| Titre | La Préhistoire sur les bancs ou au ban de l'école ? Les temps premiers dans les programmes scolaires de la France des années 1940 à 2010 | |
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| Auteur | Pascal Semonsut | |
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Revue | Revue historique |
| Numéro | no 682, 2017/2 | |
| Page | 403-424 | |
| Résumé |
La Préhistoire est une époque connue et reconnue par la science depuis les années 1850. Quelle place l'école lui donne-t-elle en France depuis le milieu du XXe siècle ? Des années 1940 à 1960, si le manuel est la principale source de connaissance sur la Préhistoire, la place qu'il lui accorde est bien mince. À partir des années 1970, la mémoire scolaire de la Préhistoire est en voie d'effacement. Après la disparition du Paléolithique des programmes du collège en 1995, c'est au tour du Néolithique en 2008. Désormais, la Préhistoire n'existe plus dans le secondaire. Cette disparition, pourtant, n'est pas définitive puisqu'on assiste, en 2015, au retour de Cro-Magnon en classe de 6e, retour porté par l'air du temps. L'école ne s'est donc guère intéressée à la Préhistoire alors que tout concourt, au contraire, à lui faire une place. Pourquoi ce désintérêt ? La raison essentielle tient, nous semble-t-il, à la nature même des auteurs des programmes et des manuels : historiens, et donc spécialistes de l'écriture, ils sont très mal à l'aise avec des civilisations l'ignorant et donc ne s'acquittent que de mauvaise grâce du passage obligé qu'est la leçon sur la Préhistoire, tant dans sa conception que son exposé. Source : Éditeur (via Cairn.info) |
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| Résumé anglais |
Prehistory in the programs of primary and secondary education in France in the late 1940s to 2010
Prehistory is a time known and recognized by science since the 1850s. It is, moreover, for France, a topic of choice: a way to exalt the genius of French Prehistorians and the massive presence of remains on our territory. What place has school curricula given to it? From the 1940s to 1960s, it was school, more than cinema, television, or even literature, that made it known to the French. However we should not exaggerate its importance. While textbooks were the main source of knowledge about prehistory, its place remained thin: slightly more than 3 % of the contents. From the 1970s, it was even worse, prehistory had a very marginal role, close to nonexistence, mainly taught in History classes (and no more in natural sciences classes) during 6thgrade. School memory of prehistory was in a process of deletion. The content of the teaching was reduced so much and so well that in the last programs of the 20th century, those of 1995, Paleolithic disappeared from school and the study of prehistory was reduced only to the Neolithic. The final stage of this evolution and logical conclusion was that in 2008 programs removed the Neolithic: prehistory no longer existed in middle school. This loss, however, was not final. Indeed, 2015 programs announced the return of Cro-Magnon in 6thgrade. This return was, in addition, global from the beginnings of humanity up to the birth of writing through the Neolithic revolution. Why this return? Programs not only resumed to the contents of thirty years ago, they showed a true originality. But we may reasonably wonder if the return of the teaching of prehistory in 2015 was not at the cost of a real political instrumentation and anchoring in the great debates waving our society today. Why such a disinterest of school curricula for Prehistory? We have outlined a few cautious answers: the lack of commitment of the Prehistorians themselves, the common fate shared with archaeology in general. But the main reason seems to be much more prosaic. Teachers are uncomfortable with prehistoric civilizations they poorly know. The support from the media, especially television, since the 1970s was then experienced as a kind of relief, school being able to pass the baton to others who were eager to take it. Source : Éditeur (via Cairn.info) |
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| Article en ligne | http://www.cairn.info/article.php?ID_ARTICLE=RHIS_172_0403 |
