Educational scientist Dr Silke Bakenhus is investigating how primary school children imagine life 200 years ago, and has found that five- to twelve-year-olds rarely have a realistic image of the past. The results of her research will be used to improve “Sachunterricht", a subject taught at German primary schools that combines natural and social sciences.
Dr Silke Bakenhus, you encouraged children to take part in a specially designed drawing competition called BildSpuren held at Evenburg Castle in East Frisia. Why?
Well for a start, some really beautiful pictures were drawn there! But my main focus is to find out how children imagine life in the 19th century. So we set up a table with paper and coloured pencils in the ballroom and over an eight-week period children between the ages of five and twelve could draw pictures there and show how they imagine life at Evenburg Castle to have been in those times. A total of 102 pictures were drawn, which I am currently using as qualitative data in my postdoctoral project “QuaSU – Quellenarbeit im Sachunterricht” (Source Work in Sachunterricht). Most of the participants came from Lower Saxony, but there were also a few from Saxony, Thuringia, Baden-Württemberg, France and the Netherlands. The project was funded by the Universitätsgesellschaft Oldenburg (UGO).
Can you give us a little background information on this research?
The scientific perspective of Sachunterricht as a school subject is well developed and well researched, but the historical perspective less so. There is very little data on primary school children’s knowledge of the early modern period, for example. My theory is that there is a huge disparity between their ideas about life in those times and the historical facts. If this is true, we need to ensure that the teaching materials used in school lessons are geared towards building on children's ideas in order to close gaps in their knowledge in a targeted manner.
What method do you use to analyse the pictures?
I use image hermeneutics, an established qualitative research method based on the premise that images express more than words: they reflect perceptions, emotions and implicit knowledge structures. More specifically, we use the dual control principle to list the elements in the pictures created in the drawing competition. Which motifs appear repeatedly, and where? How often does the crown symbol appear? The knight's armour? The princess wearing a dress? In a second step, we look at situations. How many figures are depicted, and how do they interact with each other? Do they seem friendly, combative, happy or sad?
You have now completed your analysis of the pictures and drawn some initial conclusions. Did you end up with 102 pictures that were all the same?
The countess is often depicted as a princess or queen wearing a crown. There are lots of knights in armour, guards at gates, lances, and battle scenes with blood splattering everywhere. Children combine fantasy and history: there are also dragons in their drawings. My theory has thus been confirmed. Many images of life in a castle are already unconsciously stored in children’s memories even before they start school. These are clichéd motifs and perceived roles that have little to do with the historical reality.
But isn’t it also a good thing if children combine fantasy with history?
Yes, absolutely! I think it’s a wonderful thing when children combine fantasy with history – because that’s where an important learning process begins. Many children initially come up with familiar or clichéd images because these are their first points of access to the past. And it is precisely these images that reveal the ideas and emotions that history triggers in children. In Sachunterricht, we try to build on this: we want children to ask their own questions about the past. This promotes historical questioning skills – the ability to approach history with curiosity, critical thinking and reflection – at an early age. In this sense, fantasy and imaginative thiking is not the opposite of historical learning, but its driving force.
What was life really like at Castle Evenburg then?
If we look back at the history of Evenburg Castle, it quickly becomes clear that life there was very different from how most children imagine it. Evenburg Castle was built in 1642 by Colonel Erhard Reichsfreiherr von Ehrentreuter as a Baroque moated castle – it wasn’t a knight's castle, but a prestigious residence on a castle island surrounded by a moat. Just one generation later, the estate passed through marriage to the von Wedel family, who in the mid-19th century had it converted into a modern, comfortable residence in the neo-Gothic style. Life in the castle was very convivial, and gardening and agriculture featured prominently – there were even greenhouses for exotic plants such as pineapple trees and grapevines. All this is far removed from medieval battles and fairy tales. And that’s precisely what makes it so exciting for Sachunterricht: children bring their fantasies about the past to lessons and then find out what is fiction and what is based on historical facts. When they realise that history is made up of real people and events, it comes to life and becomes comprehensible to them.
You carried out a similar analysis of pictures at several primary schools in the Oldenburg area in 2023. The focus then was on what they knew about privateering nd pirates...
In this project too, it became clear that certain ideas are already ingrained. For example, the children drew pictures of pirates with eye patches and parrots on their shoulders, and of brutal attacks on ships. However, there were also privateers in those times who operated using letters of marque and captured ships peacefully, without fighting. These things didn’t always happen as they are portrayed in the popular film Pirates of the Caribbean.
How are children’s ideas about the past formed?
In educational research, we talk about preconceptions – preliminary, often unconscious ideas that children develop at a very early age. These ideas form long before they start going to school through stories and fairy tales, films, series and picture books. The toys in their rooms also play an important role – knight's castles, palaces, pirate ships. In this way, children come to associate the past with certain, in many cases clichéd images: the princess wears a crown and a shimmering dress, the knight is always in his armour, and the pirate always has a parrot on his shoulder. Such ideas are completely normal at first; they show how children explore history through their imagination and emotions – and this is exactly where we can connect with them in class and expand on these images step by step.
How can research into such preconceptions improve Sachunterricht?
To create effective learning materials, we need a database on children’s prior historical knowledge. I hope that my research can contribute to this database and serve as an example. If I know that most children have internalised such images of the past, the teaching materials can be designed accordingly. Teachers can use didactic methods to explore in class the specific contexts in which knights, princesses and pirates really did play a role in those times. They can expand factual knowledge and encourage historical learning among primary school children. Because one thing the drawing competitions have unquestionably shown is that primary school children are fascinated by historical topics, and they discover the past most effectively when facts and fantasy merge.
