Curriculum in Context

Working mainly in Quebec, Mr. Prud’homme finds himself at the crossroads of several requirements: preparing students to teach current programs, while equipping them to adapt to constantly evolving curricula. Frequent changes in ministerial orientations – often marked by a return to more memorization-based approaches – poses a major challenge, in his view. In this context, Mr. Prud’homme seeks to keep recent contributions about the teaching of history alive, particularly concepts linked to historical thinking. He encourages future teachers to design activities that are rooted in the curriculum, but that also develop interpretive, critical and methodological skills. In this way, he hopes to provide future teachers with tools for challenging institutional constraints with a more emancipatory vision of history teaching.

From Theory to Practice: Curricular Goals in Action

Mr. Prud’homme’s teaching objectives aim at helping students develop a nuanced understanding of the concepts of historical thought, while enabling them to adopt critical postures towards them. 

For example, in a workshop inspired by current issues relating to fascism, students were invited to trace the trajectories of various so-called fascist regimes at a given moment in history (Italy, Germany, Spain, etc.) using timelines. Then, by identifying recurring events and conflicts, they collectively created a definition of fascism based on a comparative and inductive approach. This activity, which culminates in defining specific characteristics of fascist regimes, can be reapplied with several other concepts that need to be learned by students. It can also lead to subsequent discussions to compare the results of the conceptualization process with current societies.

Another example named by Mr. Prud’homme involves an immersive workshop simulating the German elections of 1933, in which students assume different socio-economic profiles (Berlin worker, Christian farmer, Jewish war veteran, etc.). They then have to vote for one of the contending parties, trying to convince their peers, without knowing their true political identity. Drawing on the electoral promises of the time, students analyze the issues at stake, defend their choice by justifying their position from the point of view of their character, then compare the class results with those of the election. The activity, which involves primary source analysis, conceptualization and historical empathy, also provides an opportunity to address the different perspectives specific to certain contexts of the period. 

Ultimately, the underlying aim of analyzing such activities is to “train teachers to be capable of developing independent, critical thinking that is sensitive to the real needs of their students, even if this means [occasionally] departing from the curriculum or the textbooks”.

Mr. Prud’homme’s approach to teaching is therefore based on the idea that the teaching of history must be adapted to students’ identities and interests, in order to foster authentic engagement with historical thinking. For him, it is essential that future teachers engage in an “active pedagogy”, capable of generating “cognitive conflicts” and building bridges between students’ recent experiences and the issues of the past. This perspective is part of a dynamic conception of historical consciousness, understood as the ability to give meaning to the past by linking it to oneself and to the present, notably through meaningful “case studies”.

Navigating the Complexities of Teacher Preparation

One of the difficulties mentioned by M. Prud’homme concerns the need to deconstruct the vision of history as a fixed narrative, often adopted by some future teachers in initial training. To this end, he devotes several classes to “deconstructing the idea that history is a narrative to be learned by heart”, and then to “reconstructing initial conceptions” using active approaches based on historical thinking, complexity theory and post-structuralism. In this way, he seeks to “shape to a certain extent the professional identity of the teachers in [his] classroom, through the confrontation of ideas”.

Co-created by Marc-Alexandre Prud’homme and Arianne Dufour