Turkish Journal of Social Research - Eski Sayılar - Türkiye Sosyal ...

Yasin DOĞAN / Erkan DİNÇ
The Use of Historical Primary Sources through the
Internet in Social Studies and History Classes:
Some Examples from the USA and the UK
Abstract: One of the objectives of teaching social sciences is to
enable pupils to understand and differentiate what social scientists
do in their proffesional work. An important aim of teaching history,
which is a basic social science, in schools is to make pupils comprehend
what historians do. Reaching the primary evidence, classifying,
analysing and interpreting it are the fundamental parts of a
historian’s job. On the other hand, historical primary sources can be
seen in written, visual or some other different forms. In Turkey and
elsewhere, the task of collecting and preserving the first hand historical
sources, and making them ready for the use of researchers is
in the hand of archieve administrations. Another duty of archieves
administrations is to contribute teaching and learning activities in
schools. This paper is examined the application models/examples
of some developed countries how historical primary sources are turned
into teaching materials and put forward for the use of teachers
and primary and secondary school pupils via internet. Firstly, the
related pages of the USA’s and the UK’s National Archieves’ web
pages are studied to find out how they contribute to teaching and
learning in schools. Secondly, their educational services are compared
and contrasted to the ones of Turkish State Archieves. Finally,
the potential and possibilites for using historical primary sources in
teaching Social Studies, History and other cou rses is discussed to
offer some suggestions for practice.
Key Words: Social studies teaching, history teaching, archives,
evidence, primary sources , the Internet.
1. GİRİŞ
Bu çalışmanın temel motiflerinden biri ilköğretim yedinci
sınıf sosyal bilgiler dersi için yapılan bir araştırma olmuştur. Söz
konusu araştırmada 60 yedinci sınıf öğrencisiyle Devlet Arşivleri
Genel Müdürlüğü’nün çalışma ortamı ziyaret edilerek, öğrencilere
bazı birinci elden kaynakları görme ve inceleme imkanı ile bu kaynakların
tarihçiler tarafından nasıl kullanıldığına tanıklık etmeleri
sağlanmıştır. Uzmanlar için hazırlanmış bu ortama; 12-14 yaşındaki
öğrencilerin göstermiş oldukları ilgi heyecan, merak ve sorgulama
196 TSA / Yıl: 11, S: 2, Ağustos 2007