional bureaucratization of its epoch, Tyler’s BPoCI and the Tyler rationale provided (and continue to provide) the hegemonic logic in curriculum design and development that you can simply not not want in the historical present.

Critical theorist Jürgen Habermas has theorised
about history in ways that may resonate with teachers.
Although not extensively referred to by current
teachers, Habermas’s work is, nevertheless, still used
to inform the pedagogical theories and can be found
in current textbooks written for pre-service teachers
in Australia and internationally.1 Habermas’s theory of
‘forms of knowledge’ remains influential and applicable
in contemporary curriculum contexts. Habermas
classifies three forms of knowledge: technical,
practical, and emancipatory. Gilbert and Hoepper
argue that Habermas ‘insisted that all three forms are
essential in human affairs—including in education.’2
These three forms share some common philosophical
ground with ‘critical literacies’—understanding that
texts are not neutral, and all have ideological bases.

The Fourth Edition of The Social Studies Curriculum: Purposes, Problems, and Possibilities updates the definitive overview of the issues teachers face when creating learning experiences for students in social studies. The book connects the diverse elements of the social studies curriculum—civic, global, social issues—offering a unique and critical perspective that separates it from other texts. Thoroughly updated, the Fourth Edition includes 12 new chapters on: the history of the social studies; democratic social studies; citizenship education; anarchist inspired transformative social studies; patriotism; ecological democracy; Native studies; inquiry teaching; Islamophobia; capitalism and class struggle; gender, sex, sexuality and youth experiences in school; and critical media literacy. Chapters carried over from the previous edition have been substantially revised and updated, including those: on teaching social studies in the age of curriculum standardization and high-stakes testing; critical multicultural social studies; prejudice and racism; assessment; and teaching democracy.

Authors in this special issue advance new directions in social science and curriculum studies through an engaged conversation with Joao Paraskeva's recent published books.  Decolonizing and decanonzing social science writ large and curriculum studies in particular, this special issue focuses on a pluriversal ecology of knowledges. The attached file has been updated to include the entire special issue published Fall 2017.

The principal research question pursued by this work is as follows: How do the Republic of Moldova, Romania, and Ukraine present one another in their history curricula and textbooks? How do the history textbooks of each of these three countries present the relationship between majorities and minorities?
This book is thus focused on two main objectives: first, to generate improved understanding of the state of the discipline of history in these countries via discussion of reforms to and debates around history curricula in each country, and second, to shed light on the ways in which history textbooks in each of the three countries represent the other two and their peoples.

In recent years, a federal government dedicated to using curriculum as a vehicle of social cohesion and cultural reproduction, has questioned the apparently ‘postmodern’ and ‘relativist’ History curriculum reform efforts of the 1990s that occurred in New South Wales, Victoria, and Queensland. Arguing for a “root and branch renewal” of Australian history, the federal government has asserted that the nation’s past was rewritten, during the decades prior to the Howard government, “in the service of a partisan political cause” (Bishop, 2006). In polemic fashion, contemporary conservative politicians and social commentators regularly collapse important distinctions between multiculturalism, pluralism, political correctness, and postmodernism, preferring to read all forms of contemporary social theory and practice as confusing and ideologically-loaded, while their own grand narratives are proposed as ‘common-sense’. In this paper, drawing upon important recent
work in historiography, I rethink the ‘problem’ of narrative diversity in the curriculum. Arguing that relativism is not the inevitable conclusion of teaching rival historical narratives, I propose a hermeneutic approach to the teaching of history that by providing a curricular space for ‘critical pluralism’ pedagogically engages narrative diversity.

This study is about the Social Studies Curriculum in the Philippines using a historical lens. The study employed a historical-descriptive approach to develop a framework to better understand the evolution, essence, and content of the social studies curriculum in Philippine context. The aim of the study is to create a framework for the study of Social Studies Curriculum in the Philippines, which happen to be absent or lacking in the curriculum studies of the country. It also aims to provide a summary of the changes and ideologies propagated in each reform and change in the Social Studies Curriculum of the Philippines. The use of primary and secondary resources was employed in the gathering of pertinent data relative to the Social Studies Curriculum in the Philippines. By using the refraction as a tool for analysis (Goodson and Rudd, 2014), the study of Social Studies Curriculum in the Philippines was divided into four (4) key historical turning points namely: (1) 1900- 1940- The Genesis of Philippine Social Studies Curriculum; (2) 1946-1973- Community Life and Nationalistic Social Studies Curriculum; (3) 1973-1982 – Social Studies as the Forerunner of the Bagong Lipunan (New Society); and (4) 1982-present- Decentralization and Decongestion of Social Studies Curriculum; Standards and Outcome-Based Social Studies Curriculum. Given these four key historical periods in the study of Social Studies Curriculum, three (3) macro-factors were identified to be perennial in the analysis of the curriculum development and reform. These factors were: (1) politics; (2) prevalent curriculum theory and/or pedagogical philosophy; and (3) social ideology. By combining these constituent aspects and historical periods, a framework for studying Social Studies Curriculum in the Philippines is generated.

En nuestro ensayo, avanzamos un bosquejo preliminar del currículo decolonial-hispanófono y extendemos una invitación al diálogo Sur-Sur entre alumnos, docentes, o activistas-educadores de distintas tradiciones intelectuales de las geo-regiones denominadas «las Américas». Después de compartir unas definiciones, planteamos la problemática del trabajo curricular-pedagógico dentro de las colonias históricas y la colonialidad presente. Planteado de esta manera, proporcionamos un bosquejo preliminar del currículo decolonial-hispanófono como una dimensión de un proyecto decolonial transnacional, contextual, y relacional. A base del bosquejo, teorizamos tres conceptos historizados emergentes: (a) la historicidad del pensamiento decolonial, (b) la conceptualización mestiza, y (c) la comunalidad/pluriversalidad. Concluimos el ensayo con una invitación al diálogo transnacional Sur-Sur. Términos claves: colonialidad, currículo decolonial, pedagogía decolonial, teoría curricular itinerante.

Once it has been determined that a cover has traveled – at least part of the way – via airmail, it still is necessary to identify the exact route, departure and aircraft. Published airline schedules are a good starting point. But as any frequent flyer knows, schedules are not always reliable indicators of what really happened.
This article identifies some of the means that can be employed to confirm airmail routes. Methods include newspaper departure/arrival announcements, information extracted from the covers themselves and flight logs and similar pilot records. Examples of each source of information, including the US, China and Germany, are shown in the profusely-illustrated article.

The overall aim of this dissertation is to explore the connections between rhetoric and civic and moral education. In the Latin schools (trivial schools, cathedral schools, and gymnasiums) in eighteenth-century Sweden, rhetoric still had a prominent position. In examining school rhetoric under the Swedish School Act of 1724, the study takes on rhetoric education in the broad sense, asking questions about teaching design and content, and about which texts were read and written. In addition to this, the dissertation discusses the moral content of the education as well as the function of the texts and exercises of rhetoric education in character and identity formation. The study also demonstrates the practices of rhetoric in schools and gymnasiums. Everyday classroom activities as well as ceremonies and festivities are treated as arenas for the display of erudition, asking questions about eloquence as a possible catalyst for the raising of schoolboys into men and citizens.

Drawing from curriculum history, the investigation focuses on the content of the education. The analytical framework regards educational content as multilayered, ranging from conceptual content to content related to school subjects, syllabi and educational programmes, and further to socialisation content. Therefore a number of theoretical and methodological perspectives have to be employed in order to analyse a multitude of sources: from textbooks and records from schools to written curricula.

The curriculum history foundation is therefore supplemented by theoretical inspiration from among other things the sociology of education and the sociology of literature, from the history of rhetoric and from gender history. The concept of virtue is given a special role in the construction of civic ideals and masculinities, two important aspects of an erudite identity cultivated in the early modern Latin schools.

The dissertation shows that during the long period of time that the Swedish School Act of 1724 was effective – a total of 83 years, until 1807 – school rhetoric changed very little, and the changes that took place did so only slowly. A number of factors explain this rigidity. The same textbook,

Elementa rhetorica by Gerardus Johannis Vossius, was used used in Swedish schools throughout the entire period studied. A shortage of textbooks led to older copies being used, and to a manual reproduction of textbooks and educational content.A canon or publica materies of classical, especially Latin, texts connected the branches of the trivium. It also worked as a common resource, read throughout the school: from fables and the short texts of compendia used in the first forms of the trivial schools to the philosophical and literary works used in the gymnasiums. The proximity between school rhetoric and the exemplary classical texts offers a further explanatory factor for the slow changes of 18th century rhetoric education.

The rhetoric education in schools and gymnasiums appears as one of the most distinct illustrations of the early modern Swedish school's twofold objective to transmit knowledge and instill virtue. The rhetorical pedagogical programme was not just about the arts and crafts of linguistic ornaments. School rhetoric had an even larger aim, combining knowledge and virtue into the training of an orator. Through the reading of the exemplary texts and the moral lessons taught by them, and through pupils' own co-creation and rhetorical (re)production, a classical, medieval, Renaissance and Reformation legacy was passed on. In this legacy, the aim was virtuous eloquence.

The learned world in and around schools and gymnasiums can be considered a premodern or early modern public sphere, filled with rhetorical ceremonials as a display of erudition and scholarly status. At the school level rhetoric was a representative resource that could justify the position of the scholarly community and the clergy, demonstrate the standing of the school and the church site in the city, and distinguish the learned from members of other social groups.

Higher education in the U.S. underwent numerous changes during the late nineteenth century. The classical education model used for teaching Latin and ancient Greek was gradually removed from university curriculum as educators began valuing modern subjects, including modern languages.

When deconstructing covers or certain other postal artifacts, one sees the stamps first. Immediately after that, the postal markings on the document are the most prominent features. These markings fall into several categories, the largest of which are often referred to as Auxiliary Markings. This is a very complex topic of study, with some philatelists estimating that upwards of a million markings exist. Numerous authors have struggled to present an approach to organizing Auxiliary Markings. For marcophilists (collectors of Auxiliary Markings), several taxonomies have been designed, but none of them strike me as meeting the needs of postal historians.

My on-going Mastering Postal History column in the Kelleher’s Stamp Collector’s Quarterly 2Q, 2017 issue presents a review of previous taxonomies. I then develop an alternative taxonomy that better describes Auxiliary Markings from the standpoint of postal history analysis. The column is entitled “The Role of Auxiliary Markings in Postal History”. It is the first of a two-part treatment of Auxiliary Markings.

Parce qu’il conteste une ribambelle d’idées reçues, ce livre sera discuté. À l’encontre de ce que l’on dit, les jeunes Québécois s’intéressent à l’histoire de leur société. Ils sont capables de visions d’ensemble du parcours de leur collectivité – visions politiques soit dit en passant ! Et ils se montrent fiduciaires de l’expérience historique du Nous – ou plutôt des Nous québécois, selon qu’ils sont «anglos» ou «francos».

Il y a plus : le nouveau cours Histoire et éducation à la citoyenneté ne dépolitise pas les élèves. Les grandes références nationales continuent d’agir sur la raison historique des jeunes. Et l’histoire du destin tragique du peuple québécois, chez les francophones tout au moins, n’est pas en voie d’être remplacée par une vision déconflictualisée et multiculturaliste du passé collectif.

Tirant profit d’un corpus original amassé sur une dizaine d’années et formé de près de 3500 phrases produites par de jeunes Québécois invités à résumer l’histoire du Québec dans une brève formule, l’auteur nous entraîne au cœur d’une fascinante enquête sur la conscience historique de la nouvelle génération. De ce travail pionnier, il tire des préceptes revivifiants pour l’avenir de l’enseignement de l’histoire au Québec ou ailleurs.

This article is concerned with theorizing a curricular response to what has become known in Australia as the “history wars” ( Macintyre & Clark, 2003 ). The central debate in the history wars is over the representation of the colonization of Australia. Because History curriculum serves as an apparatus for the social (re)production of national identities, the importance of school history as a battlefield in the “history wars” should not be underestimated ( Clark, 2003 ). This article explores as a case study the emergence of and political backlash against a critical History curriculum in the state of New South Wales, Australia, during the decade prior to the millennium. The case, reflecting similar debates over History curricula in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom, provides a useful starting point for reconceptualising critical approaches to History as curriculum. Reading History curriculum as a postcolonial text, it is argued that what have remained uncontested in the struggle for histories have been the representational practices of “history” itself, and that attending to representation opens new possibilities for school History as critical pedagogic practice.

Tristan da Cunha is one of the most remote places on earth. The postage stamps and postal history of this island have always held great interest for philatelists. In this article, we explore a pivotal figure in Tristan’s history who, it turns out, was also the island’s postmaster and a philatelist.

This article explores the mixed fortunes of historical inquiry as a method in educational studies and exposes evidence for the neglect of this method in religious education research in particular. It argues that historical inquiry, as a counterpart to other research methods, can add depth and range to our understanding of education, including religious education, and can illuminate important longer‐term, broader and philosophical issues. The article also argues that many historical voices have remained silent in the existing historiography of religious education because such historiography is too generalised and too biased towards the development of national policy and curriculum and pedagogical theory. To address this limitation in educational research, this article promotes rigorous historical studies that are more substantially grounded in the appropriate historiographical literature and utilise a wide range of original primary sources. Finally, the article explores a specific example of the way in which a historical approach may be fruitfully applied to a particular contemporary debate concerning the nature and purpose of religious education.

Less interest in history lessons becomes a serious problem for education in Indonesia. The lesson of history actually serves as a characteristic form of the younger generation. This issue certainly describes the conditions that are prone to the survival of the nation and state of Indonesia. The Government is quick to respond to this problem by positioning history subjects as a key element in the Curriculum 2013. In the Curriculum 2013, the lesson of history is divided into two parts: History of Indonesia and History (Development of the Social Sciences). This resulted in a change in the hours of history subjects that more than doubled from before. The 2013 curriculum in its learning uses a scientific approach (scientific appoach) which includes components: observing, asking, trying, processing, presenting, summarizing, and creating. This allows more freedom of various historical materials taught to learners. One of them is local history material. Local history is a history that occurs in spatial (space) certain locality in a community with temporal (time). This event can occur simultaneously with national history. The local history of the social movement in Banten is one of the lesser-cared material as an integral part of the periodic struggle for independence in National History. Learning history with local history material is more easily understood learners, because it can see firsthand the real life reality in the nearest environment. Between learners, contemporary life and historical events will form an identity bond that facilitates the inheritance of values. The inheritance of values in the events of Kyai's social movements and farmers in Banten would be easier in shaping positive values, such as patriotism and love of the homeland. Abstrak: Kurang diminatinya pelajaran sejarah menjadi satu masalah serius bagi pendidikan di Indonesia. Pelajaran sejarah sesungguhnya sangat berfungsi sebagai pembentuk karakter generasi muda. Masalah ini tentu menggambarkan kondisi yang rawan bagi keberlangsungan kehidupan bangsa dan negara Indonesia. Pemerintah dengan cepat merespons masalah ini dengan cara memposisikan mata pelajaran sejarah sebagai unsur utama yang diperhatikan dalam Kurikulum 2013. Pada Kurikulum 2013, pelajaran sejarah terbagi menjadi dua bagian: Sejarah Indonesia dan Sejarah (Peminatan Ilmu-ilmu sosial). Hal ini menyebabkan terjadinya perubahan jam mata pelajaran sejarah yang meningkat lebih dari dua kali lipat dari sebelumnya. Kurikulum 2013 dalam pembelajarannya menggunakan pendekatan ilmiah (scientific appoach) yang didalamnya mencakup komponen: mengamati, menanya, mencoba, mengolah, menyajikan, menyimpulkan, dan mencipta. Hal ini memungkinkan lebih leluasanya berbagai materi sejarah diajarkan kepada peserta didik. Salah satu diantaranya ialah materi sejarah lokal. Sejarah lokal merupakan sejarah yang terjadi dalam hal spasial (ruang) lokalitas tertentu dalam suatu komunitas masyarakat dengan temporal (waktu). Kejadian ini dapat terjadi secara bersamaan dengan sejarah nasional. Sejarah lokal mengenai gerakan sosial di Banten menjadi satu diantara materi yang kurang diperhatikan sebagai bagian integral dalam periodesasi perjuangan kemerdekaan pada Sejarah Nasional. Pembelajaran sejarah dengan materi sejarah lokal lebih mudah dipahami peserta didik, karena dapat melihat secara langsung realitas kehidupan sesungguhnya di lingkungan terdekat. Antara peserta didik, kehidupannya masa kini, dan peristiwa sejarah akan membentuk sebuah ikatan identitas yang memudahkan pewarisan nilai-nilai. Pewarisan nilai dalam peristiwa gerakan sosial Kyai dan petani di Banten akan lebih mudah dalam membentuk nilai-nilai positif, seperti patriotisme dan cinta tanah air. Kata Kunci: kurikulum 2013, pendekatan saintifik, sejarah lokal PENDAHULUAN Permasalahan yang terjadi di lapangan dalam pembelajaran sejarah ialah anggapan yang mengatakan bahwa pembelajaran sejarah adalah pembelajaran yang menjenuhkan, membosankan, model pembelajaran yang monoton, dan kemampuan guru yang tidak optimal dalam melakukan pengembangan. Pendapat tersebut tidak hanya keluar dari pemahaman siswa akan tetapi dari guru-guru tersebut pada saat melakukan persiapan pembelajaran. Terkadang ada anggapan bahwa mengajar sejarah itu terlalu mudah hanya tinggal membaca buku yang sama dengan siswa kemudian dijelaskan, padahal hal tersebut keliru.

Following the eighteenth-century political revolutions in North America and Europe public education has been seen as a conditio sine qua non for integrating a linguistically and ethnically heterogeneous population into one nation. In 1792, for example, the French politician Louis-Michel Lepeletier de Saint-Fargeau (1760–1793), in his plan for national education, stated that the immortality of nations is ensured by three “monuments”: a constitution, the rule of law, and public education. A constitution and laws were important because they established the state on a formal level, defined its organizational form and institutions, and set the rules for peaceful domestic coexistence. Certain eighteenth-century philosophers and politicians argued that being a citizen was more than simply having legal status and following laws; being a citizen also meant being intellectually and emotionally attached to the cultural and ethnic entity called the nation. In this sense, it was – and still is – public education’s task to make individuals into national citizens. ...

Περίληψη
Το κείμενο αντλεί από την αναπλαισιωτική (reconceptual) παράδοση των αναλυτικών προγραμμάτων, η οποία το θεωρεί (μεταξύ άλλων και) ως πολιτικό κείμενο. Εξετάζεται ιστορικά ο τρόπος μετασχηματισμού/μεταρρύθμισης του αναλυτικού προγράμματος στην Ελλάδα, από τη δεκαετία του 1950 και μετά. Αξιοποιώντας ως θεωρητικό-ερμηνευτικό μοντέλο την μη-αναγωγιστική και μη-στρουκτουραλιστική προσέγγιση των φορέων δράσης (agency) καταλήγει στο συμπέρασμα ότι τα αναλυτικά προγράμματα στην Ελλάδα συγκροτούνται κυρίως από τις επιλογές των πολιτικά κυρίαρχων φορέων δράσης, με αποτέλεσμα να εμπεριέχουν φονταμενταλιστικές στάσεις ως προς τη γνώση και να χαρακτηρίζονται από τη δυσκολία εναρμόνισης με το οικονομικό και κοινωνικό γίγνεσθαι.

Abstract
This paper draws on the curriculorum reconceptual tradition which considers curriculum as a political text and focuses on the history of the Greek curricula and their transformation process since the 1950’s. The non reductive and non structural theoretical frame of agency is used as an explanatory tool. Following these perspectives the paper comes to the conclusion that the curricula in Greece on this certain period of time are predominantly influenced by the dominant agents of the political field and their reproduction needs. Therefore the curricula are more focusing on an ideologised perception of school knowledge, projecting fundamentalistic perspectives on it and are heavily corresponding to societal needs.

Cualquier licenciado o graduado en Geografía, Historia o Historia del Arte que se acerque a cómo se ha desarrollado la enseñanza de nuestra disciplina a lo largo de las últimas décadas en los distintos niveles de la Educación Secundaria podrá comprobar, sin grandes esfuerzos, que historiadores, pedagogos, sociólogos y técnicos de todo tipo han dedicado ríos de tinta a tratar de justificar qué tipo de Historia enseñar, cómo hacerlo
y cómo prepararse para la "titánica" tarea de transmitir a alumnos de edades comprendidas entre los 12 y los 18 años conceptos que no siempre son fáciles de entender o asimilar.

Esa ingente literatura científica ha manejado dos o tres argumentos que han servido de ejes para intentar respaldar la tarea de los docentes y dar respuesta a las necesidades formativas de los jóvenes que cursan la Secundaria (Prats 2000, 2011). En primer lugar, insistir en que la Geografía y la Historia han sido, desde que ambas materias se incorporaron a la enseñanza reglada, una parte fundamental e imprescindible en la formación cívica e intelectual de los jóvenes, ya que el estudio de ambas les permitirá comprender mejor los continuos cambios que se producen en las sociedades contemporáneas. Con este argumento se da por sentado que la Historia brinda a los alumnos instrumentos y elementos de juicio que otras materias no pueden proporcionarles y, por ende, que con ellos adquieren la capacidad de reflexión y compromiso social que puede demandar la sociedad actual.

En segundo lugar, incidir en que en las últimas décadas del siglo XX se originó entre el profesorado europeo, especialmente el británico, un agrio debate sobre el estado de la enseñanza de la Historia en la Educación Secundaria y su futuro en nuestros respectivos países, incluido, lógicamente, España. Investigadores académicos de la Historia y de la Educación intercambiaron reproches acerca de su mutua responsabilidad en la deficiente calidad de la formación histórica que observaban en los jóvenes y todos coincidían en que, tal y como se abordaba hasta ese momento, la Historia no interesaba a casi nadie.
En el caso hispano, la situación venía lastrada, además, por una visión de la Historia asentada en las escuelas tras la Guerra Civil y en la que predominaban los  acontecimientos militares y el protagonismo de los grandes personajes. Por tanto, había que proceder a una renovación didáctica y, además, superar el viejo molde del "nacional-catolicismo" en beneficio de una Historia que se centrara en los grandes procesos económico-sociales y que sirviera para formar a los ciudadanos que se incorporaban a la naciente democracia.

En tercer lugar, conscientes de las dificultades que atravesaba la enseñanza de la Historia y ante la necesidad de responder a los cambios sociales y políticos que se han producido en las últimas décadas, los docentes y las autoridades educativas iniciaron un camino que ha modificado los contenidos curriculares de nuestra disciplina. En él, se ha hecho hincapié en un modelo de enseñanza basado en la adquisición de destrezas y competencias que ayuden a que el alumno construya el conocimiento histórico.
Para recorrer ese camino se han seguido vías distintas. Por un lado, la creación de distintos foros de debate (seminarios, congresos, etc.) en los que discutir problemas metodológicos y plantear marcos teóricos que propusieran los cambios necesarios en la enseñanza de la Geografía y la Historia.

En ese contexto algunos de los resultados más evidentes de la renovación académica que se produjo desde finales de los años setenta del pasado siglo fueron la expansión de los Cursos de Formación Pedagógica (Pagés 2004), sustituidos actualmente por los Másteres de Formación de Profesorado de Educación Secundaria Obligatoria y Bachillerato, Formación Profesional y Enseñanza de Idiomas, en los que la didáctica de nuestra materia ocupa un lugar destacado. También, la aparición de revistas especializadas6 y numerosas monografías que dan cuenta de este esfuerzo de renovación pedagógica. Por fin, el surgimiento de grupos de docentes que han propuesto materiales y trabajos que pudieran mejorar el aprendizaje de los jóvenes, dando lugar a infinidad de páginas web y recursos multimedia que han puesto a disposición del profesorado un amplio abanico de instrumentos para la docencia.

En definitiva, en España, desde los años 90 del siglo pasado, tras tres reformas educativas aplicadas y con una más en marcha y con un incierto futuro, merece la pena que reflexionemos sobre el camino recorrido en este tiempo acerca del impacto de estas modificaciones del ordenamiento marco del modelo educativo y sus consecuencias justamente por lo que respecta a la enseñanza de la Historia en el nivel de la Enseñanza Secundaria. ¿Eran justificados los ataques entre historiadores y pedagogos? ¿Se avanzó en algo hacia una propuesta que de veras supusiera un salto cualitativo para el dominio entre los alumnos de unos conocimientos globales sobre la evolución histórica de las sociedades humanas? ¿No fue así? ¿Qué factores estaban y están condicionando la percepción que de nuestro pasado con mayor o menor fortuna, transmitimos a las generaciones más jóvenes?

Las páginas siguientes tratan de aportar, si no alguna respuesta, sí ciertas reflexiones en torno a estas preguntas, circunscribiendo el campo de análisis a un área muy específica de la periodización y especialización de la Ciencia Histórica, la Historia Medieval, a su presencia en los textos legales encargados de su regulación en España en estos últimos años y a la plasmación de la trasposición de la legislación en el principal recurso para la enseñanza en el aula, los libros de texto, en Canarias.

Un ejemplo no carente de especificidades pero que, entendemos, puede ayudarnos a aproximarnos a estos problemas de la valoración de la Historia que se enseña a nuestros jóvenes y del cómo se enseña tanto en nuestro archipiélago como en el conjunto de nuestro Estado. Unos asuntos que a menudo parecen cosa baladí para la opinión pública o las autoridades pero que, como demostraron algunos de los debates que tendré ocasión de abordar, resultan mucho más capitales, tanto para la consideración de las instancias políticas como de los distintos círculos de la sociedad civil.

Aspectos como la propia percepción de país, la conformación de referentes identitarios colectivos en relación a las comunidades políticas en que nos insertamos como individuos y, en fin, nuestra propia conciencia ciudadana respecto a esas identidades entran en juego al hablar de la enseñanza de la Historia en las aulas. Cuando menos, formularnos algunas preguntas que afectan a nuestro propio compromiso ciudadano con la sociedad, al cómo concebimos nuestra pertenencia a ella y sus organizaciones y cómo queremos construirlas en un futuro, no está de más. Todo ello bien puede merecer el esfuerzo de estas páginas.

Many nations have experienced conflict over the content of their History curriculum, and debates over the relative importance of skills (historical thinking) versus content (historical knowledge). Australia is no exception. This paper seeks to contribute to discussions over the importance of historical thinking in History education by exploring the changing conceptions of historical thinking in the History curricula of New South Wales (NSW) (Australia’s most populous state; which evolved from the earliest British colony; has an uninterrupted tradition of History teaching in high schools; and a rather unique post-compulsory extension course). Recently, History has become a mandatory subject in all Australian schools from the foundation year through to the last year of compulsory schooling [F-10], for the first time since the federation of the Australian states (1901), when curriculum was constitutionally determined to be a State responsibility. This paper charts the changing forms and relative importance of historical thinking as an explicit outcome of History education in NSW History curricula, from its emergence in the 1970s elective History curriculum to current explication in the NSW syllabi for the mandatory Australian 'national' Curriculum. It also explores the nature and significance of the post-compulsory 'senior' History extension course in NSW, an option for History students in the final non-compulsory year of schooling. This extension course boldly incorporates the study of historiography, requiring students to apply their meta-historical insights in an original historiographic investigation, anchoring complex historical theory in an experience of being an historian. We argue that the move to incorporate historiography into the curriculum expands the notion of what constitutes historical thinking in History education. Thus, we conclude by reflecting on what these different ways of conceptualising historical thinking mean for the social and educational function of history, and what implications they suggest for History education.

I have long felt that the measure of a culture’s health and prospective longevity is to be found in the number, size and condition of its libraries. There are some who worry that American culture is on the decline because of the challenges facing today’s libraries. Allow me to offer an example of the counterargument from an article I recently wrote. The article appeared in the November-December, 2016 issue of the American Stamp Dealer and Collector.
In October of 2016 the world’s largest philatelic library opened in Bellefonte, PA and the American Philatelic Center. The American Philatelic Research Library (APRL) contains three miles of bookshelves within its 19,000 square feet of space. There are just about 85,000 books and approximately 5,700 different series of journals. This $4 million building is both architecturally stunning and researcher friendly. The APRL’s friendly and knowledgeable staff are available to assist researchers from both the philatelic and the academic communities.

El artículo, que sigue en términos teórico-metodológicos los estudios de transferencia y recepción, tiene por objetivo reconstruir la emergencia, los principios, los ideólogos y la crisis del ideal educativo denominado educación general, introducido durante la reforma alemana (1883-1920). Basado en fuentes históricas, que recogen por sobre todo la voz de los reformadores chilenos, los resultados del trabajo son los siguientes: primero, que este ideal, aún inspirado en modelos alemanes (específicamente herbartianos), constituyó algo nuevo y único. Segundo, que el ideal buscaba esencialmente formar al “ciudadano” entendido como una nueva categoría jurídica inclusiva que debía superar las clases sociales y géneros. Tercero, que a inicios del siglo XX la hegemonía del ideal fue desafiada por la emergencia de otro ideal, el de la eficiencia social; proceso que vino emparejado con la construcción de los EE.UU. como nueva “sociedad de referencia”. El artículo plantea en términos teóricos que los ideales educativos son esencialmente constructos dinámicos, sujetos a contextos específicos y luchas político-ideológicas, por lo que, aun siendo hegemónicos, coexisten con otros ideales educativos.

When the history of curriculum studies in Australia is written, it is likely that the work done at Deakin University from the latter part of the 1970s to the early 1990s will figure significantly in it. Under Stephen Kemmis’ leadership and example, a group of researchers and educators produced at least two major bodies of scholarship, one addressed to action research and practitioner inquiry, and the other to rethinking curriculum “beyond reproduction theory”. While the work on Participatory Action Research is perhaps more well known, and internationally so, this chapter focuses on Deakin’s contribution to curriculum studies, as a distinctive field of inquiry and praxis. Three aspects are discussed: firstly, the relationship between action research and curriculum inquiry; secondly, the concept of the “socially-critical school”; and thirdly, the conceptual shift in critical curriculum inquiry from working with(in) the so-called reproduction thesis to a focus on what was labelled the “representation problem”, and beyond. Although now little acknowledged, the Kemmis-led Deakin project surely represents an important and distinctive contribution to curriculum studies in Australia, as well as constituting an object of interest for curriculum history more generally.

In my first article in the Mastering Postal History series, I mentioned that philately is the hobby with the largest body of scholarly publications. And in recent years an increasing proportion of those have been dedicated to postal history. Concurrent with this trend, social science scholars began using the artifacts of postal history as evidence in the exploration of their various academic disciplines. My purpose in writing Mastering Postal History is to provide an organized approach to using postal history research for both collectors and scholars. To initiate this organized approach, I introduce my Taxonomy of Cover Elements. This facilitates analyzing covers in a structured manner and ensures a thorough investigation.

Included within the Taxonomy are such elements as Type of Cover (or document), Envelope (a subset of Type of Cover), Stamps, Rate Paid, Cancellations & Indicia, Requested Services, Added Services, Postal Labels, Etiquettes & Cinderellas, Senders and Recipients, Destination and Origin, Routes, Cancellation cities, Means of Transport, Date Sent/Received/Transited, Event, Contents, Intangible Cover Elements, as well as Postal Documents, Forms & Ephemera.

In addition to the analytical content, I also describe some of the unanticipated differences between writing articles – which I've done since the 1980s – and writing a book, an adventure with which I've not previously had any experience. Quite the learning experience!

This document is my second article, as published in the May-June, 2016 issue of Kelleher's Collectors Connection and contains extracts from my forthcoming book, "Mastering Postal History".

This article explores the leadership qualities of education researcher and professor Ralph W. Tyler (1902-1994). It argues that Tyler’s theoretical understanding and practical approach to administration, leadership, and mentoring—something he frequently referred to as “the art of the possible”—is instructive for business executives, academics, and others interested in leadership. The article examines key moments in Tyler’s childhood and schooling that served to guide his later thought and actions, considers what, precisely, Tyler meant by “the art of the possible,” and offers glimpses into his leadership style by analyzing the perspectives of those who had a first-hand look at Tyler in action.

Entre 1997 y 2002 se sucedió un virulento debate sobre el estado de la enseñanza de la Historia en la Educación Secundaria y su futuro en España. Investigadores académicos de la Historia y de la Educación intercambiaron reproches acerca de su mutua responsabilidad en la deficiente calidad de la formación histórica que observaban en los jóvenes. Dos reformas educativas después y con una más aprobada y a punto de desarrollarse, en este trabajo me ocuparé de cómo se han afrontado algunos de los desafíos para la mejora de la instrucción histórica en la Educación Secundaria a partir de un caso específico extraído de la realidad educativa de las Islas Canarias en cuanto a la enseñanza de un período histórico concreto.
Así, efectivamente, atenderé a la evolución diacrónica desde el año 2002 hasta la actualidad las propuestas fundamentales planteadas en Canarias para el conocimiento ofrecido a los escolares en Secundaria de las sociedades de la Edad Media. Para ello, me centraré, por una parte, en las directrices señaladas para el estudio del Medievo en los currículos educativos ligados a las leyes educativas de 2002, 2006 y 2014 en su aplicación para la comunidad autónoma canaria. Por otro lado, teniendo en cuenta este marco, continuaré por el análisis de las propuestas que para la enseñanza de la Historia Medieval en la Educación Secundaria Obligatoria plantean las principales editoriales de manuales escolares en sus libros de texto de la asignatura de “Ciencias Sociales. Geografía e Historia” para Canarias.
Aun tratándose de una presentación panorámica, a partir de este elenco de textos visibles, (disposiciones legales y libros de texto ajustados a ellas, editados entre 2003 y 2012), será posible distinguir algunas características que afectan al estudio de la Edad Media. De una parte, su limitación casi exclusiva al curso de 2º de ESO y su desaparición – como el resto de los períodos históricos anteriores a la Contemporaneidad – en el Segundo Ciclo de la ESO y en el Bachillerato. De otra parte, el enorme peso de las grandes editoriales educativas españolas a la hora de convertirse en un agente fundamental en la confección de esa historia escolar, de sus contenidos y de su estructuración, en la medida en que el libro de texto sigue siendo el recurso básico para la docencia de la Historia en el aula y que estas grandes empresas controlan de manera oligopolística ese mercado editorial en toda España y también en Canarias. Por fin, cómo pese a los esfuerzos por la adaptación a las exigencias de innovación pedagógica recogidas por las reformas educativas – enseñanza y evaluación por competencias, etc. – y por la integración de nuevas tecnologías a los procesos de enseñanza y aprendizaje de la Historia, la tendencia predominante que se observa a partir de los textos es la de perpetuación de un modelo de historia escolar tradicional en cuanto a su estructura, a los conceptos transmitidos y a la forma en que se plantea el acercamiento a este conocimiento histórico.
Así pues, como podremos ver al estudiar cómo se afronta la Historia Medieval en la Educación Secundaria de Canarias, es evidente el predominio de percepciones basadas en cuatro ejes:
1) La estructuración cronológica rígida, articulada en torno a un triple enfoque universal/nacional/regional-local.
2) La pervivencia de nociones en gran medida estereotipadas y alejadas de los desarrollos de la historiografía académica (la imagen negativa del Medievo entendido como servidumbre, atraso y oscurantismo, la reconquista o la España de las tres culturas como especificidades ideales hispanas).
3) El carácter en buena medida marginal que tiene en los libros de textos el proceso de redescubrimiento, contacto, conquista y colonización de las islas Canarias por los europeos a finales de la Edad Media y su relación consecuente con las poblaciones aborígenes.
4) La perpetuación de un modelo de enseñanza de la Historia basado en la memorización y en la repetición de un relato transmitido que ha de asumirse, por desgracia poco sensible hacia la construcción crítica del conocimiento acerca del pasado histórico.

The aim of this article is to analyze the historiographical production about curriculum in Brazil based on the incidence of themes, concepts, and references. The methodology involved strategies of bibliometric research and meta-research. The work was organized into three stages: systematic literature review, analysis of titles and abstracts of theses and dissertations, and analysis of bibliographical references and keywords of scientific articles. The analysis of the study objects of theses and dissertations has shown that academic production can be divided into four thematic axes that concern both the school context and the academic context: courses, disciplines, policies and practical theories. The networks formed from bibliographical references and keywords indicated in the articles revealed that the epistemological basis of this academic production is intrinsically related to two main research areas: history of education and curriculum studies.