Page 199 - Balancing between the present and the past

The first study indicated, for example, that young students especially viewed the past from a present-oriented perspective. Historical contextualization should therefore also be explicitly taught in the first years of secondary education (lower secondary education) and not only in upper secondary education.
A second practical implication is the developed Framework for Analyzing the Teaching of Historical Contextualization (FAT-HC) that can be used as a tool to improve history instruction. History teachers and teacher educators could, for example, observe history lessons using the instrument and discuss their findings to further improve students’ ability to perform historical contextualization. Moreover, the FAT-HC could function as a framework to collaboratively design new lessons that explicitly promote historical contextualization. This observation instrument was not designed to assess history teachers.
A third practical implication are the four design principles that can be used by teachers to design classroom materials that promote students’ ability to perform historical contextualization. The fifth and sixth study transfer the design principles to practical examples for history teachers. The three-stage framework (presenting a historical case, reconstruct a historical context, and evaluate the case again) of the sixth study is very flexible because teachers can implement the framework at the start of the lesson or during the entire lesson or spread the stages over multiple lessons. To inspire teachers, we have included in Appendix I different examples of cases that can promote a cognitive conflict. Teachers can use these examples to develop lessons according to the three-stage framework.
The thesis showed, as a fourth practical implication, that students might profit when 8 they are provided with explicit instructions to reconstruct a historical context. The
different frames of reference (chronological, spatial, political, economic, and cultural)
can be used by teachers as instructions and function as a checklist for students when
creating a historical context. The guiding questions for reconstructing a historical context that are used in the fifth and sixth study can be used as examples.
A final practical implementation is related to the teaching of sensitive topics. A sensitive topic is, for example, the teaching of the Dutch colonial past (e.g., Savenije, Van Boxtel, & Grever, 2014). Currently, a public debate is ongoing about the removal of statues of historical agents, such as Jan Pieterszoon Coen and Michiel de Ruyter,
General conclusions and discussion
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