Teaching History - Beginner Teachers Session with Jonathan Dallimore

A little while ago I had the pleasure of presenting at the HTA Beginner Teachers Conference. One of the highlights of doing something like this is that it then means I get watch Jonathan Dallimore share his insights into historical thinking. This time around, Jonathan Dallimore's session started with a primary source, introduced with very little context, and the prompt for beginner teachers to read and discuss with the person next to them... what is this source? What do we think of this extract? What can we deduce? 

As some answers were tentatively offered, Dallimore made the point that our lack of orientation and potential confusion was perhaps a reflection of how our students feel when a source is placed in front of him. 

The source transpired to be part of a letter from Dallimore's grandfather, written in 1943, in World War II Germany. The issue is that students often don't have this background knowledge when they look at a source; as History teachers we fall into the trap of looking at sources in isolation, which is contrary to what historians actually do. A historian has a purpose for looking at a source and they know the context of what they're looking at... in fact, more often than not, context is what they start with. 

There's a delicate line that needs to be walked here. There's a need to teach the facts and have students be able to recall these but, also, there's a need to have "an understanding of how historical knowledge is attained, its relationship to evidence, and the way in which historians arbitrate between competing or contradictory claims." (Peter Lee, Teaching History). History should be hard because it's not a 'natural' way of thinking - if students don't find it hard, then it's not focused enough on historical thinking. Dallimore zooms in on this and highlights some key elements of subject History. As we spiral into a world of politicised history wars and ongoing discussion, argumentation, and pseudohistoricising of conspiracies, Dallimore points out our responsibility as teachers to set students up to be able to navigate this violently contested space with appropriately disciplined and critical historical thinking. So yes, this involves providing some degree of context when students look at sources.

Dallimore boils down our role as History teachers as essentially being about the following:

• Historical Confidence and Agility
• Build students' substantive knowledge - provide meaningful data required to make sense of an issue (EG. 17 dictatorships in Europe by 1939 - this fact is meaningful because it raises important questions, EG. Why did this happen at this point in time?).
• Disciplinary knowledge - facilitate an understanding of key disciplinary concepts (EG. Causation, significance)
• Procedural knowledge - teaching the skills needed to 'do' history (EG. Communication in essay form, undertake historical research). 
  

Sources fit in all of the above strands of History teaching- we need sources to build our substantive knowledge but also to help us answer questions. Sources work in a variety of ways within a subject History context:

• Stimulus - to start a discussion
  
• Illustration - to provide an example of something
• Investigative - in an analytical sense, testing a source'sreliability and how/why they've been created.
  
• Construction - using evidence to describe, argue, etc.
• Extension - to research and add layers to what's being discussed.

To keep the balance, each of the above should come into our source analysis. To get to a point where we are taking this robust approach to sources, Dallimore highlighted the importance of choosing your moments - deep source work doesn't have to happen all the time; we have a syllabus with a range of elements that need to be taught but you have a year to teach them so there's no need to focus on all of them all of the time. One topic might focus on chronology and key terms/concepts, another might bring in contestability and analysis and use of sources. The next topic might then shift to significance and communication, with continuing analysis/use of sources. The final topic for the year could then look at perspective/empathy alongside continuing communication and significance. Other skills that might come into play in the following year are change and continuity and causation. Or perhaps they would work better in the first year and you could swap some of the skills around - it's a flexible approach.

The subtext here is that there should be room to interpret the syllabus in accordance with our professional judgement - and we're lucky in the sense that our current syllabus allows for this.

Source analysis in the context of a classroom can be approached in regard to three strands of pedagogy:

• Asking questions
• Finding and analysing meaningful data
• Communicating, sharing and challenging stories and arguments. 

Each of these elements are worked through in three stages - for example, establishing what asking questions looks like, guiding student negotiation in asking questions, and then guiding student creation of their own questions.

As usual with all of the Dallimore sessions I've watched, this was a thought-provoking seminar that helped me to rethink how I do things in the classroom. Great professional learning does this... it lets you watch a subject-expert who speaks the shared language of your subject area. In the course of this discussion, we learn new concepts within this shared language, and we re-energise ourselves as subject-area experts for our students. If I want to get better as a History teacher then I'll watch experienced and passionate History teachers talking about History. That's what this day was... I'm not a Beginner History Teacher; I was in attendance as a presenter in another session, but I'm thankful that I got to tag along and watch this session. Sessions like this aren't just for beginners. 

History and Archaeology at Pompeii and Herculaneum

Dr Joanne Berry's book on Pompeii

The discovery of historical artefacts isn't something that happens in a vacuum. That's the main thing I took away from a fantastic set of lectures on Pompeii and Herculaneum by Doctor Joanne Berry and Professor Nigel Pollard, who visited Australia from Swansea University in the UK thanks to the HTA. Said lectures were held at Glenmore Park High School, which was very nice for those of us based in Western Sydney and/or the Blue Mountains.

I can't say that I'm very knowledgeable about Pompeii as I'm more of a Modern History enthusiast than an Ancient History one, but from an Extension History standpoint both Berry and Pollard provided more than enough grist for the historiographical mill for anyone with even a passing interest in the past. Dr Berry, an archaeologist who has been working at Pompeii and Herculaneum for over 25 years, stressed the importance of context in relation to archaeological material, whilst Professor Pollard honed in on the status of Pompeii during WWII as a fascinating case study that would be very useful for Extension History. I'll write on Professor Pollard's talk in a future post as today I want to concentrate on what Berry spoke about.

In exploration of context, Berry described the initial conditions in which Pompeii emerged as an archaeological site in the mid-18th Century. King Charles VII, the Spanish monarch who controlled Naples at this time, was consolidating a new kingdom alongside already established royalty in neighbouring states. For a rube like me,  who has never taught the mandatory Pompeii study, it was fascinating to hear about the context of Charles VII, the Spanish monarch who controlled Naples in mid-18th century - a new kingdom desperate to gain acceptance from surrounding royal families. Charles VII brought in poets, composers, artists, etc. in an effort to turn Naples into a cultural centre in Europe. He bought up the area where the Pompeii excavations took place, and the above portrait shows the artefacts around him - signifying the importance of these antiquities as conferring status onto the monarch.

Two years later, Horace Walpole arrived and recorded the discoveries made at Herculaneum. This was the birth of archaeology - seeing the arrival of military engineers, soldiers, and forced labour overseen by a military engineer. Walpole criticised the overseer for excavating artefacts at the expense of the ancient Roman city that was being uncovered, raising issues regarding the need to preserve the past. The things found at Herculaneum were selected, recorded and preserved only on the basis of what the engineers thought the King would be interested in - everything else was discarded, or destroyed. It was more like mining than discovery. It was only through recognition from foreigners like Walpole that people began to realise that an opportunity for learning was being lost.

This Peter Fabris painting from the time shows the excavation of the Temple of Isis - here the excavators were starting to become aware of impressing their financiers/benefactors, so that when they realised they had found something significant they would stop and then wait until a prestigious visitor arrived and then 'stage' the excavation. This led to important visitors (such as Maria Carolina) coming along and 'instructing' the excavators on what to do, believing that they themselves were directing the excavation. The benefit for the real excavators was that these important visitors would then also give money to them. Thus, the birth of archaeology as a practice supported by patronage.

The visiting of the Pope made it necessary to remove stepping stones in the Pompeii streets so that his cart could travel through, and often these stones were not put back. Our record of this now (and its delivery in Joanne Berry's lecture) shows the way history interacts with itself to create its own narrative - the early modern age interacting with the ancient world, as reflected through our contemporary perspective. In other words, the ancient streets of Pompeii were disturbed and restructured by the arrival of visitors such as the Pope in the 18th/19th Century, and now - in the modern day - we must contend with these restructurings of the site if we are to reach a better understanding of what it really looked like.

The Unification of Italy in 1860 politically required examples of Italy's past greatness as justification for nationalism, so Pompeii became emblematic of the new Italy, and this drew increased funding. Suddenly, anyone could visit the excavation (not just the rich and powerful), and an archaeological school was set up to train future excavators so that more glory could be uncovered. Fast forward to the 1930s-1940s, and the Italian fascists also poured incredible funds into Pompeii (in particular the excavations overseen by Amedeo Maiuri) with the expectation that he will find important things and will publish them under the aegis of the fascists. 

Berry says that what we know about Pompeii/Herculaneum depends on when it was excavated and who was doing the excavating, and that these things are affected by political context. There's also the influence of romanticism and the desire to impress, things that have affected the archaeological approach to Pompeii in all periods. Berry describes this a 'circular' process, the coming and goings of various regimes keen to use Pompeii for their own political and cultural advantage.

What is History?

Australian War Memorial

In the same vein as the blog I put together on Dr Philip SA Cummins' lecture for the HTA HSC Senior Study Day, here are my notes from Dr Paul Kiem's session on approaching the What is History? section of the Extension History syllabus, also from the same day.

Dr Kiem puts an emphasis on students adopting an 'overview understanding' of history, something that essentially encompasses the following areas:

• Prehistory/oral tradition
• The emergence of the organised narrative via early historians (Herodotus, Thucydides, Bede).
• The Enlightenment and the birth of rationality (Gibbon)
• Academia and the question of whether history can seen as a science (Ranke)
• The crises of WWI and WWII and how this led to postmodernism in historical thought (Carr, Jenkins, Evans)
• A broader view of history that engages with the discipline's continuing development

Dr Kiem has a relatable and easy-to-follow method for approaching Question 1 of the Extension History HSC, in which students are encouraged to look at the debates and themes of historiography as 'building blocks', and this is demonstrated in a great resource here, on Youtube:

A student's success in Question 1 is directly related to their ability to call into play various arguments that historians have battled it out over in the past or continue to contest today. Better yet, a great Extension History student will be able to draw comparisons between the same arguments made in two different eras in order to show a sense of perspective and (hopefully) their own personal position in relation to said arguments.

Some examples of the big ideas historians have debated:

• What impact has postmodernism had on history?
• What does Australian history tell us about history?
• Can there be a universal history that applies to everyone?
• Is history a science or a form of literature?
• Is history possible or desirable? That is, can we ever truthfully represent the past?
• To what extent is history a reflection of today's politics?
• Will Hollywood take over if historians abandon the field? And, if so, what would be the impact of this?
• To what extent do the stories need to be told by those who see the difference between the past, the memory and history?
• What is the influence of metanarratives (such as national identities) on history?
• Who should take precedence in the academic vs. public history debate on the different purposes of history?
• Who does history belong to? The academics or the public? Or the government? Amateurs? 
• What role does the digital revolution play? Think: source preservation, 'culture of abundance', digitisation as a tool for the democratisation of history, history becoming more dynamic and collaborative, archives also moving our understanding beyond narrative histories. 

Dr Kiem also highlights the importance of students demonstrating an understanding of history now. Things like the commemoration of ANZAC and the national ongoing debates in Australia over its purpose, value, and contestability. Remember Scott McIntyre? (follow this link for his controversial tweets about ANZAC Day).

Or what about the digital revolution and the how this is impacting on the way history is written now? Check out this recent story about an American high school student using the internet to prove a History professor wrong (follow this link).

And what of the future of history? There's the Big History project, which combines hard science with history to tell a narrative that emphases the prevalence of patterns rather than people in the ebbs and flows of historical change. And there's Francis Fukuyama, who posits a new concept of history in light of the way the end of the Cold War threw our idea of everything into doubt.

The possibilities are endless. Students need to look at a range of these debates and familiarise themselves with the ones that they understand best, and be able to use these historical arguments in relation to a range of questions.

Breadth and Depth

This is my third year now taking my students along to the HTA Senior History HSC Study Day that's held annually at the University of Sydney, and one thing I've noticed (in comparison to previous years) is the emphasis on breadth and depth when instructing students on the best strategy for tackling Modern History essays. 

It makes sense, and it's not particularly revolutionary in concept, but I really like the use of these terms to bring clarity to the art of writing an extended response in the History topics. I have a tendency to sometimes think of Modern History essays as a poor cousin to the kinds of essays we have students write for Standard and Advanced English, but in the adoption of a model that emphasises breadth and depth it becomes a bit more specific to History. 

At the HSC Study Day, the presenters Jonathon Dallimore and Michael Molkentin both spoke in some detail about this essay model in a periphery sense. Here's an example given by Molkentin in relationship to Part A of the Personality Section of the HSC Modern History exam (for our comrade Trotsky, of course):

Let's say there's a question about Leon Trotsky's rise to prominence (and it's fairly likely, as this is one of the four major dot points of the Trotsky syllabus).

In order to achieve breadth, the student will need to cover at least three different aspects of Trotsky's rise to prominence, with good examples being:

• Trotsky's role in the 1905 Revolution
• Trotsky's writing between 1906-1917
• Trotsky's role in October 1917  

These act as themes for students to hang their response on. You could also call these 'ideas', and it wouldn't be a bad thing at all if a student structured their response as a paragraph per theme or idea.

Of course, it isn't enough to just have breadth. That doesn't make for a very long essay. In addition to breadth, there needs to be depth. That is, there needs to be detail or elaboration on the points that have been made about the themes.

Here is what Molkentin offers as depth for the examples given above:

• Trotsky's role in the 1905 Revolution
• Belief that workers should be involved in the revolution (which contrasted with Lenin's belief that the Party should act as the vanguard of the revolution).
• His role in the Petersburg Soviet as its leader before his arrest.
• Speaking for the workers in the General Strikes (which acted as a prelude to the revolution).

• Trotsky's writing between 1906-17
• Results and Prospects (1906) and its expression of the theory of Permanent Revolution.
• His work as a war correspondent in the Balkans in 1912-13, and on the Western Front.

• Trotsky's role in October 1917
• Making amends with Lenin and the Bolsheviks during 1917.
• His role in the July Days and his continued disagreements with Lenin.
• The seizure of power in October. 

Pretty good, huh? There's more than enough there to fill approximately 17 minutes worth of writing in the HSC exam (17 minutes being the projected time that students should limit themselves to in completing Part A of the Personality Section of the paper).

So, in summation, students are asked to come to terms with questions in the Modern History HSC exam, whether it be the National Study, Conflict Study, Personality Study or even an extended response at the end of the World War I section (the extended response draft structure above is just one example). In doing this, students need to demonstrate both breadth and depth of understanding. This means constructing a response that makes use of multiple themes, and with each theme backed up with sufficient detail. 

That's one way to do it, and I reckon its worth getting your students to give it a try, especially if they're struggling with structuring their responses in exam conditions.

HTA State Conference 2015

Last week I attended the History Teachers' Association State Conference at the University of Sydney.

I have never been to one of these conferences before, though I have been to an ETA Conference. Comparing the two seems barely relevant; the HTA Conference had a much higher focus on academia. That's not a bad thing, it's just different. I can quite easily have an appreciation for both approaches!

The highlight was a special appearance from historian-superstar Sir Richard Evans (follow the link to see his website, complete with photograph of Evans in a quintessential historian pose). If it were possible, I would have his babies. His ability to speak history as if it were a language unto itself, whilst simultaneously allowing universal access to difficult historiographical concepts in the informal and clear way that he communicates, makes his lectures into a veritable honey that pours itself the ears and coats the brain.

His keynote speech summed up 50+ years of historiography into the space of about fifty minutes, complete with humour and original insight. I then stuck around to hear him speak about the Weimar Republic period of German history - not because I teach it to Year 12 (I don't, I teach the Russian stuff) but because he's one of the most eminent scholars in the field and it would be sheer unadulterated madness to pass up the opportunity.

I missed out on his Q and A session as it felt wrong to ignore all the other ideas on offer from other scholars and teachers. I kind of wish (hope) that the HTA filmed Sir Richard's lectures and that they will be available somewhere, but the realist in me knows that this probably isn't the case. A shame, as they would be an invaluable resource for teaching HSC Extension History.

Other highlights of the conference include a session on Big History by Jonathan Dallimore, an idea that I only had the most cursory familiarity with, and a keynote address from Human Rights Commissioner Tim Wilson, who seemed perturbed by the idea that his Magna Carta video may have been inherently and (benefit of the doubt here) unintentionally sexist. That said, it's still worth checking out the aforementioned Magna Carta video as it would be a useful resource for teaching the Year 10 Rights and Freedom unit currently being taught as part of the NSW History Syllabus.

While conferencing I also popped my head into the University of Sydney's Nicholson Museum, so here are two photos I took from this little pocket of historical goodness. A Lego Pompeii and a mummified head...