JC History / A-Level Critical Thinking

Ready4Boarding

You'll know that history has been reinstated as mandatory at junior cycle after a series of high-profile interventions.

President Higgins had said, "To be without historical training, the careful and necessary capability to filter and critically interpret a variety of sources, is to leave citizens desperately ill-equipped to confront" the modern world. Diarmuid Ferriter had said, "The past and the evidence relating to it needs to be contextualised, mediated and evaluated." Similar sentiments were voiced in other articles and letters to the Irish Times.

But abstract talk about the value of historical skills to the modern citizen bears little resemblance to the actual history curriculum. Factual recall takes precedence and a student is overwhelmingly more likely to be asked to write an account of an Irish freedom fighter than to assess the divergence over the Anglo Irish Treaty. And the document question is usually trivial and seen as providing easy marks.

In the UK they have a subject called "critical thinking," which develops explicitly what history is said to develop implicitly. Below is one of two papers taken during first year of A-Levels.

pastpapers.co/ocr/A-Level/Critical-Thinking-H052-H452/2013/June/174983-question-paper-unit-f502-01-and-f502-02-assessing-and-developing-argument.pdf

If the sincere aim of proponents of history was the development of critical thinking in students, rather than a sentimental desire to rescue the subject, they would look to incorporate aspects of A-Level critical thinking in the JC history course or as part of a beefed up civics curriculum.

Any takers?!

amacca

I'm not sure students developing critical thinking skills would be a good idea....

they might start casting a critical eye on the new JC "specification" after all.

Treppen

Ready4Boarding wrote: »

You'll know that history has been reinstated as mandatory at junior cycle after a series of high-profile interventions.

President Higgins had said, "To be without historical training, the careful and necessary capability to filter and critically interpret a variety of sources, is to leave citizens desperately ill-equipped to confront" the modern world. Diarmuid Ferriter had said, "The past and the evidence relating to it needs to be contextualised, mediated and evaluated." Similar sentiments were voiced in other articles and letters to the Irish Times.

But abstract talk about the value of historical skills to the modern citizen bears little resemblance to the actual history curriculum. Factual recall takes precedence and a student is overwhelmingly more likely to be asked to write an account of an Irish freedom fighter than to assess the divergence over the Anglo Irish Treaty. And the document question is usually trivial and seen as providing easy marks.

In the UK they have a subject called "critical thinking," which develops explicitly what history is said to develop implicitly. Below is one of two papers taken during first year of A-Levels.

pastpapers.co/ocr/A-Level/Critical-Thinking-H052-H452/2013/June/174983-question-paper-unit-f502-01-and-f502-02-assessing-and-developing-argument.pdf

If the sincere aim of proponents of history was the development of critical thinking in students, rather than a sentimental desire to rescue the subject, they would look to incorporate aspects of A-Level critical thinking in the JC history course or as part of a beefed up civics curriculum.

Any takers?!

Where are you getting that from?

anyway... teachers don't teach according to "the sincere aim of proponents of History". They teach according to the guidelines and syllabus, as set out here:
https://www.jct.ie/history/key_documents

That critical thinking course above is not history. There is an A Level History course also.

Ready4Boarding

Treppen wrote: »

That critical thinking course above is not history. There is an A Level History course also.

Goodness, what a perceptive intervention you've made.

spurious

Ready4Boarding wrote:

Goodness, what a perceptive intervention you've made.

Have you ever taught JC? You are expecting rather a lot. Critical thinking?

Ready4Boarding

spurious wrote: »

Have you ever taught JC? You are expecting rather a lot. Critical thinking?

Well, your disbelief supports my point: proponents of mandatory history were wrong to claim the subject develops invaluable critical thinking.

But I disagree that any level of critical thinking is beyond JC students. Most will be fifteen when they finish junior cycle. The Critical Thinking subject in the UK is most often taken as a half A-Level, at sixteen. And, obviously, I would expect the difficulty to be lessened if some of its content were included.

I suppose, what I was really trying to say was, this is a cool and valuable subject that we should include somewhere in Irish school education. And seeing as historians claim their subject develops critical thinking, why not beef up the document question to make it true?


Sample question:

"To be without historical training, the careful and necessary capability to filter and critically interpret a variety of sources, is to leave citizens desperately ill-equipped."

Identify an underlying assumption in President Higgins' argument for mandatory history.

a) Historical training is the ability to filter and critically interpret.

b) It is not the job of schools to equip citizens with historical training.

c) Junior cycle history develops the capability to filter and critically interpret.

spurious

What you are looking for is one of the infamous 'short courses' - along with philosophy, ethics, logic and other useful courses.

It perhaps could have fit in History, but not in its current state. If the 1992 JC History syllabus (which included externally examinable individual research work from each candidate) had ever been properly implemented, I think we would be in a very different situation than we are now as regards skills. We also face the problem that the 2020 JC History exam will be the last to be offered at different levels.

From 2021, you will have candidates who can write five A4 pages on the changes the Reformation brought to religion and society sitting the same exam as those who think Protestants don't believe in God. The common level - a disaster for any subject.

Ready4Boarding

Well, that would mean that only a fraction of students would take it, but it's probably the best alternative.

I'm still resistant to your belief that no amount of critical thinking could be incorporated. It's very close in nature to the comprehension questions of history and English. But I agree entirely that the curriculum should be made suit the students not the reverse, which is one of my biggest criticisms of the lobby for mandatory history which often showed itself to be entirely detached from the realities of the classroom. An article in the Sunday Independent today said, "Imagine young people growing up in this country without any grasp of all the important dates in our history, the 1916 Rising, the War of Independence, not to mention events like World War I and World War II," displaying an incredibly naive belief that that is achieved for even a small minority.

Treppen

Ready4Boarding wrote: »

Goodness, what a perceptive intervention you've made.

Well I have to question your sources when this is being put forward as your trump card...

Ready4Boarding wrote: »

If the sincere aim of proponents of history was the development of critical thinking in students, ...

Where is your source for this 'sincere aim'.
That's a basic fundamental, but if you can't locate this claim then everything else is coloured by obvious bias.
I think it might be called a 'straw-man argument'

Ready4Boarding

Treppen wrote: »

Well I have to question your sources when this is being put forward as your trump card...

What?

Where is your source for this 'sincere aim'.
That's a basic fundamental, but if you can't locate this claim then everything else is coloured by obvious bias.
I think it might be called a 'straw-man argument'

One of them is President Higgins. But surely you're not doubting that proponents of history believe it develops critical thinking?

Basic fundamental? I recommend you google tautology. Same for bias.

Treppen

Ready4Boarding wrote: »

What?




One of them is President Higgins. But surely you're not doubting that proponents of history believe it develops critical thinking?

Basic fundamental? I recommend you google tautology. Same for bias.

What exactly did this one president Higgins say?

maynooth_rules

spurious wrote: »

What you are looking for is one of the infamous 'short courses' - along with philosophy, ethics, logic and other useful courses.

It perhaps could have fit in History, but not in its current state. If the 1992 JC History syllabus (which included externally examinable individual research work from each candidate) had ever been properly implemented, I think we would be in a very different situation than we are now as regards skills. We also face the problem that the 2020 JC History exam will be the last to be offered at different levels.

From 2021, you will have candidates who can write five A4 pages on the changes the Reformation brought to religion and society sitting the same exam as those who think Protestants don't believe in God. The common level - a disaster for any subject.

Is there a teacher in the country who actually thinks Common level are a good idea? yet the department is ploughing on ahead with it

RealJohn

maynooth_rules wrote: »

Is there a teacher in the country who actually thinks Common level are a good idea? yet the department is ploughing on ahead with it

I think a common level is a good idea, in a cold sort of way. My belief is that the exams should be a test of the whole course (within reason) and your exam result a measure of your level of knowledge. This doesn't work if you have higher level and ordinary level and you start getting the notion that "an A in ordinary level is better than a C in higher level" and "a C in ordinary level is better than failing higher level". Ordinary level allows lazy students to pass subjects they don't deserve to pass.

Obviously, the down side of a properly implemented common level exam is that the weaker students will get bad results, but is that the end of the world? Ordinary level is eccwntially a participation medal. Granted, just making it to and through the leaving cert is an achievement worth recognising for some students, but sometimes it's the case too that students just deserve to fail, rather than getting a pat on the back for scraping a minimum standard.

Treppen

I'm not sure I agree. At secondary school level it shouldn't be about supreme subject mastery, or putting yourself on a definite track to a career within that honours subject. Two of the subjects I did at ordinary level I came back to in later life and did well in. At the time in L Cert I didn't have any help from anyone or didn't get grinds and I put energies into higher level subjects too. I still felt a sense of achievement at 'succeeding' in my ordinary level subjects when the results came out.
I think what's good about the Irish system was the necessity to try more than the couple of subjects you'd study for A-Levels.

feardeas

spurious wrote: »

What you are looking for is one of the infamous 'short courses' - along with philosophy, ethics, logic and other useful courses.

It perhaps could have fit in History, but not in its current state. If the 1992 JC History syllabus (which included externally examinable individual research work from each candidate) had ever been properly implemented, I think we would be in a very different situation than we are now as regards skills. We also face the problem that the 2020 JC History exam will be the last to be offered at different levels.

From 2021, you will have candidates who can write five A4 pages on the changes the Reformation brought to religion and society sitting the same exam as those who think Protestants don't believe in God. The common level - a disaster for any subject.

If a teacher has not been able to point out that they do then a paper at common level is the least of our worries.

spurious

feardeas wrote: »

If a teacher has not been able to point out that they do then a paper at common level is the least of our worries.

Point out what?

amacca

feardeas wrote: »

If a teacher has not been able to point out that they do then a paper at common level is the least of our worries.

what???

Ready4Boarding

I think they mean that Spurious ought to have contested my belief that history doesn't develop critical thinking.

spurious

The level of critical thinking displayed (or tested) in JC History papers, at either level, is fairly low. The common level will just compound this.