To think in time and space: Suggestions for curricular changes in the academic subject-society

Abstract

In the curriculum of the academic subject Society, which starts with Middle Ages, noticeable is the lack of logically and historically justified beginning (Prehistory and Ancient Times) as well as the continuation (Modern times) of historical events. The rationale for this is that it is assumed that children are not mature enough to deal with the historical development of human society since it implies a higher level of concept formation and abstract reasoning. The experiences from a number of action researches, in which the in-class group-research method was applied to study medieval Serbia, indicate to the students 'spontaneous need to systematize the material at a concrete level and illustrate it through different media, as well as to establish temporal/ spatial dimensions of an event, i.e. to perceive a phenomenon through its genesis in time and geo-cultural context. The idea that a child should start learning about the world by studying its own environment first is only partially justified. This paper suggests that: 1) the framework of the contents of the subject Society should include a "big picture", i.e. a summary of the history of society with examples from the whole world and from our past; 2) a thematically- interdisciplinary approach should be applied in in-class group-research work in lesson elaboration.

U programu poznavanja društva, koji se bez uvoda bavi srednjim vekom, nedostaje početak (praistorija i stari vek) kao i nastavak (novi vek) istorijskih događanja. Smatra se da deca još nisu sazrela da se bave istorijskim razvojem ljudskog društva jer to podrazumeva viši nivo - pojmovno i apstraktno rezonovanje. Iskustva iz akcionih istraživanja u kojima je primenjen grupno-istraživački rad u razredu prilikom proučavanja srednjovekovne Srbije ukazuju na spontanu potrebu učenika da na konkretnom nivou sistematizuju građu i ilustruju je kroz različite medije, kao i da uspostavljaju vremensko-prostorne dimenzije događaja, odnosno da posmatraju pojave kroz njihovu genezu u vremenu i geo-kulturnom kontekstu. Ideja da dete treba da počne da izučava svet od svoje sredine, pa tek kasnije da uči o drugim sredinama samo je relativno opravdana. U ovom radu se daju predlozi za: (1) okosnicu programskih sadržaja poznavanja društva koji bi obuhvatili "veliku sliku", odnosno rezime istorijskog razvoja društva s primerima iz celog sveta i iz naše prošlosti, (2) tematski interdisciplinarni pristupu grupno-istraživačkom radu učenika prilikom obrade sadržaja.