La enseñanza de la Historia: innovación y continuidad desde Rafael Altamira

141 spanish journal of pedagogy year LXXVI, n. 269, January-April 2018, 141-155 Teaching History: innovation and continuity since Rafael Altamira La enseñanza de la Historia: innovación y continuidad desde Rafael Altamira Olga DUARTE PIÑA, PhD. Lecturer. Universidad de Sevilla ([email protected]). Abstract: The teaching of History (methodology, projects, materials), has undergone many changes from Rafael Altamira’s research over the end of the nineteenth century and first third of the twentieth century through to research by innovation groups comprising teachers in the last third of the twentieth century. This paper shows the changes and con‑ tinuities in history teaching models, as well as coincidences and differences. Its aim is to present a history of innovation concern‑ ing the teaching of the discipline because, although innovation has been discontin‑ uous and has been more or less present depending on the circumstances and the actors who have promoted it, its return al‑ ways maintains the intensity of the origi‑ nal expression. Consequently, we believe that this overview of innovation, analysing noteworthy proposals, is needed to record attempted changes and improvements and ensure they are available as a reference point when attempting to understand cur‑ rent initiatives. Keywords: History of contemporary educa‑ tion, History teaching, educational innova‑ tion, teaching materials, educational devel‑ opment. Resumen: La enseñanza de la Historia en sus meto‑ dologías, proyectos y materiales de enseñanza ha ido variando desde Rafael Altamira, en el tránsito finisecular y primer tercio del siglo XX, a los grupos de innovación formados por profesores durante el último tercio del mismo. En este trabajo se muestran los cambios y las continuidades en propuestas de ense‑ ñanza de la Historia, las coincidencias y las diferencias. La finalidad es exponer una his‑ toria de la innovación sobre la enseñanza de la disciplina porque, aunque la innovación ha sido discontinua y se ha manifestado con mayor o menor intensidad dependiendo de las circunstancias y los agentes que la han promovido, siempre su retorno mantiene la misma intensidad de lo originario. Así pues, consideramos necesario hacer este recorrido por la innovación, analizando propuestas des‑ tacadas, para dejar constancia de los intentos Revision accepted: 2017-09-20. Cite this article as: Duarte Piña, O. (2018). La Enseñanza de la Historia: innovación y continuidad desde Rafael Altamira | Teaching history: innovation and continuity since Rafael Altamira . Revista Española de Pedagogía, 76 (269), 141-155. doi: 10.22550/REP76-1-2018-07 Olga DUARTE PIÑA 142 spanish journal of pedagogy year LXXVI, n. 269, January-April 2018, 141-155 de cambio y mejora y tenerlos como referente a la hora de entender y comprender las actua‑ les iniciativas. Descriptores: Historia de la educación con‑ temporánea, enseñanza de la Historia, inno‑ vación educativa, material didáctico, desarro‑ llo de la educación. 1. Introduction When analysing the processes of inno‑ vation, it is important to take into account the areas where innovative activities are possible. In the broader framework of this research1 we have studied the polit‑ ical‑educational and cultural settings, legislation, currents in historical think‑ ing, agents, and agencies that produce discourses2. Consequently, this article considers and classifies as changes or con‑ tinuities the characteristics of innovation in teaching methods and projects, how socially valuable and educationally useful historical knowledge is regarded as being, the teaching materials published, and, es‑ sentially, the repercussions for the teach‑ ing system. The sources for this research are works by a series of authors from the first third of the twentieth century that form the basis of innovative history teach‑ ing and have been chosen according to how they are implemented and their level of diffusion. Other sources include ques‑ tionnaires and interviews with teach‑ ers who took part in innovation groups during the last third of the 20th century, publications in the academic field, and the classroom materials published. It could be argued that a favourable political and cultural context is needed to make educational innovation possible, but that if this context does not occur, innova‑ tion still happens because it is immanent to teaching and does not necessarily need to be connected to a process of educational reform. Nonetheless, if the two elements –innovation and reform– are both present, it becomes possible to amplify the former and give it the necessary features. Howev‑ er, innovations depend on the people who promote them –the teachers– and the dis‑ semination of their teaching proposals, as they are the ones who support and develop innovations in the face of the continuities of the education system, even though the system changes with the society it is part of and which it teaches. Innovation devel‑ ops through processes of revision, reflec‑ tion and creation, but it finds limits to its spread in the traditional structure of the school. Nonetheless, some proposals do be‑ come incorporated into the education sys‑ tem, and so the system is not always the same after the impact of the innovation. Taking into account the plans for in‑ novative actions mentioned above, vari‑ ous moments in the process of innovation in history teaching can be identified: an initial period dating back to 1895 with the publication of the work La enseñanza de la Historia (Teaching History) by Rafael Altamira and continuing until 1935; a second period of underground continuity (1935-1975); a period in which innovation returns through groups of teachers (1975- Teaching History: innovation and continuity since Rafael Altamira 143 spanish journal of pedagogy year LXXVI, n. 269, January-April 2018, 141-155 1995) who published and disseminated their materials for teaching at baccalau‑ reate level; and a final period that started in 1996 and continues up to the present day in which the discourses and projects of the teachers who intervened in the pre‑ vious period follow other paths. This will be analysed in this work that provides an overview of an extensive period which focuses on the most significant moments, what could be referred to as the drivers of innovation, in particular in the teaching of history in secondary education. 2. Initial proposals and initiatives for change in teaching history History had to be created as a subject for the baccalaureate, and its presence in the curriculum dates back to the 1836 to 1838 period. Nonetheless, for the teach‑ ing of history to be conceived as a social science and as an innovative educational project for the first time, we must move forward nearly sixty years to the period between 1891 and 1923. In this period, Rafael Altamira did part of his work, pub‑ lishing La enseñanza de la Historia, the second extended and improved version of which appeared in 1895, Valor social del conocimiento histórico (The social value of historical knowledge, 1922), and Ideario pedagógico (Pedagogical thinking, 1923). With these essays, the teaching of history was for the first time viewed as a trans‑ formative social action, a practical activi‑ ty, and a useful activity for training indi‑ viduals and peoples. If Rafael Altamira is to be considered as the instigator of a process of renovation of history as a science and field of teach‑ ing, then it is important to consider his in‑ tellectual precursors and list some of the moments and authors that form the ori‑ gins of innovation as a project for creation in education and in training the individu‑ al, given that Altamira’s work brought to‑ gether ideas about science and pedagogy that had been developing for some time. Marías (2005, p. 339) states that throughout the eighteenth century in Spain «there is no creative philosophy» and this would not appear until the late-nineteenth century with Unamuno and Ortega y Gasset. Midway through the century, a change in the ideas and character of Spanish liberals can be seen, and outside the political field, this change affected education, art, literature, and religion. Millán Chivite (1975) called the human type that arose from this dynamic «the new man of the Generation of 1868». This generation was complex in its com‑ position and substantive in its range of political-cultural trends. From the gener‑ ation of the new man, a generation that made the revolution, we wish to empha‑ sise the «academic democrats»3, followers or admirers of Julián Sanz del Río who were also influenced by Krausism. Pedagogy and reformism from then on became the premises for action of the Krausists. At the start of the 1860s, some of Sanz del Río’s followers (Francisco de Paula Canalejas, Emilio Castelar, Miguel Morayta) adopted them as guidelines for political action. Although the «young de‑ mocracy» from then on attracted a sector of the Krausists, these, as Canalejas him‑ self notes, were not agitators but teach‑ ers. […] The Krausists did not make the revolution, as Gil Cremades observes, but the revolution of 68 remembered them, Olga DUARTE PIÑA 144 spanish journal of pedagogy year LXXVI, n. 269, January-April 2018, 141-155 entrusting to them the key duties of its ed‑ ucational policy (Ruiz Torres, 2001, p. 65). After the revolution had failed, those who trusted in perfecting humankind through education did not abandon their project, and with the reestablishment of the monarchy in 1874, which involved a return to positivism and the rejection of the educational project that had developed during the six years of the revolutionary period, they founded the Institución Li‑ bre de Enseñanza (Free Educational Institution, ILE) in 1876. Thinkers, teachers, and artists, includ‑ ing Rafael Altamira, joined the ILE4. This elite was enthused by the need to renovate the education system, develop the scienc‑ es and the arts, and encourage research. «The teaching of history was, therefore, essential for the ILE’s goal of raising a new generation of young Spaniards who would form the basis of a modern, demo‑ cratic nation» (Boyd, 2001, p. 873). At the same time, new institutions and structural reforms appeared that put education at the vanguard of the political moves to regenerate the country. To illus‑ trate this process (see Mainer, 2009, pp. 51-52), the key moments in a period of the creation of institutions will be mentioned, starting in 1900 with the foundation of the Ministry of Public Instruction and Fine Arts. A year later, a course in gener‑ al pedagogy was established at the Museo Pedagógico Nacional (National Pedagog‑ ical Museum). This course was the pre‑ cursor of the chair in pedagogy founded at the Central University in 1904. The Junta para la Ampliación de Estudios e Investigaciones Científicas (Board for the Expansion of Scientific Study and Re‑ search) was created in 1907, two years after the Escuela de Estudios Superiores del Magisterio (School of Advanced Stud‑ ies in Teaching), and in 1910, the Centro de Estudios Históricos (Centre for Histor‑ ical Studies) was founded. Among this group of new institutions, it is important to distinguish those char‑ acterised as discourse producing agencies, «all of them spaces where the first signs of a renewed professionalization would start to appear» (Mainer, 2009, p. 61): the National Pedagogic Museum, the chair in Higher Pedagogy, the Board for the Expansion of Scientific Study and Re‑ search5, the School of Advanced Studies in Teaching and the Centre for Historical Studies, encouraging the dissemination of the new educational theories and practices. It is important to note the impetus and scientific and pedagogical knowledge ex‑ pressed in these spaces, with the partic‑ ipation of historians, university or school professors, professors at the Escuela Nor‑ mal teacher training school, inspectors, and primary school teachers, who were regarded as the creators of a renovat‑ ed discourse and practices. And it is also important to acknowledge them as the authors of works in which new methodol‑ ogies for teaching history were originally conceived, considering their professional status, their involvement in the discourse producing agencies and the level of dis‑ semination of their work. The universi‑ ty professor Rafael Altamira, the school professors Rafael Ballester y Castell and Antonio Jaén Morente and the teachers from the Escuela Normal Teófilo Sanjuán Bartolomé, Daniel González-Linacero, and Gloria Giner de los Ríos García stand out Teaching History: innovation and continuity since Rafael Altamira 145 spanish journal of pedagogy year LXXVI, n. 269, January-April 2018, 141-155 in this dawn of innovative history. A choice that identifies them as the leading figures in the didactic transformation of history, figures whose ideas would, much later, re‑ appear as the findings of other innovative teachers from the mid-1970s onwards. The group of «founding fathers» (Mainer, 2009) of the didactics of histo‑ ry comprised Rafael Altamira with his work, La enseñanza de la Historia6 and the school professor Rafael Ballester with Clío. Iniciación al estudio de la Historia (parte primera y segunda) (Clio. Initiation in the study of history [first and second part]), the first edition of which was pub‑ lished in 1913 and the seventh and final one in 19457. Altamira’s book is an essay on the situation of history teaching in Europe’s leading universities with ideas and guidelines about how to teach it, while Ballester’s work is a textbook for teach‑ ing on the baccalaureate that eschewed verbose, lengthy, or unclear stories and was designed as a guide for the period of learning to which it was directed, with sufficient content to guide any later stud‑ ies students might wish to pursue and on which they would be instructed in histor‑ ical science, its auxiliary disciplines, and the historian’s craft. After these founding fathers, others continued their work. Teófilo Sanjuán’s Cómo se enseña la historia (How histo‑ ry is taught) was published in 1923 and republished five times up to 1933 in the «Serie Metodológica» collection (Method‑ ological series) of the journal Revista de Pedagogía and was intended for trainee teachers8. In the concepts of his meth‑ odology, history teaching appears as an organic overview that educates the intel‑ lect and shapes citizens; it incorporates the use of literature as an auxiliary dis‑ cipline to history and advises using real objects to clarify and illustrate teaching. But what is notable with this author is the organisation of content based on el‑ ements that synthesise human develop‑ ment, what he calls lines of association that become conceptual milestones of a ci‑ vilisation and connections to new knowl‑ edge, their gradation remaining in the judgement of the teacher, who must trace the course of each civilisation. Illustrat‑ ing the coincidences in innovation, it is worth noting that without being aware of this methodological proposal, the Cronos group’s curriculum project of the early 1990s organised the content of history into basic tasks or functions of social life, also called facets, and basic social notions. These organisational nuclei have a «dual analytical and pedagogical value» (Grupo Cronos, 1995, p. 18) and make it possible to specify educational knowledge. The works by the professor at the Palencia Escuela Normal Daniel González-Linacero, Mi primer libro de Historia (My first history book, 1933, sec‑ ond edition 1935) and Mi segundo libro de Historia (My second history book, 1934)9 are books for primary school teaching that are dedicated to a version of history that starts from the child’s immediate setting, told simply so that it is understandable, addressing students from a position that is close to their own life. The textbooks by Antonio Jaén Morente, Lecturas históricas (Iniciación) (Historical readings: Introduction) and Gloria Giner de los Ríos, Cien lecturas históricas (One hun‑ dred historical readings) were published Olga DUARTE PIÑA 146 spanish journal of pedagogy year LXXVI, n. 269, January-April 2018, 141-155 in 1935. Jaén’s book presents summarised stories from history, covering what is im‑ portant in knowledge with the intention of making students feel history and «educat‑ ing spirits, not people who sit exams» (Jaén Morente, 1935, p. 5). Rafael Ballester, in his textbook Clío, also draws on a simpli‑ fied version of history that is not overbur‑ dened with names, dates, and secondary episodes. González Linacero says the same thing but in other words to provide a use‑ ful history that is free from «showiness and sensationalism» (González Linacero, 1999, p. 33). His book is an original collection of fragments from literary texts as sources for studying history: auxiliary Literature for History as Altamira proposed10. Broadly speaking, this stage is charac‑ terised by the importance it attributes to learning in primary and secondary teach‑ ing with the aim of ensuring that the stu‑ dent develops a general knowledge of the discipline, something Altamira describe as a period of general culture. This period contains a series of changes that define the new teaching proposals. On the one hand, new conceptualizations: the con‑ cept of civilisation and of internalist his‑ tory that included all of the orders of life compared with politics as the organising principle of the content, the social subject in contrast with the historical character or hero, and history in its organic sense with the reciprocal influence of all of its parts in contrast with a particular and exclusionary history. Furthermore, there are its teaching aims in the intrinsic re‑ generative relationship between the past and the present and, related to this, its capacity to educate people. Finally, there is the importance of learning the histor‑ ical method for the intellectual develop‑ ment of students, contrasting with the exclusive exercise of the memory. The period of these publications ran from 1895 until 1935, the final year of the selected innovative publications, because the main changes in the discourses and teaching of history of this first period oc‑ curred in this time. This is also because these educational proposals can be com‑ pared with those that were implemented elsewhere in Europe under equal intellec‑ tual and pedagogical conditions. During the Second Republic, there were convergences between what Escolano (2002) calls the «political-insti‑ tutional culture» and the «pedagogical culture», but the changes and improve‑ ments in the scope of school practices did not become generalised because the business of change and innovation re‑ sponded to the principle of multiplicity11 but was not a mass phenomenon. There were changes in the areas and practices in which they spread and in which in‑ novative teachers engaged: the National Pedagogical Museum, the chair in Higher Pedagogy, the Board for the Expansion of Scientific Study and Research, the School of Advanced Studies in Teaching, and the Centre for Historical Studies, and the publications were still there as exam‑ ples of a methodological discourse on the teaching of History with a new pedagogi‑ cal thinking. When concluding this section, we do not infer that innovation is doomed to failure but, instead, to a constant process of restarting12 that will be seen in the fol‑ lowing sections. Teaching History: innovation and continuity since Rafael Altamira 147 spanish journal of pedagogy year LXXVI, n. 269, January-April 2018, 141-155 3. Underground continuity Although, there have been attempts to prove that after the Civil War, all of the pedagogical and didactic knowledge that had previously been built and upheld dis‑ appeared, authors such as Laín Entralgo and Seco Serrano (1998, p. 17) argue that there was «an underground continuity, affected but not destroyed: much that ap‑ peared to have been eradicated continued to exist, albeit in another form, with a dif‑ ferent position in life, accordingly acquir‑ ing a new configuration». While it is true that many of the intellectuals and teach‑ ers who facilitated the change in teaching approaches and in their practices from the last quarter of the nineteenth centu‑ ry had been expelled from their chairs or purged from their teaching roles, not all of them left the country; a minority re‑ mained who, despite being restricted in their functions, maintained this prized knowledge to give it life carefully13. After 1939, history textbooks again contained the traditional models of the political tale of heroes and their deeds, presented to exercise the students’ memo‑ ries. «Francoism did everything it could to control, monitor, and put under state com‑ mand the dissemination and practice of innovations in the school» (Mainer, 2008, p. 7) and it created institutions to this end such as the Centro de Documentación Didáctica para la Enseñanza Media (Di‑ dactic Documentation Centre for Second‑ ary Education, 1954) and in 1958 the Cen‑ tro de Documentación Didáctica para la Enseñanza Primaria (Didactic Documen‑ tation Centre for Primary Education). The pathway for going beyond the ideo‑ logical discourses and educational prac‑ tices imposed by the regime was narrow. The journal Vida Escolar (1958)14 became a medium for expressing and exchanging ideas in which previous theories about di‑ dactic innovation would start to appear: references to active methodologies, to the use of audiovisual media and reflections about the teacher’s role. In 1965, the Ser‑ vicio de Investigación y Experimentación Pedagógica (Pedagogic Research and Experimentation Service) confirmed the gradual opening of the education system. However, it was primarily in universi‑ ties that, in the 1950s, a historiographic renovation was promoted that would be clearly reflected in the teaching of histo‑ ry. Jaume Vicens Vives in his efforts to bring Spanish historiography up to date and transform it, and in his dedication to teaching and to publishing didactic works, considered the teaching of history based on academic rigour and social com‑ mitment15. In this period, it was mainly university professors who recovered the lost steps of historiography and of the teaching of history. Consequently, and supporting the hypothesis of continuity in proposals for renovation and innovation in history teaching, a line can be traced from masters to followers, starting with Rafa‑ el Altamira and Rafael Ballester, taking in José Deleito and Pere Bosch-Gimpera, reaching Jaume Vicens, continuing with Joan Reglà, Miquel Tarradell, Emili Gi‑ ralt, continuing up to Josep Fontana16 and connecting with those who, despite still being university students would, as school teachers, go on to create Grupo Germanía 75, Grupo Historia 13‑16, and Grupo Cronos. This line preserves the paradigms that focus on perpetuating the historical science and the innovative teaching of it. Olga DUARTE PIÑA 148 spanish journal of pedagogy year LXXVI, n. 269, January-April 2018, 141-155 In the universities of the 1960s –Valencia, Barcelona, Salamanca and Madrid– students of Philosophy and Liter‑ ature discovered the new historiographic currents, principally of French influence, from the Annales School to historical ma‑ terialism, currents that would make it possible to change the teaching of history in the Polyvalent Unified Baccalaureate and argue for a new didactics, suggesting methodological innovation and choice of content in light of these schools of histor‑ ical thought. 4. The new innovative adventure or the return of a tradition In the mid-1970s, coinciding with the educational reforms of the General Education Act of 1970, groups of teach‑ ers started to appear based on previous individual experiences that would be the basis of new educational changes. Some of these teachers travelled to England and France to discover how history was taught in those countries and reflected new didactic concepts in their classroom projects and materials, in contrast with the stultifying educational milieu of the classrooms of the late Francoist period. Once again, foreign journeys acted as a spur for teacher training and the incorpo‑ ration of educational models and innova‑ tive experiences, recalling what Altamira and other contemporary teachers had done through the Board for the Expansion of Studies. In 1975, the year of the publica‑ tion of the baccalaureate syllabus and the first edition of the Pruebas Iniciales (First tests) by Germanía 75, the journal Cuadernos de Pedagogía was founded. Issue 7-8 of July and August contains an article by Gonzalo Zaragoza –who went on to become part of the Historia 13-16 group– called Algunas ideas sobre la nueva historia (Some ideas about the new history), and in the November issue the historian Josep Fontana wrote Para una renovación de la enseñanza de histo‑ ria (For a renovation in the teaching of history). In his text, Josep Fontana, who had been a student and follower of Vicens Vives, and provided intellectual support to Grupo Germanía 75, proposes revising the content and traditional schemes of history teaching for all levels of instruc‑ tion so that students can reflect critically on the society in which they live. The events described above did not come about by chance, but instead were symptoms of changes in pedagogic dis‑ courses and practices. It could be said that a stimulus for didactic innovation restarts17, illuminated by an educational, social, and cultural transition and thanks to the General Education Act in the set‑ ting of new history syllabuses in the bac‑ calaureate and in professional training. These syllabuses would lead to new teach‑ ing propositions. The 1970 act also creat‑ ed Institutos de Ciencias de la Educación (Educational Science Institutes), import‑ ant bodies for covering and disseminating new approaches and ideas for education‑ al change. Furthermore, from the end of the 1960s, the Pedagogical Renovation Movements (MRP) and Summer Schools were active, bringing back the model of the ones held during the Second Republic. If discourse producing agencies were identified at the start of this article, the Educational Science Institutes, the Teaching History: innovation and continuity since Rafael Altamira 149 spanish journal of pedagogy year LXXVI, n. 269, January-April 2018, 141-155 Centros de Profesores (Teachers Centres), the Colegios de Licenciados y Doctores (Associations of Graduates and Doctors), and the Summer Schools now became the spaces for communicating and dissemi‑ nating innovative projects and materials. Between the mid-1970s and early 1980s, Adara Editorial and the Germanía 75, Historia 13-16, Grupo de Humanística, and Cronos groups started a new period of innovation. The teaching of History, as the study of civilisations and for hu‑ manistic education, was implemented in classrooms which became workshops where students handled the selected sources in work files or workbooks and where the academic method of under‑ standing history was recreated. What had already been proposed in the first quarter of the century returned in the minds of the teachers in this period of change, without them being aware that this had already happened. Adara Editorial emerged following a teaching experience at the Santa María del Mar Jesuit college in La Coruña be‑ tween 1969 and 1974. Once the company had been established, in 1977, its editors prepared and published Una nueva es‑ trategia para la enseñanza de las Cien‑ cias Sociales (A new strategy for teaching social sciences) and Taller de documen‑ tos (Document workshop). The project proposed studying the past through his‑ torical sources and through a process of guided research by students. This was at the same time as Germanía 75 which introduced a radical renewal of content based on the tenets of historical materi‑ alism, methodological renewal, and the educational value given to knowledge of history that sought social change. At the end of this decade, the members of Grupo Historia 13-16 prioritised learning the historian’s methods over learning content as the basis of historical understanding, transferring the Schools History Project that was used in English schools. From the early 1980s, Grupo Humanística pro‑ posed studying history by starting with the present and moving backwards to the past, and Grupo Cronos chose to of‑ fer teachers a selection of historical texts based on the most relevant historiograph‑ ic problems in the discipline that support‑ ed a renewed teaching programme with the aim of contributing to students’ crit‑ ical sense and intellectual development, encouraging a history teaching model where students, starting with sources and historiographic documents, would recon‑ struct the historical process in its general lines and acquire working habits and in‑ tellectual working techniques. The groups’ didactic projects and publications were widely disseminated throughout Spain, leading to a qualita‑ tive and amplified turn in history teach‑ ing practice in secondary education. The experiences and materials not only com‑ prised plans for methodological change, but were also proposals for historiograph‑ ic and ideological change and for contest‑ ing the existing educational and political system. The materials that the groups Germanía 75 and Historia 13-16 pub‑ lished and Adara Editorial’s folders of documents were of use to new teach‑ ers who were introduced to innovation through the example of these groups and their teaching proposals. Owing to their