The teaching of recent past as a pretext to read social sciences

Abstract

Colombia’s recent past is still present, and interpreting an event requires, as stated by Lorenz (2008), a methodology that includes critical history, memory, experiences, the collective imaginary, the reactions to facts and their influence on the life of individuals or groups. This article shows  that  the  recent  past  is  being  gradually  integrated  to  the  teaching  of  social  sciences  in  Colombia through basic standards of this area and those of citizenship skills, by means of texts that describe the way the conflict has been experienced; but how to teach to interpret a recent past that is still present?

Interpreting  and  incorporating  these  events  have  been  privileged  discussion  topics  in  the  classroom, as a place where feelings related to experiencing the conflict may be expressed. This article proposes a reading strategy with students, as part of a scheme that includes conceptual, procedural and attitudinal contents. The conceptual analysis is aimed at identifying the validity of information, locating contexts, underlining information related to the modeling of land by social actions, and landscape modification. The procedural component includes constructing frameworks that reflect the multicausality of the event sunder study, and the attitudinal one includes participating in two projects: research (news tracking) and class project (fieldwork). Thus, by means of an accurate exercise of reading, the invitation is to turn the school into a social laboratory and students into researchers.