A Study Of Comparison Of History Textbooks Between Chinese And American High Schools In The Perspective Of Historical Critical Thinking

The 21 st century is an era in which informationization,globalization,and diversification are intertwined.Learning how to think and survive has become the requirement of the times for individuals.Continuously improving individual innovation and practical ability has also become the main goal of education and training in various countries.This is reflected in the history teaching that international history education tends to cultivate historical thinking and historical consciousness,in order to improve the individual 's civic awareness and cultivate the basic skills needed for the individual to adapt to future development.In order to adapt to the development of the new situation,China has launched a new round of basic education curriculum reform,and put forward the core quality of history in the field of history.However,whether it is the individual's learning to think,or the country's pursuit of innovation,practice,civic awareness education,or even the international teaching development trend focused on the cultivation of literacy and skills,all permeate the call of basic education for critical thinking.From the perspective of history teaching,it is mainly embodied in the embedding of critical thinking in history,which is reflected in the curriculum standards and textbooks of high school history in China and the United States.Historical critical thinking is the specific application of critical thinking in the field of history,and is the product of the combination of critical thinking and history.It is not only the inevitable choice of information and diversified social development,but also the internal demand of high school students' own growth and history discipline to cultivate historical critical thinking in high school history teaching.At the same time,the new curriculum reform and the emergence and initial development of dialectical logical thinking of senior high school students also provide a good opportunity for the cultivation of historical critical thinking.In general,historical critical thinking is neither equivalent to critical thinking,nor simply negative thinking.It has the characteristics of discussing from history,daring to assume,being good at evaluation,thinking from multiple perspectives and understanding of dissent.It is of great significance for cultivating individual 's ability to make independent decisions,judgments,understandings and make informed decisions.Therefore,it has been paid more and more attention in history education and teaching.Both the American Social Science(History)curriculum standard and the Georgia Social Science(History)curriculum label,and the Chinese history curriculum standard for general high school(2017 version)(hereinafter referred to as the new curriculum standard),reflect the cultivation of the spirit of critical thinking of history.They all advocate an empirical historical thinking path,emphasize a diverse and wide-angle perspective of historical thinking,and pay attention to the cultivation of historical cultural identity.At the same time,the new curriculum standard also makes historical critical thinking have theoretical guidance and space-time dimension through the formulation of historical materialism and space-time concept literacy,so as to avoid historical critical thinking falling into the irrational extreme.In addition,the new curriculum standards are clearer in terms of knowledge clues,the structure of the curriculum structure is also rich in hierarchy,and the subject and difficulties of the curriculum are more prominent.This is not available in the American history curriculum standards,and it is directly reflected in the design of high school history textbooks in both countries.Using the McDougal Littell version of "World History-Interactive Mode" and the Chinese version of the high school "History · Compulsory 1" as two comparative textbooks,from the "British bourgeois revolution" microscopic perspective,comparative analysis found that Chinese history textbooks have distinctive features and outstanding advantages in the compilation tradition.First,based on the historical materialism,using time evolution as the classics,selecting major historical events as wefts,and describing the narrative.Second,the content is written in a concise way,supplemented by text insertion,which is a brief but unambiguous description of the background and influence of historical events.The theme is prominent,the level is clear,and the details are appropriate.Third,the selection of historical materials is rigorous to ensure authenticity and standardization,and the quotes must have a source.Fourth,the topic and timing Equal emphasis will be placed on thinking of Chinese history in the evolution of the world's political system,with a global outlook on history.Based on the perspective of historical critical thinking,compared with the rigorous specialty and emphasis on structural improvement in the compilation of Chinese textbooks and the improvement of historical learning ability,the compilation of American textbooks is flexible and changeable,with detailed and rich text content,diverse and open auxiliary system forms,complex and comprehensive homework,which is relatively easy to arouse students' interest and focus on active students' thinking.History textbook not only carries certain historical knowledge,but also embodies certain curriculum and education concepts.From the perspective of historical critical thinking,a comparative study of Chinese and American high school history textbooks has certain reference significance for China's textbook design and teaching practice.From the perspective of history textbook design,it is necessary to design textbooks that permeate historical critical thinking.This should not only inherit the excellent experience and practices of domestic textbook compilation,but also appropriately draw on foreign experience.On the one hand,on the premise of highlighting the theme and clarifying the knowledge clues,we should refine the history writing of textbooks and integrate it into the reflection and inquiry of historical value;on the other hand,we should activate the auxiliary guidance of textbooks and select historical materials from multiple perspectives on the basis of adhering to the clear hierarchy and prominent primary and secondary design of textbooks;finally,we should enrich the textbook assignment design and build a new teaching system while keeping the key and difficult points of the class as well as establishing the connection between history and real life.From the practical point of view,the first-line teachers in practical teaching can implement the cultivation of students' critical thinking of history through the design of teaching of historical materials,multi angle guidance of classroom opening and diversified design of homework after class.Based on historical critical thinking,a comparative study of Chinese and American high school history textbooks is carried out,which presents the characteristics of Chinese and American high school history textbooks and their respective design and different educational and teaching concepts.Based on historical critical thinking,strengthening the comparison and analysis of Chinese and American high school history textbooks is an adaptation to the internationalization of history teaching itself,and also has great theoretical value and strong practical significance.On the one hand,it helps to explore how to cultivate critical thinking in history in the context of the new era and the new curriculum reform,and enriches the history teaching theory while enriching the research theory of the high school history curriculum under the background of the new curriculum reform;on the other hand,it provides reference for the compilation of high school history textbooks and teachers' teaching,and promotes the compilation of high school history textbooks and the improvement of curriculum construction as well as the traditional education theory.