Towards a taxonomy : history teachers and history classrooms

This study is presented as a research-based professional portfolio for the degree of Doctor of Education. There are four parts to the portfolio. The first part is the evidence-based narrative of my personal, professional and scholarly development. This narrative is an overview of my career as classroom teacher, curriculum consultant, teacher educator and historian, and of the pedagogy that developed from these experiences. The second part is a research-based discussion and demonstration of that pedagogy, using a proposed taxonomy for doing history and studying History in schools. The third part is an exploration of a crucial element of that taxonomy, the role of empathy in historical thinking and a demonstration of how empathy may be promoted from studying artefacts. The fourth part is a further application of elements of the taxonomy to develop resources for classroom use and includes a discussion and illustration of some issues of change management and how appropriately developed resources can encourage change in classroom content focus. Themes introduced and explored in the initial narrative are developed in each of the other components of the portfolio. Firstly, there is the continuing dialectic between teaching historical skills and content knowledge. The second theme is the consideration of achieving an appropriate balance in the classroom between explicit instruction teaching and inquiry learning. The third theme examines the contradiction inherent in the need for teachers to mediate the curriculum in favour of their students and systemic priorities that are designed to ‘teacher–proof’ the curriculum. This study is timely within the current Australian educational context. The implementation of a national curriculum for History in Australia continues to initiate considerable discussion and debate about WHAT should be taught in History classrooms. However, this study will contend that the critical questions should be located in the discussion of HOW a national curriculum might be taught. Such an argument is strongly informed by my lifelong professional experience as a classroom practitioner, teacher educator and historian