Boudicca, broken bones and behaviour management: a case study of teaching causation at Key Stage 3

Maximilian Day

doi:10.1017/s2058631019000023

Abstract

I have always thought that teachers should not teach what to think but how to think, and I wanted to embody this attitude within my own practice of teaching Classics. It was also interesting to me to link this to the ongoing debates in history teaching surrounding the relationship between the acquisition of substantive knowledge (i.e. the facts of history: dates, battles, names, etc.) and the acquisition of second-order concepts (i.e. the framework within which such knowledge is understood: e.g. historical interpretations, ascribing significance to events, understanding causation). According to Ford, ‘the challenge of restoring the link between substantive knowledge and conceptual understanding is one which the whole profession needs to address’ (Ford, 2014, p.33). Having previously taught philosophy, causation seemed to me to be a topic I would be well-suited to tackle, and I was intrigued to discover that there were opportunities to teach causation as early as Key Stage 3 (KS3). In fact, enshrined in the current National Curriculum (NC) for KS3 history is the key aim ‘to understand historical concepts such as … cause and consequence’ (DfE, 2013, p.1). Given that Stanford professor Sam Wineburg (2001) refers to historical thinking, albeit archly, as an ‘unnatural act’, I wondered whether it was possible for 12 and 13-year old students to ‘understand’ the complex concept of causation. But I was also eager to test out some of the pedagogical theories floated at the beginning of the PGCE course, in particular, Bruner's hypothesis that ‘any subject can be taught effectively in some intellectually honest form to any child at any stage of development’ (Bruner, 1960, p.33).

Highlights

Introduction and contextI have always thought that teachers should not teach what to think but how to think, and I wanted to embody this attitude within my own practice of teaching Classics
It was interesting to me to link this to the ongoing debates in history teaching surrounding the relationship between the acquisition of substantive knowledge and the acquisition of second-order concepts
While second-order concepts such as causation have gone in and out of vogue with regard to their teaching at Key Stage 3 (KS3), the current research consensus is that causation and content need to be taught together

Summary

Introduction and context

I have always thought that teachers should not teach what to think but how to think, and I wanted to embody this attitude within my own practice of teaching Classics. My scheme of work (SoW) is being taught to a mixed-ability Year 8 class of 29 pupils including: four classified as having English as an additional language (EAL), one with known SEN status, five indicated as ‘pupil premium’ (PP), and three with a dyslexia score. The six-week term required a SoW entitled ‘Who were the Romans?’ involving an introduction to the geographical extent of the Roman Empire and to the importance of the Roman army. It would include an examination of the causes of the Boudiccan revolt framed within a larger question of how the Romans controlled their empire, i.e. the cause of their success. An age-appropriate BBC documentary about Boudicca’s revolt, presented by father and son team Peter and Dan Snow (BBC, 2004), and including computergenerated battle scenes and ‘interviews’ with participants, would provide both the centrepiece of the SoW and the springboard for an end-of-unit assessment

Literature review

Conclusions

Evaluation of practice

Conclusion