A student determines his action at a specific moment as the result of education and can see history as itineraries of human dynamic life by searching for the activity and faith of the person along with the periodical background. Also, the knowledge of...
A student determines his action at a specific moment as the result of education and can see history as itineraries of human dynamic life by searching for the activity and faith of the person along with the periodical background. Also, the knowledge of historical person’s thought and intention make students have more interests in history. Teaching history by means of biography provides the opportunity that connects students living today to the historical veins. Knowing that a historical person also had a trouble and decided in a situation like that of students, they can watch their position in history. In this the meaning of such a method is larger in history lesson at junior high school.
It was found that there are several problems in content and structure after analyzing Social Studies textbook 2 for middle school. First, the textbook deals with too many persons, without any sufficient explanations. This gives a burden only to students and produces no educational effect. Therefore it will be desirable to show historical person vividly. Second, selection of historical person was carried out based mainly on the political achievements. Such a historical description makes common people’s role seem to be reduced and disregarded. It is possible to expand the defeatism, in which ordinary people were not able to influence on history. Third, there appear so many Europeans in the world history, compared with Orientals. This reveals eurocentric consciousness in the textbook, which must be balanced.
In order to solve the those problems, I pay attention to the educational value and effect of the method of comparing two persons in history teaching. As historical understanding contains not only individuality but also similarity or difference, such a comparative lesson is necessary in history classes. Here the most essential element is the selection of comparable figures suitable for the level of students.
Traditionally the comparative biography of historical persons have been welcomed and popular. For example, Plutarch’s The Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans and Liezhuan in Sima Quian’s Shiji are representative works which compare the figures in pair or in group. These two works are oldest models for my research, and suggest that we should return to method of comparing two persons as an alternative of teaching a historical figure.
The expected educational effects of this study are as follows.
First, this paper gives an opportunity of understanding values and attitudes well by comparing the historical persons in the similar situations instead of showing wrong and biased perspective inducing students to heroism. Second, by comparing and studying the persons who lived in contemporary or different times, the paper can suggest that there is better way to see the trends and times where the two people lived and acted. Also, I show how students realize the importance of one person in history by tracing the historical changes. Third, such a comparison of persons in different regions of same age such as China and Europe will give students a chance to have various views and concepts. In sum, this method can provide a good chance for students to understand the relations between the universal facts and the individual will.
Of course, the effect of comparing a pair of persons can depend on the selection of persons. There may be different results according to the concrete teaching and learning plans in historical class.