Professor Marc Jason Gilbert (President of the World Historical Association) was the first speaker of the program with a seemingly simple yet very interesting presentation: "What is world history?".
He stated the starting point for his talk: it is important to be aware of conceptual understandings of World History (WHS) as a means of planning, teaching and assessing the quality of student learning.
In fact, most historical writing over the past two centuries has tended to account for the lives of individuals and to embrace national and ethnic perspectives. But according to Professor Marc Jason Gilbert, LSTG is interested in studying general patterns that transcend cultural boundaries to capture and study human experience over time. The main focus of LSTG should be integration – how people around the world have come together – and difference – expressed through LSTG models that show the diversity of human experience.
Professor Marc Jason Gilbern also emphasizes the global perspective when researching and teaching LSTG. He believes that LSTG “includes comparative and cross-cultural studies based on many scientific disciplines and encourages the study of the forces that influence cultures and civilizations”. Topics studied include population changes and large-scale economic fluctuations; cross-cultural technology transfer, the spread of epidemics, long-distance trade and the spread of ideas and beliefs, etc.
This scientist also pointed out the reality: “very few university and college courses focus on LSTG as a science, instead, regional and national history is emphasized”. Currently, the new requirements of integrating LSTG at all levels of education are driving the job market and reflecting real-world educational needs.
He also believes that when teaching students, they should not force them to memorize knowledge but rather “challenge students with different perspectives and views”, help them understand the connections of LSTG and stimulate young people's desire to learn about history.
If the presentation of Prof. Marc Jason Gilbern was quite lively, Prof. Phan Huy Le (Chairman of the Vietnam Historical Science Association) brought to the delegates theoretical insights related to the need to understand Vietnamese History (LSVN) based on new research results. The famous Vietnamese scientist assessed that in the last 3 decades, Vietnamese history has achieved many important research results, not only helping to improve historical understanding but also, in some aspects, changing some basic perceptions. And those who teach LSVN need to update these new studies to create a comprehensive and holistic perception of LSVN, thereby improving the quality of their lectures.
He believes that current research and teaching of Vietnamese History needs to pay attention to the following important principles:
Firstly, research on LSVN must start from the territory of present-day Vietnam to go back to the past; based on the general concept that all the lives of the communities taking place in this territorial space belong to Vietnamese history and culture.
Second, the issue of defining the development periods of Vietnamese history has undergone many different perceptions. And the current trend is to avoid formulaic periodization, and to rely on the historical process of Vietnam with its major changes, combining both the socio-economic form with the process of building and defending the country to divide it into appropriate periods.
Third, during the monarchy period, dynasties were objective historical entities that had an important role that needed to be studied and fully understood; it was necessary to place dynasties in their correct position and role in the historical process with the contributions and limitations of each dynasty, avoiding the phenomenon of criticism, outright denial or over-evaluation.
Fourth, the relationship between Vietnam's history of resistance against foreign invaders and its political, economic, cultural and social history needs to be understood scientifically and satisfactorily. In particular, the history of resistance against foreign invaders plays a decisive role in the survival of the nation and needs to have a worthy position in the perception of Vietnamese history. In addition, Vietnamese history needs to focus more on the lives of people, communities and socio-cultural achievements.
Fifth, research on LSVN needs to be based on the perspective of a multi-ethnic nation, in which attention must be paid to clarifying the role and contributions of ethnic minorities.
Sixth, LSVN needs to be perceived in a close relationship with natural conditions, in a close exchange and interaction with the region and the world. Many historical works do not pay due attention to the role of natural conditions, or present history in a rather isolated manner, detached from the context and relationships between countries in the region and the world, leading to an inevitable subjective and one-sided view.
Unlike the first two speakers, Prof. Vu Duong Ninh - a leading expert in LSTG in Vietnam, also a teacher with decades of experience in teaching this subject - has a very specific and practical perspective on the causes and current state of LSTG teaching in Vietnam.
According to him, the difficulties that teaching and learning LSTG in Vietnam are facing are: limitations in Vietnamese students' understanding of the world; the "compression" of knowledge in textbooks makes learning overloaded, and there are few vivid connections between historical knowledge and real life; no attention is paid to self-study and self-discovery instructions; no inspiration to learn and love this subject in students...
In that context, “improving the quality of teaching and learning LSTG must be a process, not a hasty one” – the teacher shared. First of all, it is necessary to apply the motto “better less but better” – that is, not to be greedy for knowledge but to choose the basic events and issues so that students have a general idea and knowledge of LSTG through the periods. In addition, teaching LSTG but need to pay attention to the position of Vietnam on the coordinates of the East Asia – Southeast Asia – Pacific region, from there have appropriate priorities for research and teaching the history of these regions. The national liberation movement in Vietnam has a great influence on the world revolutionary process – it needs to be linked to LSTG, not just viewed in terms of the world’s influence on Vietnam.
Professor Vu Duong Ninh concluded: when teaching about historical history in general, it is necessary to pay attention to the actual situation of Vietnam, the issues facing Vietnam and Vietnam's international relations. These will be the bases for exploiting historical history - points that need to be emphasized in depth because of the typical nature of the world in general, while taking into account the relationship between Vietnam and the world in each historical period, taking into account the ability to apply world historical experiences to Vietnam's reality. Therefore, historical knowledge will not be "dead" knowledge, but will be "lively, close and useful to students, helping them to love and apply it to their work and life in the future".
Author:Thanh Ha
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