Page 167 - Balancing between the present and the past

principles are implemented in the lesson structure because all lessons start with a problem (a historical case aiming to trigger a cognitive conflict), and prior knowledge is activated by asking students in a classroom discussion to examine this historical case by using their prior topic knowledge. Moreover, the first two lessons focused more on demonstrating how to perform historical contextualization successfully (show me) and the final two lessons focused more on the application (let me) and the integration (watch me) of the historical contextualization processes.
7.4.4 The experimental lessons
The historical topic of the first lesson was the start of the Cold War and the development
and fear of the atomic bomb. First, the short movie Duck and Cover (Federal Civil
Defense Administration, 1951) was shown to create historical tension and to trigger
possible present-oriented perspectives among students. The film shows what to do in
case of a nuclear explosion. The students had to discuss in dyads and in a classroom
discussion whether they could imagine receiving similar atomic warfare training.
Next, the students were provided with a handout presenting guiding questions for reconstructing a historical context (see Appendix G). The indicative questions were
formulated to guide students’ thinking. The teacher explained the different steps
and the importance of reconstructing a historical context to explain historical events.
Next, the teacher used the different frames of reference to reconstruct the context of
the start of the Cold War. This context comprised a chronological context (timeline),
a spatial context (geographical map), and an explanation of the following historical 7 events: the Russian Revolution of 1917, the collaboration between the Soviet Union
and the United States to defeat Nazi Germany, the Yalta and Potsdam conferences, the differences between the Soviet Union and the United States, and the development and fear of the atomic bomb. The lesson ended with the teacher asking the students to use their newly acquired historical context knowledge to review their answer from the first lesson activity. Could they now better explain why American secondary school students received atomic warfare training?
The second lesson focused on the American fear of communism during the Cold War. At the start of the lesson, the students were provided with a historical source about the execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in 1953 to create historical tension. The historical source focused on the marginal evidence of the involvement of Ethel Rosenberg in espionage. In dyads and in a classroom discussion, the students were instructed to discuss whether they could explain the execution of the Rosenbergs.
A historical contextualization framework
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