Pedagogy students: Concerns before innovation

Many education experts affirm that in order to fundamentally and comprehensively reform education, teacher training colleges must be the pioneers. Recognizing the role and responsibility before the reform, the important milestone of which is the reform of the general education program, on November 4, the Youth Union and Student Association of Hanoi National University of Education organized a seminar on "Reforming the Program and Textbooks".

Don't worry too much about History.

During the talk, many students expressed concerns about the future when implementing the new general education program, especially students of the History department.

According to Associate Professor Dr. Nghiem Dinh Vy - Former Deputy Head of the Central Science and Education Committee, currently Director of the Institute of Social Sciences (Hanoi National University of Education): In the recent past, many professors, teachers and students have petitioned the Drafting Committee as well as the Ministry of Education and Training to require History to be a compulsory subject. Some professors said that if students do not want to study it, it must be compulsory, or we must educate patriotism.

The teacher guides students to discuss in groups.

Mr. Vy shared: Social sciences (KHXH) are very important, important in educating human qualities and personalities in general and for the young generation in particular. In the world as well as in Vietnam, people say that KHXH is in a very low position, or in other words, they somewhat look down on the subject of KHXH.

Now, how do we understand integration in Social Sciences? In primary school, we will not learn History as before, that is, History was previously learned from Hung Vuong, Van Lang, Au Lac... and it is also learned like that in higher education. Now, History, Geography plus other knowledge will be transformed into Social Studies in grades 4 and 5. We plan to learn by telling stories according to themes, how to make it gentle, attractive, easy to understand...

But the issue that most people are concerned about is, will History and Geography be elective or compulsory subjects at high school level?

Regarding this, Associate Professor Dr. Mai Sy Tuan, Head of the Biology Department (Hanoi National University of Education) shared: It is true that there are subjects that must be compulsory, and there are subjects that must be elective. This depends on each specific situation and stage. History may not be compulsory at this time, but it will be compulsory at another time.

However, we need to have a clear point of view, if we want to innovate comprehensively, we must have comprehensive education. All subjects are the same, no subject is a major subject and no subject is a minor subject. At the same time, there will be no major activities, no extracurricular activities, but all are important educational activities that we call creative experiences. All subjects have creativity, at the same time the school has creative experience activities.

“So, history teachers have nothing to worry about. If they are worried, should biology be worried? If biology is not taken seriously, can it be cured without biotechnology? Is it important? Our country is developing to become an industrialized and modernized country, so are physics and chemistry also important? Which subject is compulsory or not depends on the situation, not on the perception of disregarding one subject and valuing another. All subjects are equally important,” Mr. Tuan explained.

Similarly, Associate Professor Dr. Do Ngoc Thong, Deputy Head of the Department of Secondary Education (Ministry of Education and Training) said: Up to now, the most tense exchange is only about the subject name, but of course History is a compulsory subject at all 3 levels. The most "tense" issue is whether History can stand alone in high school or not.

Methodological innovation is very important.

Regarding the issues raised, Associate Professor Nghiem Dinh Vy affirmed: Innovation in methods is very important. And teachers are the most important people.

Illustration photo.

Accordingly, Associate Professor Vy proposed: With the new program, History at the high school level will not repeat the same as in the middle school level but will be taught according to topics, in all grades but divided into topics. Besides, there are topics according to the Ministry's way, we think we need to try to think of really good topics, for example the topic "War and Peace in History", which includes sub-topics such as "The Unpeaceful Past" to teach about world wars, or the topic "Sound of Peace" to talk about United Nations organizations, calling for peace...

Sharing the same view, Associate Professor Dr. Mai Sy Tuan said: Integration has internal subjects, cross-subjects and multi-subjects, meaning that integrated teaching is a teaching method. And not only the subjects that have been formed as proposed by the Ministry of Education and Training are integrated. We can integrate all subjects to contribute to the formation of capacity. For example, Literature has many forms of integration, integrating History, integrating Geography... and vice versa.

Regarding foreign languages, experts emphasize: Among many subjects that need to be innovated, foreign languages ​​need to be innovated the most. However, we will not be able to do anything if we cannot innovate the textbook program.

According to Great Unity