Page 122 - Balancing between the present and the past

Chapter 5
Student C: Yeah, but the Soviet-Union viewed it as unwanted interference. The Russians thought that the United States tried to influence European countries. Bob: Perfect. And who knows what this cartoon means?
Student D: I see insects that are eating all the Soviet Union’s food. I think the insects represent the Americans plundering the Soviet Union. I think the creator of the cartoon might be Russian.
Bob: Why?
Student D: The Americans are negatively displayed as imperialists who try to enlarge their influence in Europe and the Soviet-Union.
Lisa and Nick obtained high scores for demonstrating historical contextualization in this category; however, they did not engage students much in using knowledge of the historical context to explain historical phenomena. For example, instead of explaining how the Roman persecution of Jews and Christians originated, Nick could have provided the students with historical sources addressing the different frames of reference to reconstruct a historical context and formulate an answer to how the Roman persecution of Jews and Christians originated.
5.5.4.4 Anachronisms and the past as progress
The observers never observed the use of anachronisms (i.e., something or someone that is not in its correct historical or chronological context) by the teachers. Moreover, the teachers generally did not present the past as progress (i.e., the present is better than the past). Compared to the other teachers, Kim did make remarks a few times (e.g., “Nowadays we have it a lot better”) indicating that the present is better than the past. However, this category obtained by far the highest observation scores, indicating that the teachers in the sample could not improve much in this category.
5.5.4.5 Raising awareness of presentism
Anna and Lisa paid the most attention to preventing presentism among the students. An important item in this category is that teachers present learning strategies for historical contextualization to prevent presentism (FAT-HC Item 40). Anna was the only teacher who explicitly taught her students a learning strategy by guiding them to consider different frames of reference when examining a historical event. For example, she taught her students to examine the political, economic, and socio-cultural circumstances of prehistoric hunter gatherers step-by-step. By teaching her students to approach a historical phenomenon this way, the chance that they view historical events
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