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From Didactics to the Epistemology of History A Shared Reflexivity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 April 2017

Bénédicte Girault
Bénédicte Girault*
Affiliation:
Université de VersaillesSaint-Quentin-en-Yvelines École supérieure du professorat et de l’éducation, Versailles
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Abstract

Behind the complex issue of the relationship between the professionalization of teacher training and the spaces where academic and disciplinary knowledge is produced lie questions about the very nature of historical research. This paper suggests that the reflexive practices of professional historians and of those who teach history can be a meeting ground for scientific, didactic, and pedagogical questions that concern secondary schools and universities alike. In terms of the training of future history teachers, this implies combining the acquisition of historical knowledge and a personal, hands-on experience of researching and writing history from the very beginning of the learning process.

Type
Historical Research and History Teaching in Secondary Schools
Information
Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales - English Edition , Volume 70 , Issue 1 , March 2015 , pp. 199 - 209
Copyright
Copyright © Les Éditions de l’EHESS 2015

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References

1. Serres, Michel, Petite Poucette (Paris: Éditions Le Pommier, 2012)Google Scholar.

2. Excerpt from a speech delivered by Michel Serres to the Académie française on March 1, 2011, http://nouveaux-defis-education.institut-de-france.fr/serres.html (author’s emphases).

3. On changes to continuing professional development and the current issues involved—at a time when only one in every two school districts has chosen to continue offering a training plan, or PAF—see Hayat El Kaaouachi’s contribution to this issue of the Annales .

4. See Christian Delacroix’s contribution to this issue.

5. Étienne, Richard et al., eds., L’université peut-elle vraiment former les enseignants? Quelles tensions? Quelles modalités? Quelles conditions? (Brussels: De Boeck, 2009)Google Scholar.

6. “Créer une nouvelle dynamique de la formation des maîtres,” Bancel Report, 1989, http://www.ladocumentationfrancaise.fr/var/storage/rapports-publics/894185300/0000.pdf.

7. However, as the French schools inspectorate explicitly points out in its first report, entitled “La mise en place des écoles supérieures du professorat et de l’éducation,” the governance of research is largely undefined and remains to be formulated: http://cache.media.enseignementsup-recherche.gouv.fr/file/Formation_et_recrutement_des_enseignants/92/0/rapport-espe-2014_355920.pdf, pp. 23–24 and 50–51.

8. Law no. 2013-595 concerning the framework and planning of the school reform (July 8, 2013).

9. With regard to supervision by “two trainers with complementary profiles and skills,” as recommended on page 9 of the 1989 report, the circular released at the start of each new school year details the introduction of “mixed mentoring” involving a “practical tutor” and a “university tutor.” See annex 15 of the 2014 circulaire de rentrée, http://www.education.gouv.fr/pid25535/bulletin_officiel.html?cid_bo=79642.

10. A dissertation “that must contain disciplinary and research content relating to a pedagogical objective and professional practices [and which] draws on the teaching practice undertaken as part of the cooperative education program and on other teach ing delivered during the course.” See article 19 of the decree of August 27, 2013 setting out the national framework for courses delivered within teaching, education, and train ing master’s.

11. Referred to as the “simultaneous model” in the Bancel Report, or, to borrow the terminology used in the circulaire de rentrée, “integrative” cooperative programs: “Cooperative education is at the core of the new training model for teaching and education staff. The teaching placement is training in its own right, with the trainee’s experience becoming a central part of the training. The school or institution is a place of training just like the ESPE. The basic principle underpinning cooperative education is that of ‘integrative cooperative education.’” The theoretical framework for “integrative” cooperative education was set out as early as 1982: Malglaive, Gérard and Weber, Anita, “Théorie et pratique, approche critique de l’alternance en pédagogie,” Revue française de pédagogie 61 (1982): 17–22 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12. The following observations are based on my experience as a history lecturer in primary and secondary education master’s courses at the University of Versailles Saint-Quentin since 2010. As part of this role I supervise a number of vocational dissertations and participate in the oral defenses each year.

13. Particularly in “Pédagogies,” a series edited by Philippe Meirieu and published by ESF éditeur.

14. Inspectors lament the increasingly widespread use of activity worksheets, a development justified on the pretext of placing pupils in a situation of active research, but which amounts to extracting information from a surfeit of decontextualized documents treated as a source of truth.

15. Doussot, Sylvain, Didactique de l’histoire. Outils et pratiques de l’enquête historienne en classe (Rennes: PUR, 2011)Google Scholar; Marec, Yannick Le, Doussot, Sylvain and Vézier, Anne, “Savoirs, problèmes et pratiques langagières en histoire,” Éducation et didactique 3, no. 3 (2009): 7–27 Google Scholar.

16. Lautier, Nicole, À la rencontre de l’histoire (Villeneuve-d’Ascq: Presses universitaires du Septentrion, 1997)Google Scholar.

17. For example, the work of Didier Cariou, a member of the Research Center for Education, Learning, and Didactics (Centre de recherche sur l’éducation, les apprentissages et la didactique, CREAD) in Rennes, and the book based on his thesis: Écrire l’histoire scolaire. Quand les élèves écrivent en classe pour apprendre l’histoire (Rennes: PUR, 2012).

18. Mével, Yannick and Tutiaux-Guillon, Nicole, Didactique et enseignement de l’histoire-géographie au collège et au lycée (Paris: Publibook, 2013)Google Scholar.

19. On this point, see Virginie Barbier’s contribution to this issue and the “laissez-faire” approach that distinguishes her teaching from the practices of student teachers I have observed. Many studies exist within the field of research in didactics. For the links between the “discursive community of historians” and that of the history class, see, for example, Doussot’s, Sylvain article, “Le cas Menocchio et la construction en histoire. Une lecture didactique de l’étude de cas selon Carlo Ginzburg,” Le cartable de Clio 12 (2012): 111–25 Google Scholar.

20. See Alexandre Berthon-Dumurgier’s contribution to this issue. Berthon-Dumurgier was directly involved in training activities undertaken in this area in 2008 by the school district of Créteil.

21. Paul Veyne (Comment on écrit l’histoire, 1971) has described history as a “relating of true events,” while Michel de Certeau (L’Écriture de l’histoire, 1975) portrays the historical narrative as a “layered text” (texte feuilleté). Antoine Prost (Douze leçons sur l’histoire, 1996) describes the historical narrative as a “full text” (texte plein ), whose narrational consistency masks a number of “gaps” in the historical record and whose fragmentary nature appears only in explanatory textual notes.—Trans .

22. It is significant that the most recent works on didactics in history (see references to the works of Cariou and Doussot, above) focus specifically on writing practices in history classes, including lists, tables, and more generally all forms of intermediary texts as well as reflective writings (along the lines of “How did you go about explaining why the Romans persecuted the Christians and why they then adopted the Christian religion?”).

23. On the difficult institutional and scholarly position of researchers in didactics, see the special issue “15 ans de recherche en didactique de l’histoire-géographie,” Perspectives documentaires en éducation 53 (2001), in particular Nicole Tutiaux-Guillon’s contribution, “Emprunts, recompositions... Les concepts et modèles des didactiques de l’histoire et delagéographieàlacroisée des chemins,” pp. 83–90, and the accountbyAnne Le Roux, “Un itinéraire de recherche en didactique de la géographie,” pp. 17–27.

24. The CNU categorizes research into numbered sections. See http://www.cpcnu.fr/listes-des-sections-cnu.— Trans .

25. On a social and historical approach to the construction and progressive institutiona-lization of the education sciences as a disciplinary field in Europe, see Hofstetter, Rita and Schneuwly, Bernard, eds., Science(s) de l’éducation, 19e-20e siècles. Entre champs professionnels et champs disciplinaires (Berne: P. Lang, 2002)Google Scholar.

26. Schön, Donald A., The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action (New York: Basic Books, 1983)Google Scholar; Schön, , ed., The Reflective Turn: Case Studies in and on Educational Practice (New York: Teachers College Press, 1991)Google Scholar.

27. Tardif, Maurice, Borges, Cecilia, and Malo, Annie, eds., Le virage réflexif en éducation. Où en sommes-nous 30 ans après Schön? (Brussels: De Boeck, 2012)Google Scholar.

28. Ibid., 59.

29. This was already a key concept in the 2012 undergraduate reference document, http://cache.media.enseignementsup-recherche.gouv.fr/file/Plan_licence/61/4/referentiel_227614.pdf.