Teachers' toolbox - Brain food

Brain food - current thinking on teaching history

This regularly updated section showcases current thinking on best practice, research and ideas useful for teachers planning and teaching history.

The role of school history in a meaningful education.
The Caversham Project
Is Cinderella History? Early Years Education and Learning About the Past
What is Historiography - and why is it important?
Geography and History: Working Together
The 7 Wonders of Web Credibility: Assessing the Reliability of Websites
The Great History Debate

"It Ain't Necessarily So" (Porgy and Bess). The role of school history in a meaningful education.

Who are our history programmes for? For our students, for us as teachers or do they serve as a recruiting ground for university history courses? Is history at school an academic subject that prepares a minority of students for university or an essential ingredient of a meaningful education that helps all young people make sense of the complex social world of which they will be a part? Mark Sheehan has set out to explore these questions and we invite teachers to consider their implications and participate in a discussion on some of the issues raised.

The Caversham project

The Caversham Project is a quantitative research project focused on class and gender in 19th and early 20th century southern Dunedin. Howard Baldwin, formally of East Otago High worked on this project while enjoying a Royal Society Fellowship at the Department of History at Otago University. Howard developed a digital exhibition, which drew from the resources of the project. His work specifically focused on preparing digital material focused at the NCEA level for students, and to assist teachers by providing resources around which lessons could be built. The exhibition includes lesson plans, curriculum outlines etc, as well as historical images, text, and a searchable database of historical records. The full exhibition is online at: http://caversham.otago.ac.nz/resource/index.html

Is Cinderella History? Early Years Education and Learning About the Past

Tony Taylor, Associate Professor from Monash University and Director of the National Centre for History Education, considers the work of Hilary Cooper, one of the UK's best-known history educators who specialises in primary education. This is a summary of Hilary Cooper's approach to bringing history into the Early Years curriculum from 'History at three. Over my Dead Body', Primary History, Spring 2004 pp. 6-8.

What is Historiography - and why is it important?

Tony Taylor, Associate Professor from Monash University and Director of the National Centre for History Education, responds to a question posed at a professional development meeting, where a teacher of history asked, with some bemusement, 'What is historiography?'

Given the importance of historiography to NCEA level 3 many teachers in New Zealand have probably asked this question.

Geography and History: Working Together (pdf)

In view of the highly successful SocCon Conference in Wellington (September 2005) this timely piece looks at how geography and history can be combined to deepen our knowledge and understanding. According to www.gis.com, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is an approach to data production in geography that uses computer technology to manipulate, analyse and present information about space and place.

Often in history classes, people and events are given precedence over space and place which can also be highly significant factors in determining the course of historical events. Malcolm McInerney's article helps redress that imbalance by providing an introduction to basic GIS techniques in history classes.

The 7 Wonders of Web Credibility: Assessing the Reliability of Websites

How do we know when we are using a site that has credibility and relevance? In a Stanford University study 46.1% of users judge a website by how the design looks while a little over 14% judged it on the accuracy of the information.

The Great History Debate

In The Melbourne Age 9 February 2004, Anna Clark wrote 'For a subject so often dismissed as too boring, Australian history generates passionate argument.'

References to Australia could have easily been replaced with New Zealand. One sign that history is regarded as an important part of public debate is constant and recurring conflict in the media over past events. The 2005 general election in New Zealand highlighted this with regards to the place of the Treaty of Waitangi in contemporary New Zealand society and, most importantly, in our schools. Almost on a weekly basis, there is some historically-based discussion that dominates the letters pages in newspapers.

At a time of broad public interest in our history, exemplified by the success of television series such as Frontier of Dreams and references to history as 'the new black', why do we hear complaints that New Zealand history in schools is too boring? Read about the Australian experience and see what comparisons you can make with New Zealand.