As students are taught the history of Bulgaria, Germany and Poland, and what are going to teach in Russia, the reporter tried to find out “Gazety.Ru».
It turns out, in the sense of textbooks Russia had just climbed down from the tree. In our country, children are taught history in the same way as we did two hundred years ago. We do not know what our children need to learn history. We just teach them a ready knowledge which can only be taken and in any event not to contradict him.
This statement, in the opinion of the correspondent of “Gazety.Ru” controversial, sounded from the lips of one of the participants of the seminar, which is held every Tuesday in the building of the HSE. This week, he was devoted to a comparison of school history textbooks in the West, in this case – against Russian developments with textbooks Bulgaria, Germany and Poland.
And there, according to reports, the situation is different, but equally amazing. At least compared to us.
In Poland, for example, there are also set at the level of state standards, but they provide the compilers of history textbooks is quite a lot of freedom. According to the deputy head of the School of History HSE Dmitry Dobrovolsky, you can use dozens of lines of text books for each level (basic or advanced), the student can decide which level to choose. Of course, an integral part of these standards – the history of Poland, history of the region where the school is located, the place of Poland in the world and how it has changed over time. And most importantly – Polish textbooks on historical examples teach children to think.
In Poland has its own analogue of the exam, but it is not a simple test, the answers to which, In principle, you can learn, not even close to understanding what the story. In matters of the Polish exam for the basic level does not need to know anything: all the information already contained in the text of the question. From the student is only required to compare the information contained in the question and analyze it, draw a conclusion. That is not so much to learn to know the historical facts as to be able to use them to understand the world in which man lives today.
In Germany, everything is different, said Associate Professor of the School of History HSE Martin Bayssvenger. Not only is there no something similar to a single textbook, there is not even the Federal Ministry of Education. Everything is decided on its own authority 16 land, now part of the Federal Republic of Germany; and what to teach, and what textbooks teach, and how to organize the learning process. In these lands all their books, their curricula.
However, there are general rules for all. In the first place, of course, the history of Germany and of the land where this particular school. Of course, Germany is not Poland, where in high esteem and specifics, and the ability to understand the specifics. Therefore, from the student, to study history, and require a good knowledge of the historical facts, and good ability to project them to the world today – in other words, to understand what is historically present.
The main objective of teaching history in Germany is marked clearly: active citizenship, including impartiality, prudence, the rejection of any form of discrimination, whether based on gender, nationality, on the sexual preference.
And in Bulgaria, too, all in their own way, told Teacher Lyceum HSE, the federal expert on the history exam Tatiana Maslakova. There are no restrictions on the structure and the concept of a history textbook, it’s all at the mercy of the authors of books. The Education Act is there, but it recorded only the most general purpose. The main trend of the Bulgarian history books – focus not so much on knowledge of historical facts, but rather on raising students’ skills to use these facts.
As a result of the Bulgarian history books proved varied and numerous. They are published not only in Bulgarian, but also for high school and in English. Disadvantage – these books are available for free only primary school students, high school students but parents have to shell out every year, and on a considerable amount as an average, each textbook costs about $ 15.
Solids – in all three countries mentioned history textbooks are designed to teach children to think, to compare, and even make their own expert assessment of a source of historical information.
All of this could not fail to cause a minimum and a maximum approval – admiration of the participants, many of whom are professionally familiar with the subject themselves teach history in schools.
But as with the Russian history textbooks in their own problems, the discussion quickly boiled down to the idea of a common history book, Putin’s proposal in February the year before last.
The discussion was quite passionate, despite the fact that the idea of Ministry of Education refused in August last year, replacing a single textbook uniform concept set forth in the regulatory document entitled “Historical and cultural standards.” The dispute was natural, because people often do not make the difference between one textbook and uniform standard, neither one nor the other, as it turns out, there is no country in the world except Russia.
In this document, on page fifty painted sets of historical events, dates, figures and other facts , which should be reflected in the new textbooks. As it turns out, of the eight lines of text books, created in accordance with the “Historical and cultural standards”, the Russian Historical Society has selected three, and now all three of these lines awaiting ministerial approval to have this September to get to the school desks.
In a lively discussion about the vanity of a common approach, in which, by the way, came the words that “we do not know,” why do we need to teach our children the history, the correspondent of “Gazety.Ru” decided to bring the contribution and asked the audience how to relate the obvious soundness of European approaches to history textbooks and the results of a recent international survey conducted by Sputnik, according to which the majority of Europeans either do not know who defeated Hitler in World War II and liberated Western Europe, or believe that the key role Americans have played in the victory. He asked to explain how such a noble and worthy of sincere respect approach to teaching school history has led Europe to such obvious to total ignorance of historical facts.
On a correspondent watched as the man published in polite society obscene sound, and different voices told him where the sea and where the cottage and the role played by textbooks in informing people .
«I weighed schoolbags – said the director of the Center of Education number 548 Yefim Rachevsky – And it turned out that third-graders, it weighs about five kilograms, fifth graders – about three. As for school students, they do not wear backpacks and at best hold a notebook in her hand, or even carry a flash drive in his pocket. They have forgotten that such a textbook. They have other sources of information, the main of which – the World Wide Web ». 
-> 
According to the materials: ZN.UA 
