A Study On The Elements Of History Expertise Required Of Secondary School History Teachers

The training toward master of history education,i.e.,master of education in subject teaching(history)in our country has been going on for many years with remarkable achievements.However,after a questionnaire survey towards educational theorists and frontline teachers who have deep understandings of secondary school history teaching practice,it is still found that there is a possibility to further improve the arrangement of the content of the professional courses in the training program of the master of education in subject teaching(history).Judging from the feedback,the current front-line history teaching practitioners are generally relatively weak in terms of the capabilities of historiographical integration,historical theory,and historiographical frontier.In order to avoid similar problems for the futural secondary school history teachers who are going to the front line of teaching,we can start by adjusting the current postgraduate training programs of master of education in subject teaching(history)in universities,Enhance the development of the above-mentioned competencies in the master of education from the formation stage.Nowadays,foreign educational theorists,Chinese history education experts and secondary school history teachers have made different discussions on the knowledge training of teachers,especially the content of history expertise of history teachers.Their inquiries focused generally on the capabilities of historiographical integration,historical theory,and historiographical frontier.Firstly,as a representative of foreign educational theory researchers,Schulman’s teacher knowledge theories provide corresponding theoretical support.Among them,his "subject knowledge" theory emphasizes the knowledge base of subject-based,requiring teachers to have a professional and profound understandings of the concepts,rules and content of specific subjects.As far as history teaching is concerned,teachers are required to have a general grasp of the entire history knowledge.The theory of "curriculum knowledge" emphasizes that teachers should know well the basic theories related to specific courses and a unique understanding of teaching materials.As far as history teaching is concerned,teachers need to have a special understanding of the theoretical system of history as the basis of history knowledge and the development trend of the frontier of history.Secondly,when Chinese history education experts discuss how to strengthen the quality of history teaching,they generally believe that history teachers need to understand historical knowledge in a more comprehensive,systematic and theoretical basis,and constantly broaden their horizons and absorb new elements.Thirdly,in summarizing teaching practice,secondary school history teachers believe that teachers need to strengthen systematic knowledge,accurate abstract summarization and appropriate value judgment ability,which reflects the demands of front-line teachers for the capabilities of historiographical integration,historical theory,and historiographical frontier.The historiographical integration emphasizes a comprehensive understanding of history both vertically and horizontally,that is,the ability to view history historically and comparatively.Secondary school history teachers need to have a solid understanding of at least four general topics.First,as a species,human beings will have the same performance no matter where they are on the earth,and there is even a direct relationship.It is necessary to jump out of the thinking limitations of Western-centrism,and to establish an overall understanding of human history based on the civilizations of the earth.Second,macroscopically overlook the historical concept of a nation,a country,or even a continent is a reasonable perspective for interpreting Chinese history.This is a analysis of going beyond the simple diachronic cognition of Chinese history,and conducting systematic and structural Chinese culture as a whole.Third,comparison is the most reflective analytical tool in the humanities,and it can expose some issues that is inattentive but very important,which cannot be understood and grasped under data analysis.The most influential and cohesive cultural roots of Chinese and Western classical civilizations in Eurasia.The comparison of the two civilizations has many instructive topics.Forth,"Human-centered view of history" is the conceptual expression of the spirit of western humanism in the field of history.Whether and how the "human-centered view of history" can become the main axis of Western history,and how to view the implementation and application of the human-centered view of history in Western history,to some extent determines the depth of understanding of Western history.Compared with the analysis of local cases,it is more in-depth to discuss the human-centered view of history in general.Historiographical theory is a general summary of history from diversified individual research to abstraction.It is necessary to deepen historical professional knowledge from a macroscopic and structural perspective.for system understanding.Specifically,historical theoretical training helps to strengthen teachers’ macroscopic summarization ability and comparative insight ability in history teaching.The cultivation of macro-summarization ability is helpful to get the link of truth understanding from history,and is good at withdrawing from the "scene",from an objective and stern perspective,to identify the whole picture of history from the overall situation,interpret its mystery,condense enlightenment,and summarize historical laws.Comparative historical research is to find out the reasons for the existence of differences through in-depth comparisons between systematic and complex things,especially systems,mechanisms,and attributes,and to draw conclusions that deepen historical understanding.It not only helps to withdraw from the specific situation of the current research object in the cognitive category,to form a comparative object relationship,but also promotes the discovery of the historical value of differences between different comparison objects.to understand the real reason for its existence.The frontier of history is an important reference for the improvement of the history teaching system at all levels,the renewal of concepts and the diversification of content.Whether it is secondary school history teaching or the professional quality training of postgraduates engaged in master of education in subject teaching(history)of secondary school history teaching in the future,it must involve the reflection of new models and new themes of history development.Over the past half century,the cognitive mode and research content of history have undergone great changes.Various new ways of historical interpretation,perspectives of observation and topics of discussion emerge in endlessly.Several of them have been extremely influential after World War II,especially in recent decades,and have become more and more popular.In the field of historical research,it can be said that a large number of interpretation models of historical research have been refreshed,as well as the way facts are recognized and disseminated.Women and gender historiography,post-colonial historiography,environmental history,public history,and new cultural history all provide new perspectives and ways to adjust people’s understanding of new historical content.In the new media era,the public media has adapted to the new elements of examining history.The concept of students in the three-dimensional information world is also changing.Under such circumstances,history teaching certainly needs to keep pace with the times,and integrate new historiographical concepts into the ability and literacy cultivation of history teaching.The strengthening of historiographical integration and historiographical theory will enhance the ability to summarize historical understanding,but the relevant knowledge of the frontier of historiography involves the possibility of multiple interpretations of history.If it is integrated into the history teaching practice of secondary school,it will inevitably increase the complexity of the process of imparting historical knowledge.Frontiers of Historiography presents history from multiple perspectives,involving how to solve the problems of individual diversity and multiple interpretations of history,including multiple interpretations of concepts and historical interpretations of individual characters.The diversity of individual interpretations can involve the interference of skepticism.To solve this problem,we can deal with the "fragmentation" of historiography through frontier historiographical theories,that is,to clarify the destructive nature of skepticism,strengthen the sharing of public history,and guide exploratory thinking based on evidence.At the same time,value guidance is also an effective countermeasure to overcome the skepticism caused by multiple phenomena.It must be made clear that any pluralistic interpretation is an extension of an objective and truthful neutral position,and clear and good historical discrimination is always the yardstick for correct historical interpretation.