Clark, Penney. “History of Education and Passages to the Future.” In Foundations in Teacher Education: A Canadian Perspective, edited by Theodore Christou and Shawn Bulloch, 30-45. Polygraph 3. Canadian Research in Teacher Education: A Polygraph Series. Ottawa: Canadian Association for Teacher Education, 2013.
In her chapter in this teacher education anthology, Clark advocates that teacher education programs should once again make a history of education course compulsory so that new teachers are able to more specifically understand that curricula is impermanent: it is always evolving based on contemporary socio-political and economic changes. She notes that although the number of historians teaching the history of education is in decline, the scholarship in this field is growing; consequently, there is a richly diverse literature from which to draw from to teach a history of education course. She succinctly states four reasons advocating the implementation of this course: first, it will help new teachers better understand the historical concept of continuity and change; second, it will help them become “intelligently critical” of their own and their peers’ teaching practices; third, it is important to understand the process by which educational changes were implemented in order to better appreciate contemporary pedagogical reforms; and fourth, it would enable new teachers to have a deeper understanding of their chosen profession. A mandatory history of education course for new teachers would enable them to more fully appreciate William Pinar’s adage, “Reactivating the past reconstructs the present so we can find the future.”
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