Browsing by Subject "History Education"

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
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    The changing landscape of the Liesbeek River valley : an investigation of the use of an environmental history approach in historical research and in classroom practice
    (1996) Bottaro, Jean; Worden, Nigel
    This dissertation has two components, one History and one Education, and the central unifying theme is Environmental History. The History component examines the historiography of this sub-discipline, and then applies an environmental analysis as an example of its use in historical research. The second component explores the use of Environmental History in the teaching of school history, and presents a curriculum model which uses this approach. Both components use the Liesbeek River valley in the Cape Peninsula as a case-study.
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    From narrative to severed heads : the form and location of white supremacist history in textbooks of the apartheid and post-apartheid eras : a case study
    (2005) Da Cruz, Peter
    This dissertation reveals the enduring willingness of South African history textbooks to legitimate white supremacy. During the apartheid era, a historiographic mythology bearing the stamp of officialdom was propagated by history textbooks. This mythology constituted the era's "white history" - that version of history which serves to legitimate white supremacy in South Africa. Though in specific instances the old mythology has been forsworn, white history survives in the post-aparheid textbooks. The tenets of white history are now delivered individually and indirectly by way of severed heads (primary of secondary sources) that, once recovered and reassembled by student learners, constitute the familiar grand narrative. Two historiographical myths promulgated during apartheid are taken as emblems of white history and adopted for the purposes of study as units of analysis. Their form and location are then traced through one prominent publisher's history textbooks of the apartheid and post-apartheid eras. The demonstrated survival of white history in post-apartheid history education is traced to the white stipulations placed upon the post-apartheid curriculum during the reconciliation process. The contemporary trend of progressivist education enabled the phenomenon pedagogically through emphasis on a zealously learner-centred, interactive approach.
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    Ideology challenged : aspects of the history of St Columba's high school (1941-1990) and their application to an oral history project in the high-school classroom
    (1998) Fernandez, Mario; Nasson, Bill ; Phillips, Howard ; Siebörger, Rob
    In a number of senses, this dissertation represents something of a challenge to orthodoxy. In the first instance, it breaks with the traditional triumphalist approach to South African school-history writing by attempting to place the history of St Columba's High School within its socio-political context. It examines the nature of its unique ethos, and attempts to trace the complex interaction between this ethos and the external societal pressures it was subject to, especially those generated by the protracted South African political crisis beginning in 1976. In doing so, its historical research component relies, unlike some earlier, pioneering South African works in this field (which might be termed the social history of education) largely upon primary sources, especially oral evidence. In the second place, it investigates the challenge from below, especially on the part of students, to the "official ideology" (or ethos) of St Columba's that developed :from the watershed year of 1976, specifically in the areas of governance, discipline, student representation, politics, and the teaching of history. It finds that, though the traditional authoritarian, hierarchical ethos remained largely intact by the end of the 1980s, it had been modified by pressures on the ground, and that the challenge to achieve a more liberal, participatory dispensation at St Columba's was set to continue into the 1990s, spearheaded now by a committed cohort of teachers. Thirdly, it employs the popular-history technique of oral history both as an appropriate technique for exploring the challenge from below to the official ideology of St Columba's, and as an unorthodox pedagogical strategy in the senior-secondary classroom for deepening students' understanding of the nature of history, improving their attitude towards its study, and developing in them, at least at a rudimentary level, some of the skills of the historian. It describes the implementation of an oral history project in the senior high-school classroom, and concludes that this is a most efficacious way of achieving the desired ends and, indeed, other positive results not anticipated.
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    “The voice of the people” : personal reflections on the impact of the 1985 class
    (2000) Houghton, Barbara Delaney; Siebörger, Rob; Nasson, Bill
    This dissertation is divided into two parts as required for the coursework Masters degree in History Education. Part I is a study of a high school community's participation in a regional and nationwide class/school boycott, from July 1985 to January 1986. It analyses how this event affected the community, and how the community responded to the authoritarianism of apartheid rule at critical moments during the course of the boycott. A key factor identified, is the solidarity of the community, which was responsible for its ultimate victory, albeit a small one, against the minority-elected apartheid state. The account provides evidence that this solidarity was the key and most effective weapon used by the school community during the 1985/6 class/school boycott period. It was evident when school communities re-opened their schools closed by the state in September 1985, in the discussions on the postponement of the 1985 final examinations, by the parental support shown for suspended and dismissed teachers in December 1985, and finally, on the day when teachers were allowed to return to their posts in January 1986. The primary source of data for the study is oral interviews conducted by the researcher. Questions were asked about the daily issues, events, emotive responses, ordeals experienced and decisions made when students from the oppressed community used the one weapon at their disposal, namely the boycott, to protest against the inequalities within the education system and South African society. Interviewees included staff, students, parents and members of political and teacher organisations associated with the school, referred to as Central High. during the 1985/6 boycott period. The answers elicited provided the evidence on which to construct an historical account of how ordinary men. women and children engaged in a struggle and challenged oppression at a local, community level. Part II comprises learning materials for a module of history on the 1985/6 class/school boycott, developed for learners at Grade 9 level. Current learners in South African schools were not even born in 1985. They need to know this history because it is their history. The materials contribute to the history of resistance in South Africa which is currently being taught and learnt at school level. The module has been constructed on the principles of source-based history teaching and the notion that learners learn history by "doing" what historians do. It provides a selection of historical skills, values and knowledge to enable a reconstruction of the history contained in Part I in the classroom. The approaches used include the search for evidence on the 1985/6 class/school boycott from source materials by understanding, critically examining, analysing, reasoning, detecting bias, interpreting and communicating answers to the questions and/or problems posed.
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    What should history teachers know? assessing history students authentically at the conclusion of the PGCE year
    (2014) Siebörger, Rob
    For many years the author has concluded a PGCE (Postgraduate Certificate in Education) History Education course by choice with a formal written examination (albeit an unusual one - it doesn't have a time limit, for instance). When somewhat bemused students each year ask "Why?", the answer given is so that they will be assessed while working completely on their own under similar pressure to that which they will experience when preparing material for the classroom the following year. The article provides illustrations of the examination and students' answers. It considers how student teachers' pedagogical content knowledge may be assessed in history, how the knowledge and understanding of history may be assessed together with core history teaching abilities, and the interaction of history skills and content. It raises, also, issues of formative andsummative assessment and lower and higher order thinking, and poses questions about testing the knowledge of in-service teachers.