Preparing Students to Thrive

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Preparing Students to Thrive

• (Re)presenting how history teaching
• can make a difference

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The History Passion Project

• Aims to
• Encourage conversation about key issues
  concerning historians as teachers
• Provide digital bibliographic resources
• Generate ideas about present future practice

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Research questions

• What motivates historians as teachers? Where does
  love of the subject fit how does it influence
  pedagogic hopes ideals?
• What difference does history teaching make? And
  how can this be expressed in ways that resonate
  with wider publics?
• What sort of teaching engages students deeply?
• How do historians view their development as
  teachers what advice do they have for others
  especially those just starting out?

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Methodology

• National online survey of UK historians based in
  history departments
• Filmed individual interviews and group
  discussions
• Review of literature

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The survey
42 male
14 up to 5 years
21 5-10 years
38 female
33 teaching for 10 20 years
210 survey responses
32 20 years
22 professors
36 seniors
72 HE Institutions 54 research intensive
15 other
27 lecturers
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What historians say about teaching some headlines

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Love, engagement and making a difference

• I teach history because I love history ... In
  teaching it you have the sense that you are
  opening minds to things they never considered
  previously.
• I want to inspire an enduring love of history
  that lasts well-beyond the degree.
• I really get a kick out of seeing students
  develop, particularly to the point when they
  dont need me anymore ... I like the fact that I
  can make a difference to so many lives.

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Lightbulb moments

• Seeing the lightbulb above their heads when they
  understand what the study of history is all about
  when theyve made a qualitative leap.
• That moment when the penny drops and you can
  sense that a student has begun to understand the
  process of thinking historically.
• I particularly enjoy it when it is meaningful in
  some way beyond the usual skills. Sometimes
  there is that flash of recognition when they see
  the past/their community/their own life/their
  future differently.

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Questions 7 8

• Q 7 In your view what can students get from
  history teaching at its best?
• Q 8 How would you describe the value of these
  things to policymakers?

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What can students get from history teaching at
its best? (1)

• History teaching can encourage students to
  think about the past, or distant societies, and
  reflect what it might mean for both the human
  experience and for today. History in many ways is
  uniquely placed to ask the big questions
  societies face, and arguably to point to
  solutions, challenges and impacts. It crosses
  every aspect of human activity from culture to
  the environment, to gender relations, economics,
  welfare, nation-building ... the list could go
  on.
• History education cultivates people useful to a
  democratic society. It is not enough to have
  practical skills. How those skills are imparted
  to others, and how our graduates shape the
  opportunities for others, are all determined by
  an ability to be fair, open-minded, see other
  peoples views, to see false or dangerous
  arguments and to be empowered to act upon those
  things.

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What can students get from history teaching at
its best? (2)

• They get the realisation that they are the
  heirs of a vastly complex and messy thing called
  humanity ... history gives students the
  understanding that humans are irrational and
  illogical. That is necessary in coming to grips
  with the horrors found in history, but it is also
  essential in the appreciation of great beauties,
  the great triumphs that we as human beings have
  been capable of.
• History students acquire a deep sense of the
  contours of the past. They realise that events
  are never simple and straightforward but,
  instead, highly nuanced. They learn to appreciate
  that decision-making is fraught with risk because
  the outcomes are never clear to the participants
  and they learn to differentiate between what
  matters and what does not. This helps them to
  reach conclusions on imperfect information, and
  remain flexible and to improvise when required.
  In a fast changing world the creation of a group
  of people with those capabilities is vital to the
  future success of the nation.

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What can students get from history teaching at
its best (3)?

• The study of history encourages people to think
  critically, to refuse to accept things as they
  appear on the surface. It produces individuals
  who are aware of the complexity of issues that
  confront society. History graduates have a
  greater sense, not only of the world they live
  in, but how it got there. Ultimately, this can
  only make for better citizens.
• History teaching encourages not only critical
  but creative ways of looking, and an ethical
  imagination. Without history we would be reduced
  to a society which had deprived itself of a key
  compass with which to navigate the complexities
  of our own world or imagine futures in an
  evidence-based way. Without the self-reflexive
  qualities history education provides we would be
  left with traditions we could not properly
  understand or use.

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What can students get from history teaching at
its best?
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People with a complex awareness

• Understand society ( selves) in broader
  perspective
• View society in multi-faceted ways
• Sensitive to otherness
• Attentive to complexity of events and
  circumstances
• Aware of contingency
• Attuned to partiality of information and
  knowledge
• Sensitive to the complexity of making judgements

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People who display...

• A critical disposition a healthy scepticism
  independent thinking rigorous logic eye for
  details flexible thinking ability to see beyond
  the taken-for-granted and current fashions a
  questioning approach to all information nuanced
  judgement self-reflexivity.
• A sympathetic imagination tolerance empathy
  humility in never fully knowing sensitivity to
  messiness of human life openness to the
  strange and different fair-minded curiosity
  about others.
• A will to learn (and keep learning) passion
  enthusiasm excitement intuition wonderment
  awe intellectual curiosity openness to new
  information and experience resourcefulness
  persistence self-reliance confidence.

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Q8 How would you describe the value of these
things to policymakers?
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Expressions of value to policymakers

• These are essential skills all valuable to the
  free market, enterprise economy ...
• I would describe the study of History as a
  superb method of producing an inquisitive,
  innovative and flexible workforce.
• Sadly, I would try to speak to policy-makers on
  their own terms parroting the seemingly
  relentless business/skills agenda.

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Some (more polite) expressions of disquiet

• I am worried that we repeatedly articulate the
  value of what we do in terms largely dictated by
  the Treasury view rather than seek to challenge
  the terms of debate.
• If we instrumentalise the study of history to
  please policy-makers in 2010, we will simply have
  to change our language when the policy-makers of
  2011 change theirs. Hitching our wagons to
  transient stars wont save us but nor should we
  loftily trumpet ivory tower values.
• I am extremely concerned that policy-makers and
  university managers will opt for the measurable
  and ignore the less tangible, in particular the
  development of students as independent learners.
  

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Complex constantly changing world
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History Graduates from 2009
6 months following graduation
9.2 unemployed
4.7 not available
47 in employment
PGCE 3.5
14.4 studying for higher degree
7.8 working studying
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Employment
6.5 Marketing, Sales Advertising
Professionals
17.9 Other Occupations
10.3 Commercial, Industrial and Public Sector
Managers
4.0 education professionals
23.0 Retail, Catering, Waiting and bar staff
8.3 Business Financial Professionals and
Associate Professionals
15.0 Other clerical and secretarial occupations
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Richard Lambert, CBI

• It is impossible to predict what
  disciplines will be of most economic and social
  value in a rapidly changing world. Most of the
  big breakthroughs in the development of products
  and services these days come from collaboration
  among different disciplines.
• Richard Lambert, former Director General of the
  Confederation of British Industry
• (a historian) Nov.12th 2010

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Making a living in a complex constantly changing
world
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(No Transcript)
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To thrive in complexity requires ability

• To relate to, make maintain relationships with
  people at all levels, inside outside
  organisations
• Collaborate work in teams, more than one team
  at once, adjust roles in ever-shifting
  situation
• Willingness to learn continually, take risks,
  lead deal with change help others to do so
• Self-management, self-confidence self-promotion
• Harvey, New Realities, 2000

• Ability to recontextualise their skills,
  knowledge and understanding according to the
  requirements of different settings develop a
  frame of mind whereby they continually look to
  improve
• Warwick Institute for Employment Research,
  Changing Patterns of Work, 2010

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People with a complex awareness

• Understand society ( selves) in broader
  perspective
• View society in multi-faceted ways
• Sensitive to otherness
• Attentive to complexity of events and
  circumstances
• Aware of contingency
• Attuned to partiality of information and
  knowledge
• Sensitive to the complexity of making judgements

27
People who display...

• A critical disposition a healthy scepticism
  independent thinking rigorous logic eye for
  details flexible thinking ability to see beyond
  the taken-for-granted and current fashions a
  questioning approach to all information nuanced
  judgement self-reflexivity.
• A sympathetic imagination tolerance empathy
  humility in never fully knowing sensitivity to
  messiness of human life openness to the
  strange and different fair-minded curiosity
  about others.
• A will to learn (and keep learning) passion
  enthusiasm excitement intuition wonderment
  awe intellectual curiosity openness to new
  information and experience resourcefulness
  persistence self-reliance confidence.

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Top 10 reasons for going to university
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Changing attitudes to work/life

• Creating work for themselves

• Want good work
• Makes a difference
• Shared values
• Flat structures
• Self-development
• Ethical sustainable operation
• Sharing learning working in teams

• 46 increase in graduates starting own business
• More from arts and humanities
• Third of those starting businesses start social
  enterprises

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(Re)presenting history teaching at its best

• Amplify how it goes beyond skills employability
  to prepare graduates to make a good living
• Draw more deeply on values ideals that anchor
  us as teachers and are shared by many students
• Appeal to the emotional as well as the
  intellectual nature of engagement with the
  subject
• Demonstrate the particularity of the kind of
  people that history teaching at its best can
  cultivate
• Draw upon a richer vocabulary that expresses how
  history teaching fosters the will to learn and
  go on learning
• Demonstrate practically how history teaching at
  its best enables students to navigate the kinds
  of lives they will be living in a complex,
  unpredictable world

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And some final (hopeful) advice from historians
to their (new) selves ...

• Try not to be discouraged by the widespread
  Human Resources and Management-speak, the
  constant misery reported by the Times Higher
  Magazine and the general climate of gloom and
  doom in higher education in Britain. Cherish
  idealism rather than the current trend to make
  all things vocational and you will find students
  and their parents, to whom we genuinely owe our
  calling, respond.
• Try as hard as possible to ignore Human
  Resources-inspired nonsense, the RAE/REF culture
  of publish-any-old-rubbish and jump-on-whatever-th
  e-latest-bandwagon is, and be true to yourself
  and to the intellectual curiosity, idealism and
  general human decency of your students.
• Be yourself dont try and pretend to be
  someone youre not. Use this as strength in your
  teaching be natural and dont be afraid of what
  others might think or say about you. Allow your
  passion for the subject to shine out students
  will love it, and youll be true to yourself.