History teacher from a rural school
The teacher, Kanybek, developed his teaching ideas and practices on his
own and by observing other teachers. He strongly believes in the existence
of certain objective historical truths and thinks his job is to impart that
knowledge to his pupils. Lack of new textbooks forces him to use the old
Soviet-era textbooks or to lecture his pupils from his written conspectus.
He questions the pupils’ understanding and provides responses if the pupils
do not understand certain concepts. Even though he encourages his pupils
to explain concepts they have learned, Kanybek controls the substance
of the ‘truth’, which is, in his view, the information presented in the new
amendments to the curriculum sent from the ministry. Kanybek wants to
establish good rapport with his pupils and encourage them to develop,
articulate and defend their own views, but in practice he controls and
channels the pupils’ thinking and expression. Kanybek attempts to influence
his pupils by telling, controlling, advising, setting examples and warning
them, and punishing them when they violate rules.Below is a transcript of a history lesson with Russian Class 10B that was
conducted on 20 October 2001 (Shamatov, 2005, pp. 235–37). The theme
of the lesson was The Archaeological Monuments in Kyrgyzstan. Before the
class, Kanybek mentioned to the researcher that it was a new theme; during
the Soviet era the pupils did not study it. Kanybek brought an old map of the
Kyrgyz Soviet Socialist Republic to the class; he did not have a suitable new
map for this subject. He hung the map in the front of the room. Twelve out
of 14 pupils (five boys and seven girls) were present.
Observation notes of the history lesson
Teacher: Let us proceed with our lesson. What was your homework for
to day?
Pupil: We were to read the text about archaeological monuments.
Teacher: OK. Did you all read your notes? (Silence. Kanybek continued). You
know that not so many historical monuments are preserved in Kyrgyzstan
unfortunately. Only a limited number of them have reached us, but many
were destroyed over a period of time. Those monuments were destroyed
by frequent wars, invasions and natural disasters, and of course, by time.