Abstract:

Nowadays there is a real struggle with teaching history in Slovakia. The judgment of the subject moves around on a rather ambivalent scale. According to the most echoing statements it does not belong to the most preferred subjects. Based on harmonious opinions, in the imaginary ranking of the subjects it is standing on the lower level steps of the hierarchy. Since history is an anthropocentric science and a humanities subject, the role of the teacher exponentially increases in its teaching. The task of the history teacher is to ensure for the subject not to become a mere mechanical knowledge-transmitter.

Teachers are the key to the educational activity. Without them it does not matter how colorful and rich the textbook is, it is a dead material. Only the personality of the teacher can unfold the living past. In case of a good teacher even the six thousand years old events become mobile, colorful and topical.

According to the current curricula of the Hungarian language minority schools in Slovakia, the Hungarian minority students should acquire history from books which, although are in Hungarian language, are the exact word-for-word translations of the Slovak history textbooks. From these textbooks Hungarian students can learn less about the history of their own people since these textbooks mainly deal with Slovak history. Another error of the textbooks is that they portray and judge certain events connected to historical Hungary only from a Slovak point of view and this phenomenon also appears in the Hungarian language textbooks which were translated word-for-word from Slovak.

In my study I present the Slovak primary and secondary school textbooks based on my teaching experience with a focus on the image of being Hungarian and also on the events which are connected to our people, to the history of Hungarians. My paper intends to schematically portray and assess the current situation of teaching Hungarian history in Slovakia. In the analyzed corpus we will be able to witness those stereotypes and prejudices about being Hungarian which characterize the Slovak primary school history textbooks used today.

Keywords:

Teaching history, minority schools, textbooks.