Teaching history is by nature an exercise in ‘standing at the intersection’ of the past, present and the
future. In a post-colonial globalized world, narratives, remembrances and acknowledgement of the
different perspective are not without importance. The perspectives and narratives of the descendants
of indigenous people generates heated debates in ...
(Show more)Teaching history is by nature an exercise in ‘standing at the intersection’ of the past, present and the
future. In a post-colonial globalized world, narratives, remembrances and acknowledgement of the
different perspective are not without importance. The perspectives and narratives of the descendants
of indigenous people generates heated debates in and outside the classroom. The heated debates are
in our view engaged debates as the affect is playing a role in this debates. Although some initiatives
have been taken to integrate multi-perspective approach, to include a variety of narratives and
historical sources, still the content is homogeneous ‘European’. Part of this issue has been overcome
by the Flemish governments’ new learning outcome framework for higher secondary education
(February 2021). This framework includes sixteen Key Competences, two are of interest here,
Citizenship Education, including ‘peaceful coexistence’ (7), Historical Consciousness (8). These key
competences include a limited list of historical content wise concepts, second order historical
concepts, historical skills as historical thinking and attitunale competences. The broad formulated
framework offers opportunities to take account and to bring in a variety of ‘narratives’. It allows to
relate the past and the present in a meaningful way, integrate a variety of histories, and (re-)write
history together. Hence, history teachers need validated qualitative didactical tools to engage
meaningfully with students’ different perspectives on history, moreover the past. Our experiences
entail an affective component which allow us (or not) to ‘connect’. In that sense, historical empathy
becomes increasingly important as our societies become more diverse and polarised. Being aware as
a teacher of this, is crucial when heated and mediated debates ‘outside’ the school occur ‘into’ the
classroom. The teacher has to prepare qualitative in-depth questions (emotional and cognitive), critical
reflection exercises (oral or written), stimulate an open authentic reciprocal discussion between pupils,
and above all, create a safe space. The core questions are: How can we skill the novice teachers to take
a multiperspective view when teaching history? Which teaching methods are adequate to teach
controversial history? How can teachers bring the variety of historical ‘narratives’ of students fruitfully
into class discussion? To answer the RQ ‘How do history teachers deal with controversial and sensitive
historical topics?’, we conducted semi-structured interviews (Flemish history teachers, N=25). We use
NVivo to analyse the semi-structured interviews. We observe that Flemish history teachers are
conscious of the importance of taking to account the variety of perspectives present in history classes
when discussing controversial and sensitive topics. Hence, the Flemish history teachers brought
forward that their teacher training did not pay (enough) attention to historical controversial and
sensitive topics, and on how to deal with diversity in history classes. Still, they believe history classes
can be fruitful learning contexts wherein pupils integrate skills and attitudes needed for a mutual
understanding of one’s history through open class discussions and constructive exchange of
perspectives. These findings inform us to develop a teacher training trajectory with particular attention
for competences which are essential to deal with controversial and sensitive topics in history
education. By an activating and engaging trajectory we aim to strengthen the competences which
allow history teachers to deal with controversial issues and practice multi-perspectivity while
considering the historical narratives of pupils in the current super-diverse classroom setting.
(Show less)