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From the 20th SVU World Congress:

Martin Elbel - Nation and its Past: Teaching History at Czech Universities in 1990s

The 90s of the waning century were years of profound historical changes in the region of Central Europe. Now, they are already a part of history itself. Every such an era is extremely interesting for a contemporary historian. It enables to observe directly the great events like in a laboratory. In the same time the period of changes makes people to turn to history in which they are trying to find a firm point for orientation in the present and to gasp implications of the future. It was quite apparent in newspapers, where history was frequent issue (not mentioning the quality of contributions, of course). History became one of the most popular subjects at universities too. The number of students in history - kept artificially low before 1989 - fiercely increased. The history-courses underwent substantial changes.I am going to deal with development of history-teaching in the system of Czech higher-education in the decade following the year 1989. Far from being precise and complete analysis based on systematic research my contribution is intended to be rather general account in which I am going to take an advantage of having two different kinds of experience: that of student and teacher. That is why I concentrated on the example of Palacký University, Olomouc. The questions I would like to discuss are the following: What where the main changes in history-teaching at Czech universities? What were the main achievements and failures? And what are the main tasks for following years?

Let me begin with several remarks on the situation after the changes of 1989. Although I had entered the university only in September 1990, a lot of the atmosphere of the previous events was still preserved. In the same time the changes made already rapid progress. Many professors who had been forbidden to teach returned at their positions. The courses ceased to be strictly controlled and history was no more the tool of Communist propaganda. Academic freedom seemed inexhaustible. New topics which were previously almost taboo could be opened and discussed and the old topics re-interpreted. The students (or at least most of them) were aware of their unique chance which had not been given to their predecessors. Studying again became an intellectual adventure. And most of the professors and students were zealous to undergo it. Many courses had unforgettable charm of improvisation and searching.But as the months passed first discrepancies have appeared behind. It was clear that enthusiasm could not be the remedy for all weaknesses of the history-teaching at universities and that it was necessary to undergo substantial changes. Those changes were connected to general transformation of higher education which has brought among others distinction between undergraduate and graduate level, reform of the postgraduate education and recently introduction of credit system. Changes (sometimes chaotic) were done on the level of university, faculties, departments, but also in individual courses.

And how does the situation look like today, after the decade of searching and erring? I am not going to glorify achievements - and there are plenty of them. Neither am I going to speak about institutional matters or financial problems of the faculties. Rather I would like to point on some issues, where transformation is still only in progress and where many tasks are awaiting.Several remarks on the staff: Not all professors were able or even willing to improve their courses and search for new methods. Lack of methodological innovations is sometimes too apparent and represent one of the serious problems in humanities. Many of professors (the age is not decisive) still prefer pseudo-positivistic approaches mixed with elements of vulgarised Marxism. Confrontation with new approaches is a nightmare for them and students' provocative questions a bold disturbance. The whole matter is complicated by the fact that professors usually have no feedback, which is considered useless. The system of evaluations which is about to be introduced next year is represented as bothering formality introduced by the bureaucrats from the European Union.

Students are another actor in the play. Unfortunately, they still come from secondary schools poorly prepared. The are not used to independent work, formulating questions and engagement in discussions. Moreover, in the field of history and humanities, they are burdened by simplified and dogmatic interpretation of certain phenomena, since many teachers at secondary schools teach history in the same way as ten or twenty years ago.On the other hand, students have much better knowledge of foreign languages than several years ago. Remarkable part of them is able to use languages actively in their work. It helps them to enrich their studies with an experience gained abroad. Thanks to several exchange programmes they can study at many Western or Western-type universities. Here I would like to mention the role of the Central European University which proved to be en extremely efficient and helpful institution It provides high-quality education and creates a network of scholars from the various countries - thus indirectly contributes to the reform of other universities in the region. Now it consists of two colleges only: one in Budapest and another in Warsaw, the Prague college was unfortunately dissolved.

For any kind of education access to information is that what matters. The number of available foreign books is growing - mainly thanks to personal grants of professors - and new translations regularly appear. Despite partial improvement, however, there is still considerable lack of basic scholarly publications. I mean mainly those books which has brought new innovative theories or new methodological approaches and which started in Western historiography discussion over certain topics or founded new historical schools. Filling the gap of previous decades will last many years. New technologies are, fortunately helping to overcome most of the difficulties. It must be emphasised that contacts with other colleagues and institutions was improved very much due to the Internet. Now professors and students have direct access to information about projects at other universities and they are no more dependant on filtered and delayed reports from bureaucratic machinery of the faculty.

These were some of my remarks, but how do the students perceive present situation and their possibilities? In order to find answer to that question I prepared short questionnaire complemented with a kind of 'field research' (discussion with students after my classes in various pubs or cafés). The survey was created on similar pattern Erika Szívós used for Hungary.1 It consisted of several groups of questions focusing on three main areas: students' academic background, expectations concerning future career and students' experiences and assessments of their studies.

The questionnaire was filled anonymously by 47 students, what is too small number for evaluation in a quantitative way and making far-reaching conclusions. Nevertheless, the answers are still a valuable source of information. All the respondents were the second year students of history, age of 20 or 21. With an exception of two, all of them came from gymnásia. Majority of them was accepted at university on the first attempt, nine admitted the second attempt. Only four students studied at another university before.

Overwhelming majority of the respondents declared that the decisive motive for applying to history was their long-lasting interest (29) or romanticism (10 - one of them explicitly mentioned Alois Jirásek as a personal model). Five students mentioned the positive role of their history teacher at the secondary school. Only one student listed as a reason practical usefulness in job-searching and one stated that history had seemed to be the easiest way how to get diploma. Approximately half of them had at least unclear idea what they would do after gaining their diploma. Mostly they expressed their wish to become a teacher at the secondary school - in the same time, however, many of the admitted that financial reasons maybe would make them to change their plans in order to find better paid job. 20 students would like to pursue Ph.D. studies, 10 refused and the rest is not decided yet.

The third section of answers was the most interesting one. On the question, whether the tuition meets their expectation, 23 people answered positively and only 4 negatively. Moreover the average proportion of attended courses students were satisfied with was 70%, what compared to 45% in the survey for Hungary is surprisingly high. I am afraid the high number is quite elusive. At least, when they were given space in following question to express their dissatisfaction, they started to break that positive image. Almost all of them complained on boring formal lectures resembling reading of a phone-list. Among the most striking problems were mentioned: lack of interdisiplinarity, space for discussions, ineffective organisation of the whole programme, no possibility of choice of optional courses. Several people were also dissatisfied with moral and scholarly qualities of some teachers. Quite frequent were complains on bureaucratic apparatus of the faculty.Last question of the survey asked, what they considered to be the major contribution of their studies. Students usually appreciated gained knowledge (15), general outlook (13), personal enrichment (7), learning independent thinking (5), inspiration (4), skills (2), knowledge of foreign languages (2), and - of course - beauties of the students' life.

To sum up, students are mostly satisfied with history programme they had chosen mostly from their deep interest. Their enthusiasm leads them to relatively high assessment of the programme, even despite many shortcomings they are aware of. Large part of them wants to work as historians either as scholars in museums or as teachers at secondary schools and is convinced that their studies are preparing them well for that career.The important by-product of the survey was, that for many students this questionnaire was the first possibility to express their opinion on the quality of their studies. Some of them were for even the first time forced to think about the programme they were studying. And, what is even more important, it led them to conclusions that they share responsibility for the quality of their studies.

My contribution dealt with history and presence of history education at Czech Universities, namely at Palacký University in Olomouc. Let me conclude with several remarks on tasks which, in my opinion, are of primary importance for future. First, it is very important to make the Czech higher-education system compatible with foreign universities both on the field of education and research. Necessary is the development of new contacts among universities, departments and individuals. Programmes like Erasmus and Socrates and activities of several foundations are remarkable help in this endeavour. Another task of no less importance is the education of a new generation of teachers for primary and secondary schools. The new generation which will not be burdened by ideology of Ancient Regime. The independently thinking teachers which would help the young people to find they way to the understanding of the past and thus restore history to its proper place in the society. And this is the most important task - to make the saying historia magistra vitae not a cliché but generally acknowledged truth. Since, as another cliché says, the people who do not know their history can hardly have any future.

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