Research on Middle School History Teaching based on the Cultivation of Core Literacy of Space-Time Concept

Experience is a kind of knowledge and understanding of value, the discovery and sublimation of the meaning of experience. The most important thing of effective history teaching is to develop and improve students’ emotions, attitudes and values; experience is the premise, carrier and destination of developing and improving students’ emotions, attitudes and values. Experience teaching is an ideal choice for effective teaching of history. History is people’s knowledge and understanding of the past facts; historical text is the existence form of history. In essence, historical experience teaching is a dialogue between students and historical texts across time and space. Building a bridge for dialogue is the strategy of historical experience teaching.

“The Community is Everything, The Individual is Nothing”

This article reconstructs the historical narrative of the Second World War in Russian middle school textbooks published after the year 2000. The author shows how textbook narratives are linked with official Russian politics of history, which aim to “manage” the memory of the war and contribute toward the standardization of Russian history teaching. Additional empirical material from interviews conducted with middle school history teachers in Moscow shows how perceptions of the teaching community impinge on ways in which knowledge about the Second World War is imparted, revealing the extent to which Russian politics of history are socially ineffective.

Falsification of the Russian history and prevention of extremist activity in youth environment on the example of Kemerovo State Medical University

The subject of this research is the preventive measures aimed against extremist activity in the conditions of falsification of history in youth environment. Leaning on students’ survey results, questionnaire materials of the student youth of Kemerovo Oblast, Novosibirsk Oblast, Chelyabinsk Oblast and Altai Krai, the author analyzes the factors that create favorable environment for falsification of history and growth of extremist manifestations. The article demonstrates the principle of organization of measures for countering the proliferation of extremist ideologies among youth. The experience of Kemerovo State Medical University on preventing extremist activity, which can be also use in other secondary and higher educational institutions, is described. Extremist ideology that is based on erroneous interpretation of historical facts and events, i.e. intentional distortion of history, underlied any extremist activity. These two phenomena and interrelated. Therefore, prevention of extremist manifestations is impossible without understanding and countering the mechanisms of falsification of history. Knowledge of the Russian history among youth is an important tool in prevention of falsification of history, and thus, extremist activity. A significant part of preventive work should be conducted starting from middle school history classes. The formation of fundamental knowledge on the key events of the Russian history, sense of patriotism, skills of working with information among youth is the property vector of anti-extremist activity, and is impossible without systematic and extensive implementation of this direction in educational institutions, beginning in grade school and continuing through university. The author underlines the need for training pedagogical personnel and changing approaches in teaching history.