A Study Of History Teaching's Reform In American High Schools From The Perspective Of Committees' Reports(1890-1920)

The end of the 19 th century and the beginning of the 20 th century are important turning points in the development of American history.Industrialization,urbanization and immigrants not only promote the rapid development of American economy,but also bring many challenges to the public secondary education.As an important part of middle school education,the chaotic history teaching can not undertake the mission given by the city industrial--society.In order to change this situation,the NEA and the AHA respectively convened professionals to discuss solutions,and issued a series of reports in 1890-1920,which outlined a blueprint for the good development of history teaching in middle schools.The first chapter introduces the background of the report.As a preliminary preparation,the specialization of historiography and teacher qualification in the late19 th century pointed out the direction of specialization;the challenge of urban industrial society provided an opportunity;the establishment of important organizations built a solid backstage supporter.Under the comprehensive effect of the above-mentioned factors,the report of the committee came into people's vision slowly with the ideal blueprint of middle school history teaching.The second chapter elaborates on the reform plan of history course in the report of the Committee.Under the condition of attaching importance to the value of“developing personal intelligence”,the Committee expanded the history class from short-term scattered to long-term continuous,organized the history subjects from disorderly and unbalanced to orderly,and clarified the relationship between the history course and university entrance requirements.Only in this way can college entrance requirements have the opportunity to create a harmonious situation with the middle school history curriculum,and thus pave the way for the good development of middle school history teaching.The third chapter explores the reform suggestions of history teaching methods inthe report of the Committee.The committee advocates to improve teachers' professional ability through teacher training,enrich the content of teaching materials with the help of “parallel teaching materials”,and change the single teaching methods with the help of “resource method” and various teaching auxiliary means.The fourth chapter comprehensively evaluates the reform of middle school history teaching from the perspective of the report of the committee,mainly from three aspects: characteristic analysis,positive response,negative criticism.Referring to the content of contemporary teaching materials,we can see that the history reform of middle school takes the intellectual development as the value tendency,the teacher's ability as the core,and the connection as the choice of content.This reform has realized the basic unity of middle school history teaching,promoted the further development of “Americanization” movement.Under the banner of “social efficiency”,this reform was questioned by CSS report,and even involved in the discussion that “history discipline was replaced by social research”.Based on the analysis of the report of the committee,this paper tries to present the whole face of the reform of history teaching in American middle schools from1890 to 1920.The conclusion is that under the guidance of the report of the committee,the middle school history teaching has ended the confusion and achieved the basic unity to a certain extent.Although this reform achievement has been denied by the social efficiency people who advocate social research discipline,there is no strict opposition between them,history discipline has not been replaced by social research discipline.They are only the specific performance of middle school history teaching in different social needs,the former is "specialization",while the latter is "social efficiency".