Beyond Heroes and Villains

Multidisciplinary Journal of School Education

In a society which is increasingly visual, and the teaching of history and critical thinking so important in an age of post-truth and fake news, the words of the Swedish poet, Linn Hansén, seem particularly apt: what is history, is what is illustrated. The images found in history coursebooks help learners to imagine the past, providing a visual aid to support learning, but they can also be used to foster critical thinking by treating the images as historical sources in themselves. This paper presents the results of a pilot study conducted on the functions of images contained in Polish and British history coursebooks using a proprietary paradigm developed on the basis of existing scholarship in English Language Teaching. It shows that the pedagogical functions of images in history coursebooks vary greatly between the two educational contexts. In Britain, images are typically treated as historical sources in themselves, whilst in Poland they typically perform more of a decorative func...

Journal of Educational Media, Memory, and Society, 2023

This introductory article presents the contributions to a thematic issue about the visual analysis of history textbooks and other educational media. It provides a brief historical overview of the use of pictures in history textbooks and discusses how developments in visual studies can help move the study of such pictures beyond questions of representation, toward considering the different ways in which they can exercise an agency of their own. It argues that we need to develop complex forms of visual literacy in interacting with textbooks and shows how the distinctions proposed by the issue authors can advance this task. The article ends by suggesting avenues for further research.

The outrage in Parliament over the Shankar cartoon and the NCERT textbooks is one born out of a misrecognition of the visual content of the cartoon and a peculiar reading of the pedagogical intent of these well crafted books. It is useful to look at this outrage in the context of the new critical scholarship and struggles that emerged following the appalling textbooks introduced by the NDA regime in its earlier tenures.

Multidisciplinary Journal of School Education, 2020

In a society which is increasingly visual, and with the teaching of history and critical thinking being important in an age of post-truth and fake news, the words of the Swedish poet Linn Hansén seem particularly apt: “what is history is what is illustrated”. The images found in history coursebooks help learners to imagine the past, providing a visual aid to support learning, but they can also be used to foster critical thinking by treating the images as historical sources in themselves. This paper presents the results of a pilot study on the functions of images in Polish and British history coursebooks using a proprietary paradigm based on existing scholarship in English Language Teaching. It shows that the pedagogical functions of images in history coursebooks vary greatly between the two educational contexts. In Britain, images are typically treated as historical sources in themselves, whilst in Poland they typically perform more of a decorative function. The paper closes with a number of recommendations for further research and publishers of history coursebooks. Keywords: visual culture, Polish & British educational contexts, history teaching, ELT, critical thinking

Philosophy, Communication, Media Sciences

The use of images is a method specific to art history. However, artistic analyses of images can be used in history classes as well. Knowledge of art history is indispensable to the teacher when using images, photographs or paintings. In history classes, these pictures can become priceless historical sources which help analyze a series of social, political, economic and artistic aspects or mentalities. Portraits, images depicting certain events or scenes of everyday life, landscapes, images of cities, settlements, posters, caricatures etc. belong to this category of images. With the help of these pictures, the studied historical events are materialized, facilitating their perception and comprehension by the students. Such teaching materials deepen the understanding of historical events through the clearer perception regarding the particularities of the events they present.

2002

2016

Curriculum Perspectives, 2020

Solving community issues effectively and ethically demands sophisticated historical consciousness on the part of decision makers. Developing historical consciousness is therefore a crucial role for history teachers as they nurture emerging adults. Appropriately chosen picture books offer unique opportunities for supporting this mission because of their accessibility, conceptual complexity and ambiguity. Teachers can use theoretical models of historical consciousness to scaffold the development of classroom discussion questions around suitable picture books so that discussions cultivate enhanced consciousness in students. To illustrate this approach, I use Jörn Rüsen's (2004) four-level taxonomy of historical consciousness to develop a series of discussion questions related to an iconic Australian picture book, The Rabbits (Marsden and Tan, 1998). The questions are designed to provoke creative examinations of a range of Australian contemporary issues including indigeneity, colonisation, modernity, and environmental degradation. They draw authentically on historical knowledge and, taken together, exercise Rüsen's four levels of historical consciousness. Advantages and risks of using picture books as stimulus resources for raising historical consciousness in the adolescent history classroom are examined.

The University of Toronto Press, 2021

In the 1920s, with the end of the revolution, the Soviet government began investing resources and energy into creating a new type of book for the first generation of young Soviet readers. These early books for children were the ABCs of Soviet modernity; creatively illustrated and intricately designed, they were manuals and primers that helped the young reader enter the field of politics through literature. Children's books provided the basic vocabulary and grammar for understanding new, post-revolutionary realities, but they also taught young readers how to perceive modern events and communist practices. Relying on a process of dual-media rendering, illustrated books presented propaganda as a simple, repeatable narrative or verse, while also casting it in easily recognizable graphic images. A vehicle of ideology, object of affection, and product of labour all in one, the illustrated book for the young Soviet reader emerged as an important cultural phenomenon. Communist in its content, it was often avant-gardist in its form. Spotlighting three thematic threads - communist goals, pedagogy, and propaganda - The Pedagogy of Images traces the formation of a mass-modern readership through the creation of the communist-inflected visual and narrative conventions that these early readers were meant to appropriate. CONTENTS Introduction Primers in Soviet Modernity: Depicting Communism for Children in Early Soviet Russia 3 Serguei Alex. Oushakine and Marina Balina PART I: MEDIATION Chapter one Three Degrees of Exemplary Boyhood in Boris Kustodiev’s Soviet Paradise Helena Goscilo Chapter two How the Revolution Triumphed: Alisa Poret’s Textbook of Cultural Iconography Yuri Leving Chapter three “Foto-glaz”: Children as Photo-Correspondents in Early Soviet Pioneer Magazines Erika Wolf Chapter four Autonomous Animals Animated: Samozveri as a Constructivist Pedagogical Cine-dispositive Aleksandar Bošković Chapter five The Fragile Power of Paper and Projections Birgitte Beck Pristed PART II: TECHNOLOGY Chapter six From Nature to “Second Nature” and Back Larissa Rudova Chapter seven Autonomy and the Automaton: The Child as Instrument of Futurity Sara Pankenier Weld Chapter eight Spells of Materialist Magic, or Soviet Children and Electric Power Kirill Chunikhin Chapter nine “Do It All Yourself!” Teaching Technological Creativity during Soviet Industrialization Maria Litovskaya Chapter ten The Camel and the Caboose: Viktor Shklovsky’s Turksib and the Pedagogy of Uneven Development Michael Kunichika Chapter eleven Aeroplane, Aeroboat, Aerosleigh: Propelling Everywhere in Soviet Transportation Kat Hill Reischl PART III: POWER Chapter twelve Spatializing Revolutionary Temporality: From Montage and Dynamism to Map and Plan Kevin M. F. Platt Chapter thirteen “Poor, Poor Il’ich”: Visualizing Lenin’s Death for Children Daniil Leiderman and Marina Sokolovskaia Chapter fourteen Young Soldiers at Play: The Red Army Soldier as Icon Steve Norris Chapter fifteen The Working Body and Its Prostheses: Imagining Class for Soviet Children Alexey Golubev Chapter sixteen Americanism: The Brave New New World of Soviet Civilization Thomas Keenan-Dormany Illustration Credits 525 List of Contributors 529 Index 535

The Ohio Social Studies Review, 2014

The purpose of this article is to provide guidance on how teachers can introduce historical photographs to their history class. Werner (2002) argues that visual texts are no longer simple tools that enhance the look of a written text, but are central to student learning. We (one author is a veteran social studies teacher and the other author is an education professor) specifically address Werner’s call for social studies educators to teach students how to be critical readers of visual texts. In the manuscript, we discuss the role of historical photographs in socials studies classes and provide practical methods and activities teachers can use to introduce more images to their students. By bridging students’ visually rich outside world with the world inside the classroom, we seek to enable leaners to be interpreters rather than uncritical consumers of visual texts.