Teaching the past : with special reference to prehistory in English primary education

Stone, Peter Gregory (1990) Teaching the past : with special reference to prehistory in English primary education. University of Southampton, Doctoral Thesis.

Abstract

This thesis attempts to investigate whether or not prehistory is a `suitable' (containing material that can be easily understood by young children) and `useful' (allowing for the development of skills and cross-curricular learning) subject to be taught within English primary education. Chapter 1 outlines the educational philosophy and career of the American educationalist, John Dewey. The chapter notes that central to Dewey's philosophy of education was a belief that the most appropriate period of the past to teach to young children was prehistory. Chapter 2 outlines the growth and development of the English primary education system and suggests four `traditions' that have combined to produce the contemporary situation within primary schools. Chapter 3 outlines the development of the teaching of the past within contemporary English primary education. It also suggests some of the reasons why the study of prehistory and archaeology have become peripheral to the main corpus of teaching about the past. Chapter 4 discusses the teaching of prehistory and archaeology in more detail and describes the limited attempts to incorporate their teaching more fully into the primary system. Chapter 5 describes the aims and teaching of a practical primary level project, The First Farmers. The chapter also contains an overview of approaches to, and methods of, evaluation and outlines 12 elements of assessment devised for The First Farmers project. Chapter 6 then analyses the assessment of The First Farmers in relation to the outline given in chapter 5. On the basis of this analysis Chapter 7 discusses the three general points for evaluation raised in Chapter 6. The chapter concludes by listing seven reasons drawn from the above dicussions that suggest that there are good reasons for thinking that prehistory is a useful and suitable subject to be taught within primary education.

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