In this activity students will learn about the aims that different past and present governments have for education, especially history education, analysing school materials, playing the role of a censored teacher, discussing and making agreements about the objectives and changes or continuity in history education.

Through this learning activity students will:

  • Learn characteristics of education systems in totalitarian regimes
  • Observe and analyze historical source material
  • Brainstorm about the hidden objective of using certain topics in education and the consequences of it.
  • Empathise with the people who faced censored situation and reflect on why someone acted the way he/she did in a certain historical time.
  • Compare how history education is nowadays in their countries and reflect on the aim of education in the past and the present.
  • Discuss about the objectives of history education nowadays using the knowledge they have taken analyzing the totalitarian examples.

Lesson plan

This lesson has three different tasks or steps and a timeline that can be used to contextualize the whole activity. The timeline can be used to understand the chronology and localization of the sources that students will use, as they will work with sources from Spain, Italy, Germany and Hungary from the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s.

There is also a timeline of the whole learning activity which explains the context of each country during the totalitarian period. You have to evaluate if it is necessary for your students to read the information about all these countries before doing the activity. In case yes, you can ask students to do it as homework previous to the activity.

Task 1: Analysing if textbooks can influence students and society.

a)Divide the class into groups of four. Four examples of activities taken from different Spanish and Italian textbooks are shared so that each group (in pairs) will analyze all of them. Students will have to answer the questions to identify the type of topics that are present and the reasons for that.

b)Continuing in pairs, make students analyze some texts that appeared in Spanish and Italian history textbooks. There is an Italian version of the French revolution, a Spanish version of the National uprising and the guide of a textbook where it is possible to observe what types of history topics were taught.

c)After doing the analysis your students should discuss and make agreements in small groups about the objective of education and the type of society they want.

Task 2: Being a teacher in a censored country.

In this task we present an imaginary case of a person that wants to be a teacher in a censored country, so students infer what could happen to him and also read some guidelines that teachers should obey in that period.

a)Decide if you want students to work individually or in pairs and make them read some letters sent to AntallJózsef from Hungary explaining that he couldn´t continue working as a teacher. Students should write down the reasons they gave for that.

b)Now, make your students go through the guidelines prepared by the Nazi Teachers’ League to write down what they should teach being a history teacher in Germany in the Nazi period.

c)To finish the task, tell your students they have to reflect on what they have learned individually and put it in a short text what to do to maintain the job but also the opinion of the imaginary teacher about the situation.

Task 3:Education nowadays. Debate.

a)Tell student to identify the history lessons they have, choosing from the given topics to be aware if they are learning only politics or also other kinds of history. Take into account that probably they will need some support like some history textbooks or the history curriculum to do it.

b)Now, make students discuss in small groups the type of history they learned

c)Finish the lesson by making students discuss in small groups about the objective of history education and education nowadays comparing it to what they did it previously about education in totalitarian regimes.

Information about AntallJózsef

Born in Budapest in 1932, he was a Hungarian history teacher that was involved in the Hungarian uprising of 1956. Following the graduation, he worked for the Hungarian State Archives and the Research Institute of Pedagogy. In 1955, he started teaching in JózsefEótvös Grammar School, leading the Revolutionary Committee of the school during the 1956 Hungarian Uprising. During the revolution, he participated in the reorganization of the Independent Smallholders Party and in the founding of the Christian Youth Alliance. After the Soviet Union crushed the revolution, he was arrested and released several times. He continued his teaching career in FerencToldy Grammar School in 1957 but in 1959 he was banned from teaching. Later his students weren´t allowed to study at University.

In 1990 he became, the first prime minister of democratic Hungary

JózsefAntall, Wikipedia in English (adapted)

Sources

Thumbnail picture. 1A-1B. Photographer: Harri Beobide. Cover and page 16 of Método de Caligrafia nº 8. Bruño, Madrid,1945.

1A -1B. Photographer: Harri Beobide. Cover and page 16 of Método de Caligrafia nº 8, Bruño, Madrid,1945.

2-Girls’ schoolduringFrancoistdictatorship - “Rascafría una clase 1958” España, Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Archivo General de la Administración, Fondo Delegación Nacional de Sección Femenina, [signatura F-04303-019-001]Translation of thetext: Harri Beobide

3-Josefina Bolinaga, Mi costurero, Editorial Sánchez Rodrigo, Plasencia (Cáceres), 1951

4A -4B. Photographer: Enrico Cavalieri, ClasseQuarta//. //Aritmetica/, Geografia, scienzeRoma, La LibreriadelloStato, 1942 (pgenumber 72-73), Translatedby Enrico Cavalieri.

5-Photographer: Enrico Cavalieri, Il libro della 3.classe // Religione, Grammatica, Storia, Geografia, Aritmetica, Roma, La Librería dellostato, 1941, (pgenumber 91-92), Translatedby Enrico Cavalieri.

6A -6B. Cover and index, El parvulito, Antonio AlvarezPerez, Editorial Miñon, Valladolid 1956, translatedbyHarriBeobide. Photographer: Eduardo Mosqueira emosqueira.com

7-Photographer: Enrico Cavalieri, La rivoluzioneFrancese, Historyhandbook:/Il libro della 5. classe elementare. Religione, Storia, Geografia, Aritmetica, Scienze/, Roma, La LibreriadelloStato, 1935. (pages 140-141), translatedby Enrico Cavalieri.

8 - El Alzamiento Nacional. Lessonnumber 51, El Parvulito. Antonio AlvarezPerez, Editorial Miñon, Valladolid 1956. Translated by Harri Beobide.

9A - AntallJózsef,’s case source 1, Hungary 1956, MOL 232, National Archives of Hungary. Translated by VodilZsolt.

9B-AntallJózsef,’s case source 2, Hungary 1956, MOL 231, National Archives of Hungary. Translated by VodilZsolt.

10-AntallJózsef (picture)

11-Guidelines for Nazi History teaching. NationalsozialistischeLehrerbund, 1938

Source of original German text: ReichsministeriumfürWissenschaft, Erziehung, und Volksbildung, Erziehung und Unterricht in der HöherenSchule. Amtliche Ausgabe des Reichs- und Preußischen Ministeriums für Wissenschaft, Erziehung, und Volksbildung. Weidmann: Berlin, 1938, pp. 69-70; reprinted in Kurt Ingo Flessau, Schule der Diktatur. Lehrpläne und SchulbücherimNationalsozialismus. Frankfurt am Main, 1982, pp. 77-79, p. 186, n. 49.

English translation Alpha history

EDUCATION CONTEXT TIMELINE

1928 2015
1928-1945
Italy
Textbook / 1933-1945
Germany
Guidelines for history teacher / 1936-1975
Spain
Censored Textbooks / 1956
Hungary
AntallJózsef / Nowadays
STEP 1 – Analysing if textbook can influence students and society ( Italy and Spain)
STEP 2 – Being a teacher in censored regime ( Germany and Hungary)
STEP 3 – Discuss and reflect on the Present