Teaching Humanities in Primary Schools

Pat Hoodless, Elaine McCreery, Paul Bowen, Sue Bermingham

• Publisher: Learning Matters
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9781844455324
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Didattica
• Subtopic: Didattica nell'arte e nelle discipline umanistiche

This book supports primary trainees in their learning and teaching approach to the core humanities subjects: geography, history and religion. It promotes an integrated approach to these subject areas and encourages trainees to reflect on the links between subjects, across the curriculum from the Early Years Foundation Stage through to Key Stage 2. This edition has been updated to incorporate the revised Professional Standards for the Award of QTS and addresses key initiatives such as Excellence and Enjoyment, Every Child Matters and the Primary National Strategy for Literacy and Mathematics.

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Aims and values in humanities education

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By the end of this chapter you will have:

• become aware of the links between the Professional Standards for Teachers and Every Child Matters;
• developed an understanding of the importance of building good working relationships with children to enable them to achieve their full potential;
• developed an understanding of ways of demonstrating positive values, attitudes and behaviour.

Professional Standards for QTS

Q1: Have high expectations of children and young people including a commitment to ensuring that they can achieve their full educational potential and to establish fair, respectful, trusting, supportive and constructive relationships with them.

Q2: Demonstrate the positive values, attitudes and behaviour they expect from children and young people.

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Professional attributes

The requirements outlined within the ‘Professional attributes’ section of the Professional Standards for Teachers (TDA, 2007), particularly Q1–Q2, are concerns that have long been fundamental to work in the humanities. R. S. Peters (1966) produced a clearly articulated account of the fundamental principles for educational practice devised by educational philosophers. These included, among others, the notion of respect for persons, regardless of age, race, gender or class, which he argued must underpin all work in education. This work has influenced and informed much educational philosophy over recent decades and its influence is still visible in the principles underpinning the National Curriculum and the Professional Standards for Teachers (TDA, 2007).

The Professional Standards have been heavily influenced by, and have been built upon previous initiatives, such as the NACCCE Report, All our Futures: Creativity, Culture and Education (NACCCE/DfEE, 1999), Excellence and Enjoyment – A Strategy for Primary Schools (DfES, 2003) and Every Child Matters: Change for Children (DfES, 2003). The Children Act, passed in 2004, made the agenda of Every Child Matters a legal requirement. Since then, a series of documents have been published which provide guidance under the act to support local authorities and their partners in implementing this agenda of the Children’s Plan (DCSF, 2007). The agenda central to all these initiatives is to place an emphasis on the child and the personalisation of learning. The centrality of the child as learner, emphasised in Every Child Matters: Change for Children (DfES 2004), has led to a return to integrated, cross-curricular approaches, similar to those popular prior to the introduction of the National Curriculum! It is a widely held belief that young children often learn in a holistic way; in other words they learn through topics which are relevant and of interest to them (Jarvis and Parker, 2005). The well-being of the child underpins all learning and is the main focus of an integrated support system for all children.

The wide scope of human interest embodied within the humanities offers endless opportunities for varied topics of work which will enable you to set high expectations and enable children to meet their potential. Children’s interests and concerns can guide the choice and course of a humanities topic, thus engaging them and raising their motivation to study. Cross-curricular themes looking at an aspect of their locality, such as shops; the lives of children in different times and places; or features of modern multi-cultural communities, for example, will enable you to combine geography, history and RE in a meaningful way, while providing scope for children’s own, open-ended enquiries. Appropriate and strong relationships can be built up in the course of this type of work, where the needs and interests of the child need to be considered at the planning stage, enabling you to build up your knowledge and understanding of each individual in the class.

Knowledge and understanding of different backgrounds and cultures is a prerequisite for building respect for the characteristics of these different cultures. It is through the knowledge acquired in learning humanities subjects that we gain that essential awareness of beliefs, attitudes and traditions that are different from our own. We are then in a better position to understand the motives, views and ideas of people from different backgrounds, and hence to respect them. The notion of ‘culture’ is complex; it can include local differences within the same country, or national, ethnic or religious differences on a global scale. As we all know, it is ignorance of different cultures that promotes fear, distrust and eventually dislike and disagreement, frequently leading to disputes and wars lasting for many centuries.

Every Child Matters

Respect for children goes beyond being concerned with children from a diversity of backgrounds. We need to have high expectations for all children as people, individuals in their own right, in the tradition so well articulated by Peters (1966). Respect for the individual child as a person should underpin all work in education, and although this view was brilliantly articulated so long ago, it is heartening to see it once again at the forefront of the Professional Standards for Teachers and the basis of the Every Child Matters (ECM) agenda. Moreover, respect is generally mutual. A respectful teacher is setting a certain kind of role model for the children to emulate and it is usually the case that a caring teacher will receive respect in return and promote an atmosphere of respect among the children in their class.

Taught with sensitivity, teachers have in the humanities an excellent opportunity to ‘demonstrate the positive values, attitudes and behaviour’ as required in the Professional Standards for Teachers (TDA, 2007). The humanities subjects are best placed to enable you to build this healthy atmosphere of mutual respect in your classroom, and to instil interest, empathy and sensitivity in children towards people from diverse backgrounds. Indeed, this is a major focus of all humanities disciplines. There are, of course, obvious ways of respecting children’s contributions, by listening and responding positively to their verbal contributions, marking their work promptly and with care, displaying and valuing work they have produced – the list is endless. However, we now need to focus specifically on the features of the humanities that can engender this respect, which we will argue go far beyond these general points. As trainee teachers you will have a particular responsibility to develop your own knowledge and understanding of those aspects of the primary curriculum which will assist you in meeting these Standards. This is for two major reasons: firstly, to be in a position to set a good example to children in promoting positive values; secondly, so that you will be able to plan appropriately. To achieve these aims you need a good knowledge of the curriculum and also the ability to reflect about it. You need to be able to identify aspects of the curriculum which will particularly lend themselves to teaching and learning aimed at values. An initial introduction to the process and practice of reflective teaching can be found in Pollard (2008). You may then wish to investigate specific curriculum areas, or think about themes or topics that will meet your planning needs.

Dealing with sensitive issues in the humanities

The subject matter of the humanities demands that on occasion personal views and beliefs are brought into the teaching context. This can be daunting for the beginning teacher and it is important that we are prepared to deal with issues when they arise.

There are two areas that give teachers concern. Firstly, there is the issue of their own beliefs and values and how far these have an impact on how and what they teach. The first thing to recognise and accept is that everyone brings their own beliefs and values into the classroom, whether they are religious, political or social. Be suspicious of anyone who says they have no strong beliefs. This may indicate that they have not articulated their beliefs, which can be far more unhelpful in the classroom than where someone clearly states their position on a subject. It is important therefore to recognise your own views in sensitive areas; your next decision is how to deal with these in the classroom. Remember that it is very difficult for us to leave our beliefs outside the classroom door – do we need to?

The second area of concern is how to deal with children’s beliefs and commitments. Children will ask some challenging questions – and not always at a time when we are ready for them! Questions of a religious nature can be particularly problematic. How do we respond if a child asks ‘Is there really a God?’ or ‘Do you believe we go to heaven when we die?’

The QCA publication Religious Education, Non-statutory guidance (QCA, 2000) gives some useful suggestions on how to deal with these kinds of issues in the classroom. General advice would include the following.

• Be as honest as you can. If children know ‘where you are coming from’ that can give them permission to be confident in their own viewpoint. For example, if you are a strict vegetarian, and the children know this, they will be able to predict your views on issues such as whaling. They may not be vegetarian, but may still share your views on this issue.
• Be fair to ideas you don’t agree with. Remember that you act as a ‘model’ for the children and so you need to be careful in your language, including body language.
• If you don’t know something, admit it and discuss with the children ways of finding out...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Aims and values in humanities education
• 2 Knowledge and understanding: key concepts, skills and content
• 3 Humanities in the Early Years Foundation Stage
• 4 Planning for progression in the humanities at Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2
• 5 Teaching strategies in the humanities
• 6 Creativity and cross-curricular planning
• 7 Monitoring and assessment
• 8 Equality, inclusion and diversity in the humanities curriculum
• 9 Making the most of links with literacy and mathematics
• 10 E-learning and ICT through humanities teaching
• 11 Out-of-school learning; multi-professional learning
• 12 Children’s spiritual, moral, social and cultural development and citizenship education
• References
• Index