Research Into History And Reform Of Middle School History Teaching Materials

As an important part of the middle school curricula, an important approach to apply civil education and a basic method to develop humanism and thinking among the students, history teaching has always been given much attention.The course of teaching history involves the process of passing the knowledge of history from the teachers to the students, knowledge coming basically from the history teaching materials. Good teaching materials, therefore, not only improves the teachers themselves in the course of preparation and classroom presentation, but also enables the students to master relevant knowledge in a more systematic way. It might be safe to argue that, to a large extent, the quality of history teaching depends on the quality of history teaching materials. The present thesis is a theoretic research into the history and development of middle school history teaching materials from the following perspectives.Part I: Origin of the issueThe Curriculum Standards of History published in 2001 presents a tough challenge to all educators involved in history teaching, for the principles and teaching materials previously used no longer comply with the new standards. Consequently, it is imperative that a new approach be found that is suitable for both the development of the subject itself and for preparing the students for their future surroundings. Preparation of history teaching materials should be a part of this approach. A research into the middle history teaching materials should be preceded by a comprehensive understanding of their properties such as, teaching materials and the relationship between textbooks and curriculum, teaching materials and the discipline, teaching materials and textbooks, and middle school history teaching materials.Part II: History of middle school history teaching materialsThere are four stages in the history of the evolution of middle school history teaching materials, each characterized by their respective historical background and teaching principles. This thesis is an evaluation of the organization, structure, content, and even defects of these teaching materials. The defects are pointed out for the convenience of argument of the next part.Part III: Theoretic research into measures to reform middle school history teaching materialsInfluenced by humanitarianism, education tends to serve the purposes of showing respect to individuals and the over-all development of people. So the thesis argues that new history teaching materials should embrace principles of comprehensiveness and pluralism, should be up-to-date, should take as central consideration needs of the students and should pay great attention to practice. After analyzing a number of influencingfactors regarding the direction and content of history teaching materials, the thesis proceeds to suggest a number of issues worthy of further consideration regarding preparation of history teaching materials.Part IV: Conclusions...