REMEMBRANCE IN TIME - Index of

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Remembrance in Time
The reform and transformation of the school- and educational system started in such a
context, which had the serious effect that in such an atmosphere of uncertainty the history
teachers begin to worry about the number of the lessons and they became skeptic about
the reforms and changes. This type of burn-out can be understood because the discussions
around the new core curriculum even raised the question whether there is a need for the
history as a schools subject at all and other subjects dealing the present should be placed
in the curriculum like economics, social studied, etc.. In this situation the history teachers
focused on the safety of their subject – regardless of their professional ideology and party
affiliation- and they swept the questions of the reform under the carpet (’conflict avoiding
consensus’ György Jakab).
This school subject finally survived and thanks to the core curriculum inner content
changes began which also had to face with the protest of the history teachers. The reason
for this is that in 1995 in the 5th and 6th grades the chronological history teaching was
terminated and a new cultural field, the human and society covered the subject instead of
history and lots of new modules were introduced which endangered the independence and
integrating role of the history subject. Ottó Szabolcs even talked about ’the Trianon of the
Hungarian history teaching’. In 2000 the original state was restored in the 5th and 6th
grades of the primary education and the structure of the subject was also re-introduced,
the content material was directly regulated and the schools system itself again got the socalled
8+4 structure. The next government made another correction, wider cultural fields
were introduced again instead of the previous schools subjects and the competences were
emphasized instead of the subject content without even clarifying the significance of
these competences in the core curriculum and in the frame curricula. This was not
changed after the 2008 supervision. The 2012 core curriculum also consists of principles
and the direct guidance (lesson-numbers, material, requirements) can be found in the
frame curricula. What is for sure at this moment that the number of the frame curricula
and of the students books will also decrease in the future and the teachers accepts these
changes well because of the previous failures in the subject reform.
Because of the lack of the consensus between the educational experts and the practicing
history teachers the significance of most of the reforms was not realized or the teachers’
interest in introducing them was not raised and another solution was chosen, the so-called
’Trojan Horse’ which means that they trusted in those teachers in the school faculties,
who were following the reform ideas and these teachers had to convey the efficiency of
these reforms towards their colleagues ( like a ’hidden curriculum’). This could not be
successful because of the rate of these teachers in the schools and it resulted in the
growing frustration between the ’parties’ in the schools and mainly those who were open
to the reforms. The reforms and the professional renewal were neglected by the majority
which resulted in failing to introduce even the necessary methodological ones. So the
history teachers could not / can not find their places because a new generation (’digital
natives’) sit in the classroom and the teachers lost their previous role, was basically about
being the ultimate source of knowledge. The situation could not be solved even with
the digital devices provided by the government. In this situation the teachers
themselves cried for help, that is for professional support and refresher courses but
their methodological needs and requirements were not fulfilled because of the state of
the history-didactics of the time – even if it is true that other school subjects have to
cope with similar problems.