Three fundamental scientific works on the pedagogy of Comenius will be considered from new perspectives. These are the works of the East German comeniologist Franz Hofmann and the two West German comeniologists, Klaus Schaller and Andreas Lischewski. Germany has produced numerous scientific analyses of Comenius since 1945, but these three…

Inspired by the work of the social and cultural historian Tim Cole, Stuart Farley decided to look again at the way he teaches the Holocaust. He wanted to focus on the geographical concept of place as a way of enabling his Year 9 students to build far more diverse narratives, which took full account of the chronological diversity of people's…

Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, historians -- along with archivists and other stakeholders -- began to initiate digital memory banks, inviting members of the public to upload personal stories, pictures, videos, or other material connected to the pandemic and its impact on everyday life. This article describes how platforms from Western and Central…

History teachers have frequently made recourse to character cards as a device to help young people, each assigned specific roles, to understand how different kinds of people responded in different ways to particular situations in the past. Edward FitzGerald builds on this tradition, demonstrating the value of using rich historical accounts to help…

In the eighteenth century there were enough printed sources and archival materials to challenge or even overwhelm historians of that day. Two productive editors of lexicons and information management were Christian Gottlieb Jocher, who taught history at the University of Leipzig and became the chief librarian at his university, and Johann Heinrich…

On May 4, 2006, French and German cultural ministers announced the publication of "Histoire/Geschichte", the world's first secondary school history textbook produced jointly by two countries. Authored by a team of French and German historians and published simultaneously in both languages, the book's release drew considerable public…

For the author, teaching history has become a double challenge: to help students understand both "History" (the narrative crafted by the historian, based on documentation, supported by previous scholarship, and bound together through logical argument) and "history" (the real events that occupied real lives that are largely…

Most teachers hope to make a difference in the lives of their students, but whether they accomplish this with any regularity is often left unclear. With a topic like the Holocaust, the stakes are greatly raised. In this essay, the author discusses the place of the Holocaust in the liberal arts. He argues that the content of Holocaust education…

This article looks at the impact of Philippe Aries's classic "L'Enfant et la vie familiale sous l'ancien regime", published in 1960. His well-known idea of the emergence of "Le sentiment de l'enfance" caused a lively debate among historians and social scientists resulting in fundamental contributions to our knowledge about the…

The book is entitled History Wars in the Classroom: Global Perspectives and examines how ten separate countries have experienced debates and disputes over the contested nature of the subject, for example the "Black Armband" and "Whitewash" factions in Australia who adopt opposingly celebratory or denigratory views of Australian…

This article considers how historians might use imagery in the context of an open-air school in Germany, Senne I-Bielefeld (1922-1939). In considering the "nature" of such images, issues and problems associated with their interpretation are illuminated and discussed. First, two images selected from the pre-Nazi period of the school are…

Pupils' essays represent an overlooked resource for historical inquiry. Historians have often ignored young people's work as 'unauthentic', falsely believing it to be merely the mimicking of teachers' and parents' beliefs. But young people are not merely mouthpieces for adults, as research on teacher-student interactions has demonstrated. By…

In the early nineteenth century, governments began to develop specialized educational programs--kindergartens and infant or nursery schools--to give children a head start in life. These programs hinged on new visions of childhood that originated in England and Europe, but what happened when they were transported to the colonies? This book unwinds…

Focuses on the relationship between memory and history in historiography. Addresses research in three broad areas: (1) the relationship between collective memory and national identity; (2) the memory of the Holocaust and the issue of narrative; and (3) the debate called the "end of history." (CMK)

Students immediately think they understand this aspect of the Hitler regime, one in which the "Fuehrer" "says," or dictates, and his minions follow. Their usual view of Hitler assumes a tireless leader who works around the clock to supervise--through the secret state police (Gestapo) and other institution--every detail of…