Page 125 - Balancing between the present and the past

History teachers and historical contextualization
appear among larger samples of teachers and lessons. Moreover, we only used classroom observations. Using other methods, such as student questionnaires and teachers’ self-reports (e.g., Muijs, 2006), could also contribute to increasing insights as to how teachers promote historical contextualization in classrooms. The unit of analysis was also the whole lesson with a focus on teacher behavior and lectures. Comparison of teacher lectures, teacher-student interactions, and student discussion lesson fragments could provide more insight into how historical contextualization is promoted during different lesson activities. Furthermore, beyond the scope of our research was the relationship between lesson topics and forms of historical contextualization. Further research is needed to answer the following question: Do teachers use different historical contextualization teaching strategies depending on the historical topic? Stimulated recall (e.g., Lyle, 2003) where teachers think aloud when watching their own lessons could provide insights into the relationship between historical topics and historical contextualization.
Despite these limitations, our study showed the possibilities of using the FAT-HC to 5 operationalize history teachers’ specific professionalization needs since it provides domain-specific insights into teachers’ strengths and weaknesses. For example, an
optimistic finding is that the observers almost never noticed the use of anachronisms
or presenting the past as progress by teachers. By contrast, teachers can, for example, engage students more in historical contextualization by creating opportunities where students use their historical context knowledge to explain, compare, or evaluate historical phenomena. Mariott (2001) and Ball and Forzani (2009) noted that these insights are important to educating and professionalizing (history) educators.
We conclude with some practical implications. Our findings illustrate that teachers often answered questions themselves. Instead, teachers could create opportunities for students to answer questions. Furthermore, despite the fact that teachers provided time indicators (e.g., year, century, period) when explaining historical phenomena, they almost never displayed a timeline to establish a chronological context or encouraged the students to create timelines. Additionally, geographical maps were rarely used to establish a spatial context. To enhance historical empathy, teachers should not only present a historical agent but also consider, for example, the agents’ motives, beliefs, and knowledge (Endacott & Pelekanos, 2015). This was often not the case in the observed lessons.
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