Analysis of the lived experiences of history teachers on the challenges of teaching secondary history courses

Objective: The history courses at any country ,plays an important role in creating national identity and value for that country; But despite its high importance, it is observed that interest in studying history, in its specialized sense ,is low among students. As it seems, teachers are facing challenges in relation to the way this subject is taught in schools and the content used to teach it. Therefore, the aim of the current research was to analyze the lived experiences of history teachers of the challenges of the curriculum and teaching history courses in the second secondary level.
Materials and methods: To achieve this goal, the critical paradigm, qualitative approach and descriptive phenomenological research strategy of multi-stage Van Manen type and document-library method were used. The field of research included history teachers of the second secondary course in Kurdistan province in the academic year 1401-1402 with a purposeful sampling method. The research tool was a semi-structured interview made by the researcher, which continued until the degree of relative saturation with the number of 9 people.Findings: The findings were presented in two sections: curriculum and educational challenges and solutions. The challenges section itself was categorized into three areas: challenges related to history books (11 cases), challenges of teachers' teaching methods (7 cases), and challenges beyond the two mentioned areas (4 cases). Based on this, the solutions section in the two areas of teachers' teaching solutions in order to solve the challenges of classroom education (11 cases) and suggestions for the efficiency of the quality of teaching history courses at the curriculum level, which were presented in the three areas of books (12 cases), teachers (2 cases) and beyond these two (5 cases).
Discussion and conclusion: Discussion and conclusion: The results of the analysis of the findings showed that the curriculum in the field of teaching history courses in the second secondary level needs a fundamental revision. At this point, history textbooks play a prominent role in creating educational challenges. Because most of the educational challenges of these courses are related to this field; Among other things, the history books still follow the memory-oriented approach and have less analyzed the events, this is because their history writing style is still traditional and classic. However, not all challenges are limited to the content of books; Moreover, the methods used for teaching history are not in line with the evolution of textbooks and the new goals of the curriculum, and most teachers still use lecture-oriented and teacher-oriented methods. In addition to these cases, there are various personal and social factors outside the teacher's classroom system and in the history course that indirectly affect the classroom teaching of these courses; Therefore, in order to achieve the goals of the new curriculum, there is a need to make changes in the methods of teaching history courses as well as the way of training and selecting teachers. Although the teachers at the class level are trying to complete the shortcomings of the textbooks and use new educational methods; But in order to achieve the educational goals of these courses and improve the quality of history courses, more fundamental changes are needed in the educational planning for history courses in the second secondary level.In order to radically reduce some of the mentioned challenges, in addition to making changes in the management level of classroom education and ingenuity in the teaching and learning process, it is necessary to have appropriate planning at the national macro level and make changes in the field of curriculum content and educational methods. . The suggestions expressed were mostly in the context of revising and making changes in the content of history books, so that the emphasis of the content of history books is more on the analysis of historical issues and events and the application of history. Based on the findings of the research, it is suggested that history books should be specifically revised, educational methods should be changed in line with the new goals of history education, which have changed from memory-oriented to historical literacy education, and new student-oriented educational methods should be used instead of teacher-oriented in The education process should be used and history should be taught in a more practical way.