The pedagogical value of teaching history: some reflections

Abstract

Acquire a good knowledge of the general aspects of history and the tools through which history is "written": this is the true meaning of this discipline. Trying to know and understand the past in order to live the present better and to plan the future more consciously: it is on these motivations and purposes that today an active and useful learning of history can be pursued. The course of studies in primary education sciences is highly "formative" also by virtue of the teaching of history: teaching that can be transmitted in various ways and to any age group, since "it is also possible to attain history resorting to fantasy, through fairy tales, myths and legends, dramatizing and playing ”; moreover, study of the true sources of history itself, stimulates today's students, who will be the teachers of tomorrow, to make sure that their students do not learn just the knowledge which is "conceptual", but what is more in skills and abilities to achieve the "know-how".