Search

Teaching history today is a very difficult and complex task: often trapped in prejudices and conditioning, history ends up being recognized as a discipline to be studied merely by heart. This contribution seeks to highlight the potential of archives as a privileged “place” for learning history. Particular attention will be given to the archives of Popular Scripture, which aim to bring the archive and the primary sources closer to the world of schools through the creation and experimentation of educational paths.

What can it mean for today's girls and boys to encounter History-or rather, Historiography-in Primary School? It can be the beginning of a journey, starting from the here and now, to walk in small steps through time and space, to listen to the sources, to tell, one after the other, as in a count, the questions that the traces of the past pose to us, and to discover that the path taken will be, as for Ulysses, a "return home": time and place of encounters with our humanity, a traveling companion. In the suitcase three key-words, like clothes to wear, skills to acquire and use: experience, research, discovery and plenty of space to gather the tools of the historian's work.

This essay opens a reflection on the current and future scenarios of the "History of the Risorgimento", focusing on the reasons that in the first decade of the 21st century led to its rapid decline in university classrooms, but also on the timid signs of recovery shown between 2015 and 2019. Present in the historiographical debate and in the broader one of "Public History", the History of the Risorgimento must return central in “protecting” European history and its democratic tradition. To achieve this goal, it would be also necessary to reflect on a new location of the "History of the Risorgimento", and more generally of the history of the nineteenth century. Can it be considered as “early contemporary history”, and therefore become part of Modern History? This is a question that the scientific community should begin to answer.

After the Unity of Italy, it was essential to ensure literacy teaching. Then the History programs established themselves as an element of citizenship formation. They had to give a well-defined telling, monarchist and formative for respectful citizen. For a long time, the formulation of the programs was a work in progress. At first the positivist thought of Aristide Gabelli had great importance; then idealistic reaction and nationalist tendencies gained space while the idea of the exam was increasingly affirmed as a fundamental tool of the social selection. The Great War accelerated those beliefs by feeding an out-and-out nationalist idea of History. Confidence in a national education plan focused on the state examination and selection prevailed. History was fundamental in the project of Croce; Philosophy in the project of Gentile. But between the two there was affinity in the vision of an elitist society.

Here are presented some experiences of socio-historical research that were carried out by classes of the elementary school during a decade in which were accepted and institutionalized by the Ministry of Education, not without resistance and limitations, important innovative thrusts from the militant school. In the text, to justify the experiences presented, it is emphasized that the didactics represented, in a certain historical period, a strong center of scholastic and public interest, what were the pedagogical cornerstones of its renewal and how a popular school journal has interpreted the need to spread this tension to experimentation and didactic renewal.

The article explores the experimental didactics promoted by the project Gender, labour and technical culture in 2019, which was conducted through a methodology intersecting public history, didactics of history and fieldwork activities. The interdisciplinary and multimedia approach has been successful in involving students, involved into museums, firms and school rooms. Among them, it is worthwhile mentioning the encounter between schools and firms, which took shape thanks to some visits paid by the students to industrial plants and service companies. The campaign against gender violence, with a specific focus on the world of work, has been included in a historical path aimed at raising awareness on women’s rights, which was developed thanks to audio-visual tools and the direct contact with witnesses. The activities have been described as far as specific goals and implementation actions are concerned, with reference to specific experience able to exemplify how the main principle of history teaching came into practice.

Nowadays, videogames are identified as feasible teaching aid in history. However, each attempt to use videogames in teaching was performed simply by changing the didactic tool using it within classical methods whereas it would be necessary to understand the media and take advance if its specific characteristic. However small development studies beyond the logic of large companies, showed up in the last decade and it allowed the birth and the spread of interesting videogames which outdo the mere commercial project. Therefore the examination of three essential games is proposed (11:11 Memories Retold, This War of Mine and My Memory of Us) which face the issue of war with different gameplays and perspectives, leaving behind the classical glamorous narration, made of heroes and explosions, giving space to a history from below, placing us in the shoes of ordinary people who are involved in war in the most disparate ways and who try to resist it as they can.

In a globalized world in which cultural contaminations represent a direct challenge for education, it is essential to provide teaching tools that facilitate students' approach to global history issues. In order to try to explain the origin and evolution of complex phenomena such as slavery and the Atlantic slave trade, it is necessary to use teaching materials that allow students to understand their fundamental characteristics in a simple but critical way. Black Codes and slave narratives can be useful resources in this perspective.

Teaching the history of the Shoah requires a high level of attention and a deep awareness of the complexity of the subject. The need to create a curriculum arises from the need to deepen a methodology capable of educating the "History of the Shoah" through concrete indications of procedure valid for the formation of the various contents. Therefore, it is necessary to create a broad path that includes targeted tools, accurate methodologies and adequate resources aimed at effective education. Over the years of experience and study, especially in the training studies and practices in Israel and during the various comparisons and meetings with the teachers of history of the Anglo-Saxon world, it emerged that this practice had proved particularly useful especially for Italian teachers, who had never received specific training and method and who therefore needed to develop precise and targeted skills aimed at exercising this accurate teaching.

Acquire a good knowledge of the general aspects of history and the tools through which history is "written": this is the true meaning of this discipline. Trying to know and understand the past in order to live the present better and to plan the future more consciously: it is on these motivations and purposes that today an active and useful learning of history can be pursued. The course of studies in primary education sciences is highly "formative" also by virtue of the teaching of history: teaching that can be transmitted in various ways and to any age group, since "it is also possible to attain history resorting to fantasy, through fairy tales, myths and legends, dramatizing and playing ”; moreover, study of the true sources of history itself, stimulates today's students, who will be the teachers of tomorrow, to make sure that their students do not learn just the knowledge which is "conceptual", but what is more in skills and abilities to achieve the "know-how".

The disparity of the situations relating to the teaching of history and the persistent prevalence of transmission and unidirectional methods, a wide-ranging comparison is necessary to propose purposes, methods and tools that can characterize an effective teaching of history. In this regard, we intend to distinguish the complex of teaching practices from the actual teaching that involves the conscious adoption of aims and planned paths.