## I. MORE THAN 20 YEARS OF RESEARCH ON HISTORY TEACHING TRAINING IN ARGENTINA The National Law of Education 26.206, sanctioned in 2006, established that the secondary school educational level in Argentina is compulsory.[1] To establish this, the Educational agencies of the 22 provinces reformed their educational laws and organized the new structure of the secondary school level. In most schools, the secondary level consists of six years, three for the basic cycle (13 - 15 years) and three for the oriented cycle, also known as the higher cycle (16 - 18 years). As more young people had access to the secondary school level, more schools, teachers, services, and social programs were needed. In this newly expanded secondary structure, the place occupied by History as a secondary school subject expanded, too. Nowadays, universities and international agencies are mapping compulsory secondary provincial policies to try to understand the effects of this transformation. Although the amount of data and information is still scarce, it evidences the problem of low student performance in the new compulsory secondary education level. $^{2}$ In the data provided by the Social and Educational Observatory of Universidad Nacional Pedagógica in 2018, we can see important indicators. Before the Covid-19 pandemic, the main problem that the educational indicators show is not the $10\%$ of students dropping out of secondary school or the $10\%$ of students repeating grades: It is the low level of the results obtained in the international standard exams. With these results, as the current horizon of secondary school History teaching is getting more complicated, so is the horizon for History teaching training. During the last few decades, I have researched some aspects of History teaching. Initially, I was more interested in trying the hypothesis of story implementation in History teaching. The paths that authors as Jerome Bruner and Kieran Egan have presented gave me a new perspective for my classes. I was a secondary school History teacher in public schools in the periphery of La Plata, and my main objective after the 2001 crisis was to empower my students. I can affirm that the narrative perspective allowed them to tell stories and write non-fictional stories to learn History and more (Cuesta, 2008, and 2015). In 2012, I had the opportunity to go to Brazil for a short research stay in one of the private universities of the city of Porto Alegre, Pontificia Universidade Catolica do Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS). At that time, I was part of the Jovens diente da História project directed by Luis Cerri, who works at Universidade Estadual de Ponta Grossa (UEPG). Based on the European experience "Youth and History", the project Jovens diente da História collected data through standardized enquiries. Different themes and problems of the past and present of the History of Latin America could be seen through the eyes and knowledge of secondary school students and History teachers (Cerri, Olivera Molar, and Cuesta, 2014; Linare and Cuesta, 2015; Cuesta and Linare, 2018). The contact with the Brazilian colleagues woke up a special worry about History teaching training that became one of our current research interests (Cuesta, 2018; Cuesta, 2019; Cuesta and Rocha, 2020; Cuesta, 2023; Cuesta and Linare, 2023). Before the Covid-19, it seemed clear that one of the problems of History teaching training was the low impact of the scientific production in History Didactics on that training (Cuesta, 2019). The study plans for the university courses to become History teachers in Argentina have historically been designed to train historians rather than teachers. There are not enough subjects related to learning the functions of the educational systems, policies of education, curriculum, theories of education, psychology, and sociology of education, but mainly how to teach History. Everything a History teacher needs to know about their future professional practice used to be learnt and examined in an annual subject usually called "Practices of History Teaching" (Cuesta, 2019). Twenty years ago, a basic program of this subject focused on explaining which History to teach, based on the possibilities of French, English, and North American social history, in addition to the Latin American developments. This basic program implies discussion about time (chronology, periodization, changes, mutations, continuities, others considerations about historical time), space (scales, conceptions of space, circuits, others) and subjects (individual or collective; great historical figures, workers, women, child, indigenous, minorities, etcetera). These three categories (time, space, and subjects) were, and still are, objects of analysis not only in Historiography but also in guidelines, educational policies such as the curriculum, and diverse materials for History teaching. Another aspect of this basic program is how to teach History. This point is complex because it implies different dimensions and frameworks. First, there is the constant tension between transmission (direct teaching) and constructivism (indirect teaching). Secondly, the selection of methodologies, for example: teaching by case studies, problems, or projects. However, in the end, what defines these forms of teaching is the use and the nature of the information sources. Of course, writing sources as letters, testimonies, interviews, journalistic news, fragments of different historical works, and statistics are used in various ways, from illustration to confrontation of a hypothesis or opinions. Nevertheless, when the focus changes to a source that constitutes another way of reference, like cinema or Literature, we can move forward, from the simple illustration to the particular way in which these cultural products can illuminate some questions about History. In "Literature and History," Beatz Sarlo (1991) explained this strong conjunction through three possible approaches. Firstly, Literature as an object of History (a usual approach in the History of Literature). In the second one, Literature is seen as a particular source of history (very common in historical research and other Social Sciences and Humanities). Finally, in the middle of the path between both perspectives, is the idea that Literature, as one of the dimensions of the symbolic in social life, has a History that is not the History of textualities, but also of functions and institutions. Literature as a source or an object: in this one, the ambiguity is left behind (Sarlo, 1991, p. 25). This is an example of History teaching perspectives that explore other ways of circulating history knowledge, which can be synthesized in more than one duo if we contemplate other cultural objects such as biographies, cartoons, TV shows, songs, pictures, illustrations, comics, role games, computer simulation games, among others. We have two main questions here: How does History teach us? How do we teach that specific History in the complex framework of secondary school education? However, these two questions do not mean anything without two more inquiries: Who are the secondary school students who integrate into the school community? And, who are the future History teachers whose studies include the History teaching training basic program? Therefore, is this basic program described above currently valid for the new realities of Argentinian secondary schools after Covid-19? What issues truly concern young History teachers? From now on, we will try to demonstrate that we must know what the new challenges faced by History teaching training are, and why it is important to research this with a qualitative methodology. ## II. RESEARCHING HISTORY TEACHING ### TRAINING FROM A QUALITATIVE #### PERSPECTIVE. CONTRIBUTIONS FROM AN #### ETHNographical LOOK For Elena Achilli (2023), the space of teaching training, "[is] a place where a task of profound transcendence is displayed given the preeminence of the teaching work in general" (p. 13). Trabajo docente (in English and by our responsibility: teaching work) is a complex contribution of Elsie Rockwell to School Ethnography and Teacher Training. It is a concept that helps us understand that the work of teachers is very special and complex. It not only orientates us on how to teach but also on how to guide a group of students. It refers to (...) a delicate ability composed of appropriate rhythms, firmness and mutual trust in the relationship with the students, intrinsic interest in the content and activities proposed, consistency in leadership, a sense of rhythm and cadence, among other traits, which allows the children confined to the classroom to work on what is proposed to them (Rockwell, 2018, p. 501). In this way, our last contributions to History teaching training were from the teaching work perspective. We assumed that what happens in that double space where young teachers move at the end of their university studies is very special (the university, the secondary school, and vice versa). As María Paula González (2018) says, the practice to teach History in secondary school under the supervision of former university teachers at nearly the end of the course of studies "interrupts a way of understanding History and establishes that academic History and 'scholar History' link but also differ" (p. 77). To understand the challenges and experiences that advanced university students have to encounter in their teaching training courses, we are developing some qualitative methodologies with an ethnographical perspective. The aim is to reach the undocumented dimension of the teachers' work, defined by Elsie Rockwell (2009) as the fundamental interests of the participants in the educational framework that are never put into writing. Therefore, qualitative techniques as interviews (Cuesta and Linare, 2023), writing consults (Cuesta, 2023), and our active participation in teachers' meetings as active observers allow us to do so. In this paper, we will take note of the teaching knowledge[3] that principals, former teachers, secondary school History teachers, and advanced university students of History teaching manifest related to their teaching work after Covid-19. The aim is to highlight the challenges of History teaching in secondary school today through experiences, memories, expressions, and worries of teachers on their everyday work. In online and offline dialogues and conversations, the highlighted questions are similar. That is why we take the subjective experience of the teachers as a whole, apart from the spheres where the communication had taken place (Winocur, 2013). To summarize, we have chosen qualitative research with an ethnographical Latin American perspective because we are interested in the undocumented dimension, the teaching work, the teaching knowledge, and the experience of transition, which characterizes the teaching practice at the end of the course of studies. To summarize, we have chosen qualitative research with an ethnographical Latin American perspective because we are interested in the undocumented dimension, the teaching work, the teaching knowledge, and the transition, which # III. EXPERIENCES, QUESTIONS, AND WORRIES OF ADVANCED UNIVERSITY STUDENTS OF HISTORY TEACHING AT The University of La Plata is not an ordinary university in Argentina. Founded in 1905, it was based on the provincial university that had functioned precariously since 1897. Its mentor, Joaquín Víctor González (1863 - 1923), planned the national university with a totalizing view. The university had to be open to all branches of knowledge and needed research Institutes, a Natural Museum, an Observatory, and many buildings and spaces where the university could meet all its needs. With time, this university became one of the biggest in Argentina and Latin America. Another aim of its mentor was to create the pre-university educational system of the UNLP. In other words, the chance to have the university's primary and secondary schools. Today, the university has a primary school, four secondary schools, a kindergarten, and a nursery garden. One of the university's policies is to keep amplifying the offer of educational services at all levels of the educational system. Concerning the History Teaching course, the current Faculty of Humanities and Educational Sciences was created in 1920 (Finocchio, 2001, p. 21) and previously had functioned with other denominations since 1909. The professional performance of Ricardo Levene (1885 - 1959) in the leadership of the History course and in the Faculty of Humanities and Educational Sciences (FAHCE) was very prolific. He designed the course's program to give an integral humanistic formation and to establish strong relations with other provincial institutions, such as the Historical Archive of the Province of Buenos Aires and the Directorate of Schools of the Province of Buenos Aires. Moreover, the FAHCE – UNLP graduates became archivists, officials, inspectors, librarians, principals, and teachers in the provincial educational system. In 1953, the History Department was created, and the heritage of Ricardo Levene continues in the performance of his graduates. Moreover, the double profile of the course was consolidated. This double profile implies training for historical research and training for History teaching. The problems that arouse as a result of this double profile in the study plans and the reasons why this double profile has become the main identity of the course are developed in another paper (Cuesta, 2023) and also in a wider comparative research with Brazilian university courses of History teaching training (Cuesta, 2019). The reforms of the study plans in 1953, 1960, 1985, 1993, $^{5}$ and 2011 were thought to replace the classical subjects, such as Latin and Greek, with new ones focused on American and Argentinian History, and seminars on different historiographical or methodological problems. The current study plan, from 2011, replaced part of the pedagogical subjects with History Teaching workshops. This new format has been under analysis since last year for different reasons. In a few words, the current study plan consists of twenty-four semester subjects, an annual subject, two basic foreign language-training courses, and 120 hours of History teaching workshops. Although the course is thought to be completed in five years, the students generally complete it in six or more years, depending on whether they work. The structure of the History Department is old. Each subject is governed by the chair system, and many of the pedagogical subjects are optional. Every year, in the framework of the annual subject called "Planning, Didactics and Practice of Teaching History Teaching," we, the teachers in charge, organize meetings to exchange teaching experiences with different participants of the educational system. One of the purposes of these meetings is for the advanced university students to gain knowledge of the diverse realities of the secondary schools, the stage in which their teaching performance will take place, and to manifest their worries and concerns. For us, the participants' comments concerning the teaching work provide evidence of what can be grasped for their teaching formation and also of what teaching knowledge from everyday teaching work is important to consider. We believe it is necessary to clarify the course of action we followed to collect this information, following what Eduardo Restrepo (2015) calls ethical considerations in the ethnographic research process. We did not include the full names of those consulted, but only their first name (and only in the case of the practitioners) to "protect the identity of the people who have entrusted us with data or information" (Restrepo, 2015, p. 176). All the informants - three advanced students, two principals, one inspector, and three teachers- were consulted about their consent to be quoted in this work, and all agreed. In addition, we offered the opportunity to read and modify the draft. This research, thus, takes on a collective character since it would not have been possible without their participation. In this year's meeting (April 2025), three advanced students described their History practice lessons in three different public schools of La Plata. The experiences took place in 2024. One practitioner went to Secondary School $N^{\circ}15$ (City Bell, a district in the north of the periphery of La Plata) and taught in sixth grade, the last year of secondary school, facing the problem of the lack of students. Even though the full group consisted of 12 students, only three attended classes, and there were different students each week. Milagros told us: "The students were few, quiet; they didn't talk or answer questions. They had permission to be absent from the History class to do other school activities". Despite this classroom reality, the co-trainer teacher, who is in charge of the class, told the young practitioner to teach the Economic History of the dictatorship and the transition to democracy. In other words, the economic policies of the Argentinian military government between 1976 and 1983, and the historical process of returning to democracy by the presidency of Raul Alfonsín (1983 - 1989). In addition, she completed her description: "The room was big." "The groups of friends did not exist." "They did not feel that the place where they were was their own." "The agenda of activities [for teaching History] learned in the course did not seem suitable for that class." Another practitioner, Lucio, went to practice in a third grade in Secondary School $N^{\circ} 12$ (M. B. Gonnet, another district north of La Plata). The number of students in the class was 18, but usually only 12 attended. The young teacher in training told us that his main objective was teaching the content of "The civil wars 1820 - 1852" - this is the wars between provinces after the Independence and before the organization of the national State -, in a way that could encourage boys and girls to do questions and be curious. To follow this objective, the practitioner planned and designed many classes with sources such as biographies, letters, historical political propaganda, texts written by him, and historical simulation role games. The pros were that the school had a vast library with diverse materials, and the students participated in class. The cons were the bad conditions of the building, broken windows, and no gas service. Besides, he experienced youth violence inside the room, too. These situations happened even though there were four teachers in total. These additional teachers were accompanying the education of two boys, one with mild deafness and another with a Williams Syndrome diagnosis. As Lucio pointed out, "These are situations for which we are not prepared". The third practitioner, Fermín, taught in the Collegio Nacional, one of the public university secondary schools of the UNLP. For him: "How the school treats you makes you feel as if you were not a person". The school "tries to keep the academic excellence with a diverse population." In this line of thought, he expressed that much tension exists between the institution's past as an elite secondary school and its present as an inclusive one. Indeed, one of the reforms of the educational policies in the 90s was the removal of the entrance exams for secondary school and their replacement by lottery registration exceeding the quota. Even though this university secondary school has more resources than the ones belonging to the General Directorate of Schools of the province of Buenos Aires, it suffered from the same registration number decrease. In the first grade of school, 30 members make up the groups, and it reduces to 15 in the last grade, the sixth. In the narrative of his experience, the practitioner pointed out several times the insistence of his co-former teacher to teach study techniques. One of the most important parts of the meeting is when the advanced students who have not started their teaching training classes in secondary school yet, ask them about their practices. This year (2025), the questions were: "Where did you get the ideas so that the activities were not from the course book?" "How did you handle pedagogical authority?" "How did you choose the contents?" "How did you choose the texts to work on in the classroom?" The first question was the one that received the most answers. These were "You have to be creative but looking for a purpose" (Fermín). "Throughout the History teaching training course, you'll be presented with suggestions. You will not be revolutionizing everything there. Some classic instructions work well, like identifying subjects in a text" (Milagros). "Creativity cannot lead you to demonize all activities. Kids like working with historical sources. You tell them this is from that time, and they like it" (Lucio). Regarding "How did you handle pedagogical authority?", the three of them agreed that the kids understood the situation of the practitioner teacher. However, Milagros said, "My way of authority was to pay attention to them. The teacher neglected them and let them do it". In addition, Fermín commented, "The group was noisy, so I marked class time and walked around the classroom to attract them to the class". Regarding the questions about the contents and the choice of texts, several university students attending, twenty-two advanced History teaching training students, spoke up. Some of the ideas that we could register were about the importance of teaching historical vocabulary and concepts: Take advantage of textbooks from high school libraries, Literature, testimonial sources, and journalistic notes. Moreover, Fermín could briefly tell us that his co-former teacher worked with a booklet made by himself. Apart from this, the meetings with principals, History teachers, and/or inspectors have taken place online since 2020. This format allows us to gather the voices of the protagonists who are located in the vast territory of the province of Buenos Aires. This year, 2025, the first online meeting took place with the presence of the ex-principal of the public Secondary School $N^{\circ}1$ situated in General Lavalle. This is a small village on the route to the Atlantic coast of the province. Currently, he is the Inspector of District 18 (Dolores, Castelli, and General Lavalle). Also, the ex-principal of the public Secondary School $N^{\circ}31$ of the city of La Plata, traditionally known as Escuela Nacional Comercial San Martin[6], and the principal of public Secondary School $N^{\circ}17$ of La Plata, as well. Although their experiences are rich and they covered several important topics related to the functioning of the educational system, we will focus on the few questions that the future practitioners asked. The open question was "How are boys and girls doing after the pandemic?" This allowed the inspector to describe the phenomenon of dropping out of secondary school. He said that in the first three years of secondary school (basic cycle), the dropout rate is less than in the last three years (higher cycle). In the basic cycle, the big problem is the literacy level, and in the higher cycle, the focus is on why they drop out of secondary school. For example, boys and girls begin to work (in the informal or family economy), tend to their sick or elderly relatives, or look after their little brothers or sisters. The inspector said, "For young people, secondary school has lost its value; only 50/60 percent of students in the province of Buenos Aires graduate." This does not match the official national and provincial figures before and after the pandemic,[7] but has some resonance with recent research (Otero, Corica and Magnoli, 2024). Another question was related to student mental health in Secondary School. To answer this, the inspector claimed that "teachers must listen and read the Orientation Guide for Intervention in Conflict Situations in School Settings" Another principal pointed out the lack of school and district teams to address mental health issues and the lack of action by local public Children's Services. The last question was about how to write an Institutional Educational Project (in Spanish: Proyecto Educativo Institucional [PEI]). The answer revolved around the idea that it must be done collectively and through ongoing reviews. The second online meeting with History teachers did not have much attendance. Only seven advanced university students out of 45 participated. Three History teachers were invited to share their experiences. The differences between them were the years of seniority in teaching and the experience in public or private schools. One of the teachers, who had 20 years of seniority in History teaching, invited us to change the dynamics of the meeting. Instead of narrating her experiences as a secondary school History teacher, she preferred to converse with the other two teachers about different matters and issues. The main problems, according to her, were the singularities of student groups, the reading in class, the screen addiction, the school dropout, and the relationship problems between schoolmates. However, one of the teachers could not say much. After the teacher with more years of teaching experience elaborated on these topics, the practitioner's questions and requests led the exchange. The questions were "How do we implement the new organization that was introduced in the new Academic Regime (RA)?"9 "What criteria should be used to select contents from the official curriculum?" In addition, the young History teacher with fewer years of seniority proposed to talk about teaching suggestions for History teaching. The question about the RA is connected to the question about PEI, and we will develop this in the next headline. The second question is related to History teaching and the suggestion of the young teacher to talk about teaching proposals. The meeting dynamic was still disorganized, but the teacher who had remained silent could raise her voice to say that he selected the contents based on a theme or process, such as feminism or workers' struggles. In addition, she could emphasize the importance of lesson planning. Moreover, the young teacher pointed out the significance of the use of narrative in History teaching, he especially mentioned the historical role-play and simulation games, and the possibility of working with interactive digital resources such as maps. The teacher with more years of teaching experience was more reticent about the possibilities of digital resources, but described History teaching experiences based on particular objects linked to Argentinian cultural identity, for instance, the History of dulce de leche. # IV. WHAT TRULY WORRIES THE ADVANCED UNIVERSITY STUDENTS, AND WHAT REMAINS FOR A The three meetings described in this paper and the questions of the advanced students of History teaching have some common denominators. First, they are worried about the role of the educational system. Worst of all, they perceive that they do not know the educational system well, its recent history, how it functions, and how rapidly it changes. These perplexity and discomfort are described in a previous work (Cuesta, 2023) in which the advanced students consulted highlighted the excessively long study plan and the late entry as practitioners into secondary school. It seems a consistent issue that the educational training system in Argentina always falls behind with the other educational subsystems (Misuraca y Menghini, 2010). According to this, even though the meetings with History teachers and principals can be a stark realization about the future of History teachers' professional performance, it is good to be in touch with them and listen to their points of view. For example, one of the principals explained the building problems in her school and manifested her disagreement with the ending of two social programs. In her opinion, these programs were functioning very well in Secondary School $N^{\circ}17$. $^{10}$ The problem is that since Covid-19, to palliate the economic and educational crisis of 2020 and 2021, the national and the provincial systems of education have arranged several educational and social programs that overlapped with each other and with current regulations. To reorganize the function of the secondary education subsystem of Buenos Aires province, the new Academic Regimen (RA) was sanctioned in 2024, for all private and public secondary schools except those belonging to the pre-university system. We are not going to describe this set of rules here. However, what stands out to future teachers about the new Academic Regimen? The RA reorganized the entire school year by prohibiting final exams and establishing weeks of classes to recover and intensify content. Every secondary school has to update its Institutional Educational Project [PEI] to know the educational paths of its students. Every secondary school must name a team of teachers in charge of analyzing and designing a specific academic monitoring for each student who needs to retake or intensify content. The number of subjects each secondary school student can retake varies according to their performance. All this reorganization aims to reduce the dropout and repetition rates. Therefore, the advanced university students in History teaching training will be doubly challenged. They will practice in a new type of secondary school, one they did not experience as secondary school students themselves, and in an educational system that remains invisible for the study 2011 plan of History teaching in FAHCE - UNLP (Cuesta, 2023). In this framework, another educational problem inside secondary school as a subsystem is the social prejudices of the teenagers between 15 and 18 years old and their real conditions and dispositions as secondary school students. From here, it derives another set of worries about the construction of teaching authority, mental issues, educational inclusion of adolescents with particular diagnosed health conditions, and attendance. Secondly, the advanced university students of History teaching asked how to teach it. The questions about how to select topics, readings, and activities to teach were answered by advanced students who completed their internships in 2024 and by History teachers. They agreed on their answer: to pick up from the basic agenda of History teaching the topics of relevance. In other words, the history that is worth teaching and that teenagers like is social history, whether this story is about political leaders, men and women of ancient times, workers' struggles, or feminism. About readings and activities to learn History, the informants agreed on the importance of reading aloud in class while commenting and explaining the content of the texts, and the choice of Literature and journalistic notes as examples of types of texts that boys and girls like. They proposed as an activity, to recognize different social subjects and try to empathize with them and their historical and social experience through their testimonies or by proposing playing roles. ## V. FINAL THOUGHTS In Argentina, the dropping-out problem in secondary school is not new, it is a structural condition of the system. Still, it needed to be examined and discussed because the causes of dropping out of secondary school permanently are not internal. Girls and boys fluctuate their attendance and can experience different periods in and out of the system. The reasons for this are much more personal (health or economic problems in their family) and much less related to their academic performance as secondary school students, boredom, or fights with classmates (Otero, Corica, and Magnoli, 2024). This complex situation is more or less visible depending on the moment. Currently, the RA in Buenos Aires province is an educational policy established to approach and face the fluctuating enrollment and to analyze each educational path in its uniqueness. In addition, the educational system has been dealing with many changes in the last decade, for example, the falling birth rate, the persistent economic crisis, the increase of youth violence and mental health problems, and the withdrawal of the State from public and private spheres. Moreover, the teachers' salaries have always been low, and the working conditions are bad for different reasons: The lack of resources in school buildings, the non-existence of a full-time job, and the difficulty of getting a teaching job in more than one course in the same school. Despite this, young people still want to be teachers and choose to study for many years to become History teachers. Presently, there are no figures on teachers' drop-out. For us, teachers of History teaching practices, it is a challenge to go over the basic and important program of the subject in all its components. We do not resign ourselves to explanations and expositions about what history to teach, how to do it, and why. However, as we listen to the real protagonists of the secondary school system, by considering their voices, experiences, and opinions of the everyday teaching work, we recognize that the emergencies of the teaching training are allocated in the educational changing system and the need to understand it. So, what history is worth teaching today? In this framework, to answer this question, we can say that History teaching is present in young and future teachers, focusing on the perspective of the social subjects of flesh and bone that made societies possible, as we know them today. From this perspective, for teachers and secondary school students, teaching and learning History makes sense and becomes relevant.

Generating HTML Viewer...