Introduction
Knowing the past allows us to know our own world. The study of the different cultures and societies that have existed throughout history helps us to understand how our society has emerged and has been configured. Thus, it allows us to better understand other cultures and societies, whether past or present. The contributions of the Greek world to the history of mankind have been remarkable, reaching numerous fields not limited to geometry and mathematics, philosophy, arts, and medicine. The study of the history of ancient Greece connects us, then, with the very basis of Western civilisation and culture.
The knowledge of the history of the Greek world on the part of future teachers of Primary Education is of crucial importance in the formation of the new generations. It is significant not only on an academic level, but above all in the more ‘human’ dimension. Greek history shapes teachers into citizens of an ever-changing world. This situation takes place in a context of recent attacks on the Humanities, undermining the field in general, and more specifically threatening Greek language and culture in Spanish educational institutions.
This article is the result of observations made during the academic years 2019/2020 and 2020/2021 in several practical classes on the ‘twelve Greek gods’ within the framework of the subject Fundamentos de History: Historia de España, a course in the Degree of Primary Education at the University of Seville. This study focuses on the main educational methodologies and techniques - Cooperative Learning (CL), Project Based Learning (PBL) and Gamification. All of them, among others, have been used by future Primary Education teachers to solve the proposed task: teach about the ancient Greek gods. Specifically, the article highlights how teachers affect not only their own learning process, but also the way in which they adapt and transmit knowledge to their future primary education students.
The study of Ancient Greek History in Primary Education and in the Primary Education Degree in Spain. Legal contextualisation
The Spanish educational system consists of the following levels: Infant Education (between the ages of 0 and 6, of a non-compulsory nature), Primary Education (between the ages of 6 and 12, consisting of six compulsory courses), Secondary Education (between the ages of 12 and 18, consisting of a compulsory part of four courses, known as Educación Secundaria Obligatoria (ESO; Compulsory Secondary Education), a post-compulsory part of two courses; and, finally, Higher Education. In addition to the above modalities, there are also those known as Enseñanzas de Régimen Especial (Special Regime Education; Ley Orgánica 1/1990, of October 3, 1990, de Ordenación General del Sistema Educativo = LOGSE; Ley Orgánica 2/2006, of May 3, 2006, de Educación = LOE; Ley Orgánica 3/2020, of December 29, 2006, which amends Ley Orgánica 2/2006, of May 3, 2006, de Educación = LOMLOE).
Primary Education is taught in Spain by teachers (that is, by Graduates in Primary Education) who are competent in all areas of this level, with the exception of certain subjects such as Music, Physical Education and foreign languages, which are taught by teachers with the corresponding specialisation or qualification (art. 93, LOE). Secondary Education is taught by teachers (Graduates in different subjects, who have passed a Postgraduate course that accredits their pedagogical and didactic training; art. 94, LOE). However, Primary Education teachers may also teach, together with Secondary Education teachers, the first two years of Educación Secundaria Obligatoria (Compulsory Secondary Education; between the ages of 12 and 14; Fourth Transitory Provision, LOGSE; First Transitory Provision, LOE).
The teaching of ancient History and, specifically, the teaching of ancient Greek History, occupies a marginal place in almost every educational stage mentioned above. To begin, there is not even the subject of History in Primary Education. This discipline is integrated within the subject of Social Sciences, which is part of one of the six areas (Knowledge of the Natural, Social and Cultural Environment) that make up the curriculum of Primary Education in Spain (art. 18, LOE; art. 18, LOMLOE; annex I, Real Decreto 126/2014, of February 28, establishing the basic curriculum of Primary Education). Regarding the teaching of ancient History, this sub-discipline is not only relegated to the framework of the aforementioned subject Social Sciences, but further embedded in a block of content (of the four into which this subject is divided) in the second or third cycle of Primary EducationFootnote 1. In the first cycle of Secondary Education, ancient History (and, specifically, the History of ancient Greece) is only studied in the first of the two courses that make up this cycle, within the core subject ‘Geography and History’ (art. 24, LOE; art. 24, LOMLOE; art. 13, Real Decreto 1105/2014, of December 26, establishing the basic curriculum of Educación Secundaria Obligatoria y Bachillerato).
The training in History of the Greek World that future Primary Education teachers receive varies depending on the university in which they have enrolled. This difference is due to the fact that the subject of History is not part of the so-called Basic Training subjects of the Degree in Primary Education.
The teaching of History in the Degree in Primary Education at the University of Seville, the institution, where this case study has been carried out, is reduced to a compulsory subject in the second year (Fundamentos de Historia: Historia de España) and an optional subject in the fourth year (Historia de la Música y del Folklore). In addition, there is a compulsory subject of a pedagogical nature, which is Didáctica de las Ciencias Sociales (Didactics of Social Sciences). Among all these three subjects, future teachers of Primary Education at the University of Seville only approach the study of ancient History and, more specifically, the History of ancient Greece, in the second year-subject Fundamentos de Historia: Historia de España. This course is also a general subject, which deals with the study of the human past in the Iberian Peninsula from Prehistory to the Contemporary Age.
All of the above means that future teachers do not have a very solid training base, or as solid as it should be, in the history of the Classical World. It is for this reason that more emphasis is placed on this training as well as the possibility to acquire resources and strategies that allow them not only to develop skills and integrate this knowledge, but to adapt and transmit it to their future students.
Objectives
This article has two main and interconnected objectives. Firstly, it analyses and reflects on the way in which students of the Degree in Primary Education acquire knowledge related to the History of ancient Greece. Building on this, the second aim is to focus on the way in which these students, as future teachers, transfer and adapt the knowledge acquired to a classroom of primary school students.
This double objective is related, in turn, to a third one, which is to highlight the importance of future teachers knowing the history of ancient Greece. It is important for them to understand this culture and take part in transmitting the legacy of this civilisation to today's world. This objective incorporates other positive results, both in these Primary Education Degree students’ own learning and in their future role as teachers, as they integrate educational methodologies and techniques such as Cooperative Learning (CL), Project Based Learning (PBL) and Gamification, among others.
These first three objectives are also related to a fourth one. We want to observe how this process of knowledge acquisition and transmission promotes the development of cross-curricular competencies, such as intercultural competence and the gender approach. The study of a concrete aspect in a society and, specifically, of Greek religion, allows future teachers to learn about forms of social, political, cultural and religious organisation different from their own. This activity can contribute to developing their ‘cultural intelligence’. Therefore, it allows them to better understand other cultures and societies, not only past, but also present ones. These differences also occur in gender-related issues. For example, the prominence or activities of Greek goddesses are not different from those of the gods.
The fifth and last objective of this work is to detect the difficulties that students of the Primary Education Degree have when integrating new content and adapting this knowledge to a primary classroom. As a response to these challenges, this work also proposes possible solutions or ‘mitigation strategies’ that will contribute to improving the teaching-learning processes in the future.
Case study
The content of the subject Fundamentos de Historia: History de España of the Degree in Primary Education at the University of Seville includes two blocks. Studied within them is the entire historical period from 1000 BC to 2021. Due to the breadth of this chronological framework, the content of the course is allocated to various Professors from different departments, including the Department of ancient History and the Department of Contemporary History. The first block is dedicated to the History of Spain from c. 1000 BC to 1492. The beginning date is marked by the foundation of Gadir, today's Cádiz, by the Phoenicians, upon their arrival to the Iberian Peninsula. The closing date is established as 1492, the date of the ‘discovery’ of America by Columbus, which is when the end of the Middle Ages traditionally has been fixed.
The course Fundamentos de Historia: Historia de España is divided into theoretical and practical sessions for nine groups of about 60 students each. In this paper we will focus on one of these practical sessions, which has as its theme the ‘Greek Olympic Gods’.
First, and prior to the realisation of this practical session, students are familiarised with the content with which they will have to work. In the theoretical part dedicated to the ancient History of Spain, the Professor offers a brief overview of the history of ancient Greece, focusing, in particular, on the subject of Greek ‘colonisation’. Briefly, the students are told that, as a consequence of scarce land and internal conflict between Greek city-states in the Archaic period (8th-6th century BC)Footnote 2, many people left their community of origin to settle in different places throughout the Mediterranean basin, including the south and east of the Iberian Peninsula, where a Greek presence is recorded from the mid-6th century BCFootnote 3. As a result of this colonisation, elements of Greek culture and customs came into contact with some of the indigenous peoples of the peninsula, especially the Iberians and the inhabitants of Tartessos.
The work of the Professor in this part of the subject is limited, then, to offer some basic notions of the history of ancient Greece and its relationship with the history of the Iberian Peninsula, using a ‘traditional’ teaching-learning method, which is the ‘Master Class’. Although this didactic methodology has the danger of positioning the student in a ‘passive’ role in their learning, we believe that it also has certain advantages when it comes to setting and structuring essential content (Del Valle Ballón & Valdivia Cañota, Reference Del Valle Ballón and Valdivia Cañota2017; Velásquez Mercado, Reference Velásquez Mercadon.d.), especially if combined with other methodologies and educational techniques that favour a more active and autonomous learning.
In the theoretical sessions, the Professor also offers the students a basic reference bibliography so that they can broaden their knowledge on the topic presented and that can serve as a starting point for the practical activities.
Once the student has become familiar with the basic content of the theoretical sessions, the teacher provides instructions for the practical session. First, the students should be divided into ten groups of five to six members. Each of the groups has to choose a topic from among the ten offered: five from the area of Ancient and Medieval History, five from the area of Modern and Contemporary History. One of the topics is that of the Greek Olympic Gods.
Once the working groups are formed, the students receive the rest of the instructions, which are the same for all of them, regardless of the topic chosen. Each group has to prepare a 45-minute lesson in which they will have to ‘teach’ that chosen topic to their classmates, who are now second-cycle primary school students. After these 45 minutes, in the last 15 minutes of the practical session, an evaluation activity takes place, in which the classmates who have played the role of learners during the first part of the activity have to comment on the strengths and weaknesses of the session of their ‘teachers’. In particular, they have to evaluate the ways in which the members of the group have been able to present and adapt the content and teaching-learning methods and techniques to the supposed level (second or third cycle of primary school) of the students (them) they have addressed. In order to carry out this evaluation, it is recommended that they create a template on a sheet of paper, with 1) what they liked, 2) what they did not like, 3) what they would change and 4) a general evaluation of the activity of their colleagues on a didactic levelFootnote 4.
For the elaboration of the practical class, the groups have complete freedom both in the presentation of the content and in the educational methods and techniques used, as long as they are adapted to the 45 minutes foreseen and to the supposed level of the students. In this part of the course, the Professors’ work is limited to ‘accompanying’ and ‘guiding’ the students, providing them with a basic bibliography on the chosen topic - the Greek Olympic Gods - and on the didactics of Ancient History. Through this freedom, the aim is to introduce them to techniques of autonomous and cooperative learning (Crispín, Caudillo & Doria, Reference Crispín, Caudillo, Doria and Crispín2011) and project-based learningFootnote 5, which is one of the main purposes of this practice. In addition, it expects that the students (both those who play the role of teachers and learners) are able at the end of the session to:
1) Know the origin of the Greek gods through the reading or representation of various fragments of Hesiod's Theogony.
2) Identify the main Greek gods that make up the bulk of their mythology.
3) Understand the way in which mythology helped ancient civilisations to perceive and interpret their own reality.
4) Understand the influence of the Greek pantheon on other Mediterranean religions and cultures and, in particular, its adoption in Roman mythology.
5) Reflect on religions and the history of religions in shaping the identities of different peoples and societies.
Additionally, those who exercise the role of teachers are expected to be able to:
1) Identify the main ancient sources that offer information on the Greek Olympic gods (at this point they have previously received guidance from the Professor) and become aware of the importance of ancient testimonies as a tool of knowledge.
2) Learn to search for and select information (both on the specific content of the practice and on didactic issues), using digital tools such as Academia.edu or Google Scholar.
3) Work collaboratively, assuming tasks and responsibilities.
4) Develop and/or expose in a clear and simple way a history topic, adapting both the content and the educational methods and techniques to the level and age of the target students (Primary Education).
Results of the case:
During the last two academic years there have been several groups of students of the Primary Education Degree who have faced the teaching of this practical session on the Greek Olympian gods. The freedom they have enjoyed to teach the subject ‘as they wanted’ has allowed them to use the most diverse and effective educational methodologies. Thus, we point out below some of the ones that have caught our attention the most.
RallyRobin (RR) technique. This method is usually used in classes for students to introduce themselves. However, one of the groups decided to use it in one of their activities. Thus, each partner was assigned a particular Greek god and some of his attributes. After grouping them in pairs, their duty was to introduce themselves as if they were such a god to their partnerFootnote 6.
Time Controlled (TC). The session in which the students are the ones working lasts 45 minutes. This method allows them to optimise time. Some established a reduced duration, between one and fiveminutes for each activity, thus favouring the involvement of their classmates from the beginning and dynamising the general attitude of the class.
Acronyms (A). The Greek gods begin with different letters. Zeus with Z, Athena with A, Hera with H. Performing activities that involve establishing acronyms or words with the initials of each of these gods proved to be an extremely useful mnemonic technique with long-lasting effectFootnote 7.
(H)ooking with hands-on. Another group brought literature directly to class. The fact that their classmates could touch and see in situ the materials they had worked with to teach their lesson on the Greek gods allowed them to work directly with some of these secondary sources and to visualise, to some extent, the vast amount of information on the subject.
Priming Effect (PR). One of the groups came to class in costume, wearing some of the most characteristic attributes of the gods. Thus, a student disguised as Athena carried a drawn owl, a helmet and a spear; or a student disguised as Poseidon, a horse, a trident and a three-pointed crown. When these gods were mentioned, along with others, in a later exercise, the rest of the students were able to identify more easily to which Greek god each attribute belonged, and it was easier to differentiate between themFootnote 8.
Gamification (G) / Gestural Dynamics (GD). It is a technique similar to the Priming Effect. The same group that carried out a theatre devised expressions and games that allowed their peers to identify certain actions and plots with each of the gods; whether these were related to their activity (e.g. Dionysus drinking an imaginary wine or pretending to be a beggar) or to their attributes (e.g. Zeus pretending to throw a thunderbolt).
Storytelling (ST). This didactic method was used by most of the groups tested. At the beginning of their presentations they discussed the origins of the Greek gods and their relationship with the Titans (based on Hesiod's Theogony, which was provided to them as a source). In this way it was easier for them to become familiar with the Greek gods and to provide them with a diachronic historical and mythical frameworkFootnote 9.
Hashtag (#) evaluation. One of the groups went further and, in the last 15 minutes of class, instead of commenting ‘out loud’ on what their mistakes and successes had been, asked their own classmates their opinion on their presentation through social networks using a specific hashtag. Of all these teaching techniques, this one deserves special consideration. Its implementation provided a more dynamic environment, especially necessary at the end of the class. However, while in the rest of the practical sessions the 15-minute public evaluation in class generally resulted in more positive and moderate criticisms, the Hashtag Evaluation system made these evaluations more critical and less constructive, since the students could take refuge in the anonymity that social networks sometimes provide.
All these activities showed the didactic capacity of the students of the Degree in Primary Education at the University of Seville. Despite the fact that they were using extremely novel learning techniques in the field of pedagogy with their own classmates, unfortunately the students were unaware of their scientific terms. Regardless of this lack of comprehension, the purpose for which these teaching techniques were used gave the expected results. The students, both those in charge of teaching the practical session on the Greek gods and those receiving the new content, adopted a much greater knowledge of Greek mythology by the end of the lesson. Not only were they able to understand the world of Greek religion better, but this learning proved to be more durable over time than before.
One of the main difficulties faced by the students in charge of the practice of the Greek gods was the adaptation of the content. The students in the second year of the Primary Education Degree have hardly received any classical content since they attended the first year of ESO, that is to say, for almost ten years. The terms they introduce, although simple, are sometimes unfamiliar to them and the rest of their classmates. Polytheism, Zeus, Hera, Athena, myth, mythology, among a plethora of others, make up a novel vocabulary that alludes to realities that are very distant to them. As happens with other subjects of the same degree, much of the content taught in class is given at university level. One of the major complications of the practices of Ancient History in general, and of this practice in particular, consists in transforming those more cultured elements into teachings with a strong informative character, at the level of an eleven-year-old child. This initial challenge tests the students’ ability to think and reflect on their own explanations, on what they want to say and, above all, on how they want to teach it. This methodological reflection, which implies a certain adaptation to a Primary Education level, means that, in turn, it is their own classmates who learn the content better. In short, they learn both to teach and to learn.
Conclusions
Greek mythology favours a transversal knowledge of Ancient History, and more specifically Greek History. Many Greek gods were later adapted by the Roman world, if not by the pre-Roman settlers of the Iberian Peninsula. Namely, the Phoenicians brought Melqart, which is the same deity as the Roman Mercury or the Greek Hermes/Heracles. Religion is thus adaptive and changeable.
Seville is one of the Spanish cities where the Catholic religion is the most common faith. However, in recent years the number of people following other religions has been increasing. It is important for university students of the Primary Education Degree to be aware that their future classrooms will be full of students of very diverse origins and customs. A topic such as the Greek gods, although seemingly lighthearted, highlights the fact that religiosity is powerful and undeniably complex. In short, it warrants attention and respect. This calls for the development of an ‘intercultural’ intelligence between teachers and students.
The Greek Olympus is typically made up of 12 (sometimes 14) gods. Each of them has different attributions and also among them they have kinship relationships. The Greek gods are a great family in which each one has determined functions. Zeus is judge and protector, but he is also a father. Apollo is the god of music and his twin sister Demeter of agriculture. There are many characteristics to exploit when teaching a subject related to the Greek gods and, depending on the academic year and the group, some students decide to focus on some elements or others.
In addition, the content related to the Greek gods goes beyond gender and sexual roles, topics that are now vital in university content as well as in Primary and Secondary Education. Athena is a warrior goddess and Artemis goddess of hunting; Hephaestus is a blacksmith who is used to being inside his home; Zeus has sexual relations with both men and women. This list goes onFootnote 10. Thus, an educational exercise like this generates a transversal competence that links different aspects of current societies. It is therefore a topic that focuses on the fifth Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of the UN Agenda 2030, which pursues gender equality.
With an increasing emphasis on science and technology in modern education, Antiquity has become a period often overlooked in European history. Despite the important advances in the knowledge of ancient societies in the last century and a half, the histories of Rome, Greece, Egypt and Mesopotamia have been relegated to the background. In the case of Spain, the content on Ancient History established in the academic curriculum shows the government's growing lack of interest, cutting the hours dedicated to this specific type of material. However, it is the very systematic administrative, legal and academic obstruction that encourages teachers and Professors of all educational stages to optimise the resources we have to generate knowledge about our most remote past.
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