Historical Scholarship in the classroom – a PGCE student’s experience

Marie Whiles sees the potential of using works of historical scholarship in the classroom at KS3.  She describes her own experimentation and encourages others to give it a go.  She maintains that teachers require excellent knowledge of a topic themselves to be able to do this successfully, but that historical scholarship is not inherently inaccessible to students in our classrooms.

Historical Scholarship in the classroom – a PGCE students’ experience

Throughout university sessions, we spent a couple of afternoons addressing the place of historical scholarship within the classroom, and devising activities to make this level of academic study accessible to KS3 school pupils. Whilst my group and I worked through the activities and managed to devise some appropriate ones of our own to use within lessons, I remained mildly sceptical about the reality of implementing this within the classroom.

My reservations came through a reluctance to somewhat water-down the academic work to bring it to an appropriate level for the pupils intended. I had initially believed historical scholarship to be something to be enjoyed at sixth form when you are encouraged to learn and research outside of the usual classroom and curriculum restraints, to help develop their own scholarship and understanding of academic research.

However, during my placement, I saw an opportunity to test whether historical scholarship could be made accessible for KS3 students within the study of the Holocaust. The school teach this topic through challenging a series of generalisations which surround the Holocaust, including the idea that ‘those who did not take part in the Holocaust risked death’. This generalisation leant itself so naturally to the Browning – Goldhagen debate surrounding participation, that I could not ignore this opportunity to test how far academia of this calibre could be accessed.

The lesson began with two quotes on the board. One from Browning; “Germans were good men, put in horrendous situations, too afraid of the consequences to speak out”, and the other from Goldhagen; “All Germans were born anti-Semitic”. Pupils were asked to decide which quote they felt best represented the German population based on their previous learning regarding Hitler’s rise to power and other elements of the Holocaust. They were then asked for any initial responses; and as would be expected from any audience, pupils expressed shock about the Goldhagen quote in particular, and tended to be more sympathetic to the Browning quote; although many began to draw out ideas regarding the general assumptions of both and began challenging whether ‘all’ Germans could be categorised into either viewpoint.

Pupils were then introduced to this as an academic debate with some contextual information given regarding the two historians and their conflicting conclusions. Pupils read and dissected the case study of Police Battalion 101 to understand the context of the lesson, and what each historian had studied to reach their dramatically different conclusions. As the nature of the case study is quite shocking, allowing time for pupils to read this and engage with it for themselves, really enhanced the tone of the lesson, which was key to its success.

Following this, pupils worked in pairs with one taking elements of Browning’s debates, and the other taking elements of Goldhagen’s research. This task involved reading through the various aspects outlining: what research each had conducted, the time period they had studied, evidence they had collected, and conclusions they had drawn from this. They then had to summarise their historian’s research and conclusions in their own words in a couple of sentences. This was re-capped as a class with the brief outlines of each historian’s research outlined in their words on the board for use in the main task.

Throughout the rest of the lesson, pupils were working with this academic debate as a framework. They were given first-hand accounts from people who were involved in the Holocaust, each of whom outlined some of their reasons for taking part in these actions. Pupils were asked to decide which historian each first-hand account provided evidence for, and give examples of why they had reached these conclusions.

At the end of the lesson pupils were required to draw together their findings with a conclusion relating back to the generalisation for the lesson. They were asked to decide which historians’ findings had been most supported by the further evidence they were using, and to reach a conclusion discussing the reasons people took part in the Holocaust.

Further to this, throughout this topic these pupils have been recording video diaries relating to the learning in the lesson for home work. These have acted as another means of assessing the learning from within the lesson, but have also acted as a tool for pupils to elaborate their ideas and conclusions, and discuss them through a different means to writing them down, allowing for further analysis. Within this particular video diary pupils were asked to consider: the debate we had studied, the first hand accounts, and their overall response to participation in the Holocaust. Through these diaries, pupils expressed not only links made within the lesson relating to the academic research and first-hand accounts, but also brought in their prior knowledge regarding Hitler’s generally oppressive and indoctrinated rule within Germany, introducing this as another potential element which would have affected the level of participation.

I have taught this lesson to two year 9 classes of very differing ability and general work ethic. On both occasions pupils were given the same materials, and both classes accessed the learning as required. I was pleasantly surprised by how well both groups were able to connect and utilise academic research of this calibre. Whilst pupils obviously did not study this to the depth one would within a university setting – where this would usually be found – at no point were they given a simplified version. All were expected to discuss the historiographical context of the debate, the wider context of Germany at the time, and to relate other case studies to this theory.

Other teachers within the history department at the school have since used this lesson plan and resources within their own classes with similar success within groups of all abilities. As a rather unintentional investigation into the appropriateness of historical scholarship within the KS3 classroom, I would deem this a success, and know that for myself and other rather sceptical members of this particular history department, our eyes have been opened to the potential of using this level of academic work at this stage of school study.

On a wider scale, I now wonder whether historical scholarship as a concept within the classroom worries us as teachers, because we ourselves do not feel equipped or confident in our knowledge and understanding of a particular time period or element of the curriculum, and the historiography surrounding it. I know that within this instance, the lesson was successful in its planning, partly due to my confident knowledge of this debate having researched, and written on it during my studies at university. I would find it harder to plan and implement a lesson using historical scholarship on an aspect of history I had not studied at that level. That is, however, my shortcoming as a teacher and an area I intend to develop as I continue in my training and professional practice, and not due to the inaccessibility of historical scholarship as a teaching and learning tool.

Another important element in allowing for the use of historical scholarship within the classroom, is to have a wide ranging and generally interesting curriculum. Whilst all the changes that have been made to the school curriculum are still a general area of contention, this time of change can, and indeed should, be viewed as an opportunity to embrace these ideas and widen the horizons of what is delivered to our pupils. In this instance, this lesson fit so naturally into this topic, and the staff have recently embraced this to become a permanent feature in the scheme of work for future years. Schemes of work therefore need scope to explore these elements of the study of history. The skills utilised and progressed within this one lesson were wide ranging, as pupils were addressing not only knowledge-based but also conceptual skills and applications which are paramount to becoming a ‘good’ historian.

There is a wide ranging debate regarding to what extent school pupils of history should be labelled, or viewed, as historians with many claiming the level at which they engage in the study and application of history does not warrant the status of historian. This lesson alone proves that there is as least potential for this to be dispelled through the introduction of this level of academia within the classroom. With the continuing focus on progression and academic achievement within schools, this provides history teachers with a means to develop these factors from the onset of secondary school.

Historical scholarship should not be restricted to the world of A level and university. Limiting it to these age groups often attaches a negative connotations relating to an increasing workload, and the ever apparent shift from KS4 learning to that of KS5. Instead, an application and engagement with historical scholarship at a younger age can begin to develop these skills and understanding from an earlier stage of their study, which in turn will enhance not only their performance during KS3 and 4, but will leave pupils much better prepared when entering KS5 and further levels of academic study.

Marie Whiles is a PGCE History trainee in the University of York PGCE Partnership 2013-14