Reformation On History Curriculum In Britain Middle School And Its Reference Significance Towards China

In the 1950 s and 1960 s, a serious "crisis" occurred in the British high school history department. Most students were not interested in history, and thought that history lesson were only about reciting boring knowledge. Because of this, history were facing with a crisis: to disappear from school subjects or to combine with geography. Facing with difficulties, the UK education sector had a positive exploration and reform, which start from teaching methods and the contents of history textbooks to explore the nature of history teaching. The exploration started from spontaneous and decentralized parts and attracted the attention of the country at last. After setting history lesson as a unified curriculum, Britain enacted curriculum standards for history for about four times, and updated textbooks according to the contents of the subject and also insisted in using new teaching methods in class. After decades of unremitting reform, the British middle school history curriculum had finally got recognition by both students and society and overcome the crisis. History lesson also become a "National Curriculum". Now our country is at a critical period of time of history curriculum reform, and history are in an awkward position, making the leading history educators feel worried. In China, history is often regarded as a "second-level lesson" exists, so the degree of attention to history is not high enough,students and parents still regard history as a reciting lesson because theexamination of history is a open-book exam, students also believe that history exam is one kind of transcription. The status of history lesson in China is similar to the one in Britain half a century ago. In this paper,writer do a research in post-war British middle school history reform, and try to explore useful experiences by analyzing the ways British got through from crisis and concluding Chinese current history situations.