History: A web of Facts, Fictions, and Futures

By Stephen Spain

The ancient Romans synchronized historical events and projected

themselves over an ancient European past representative of a Greek
chronology and historiography. In doing so, they created a worldwide
web of time. Historical events determined time during the ancient period,
as there was no such word as ‘date’ in ancient Greek, whereas a
contemporary date serves as a representation of a moment, but not the
moment itself (Feeney, 2007). Time now has new meaning, just as we
have a new Internet web system that collapses time, space, and
saturates us with information. This allows our students and teachers to
critique the grand narrative and elicit the many truths for our audiences
and future generations to consider. Historical narratives are as much
about language and semiotics as we consider the nationalistic lexicon in
delving into the many truths and perspectives that have been recorded,
lest we leave behind new narratives void of meaningful translation.
Within this new philosophy of history scholarship of critical thinking and
historical understanding, we must also consider new pedagogies that
inform our future generations of teachers and students as we implement
our new History curriculum. Just as parchment has given way to social
media and the internet, in critiquing primary and secondary sources
driven by inquiry; we will endeavour to construct new truths grounded in
human rights (Whitehouse & Zajda, 2009). 
All Year Levels

Stephen Spain
Stephen has been lecturing in History, Humanities and

SOSE over the past two years at the Australian Catholic University, and is
currently pursuing his PhD in curriculum design and pedagogical
innovation. Stephen has taught in Oxford (primary and secondary) and
studied at Oxford Brookes University and the Bodleian, University of
Oxford.

[Title Slide]

I’d like to thank the HTAV for inviting to present the Key Note for this
Middle Years Conference 2012.
[Slide 1]

Roman Map
As part of this talk I’d like to start by asking you to think about two
important questions.

Firstly, lets look at an important challenge for the Romans – ‘if you had
an empire that covered this area of land how would you communicate?’
and secondly ‘if you could have, would you have tweeted?’

[Slide 2]

Roman Map/Todaysmeet
To share your answer –perhaps by answering the second question first -
please take out your Mobiles and turn them on and you can pose
questions by joining on www.todaysmeet.com/htavnow. If you don’t
have a mobile you can feel free to find someone who does. This is a
twitter-styled communication but will only be shared amongst
yourselves as a discrete, virtual meeting room, which is set to expire in 8
hours.

Once you are online (and just when you’re ready) just type in your
answer to the second question. If you’re very savvy and have managed
that already perhaps you can share your favourite Roman – real or
mythical.

[Slide 3]

Roman comic: cordless phone….

We know of course that Romans were challenged by both time and
distance and developed sophisticated communication systems to cope
with this challenge. We assume that a common basis of communication
is a shared knowledge of place and time, which – for historians would
certainly need a ‘date’.
[Slide 4]

Roman Map & Denis’ quote about date…

There is in fact no written word in Greek or Latin for “date.” An ancient

date is an event – or, to be more precise, any date is a relationship
between two or more events (Feeney, 2007)
As Denis Feeney also describes in his book Caesar’s Calendar, this is not
an uncommon way for us to refer to time even now.

[Slide 5]

Picture of Jeeves & Aunt Agatha

Denis’ simpler description gives Bertie Wooster agonising about the ‘axis
of time,’ which might emerge should Bertie lose his Aunt Agatha’s
brooch, which has been entrusted to his care.

Feeney tells us that the Romans were not only good at aqueducts,
sewage, and Latin, but they also constructed the World Wide Web of
Time (WWWT). This was achieved by projecting themselves over an
ancient past ‘surveyed by a Greek Historiography’ (Feeney, 2007).
There was no universal calendar system, as we know it, there were
regnal calendars for different cultural centres, which served each
community. The main attribute of a calendar was that it organised
human activities and was cyclical; Luna then Luni -solar - according to
the movements of the earth in relation to the Moon and the Sun, based
around the needs of an agricultural heritage.

A date therefore represented synchronisms of events, so by creating a

uniform calendar system assisted the Romans in establishing their
communication and power-base that stretched throughout the ancient
Roman Empire, imposing a central reality for the Empire’s subjects
stretching to the equivalent distance of Melbourne to Perth and beyond
for example. There’s scope here for a great hypothetical/role play? Eg,
“And to think the Sun rose on NZ first?????” Whereas the modern the
Christian calendar is both a system of reckoning and a dating system of
days, weeks, months and years.
[Slide 6]

King’s Graphic
This brings us to King’s clever graphic, which places ourselves in the
centre of time. Just like Bertie who senses ‘the (loss of the brooch) would
have marked an epoch. World-shaking events would have been referred
to as having happened ‘about the time Bertie lost that brooch’ (Feeney,
2007), we are naturally preoccupied about how the past looks to us and
how that might influence our future.

What is history then when our perception of the past or anxiety about
the future is based on how we see ourselves and how we relate that to
the events that mean something or have an impact on us?

[Slide 7]

Roman Map & Answers to Tweet Question

(Look at and refer to Today’s Meet thread here?

Who thought ‘yes’ the Roman’s would tweet.

Who thought ‘no’? Did anyone post a famous Roman?

Just feel free to comment or pose a question through the presentation

and we can pick these up as we go)

A Personal Perspective:

Let’s just look at - as Denis puts it – our own ADs and BCs – our own
personal ‘Bertie Wooster’ moments - that light bulb or gut wrenching
instance when we recognised a shift in our perception.

Christ’s birth represents an axis in time; serving as a significant reference

point for our western chronological system, but this wasn’t always the
case as debates over Christ’s birth continued beyond the 17th Century. In
the absence of BC & AD or BCE & CE references, dating and time
orientations were relative measurements between events. For
Historians such as Bede, dating references are more orientations in
divine time, although Bede did make reference to regnal years. Feeney
states that major historical events are post-card moments in time,
which serve as hooks for our memories of personal lived time, and that
a century and decade references are fairly recent as he quotes a poem
from Les Murray suggesting in that there were only the twentieth and
nineteenth centuries and none other. Our ability to move over space
posed problems of time measurement, which the ancients didn’t have to
endure. Ancient local time references reflected the slower movement
over physical space. Eventually time and space shrank through our
ability to travel faster, demanding a more universalised time. In the
ancient mediterranean, world-time references beyond one city posed
enormous challenges, which took centuries of scholarship to reconcile.
A student of antiquity must defrag the Christian calendar and its BC/AD
axis in time, as much understanding can be lost due to the Christian grid
reference.

A chronological statement is a synchronism based on past events.

Feeney states that there is no more absolute time to be found in science
as there is in History.

“The ability to synchronise, to construct relationships between events

separated in time and space, underpins our apprehension of time at
fundamental levels of cognition,” (Feeney, 2007, p.12).

What points of reference do we create or recall which we then use to

cross-reference with others around us? – ie we create a form of relative
time to replay important moments in our lives.

[Slide 8]

Nuns & Map: My BC & AD

My first experience of ‘Education’ was a bit of a puzzle. I went to school
and all the teachers (I thought) were well-meaning people in long brown
cloaks. School seemed to be a black and white affair – at least for the
teachers - which was probably why I spent a lot of my time pulling
weeds out of the convent garden. In 1965 I started out on my own
curriculum search by bringing a copy of Richards T ‘r’opical Encyclopedia
– all about animals in the Tropics – or so I thought. I soaked it up - the
Killer Whales, the Romans, and Michelangelo. Stories and ideas, which I
found fascinating and life-changing in that the natural world and history
deeply resonated with me.
[Slide 9]

Second Slide of Nuns & Map and Child

I was in the centre of my AD|BC moment and the nuns were not happy
about it – especially not about those pages on Michelangelo. I had my
own agenda in that I wanted to learn stuff that was relevant to me -
which I was passionate about.

[Slide 10]

Personal postcards and time hooks

So - did my encyclopedia reading have some earth shattering impact, or
was I simply impacted by everything else going on around me at the
time? My ‘postcards’ and ‘hooks’ (as Feeney calls them) are points that I
thought about to reference and cross-reference - where I was in the
overall scheme of things. While I’ve become dislocated from the place
where I grew up – if I see something about Koo Wee Rup in the news
(not a common thing) it still propels me back to my childhood. If I hear
about a plane crash it still sends me back to the deaths of the Bunyip
football club team members and 1967.

But my ‘personal curriculum’ did keep going and it must have been my
Encyclopedia studies and kinesthetic experience of pulling out weeds,
which gave me some stake in my own education and my interest in
curriculum.

So what can the Romans or our teachers or our personal experience tell
us about developing a history curriculum?

For me, making meaning of the past has never been more exciting given
History has been restored as a discipline in its own right. As a ‘Systems
Thinker/Curriculum designer,’ however, I say we must caution this with
careful consideration for the bigger picture in reconciling History as a
discipline. Before I get back to the Romans I want to firstly say what
history has to teach us in nationalising the curriculum, and secondly in
understanding how it links with other disciplines in developing ‘Life-long
Learning,’ such as commons skills and subject specific skills.
[Slide 11]

So how would this fit with a National history curriculum?

So what does history teach us about nationalising the curriculum?
Tony Taylor argues that we should start from situational analysis and
work our way out from there in developing a history curriculum. He
suggests looking out ‘our’ needs and developing an ‘Australian’ program
in the history curriculum.

{Slide 12}

How does history inform nationalising the curriculum?

“My argument here is that the first principle of curriculum construction is
situational analysis and we build outwards from there. That being the
case, my strong suggestion is that, in constructing an Australian history
curriculum we assess our own needs and develop a recognizably
Australian program, not a pale imitation of a UK program nor of a US
program”(Taylor, 2008).

I wouldn’t mind your thoughts on this statement. Is this a new

nationalism? Is it parochial? Is it self-determining? What are our needs?
Does this fit within our place in the ‘Asian Century’? How does it fit with
a diverse society? How do I relate to this as an individual?
Just put your 140 characters worth down.

[Slide 13]

What drives a National Curriculum?

If we look at the drivers of nation states we could say a ‘national’ history
curriculum can only be set from the perspective of national identity – a
centralised curriculum is more likely to set out for us our part of the
grand narrative in a way that projects us onto the global stage – a seat
on the UN security Council perhaps? For this to happen we have to be
quite ‘lined up’ as a society in our thinking and outlook we have to have
reasonable social cohesion ‘Don’t mention the war’ and we have to
participate and engage with ‘the curriculum’ in a particular way.

As you can see the opportunity for reflection, personal exploration may
become limited and there is a significant risk that both teacher and
students become fairly passive bearers and recipients of this type of
curriculum.
[Slide 14]

History a Reality Check

At a practical level a National curriculum is (by some) considered
necessary for us (ie Australia) to measure up and be measured against
equally ambitious nation states – the old, the new and the rapidly
emerging. From University rankings to the OECD measures there is
serious performance pressure on education – we need to sell our wares,
our people and promote ourselves globally - and no-one should under-
estimate what big business this is.

Of course a neat and tidy national curriculum deals with all those messy
statistics by imposing itself on every student and every classroom in a
particular way.
A few years ago I lamented the outcomes of the UK National Curriculum
in the London Guardian and The Melbourne Age and upon my return to
Australia in 2010, I was surprised to see a similar curriculum model
remerge just as we’d sold them our literacy curriculum ideas a few years
before. In fact the ‘UK’ National Curriculum was rejected by Scotland
and was abandoned in Wales (a bilingual country) and has been slowly
dismantled in England due to a change of government and a serious lack
of funds.

In its favour the Australian History Curriculum challenges us to be

creative in considering new pedagogies and literacies in order to
develop:

1. Cross-Curriculum priorities and General Capabilities.

2. Overview Studies
3. Depth Case Studies

but History should also be seen as a reality check too, as we are

empowered to challenge the Grand Narrative due to liberating
pedagogies and an unlimited access to resources with which to
enlighten ourselves; in determining our own realities through telling our
own stories and applying historical reasoning within the wider context of
change and continuity both locally and globally.
[Slide 15]

Language Globalization & History

Language shapes and projects our national identity through the
vocabulary and literature that have been selected for our schools to
consume. The Australian Curriculum (AC) challenges us to also consider
History from a World View perspective. This in turn demands that we
take a more multi-lingual approach, if we expect to be taken seriously
within other world views. Language and literary devices affect narratives
written by Historians, whose dominant ideologies underpin their
narrative production. Language is not external to historical narrative
production, it reflects the grammar and dialectic attributes of the
individual historian, as she responds to the sources of evidence being
analysed, evaluated and selected. This in turn informs the narrative or
hypothesis that is to be written for audiences to consider. It is inevitable
that we privilege some sources over others in the narratives that are
constructed based on our disposition. Chomsky suggests that we also
possess our own generative grammar that is at play, which informs
historical narrative production.

In further developing empathy, through considerately guiding our

students to explore the History of our Asian neighbours, cultivates
reciprocal responses from Asia in engaging with a more cultural insight
into our way of living in return. This then has the potential to project
upon our students a full engagement with Asia. If we also foster a more
multi-lingual approach, then we open up new ways of knowing and
seeing other cultures, which provides a richer range of critical literacies
and perspectives in analysing and evaluating source materials other than
English, as we construct new knowledge illicit new truths and fresh
realities (Lo Bianco, 2009).

We are slowly taking up Asian languages, given the AC worldview; it is

imperative that we engage more globally in reflecting international
narratives within our History studies (Hill, 2012). It’s hard to reconcile a
fall back to the European languages, and the decline of languages being
taught during my experience in Higher Education in this country since
my return from Europe in 2010.

There is also a more serious malaise in relation to the lack of support for
mother tongue education, which should be given priority given the
evidence by Joseph Lo Bianco (2009) of Melbourne University who
suggests that English literacy development is dependent upon immigrant
children having their mother tongue validated through usage in schools.
Whereas in Helsinki 40 Mother Tongues are being taught and supported.
So perhaps in the future we should consider English teaching within a
multi-lingual context given our intensely diverse range of languages
being spoken. What are the implications for furthering History as a
discipline?

Is the AC being driven by the Global Education Reform Movement?

(Sahlburg, 2012). The world perspective might suggest that Australian
History is being affected by being presented within a modern
perspective?

What steps do we take in integrating content and technology?

[Slide 17]

Interdisciplinary Modelling
New skills and the power of digitisation means everyone is empowered
to be an historian…we are wired for themes not subjects.

Howard Gardner states that we need to consider the essentials for our
future, which is our ability to hypothesise and problem solve (Gardner,
1997). This opens up enormous scope for a ‘systems approach’ to
environmental problem-solving; drawing upon History, Science, and
English for example. My contention is that we need to keep one eye on
the discipline and one on the big picture in relation to the subject
boundaries, which could reinstate the barriers of the past, which would
be a mistake.

During the eighties I taught within a Vertical Modular Curriculum, which

was an age-mixed, thematic middle school programme, which was
introduced to motivate the middle years of education – a teacher’s
curriculum writing adventure. The mantra was, concentrate on the
process first and the content second. An amazing programme that
fosters the promotion of disciplines, but allowed for semester themes
that also comprised a sophisticated personalised learning focus. The
curriculum was constructed according to generic and specialist student
needs, learning styles and thus individual dispositions. It was and is a hot
bed of innovation, research and ongoing curriculum development on an
annual basis. That has been my sole experience in teaching as a
classroom teacher in Australia.
[Slide 18]

Thinking concepts

[Slide 19]

Applying historical knowledge

So Historical events determined time and through an enormous amount
of scholarship eventually led to a linear system of chronology, enabling
us to order our History jigsaw and our factual world from the various
sources both ancient and recent.
But it’s the gaps in the jigsaw that provide us with the rich ground to
explore and investigate, as we sift through the sources of evidence and
create new insights into the past, and consider what new evidence
science continues to dig up for us to exploit? This is the stuff that should
make our historical hearts pump in sifting between fact and fiction
armed with our philosophy of critical thinking and historical
understanding that we’ve inherited from sceptical philosophy
(Southgate, 1996).

Combined with this approach to history study, we can now challenge the
grand narrative and the linear conventions of time and chronology, in
that we can consider the ‘future of the past’ in creating our own
personal historical threads through self-examination, in exploring our
personal and national identity. Our future is informed by our past in that
both lived time and history exist in the present due to our current view
of looking back from where presently are. This contrasts the more
traditional modernist view. The Fact/Fiction tensions are less
constrained, in favour of inquiry driven by critical literacies and the
construction of new narratives in all their forms, that live on as open
threads (Southgate, 1996).
[Slide 20]

Is the Film Gladiator a True Story?

Evidence versus creative vision?
Now we’re going to revisit the Romans, make friends with
Postmodernism, become a critical friend of ACARA as we consider our
curricular destiny with the help of web 2 systems and social media
innovation …… Our new focus is based on Inquiry and problem –solving
through critical thinking to illuminate Historical Understanding
(Whitehouse & Zajda, 2009). It is imperative that we develop a nexus
between:

1. Content,
2. Pedagogy,
3. Technology.
4. Independent/Personalised Learning

In striving to achieve this and - zooming in - we should also consider

issues of History and that historical exclusion tells us just as much about
the ideologies at word as the inclusions. …

[Slide 21]

Horrible Histories, Rotten Romans

Postmodernism engages us and places us all behind the scholars desk as
our contemporary study of History challenges us to put our students in
the shoes of the Historian, and consider realities and truths of past, and
their implications for the present and future through developing
Historical Knowledge and Understanding and Historical Skills through
critical thinking. However in this democratisation of history study, we
also acknowledge our human rights to know and appreciate which is real
to us. As educators we privilege certain truths based on collective
standards of evidence; in respect and in empathy for the humans rights
of the oppressed by having their story heard and acknowledged.

[Slide 22]

Our students come ready-wired for the new History classroom

The AC is based upon study driven by inquiry questions, applying
historical skills through practice. Given that our students are wired for
the new history classroom, we must provide pedagogies that are
compatible.
[Slide 23]

New Pedagogies to Engage

By gaining student consent we enlist our students through our shared
vision that resonates with our students (Senge, 1991; Loughran, 2010).
This means that we continue taking steps into our students’ world; what
they do after class re personal device applications and tuning into their
ways of socialising and communicating. Our students have their own
discourse communities, which should be acknowledged and drawn upon
as stake-holders - as a filter up process.

[Slide 24]

Change our new Constant

(Graphic) Time has changed, as the internet has collapsed time and
space through the various website resources, web 2 and social media
innovations such as Todaysmeet, Cloud Learning and Voice Thread.
Students can now analyse and evaluate a massive range of history
sources online; allowing us to investigate the gaps in this historical
jigsaw and deal with issues of translation as the meanings of words
change over periods of time.

[Slide 25]

Whart is the use of a book thought Alice…

Of course that moment in time I found with a copy of Richard’s Topical
Encyclopedia is no different from how our children are responding to
new media. As Alice said – and as Apple cleverly reiterated ‘ What is the
use of a book without pictures or conversation.’
Just as (my generation) soaked up the intensity of the wider world, as
colour came to be injected in media (and of course colour television
didn’t arrive until a long time after that) – our children want to have this
immersion at their fingertips and be able to interact and explore the
world as if it was within their immediate grasp. This should not be
surprising but we – a bit like our teachers – can be reticent to enable
children to learn in their own way.
[Slide 26]

GIS connecting Time, Space and Events

During one of my lectures at ACU I conducted a simple practical activity,
which required 120 students to reflect upon their own personal histories
by closing their eyes and remembering a summer holiday. They had to
recall the time, place and their physical environment as we continued
layering rich stories in an interdisciplinary process that linked to
environment, personal history and sustainability not to mention change
and continuity over time – history after all is a matter of time. I then
proceeded to turn the entire lecture theatre into a virtual map of
Victoria, and asked them to connect their stories with the place by
actually asking them to move to their respective virtual geographical
locations. From there they told their stories and were challenged to
consider change and continuity over time and examine patterns at a
macro level by zooming out and looking over the distribution of the
students within the space.
This also enabled them to not only see patterns but make
generalisations, which developed into a deep, conceptual, transferable
learning experience that could then be extended as a Geographic
Information Systems activity by positing their stories on Google Earth as
an indepth case study to include their own pictures, videos, and blogs
etc.
This activity also reflects scope for Bruner’s spiral curriculum in
developing from a simple to a complex level in gaining an indepth
understanding of the historical concepts being investigated.

At ACU I have endeavoured to provide my students with access to

international specialists in their respective fields, by introducing an
international Video-link lecture program involving Professor Denis
Feeney from Princeton University a famous classics academic and Dr
Andrea Berardi Open University UK a prominent “Systems Thinker.” This
programme eventually developed into an academic collaboratory of
academics sharing their expertise. Students were also able to interact
with them by posing questions either through Todaysmeet or via a
roving microphone. These lecture/forums were also recorded and
published on blackboard for student revision and to serve as an ongoing
resource. This process can be reversed by allowing classes to interview
local historians or people who just have interesting oral histories to
convey via Video conference. This conceptual approach segues
perfectively into Cloud Learning, as we interact and share private, group
and global cloud collaboraties through Cloud Computing online.
{Slide 27} Web 2 ABC: My Place Explore virtual history through My
Place….

{Slide 28}

Social Media/Personal Devices

Twitter styled communication: Todaysmeet promotes metacognitive
learning by engaging all students through anonymous usernames;
particularly those who might have lacked confidence to contribute to
class discussions previously. By posing inquiry questions for others to
critique and field provides engaging opportunities for students to
explore their thinking and manage their own learning to ultimately
maximize their intellectual potential. This approach also gives both
teachers and students flexibility and variety in lessons, and if projected
for all to see provides a collective stimulus and overview as the
construction of knowledge evolves through dialogue and inquiry.
All contributions can also be filed as a permanent resource to be
perhaps published through the online learning environment as a
reference for their studies and academic development.

“Tom Donati, a history teacher at the middle school, recalled an exercise

where he split his classroom into seven groups. Each group had 20
minutes to use a technology device (Ipads & smart phones) to research
one of the Seven Wonders of the World. When the 20 minutes were up,
they presented their findings to the classroom,” Donati said he was
floored by the videos and images students pulled up on the Internet, as
well as the history the students learned in a short amount of time. “It
was wow factor,” he said. “I couldn’t believe what I saw.” (Sinichak,
2012)
{Slide 29}
Thematic Parcelling
Keeping it real through what I stated earlier is imperative, by providing
meaningful and relevant contexts, which might include thematic
parcelling of content

{Slide 30}
The History Detective

. A forensic -styled investigation for middle years such exploring

dispositions of key historical figures?
{Slide 31}
Secret Mission

{Slide 32}
Top Secret

{Slide 33}
You Are an Explorer (Smith, 2008).

{Slide 34}

Mine Craft
(Graphic Demo) This allows students to work collaboratively within,
outside school or internationally via Skype to design and construct
historically relevant artefacts, buildings or ancient environments as part
their case studies as sharing activities. Let’s have a look at the Roman
Coliseum using Minecraft. This provides students with the opportunity
to craft an ancient building, which also develops knowledge and
understanding of ancient structures and how certain principles of
construction have been handed down. Minecraft also provides scope
for exploring how the functional attributes of public spaces have
changed over time, and how that relates to human attitudes and
behaviour.

{Slide 35}
Conclusion:
Through a student centred approach to case studies and learning
materials; through critical inquiry and innovative pedagogy, we provide
the means by which to then experience the world of historical study and
historical reasoning in profoundly transformative ways. This approach to
teaching and learning also establishes new ways of seeing ourselves, our
world, and to ultimately foster autonomous learners who can continue
to learn for the rest of their lives; with empathy and tolerance for their
fellow human beings.
{Slide 36}
Reference Links

{Slide 37}
References

{Slide 38}
Thank YOU