D@dalos - Teaching Politics / Political Education

Teaching Politics

Choosing the right teaching perspective when putting together a teaching unit for political education is the second step and a core part of the process. At the same time, however, it is one of the most difficult steps. This is because, more than in other subjects, the aim of political education is to reach goals at different levels.

Where do the difficulties lie?

"The range of issues with which politics is concerned [are] usually so extensive, complex and multi-aspectual in their nature and [take in] so many factors that they can hardly ever be addressed in full in the amount of lesson time available. Yet for all this, teachers often strive to address these in full and end up structuring their politics lessons encyclopedically. This action is based on a belief that everything is important and nothing should be left out. Yet however understandable this action may be, in practice it tends to lead to unstructured lessons in which subject matter is added. Its only a matter of time before teachers and pupils become bogged down in the material, with the majority of the lesson's political aspects being lost. This results in political education becoming a mnemonic exercise which, while it might help to develop the short-term memories of the students, does nothing to set the political learning process in motion. Indeed, the political learning effect associated with this kind of lesson is minimal."

[Politikdidaktik kurzgefasst. Questions involving the planning of political education lessons by the Federal Centre for Political Education, series 326, Bonn 1994, S. 47]

What purpose does a teaching perspective serve?

"Political aspects can only become the main aspect of a lesson when teachers are successful in setting up priorities, that is, stressing a particular angle, which, in its wealth of facts, information and aspects serves in providing a cross section and exposing the most important political elements. The best way for teachers to arrive at a reflective and conscious decision on where to put the emphasis is by developing a teaching perspective. A teaching perspective contains the educational intentions that make up the foundation of lessons and the objectives that the teacher wants to reach when planning lessons. (...) Developing a teaching perspective for political education means nothing more than the ability to link content with objectives in a conscious way."

[Politikdidaktik kurzgefasst. Questions involving the planning of political education lessons by the Federal Centre for Political Education, series 326, Bonn 1994, S. 47-49]

How do we choose the teaching perspective?

"First and foremost, the teaching perspective should be developed on a factual basis. The teaching perspective has to relate to a politically central aspect of the issue or problem (...). Bearing in mind the twin character of teaching perspectives, however, it's important to ensure that they make a contribution towards achieving the more general aims of political education, as well as making sure that they are acceptable from a rather scientific view point (...). Once teachers have carried out detailed research and reached a decision on which teaching perspective they are going to use, they will also know what they want their teaching unit to achieve for their pupils and where the emphasis likes in terms of content. The teaching perspective is of interest only to teachers. Rather than coming into direct contact with the teaching perspective, pupils will experience it in a more indirect way through the main theme of the teaching unit, which will either be presented to them at the beginning of the lesson or which will be picked up as they work through the material. This means, then, that after making the decision to chose a certain teaching perspective, teachers have a second task; namely that of developing a theme for the lesson. The theme serves in sharpening and reformulating the teaching perspective in a way that is suitable for schools." [see Basic Course 4: Formulating the theme]

[Politikdidaktik kurzgefasst. Questions involving the planning of political education lessons by the Federal Centre for Political Education, series 326, Bonn 1994, S. 51, 52, 64]

Concernment and significance as an aid for choosing the teaching perspective

"Teachers should also draw on the political-education categories known as 'concernment' and 'significance' to help them choose the teaching perspective that they want to use for their political education lessons. Concernment is a category that puts the emphasis on the individual, which of course means pupils within the scope of the school education environment. Individual concernment for an issue can have different sources.

	Pupils are affected (concerned) when political events and things that effect society conspire to generate strong emotional feelings, even when the events don't affect them directly. These events are usually associated with disaster and war. The explosion of the Space Shuttle and the death of the male and female astronauts or the Gulf War, especially during its initial stages in January 1991, provide good examples of issues that triggered a strong emotional response in pupils. This feeling of being affected, however, tends to fade quickly and seldom lasts over a prolonged period.
	A feeling of being affected can also be created by political problems or issues that affect the interests and lives of pupils on a daily basis.
	Concernment can also develop from empathy. Pupils might be able to identify with others and their situation and might try to understand the way they think and feel. This leads to them becoming touched at an emotional level, or rather, affected.

If pupils are affected in one way or another, they are more likely to open up to a situation or problem than they would be if the situation was alien and seemingly unimportant for them in terms of their own lives and life perspectives. However, the concernment category goes beyond this motivating aspect in that it also deals with the general question of how to reduce the distance between the world in which pupils live and "the world of politics", and how to make it possible for pupils to "discover the macro world from within the micro world". These considerations also demonstrate the necessity not only to think about whether pupils are affected in subjective terms but also to think about the meaning of the issue for the present and foreseeable future. The significance category tries to get at the importance of a political problem for social groups, for society in general and for humanity as a whole. To this end, the purpose of political education is to broaden the horizons of pupils by taking their subjective feelings and encouraging them to question their significance for others, for society and for humanity and, conversely, by demonstrating how to identify the significance of an issue, of which pupils may or may not even be aware, and highlighting how it affects them in their very own lives."

[Politikdidaktik kurzgefasst. Questions involving the planning of political education lessons by the Federal Centre for Political Education, series 326, Bonn 1994, p. 58, 59]

Examples

Factual level	Possible teaching perspectives
Unemployment	Pupils are asked to analyze the causes of unemployment, learn how it impacts on those affected, as well as looking into its economic, social and political consequences.
Unemployment	Pupils should learn about the laws that underpin the welfare state, work on the main elements of the social security system and investigate their significance for the unemployed.
Elections	Pupils should be asked to investigate what impact elections have on the process of forming a political will.
Globalization	Pupils can be asked to look into the relationship between the economy and politics and make an assessment on how far the globalization process has affected change.
Globalization	Pupils can be asked to look into the reasons that have led to globalization and to address the fundamental ideology underlying it - neo-liberalism.

[Examples 1-3 taken from: Politikdidaktik kurzgefasst. Questions involving the planning of political education lessons by the Federal Centre for Political Education, series 326, Bonn 1994, p. 67]

... go to the 3rd step in creating a teaching unit:
Formulating the theme

[Author: Ragnar Müller]

[Back to top of page]

Subjects: Human Rights  I Examples I Democracy I Parties I Europe I  Globalisation I United Nations I Sustainability

Methods:    Teaching Politics    II    Peace Education    II    Methods

This online service on the subject of political education was developed by agora-wissen, the Stuttgart-based Gesellschaft für Wissensvermittlung über neue Medien und politische Bildung (GbR) (Partnership for the Exchange of Information Using New Media and Political Education). Please contact us with your questions or comments. Translation from German into English by twigg's Übersetzung deutsch-englisch.