Unfortunately, in history education, as in all other branches, we are not improving but regressing. It is not possible to find a solution in elective courses. It is intolerable for branches such as mathematics, music, science, history and literature to be elective and to be removed from the program even for a few years in the education life of young people. It creates completely incomplete people. In 1986, I taught for a while at the Berlin Freie Universitat. I had an observation that horrified me. Germans are a nation of historians, just like Hungarians and Iranians. History is talked about in every home. Even among high school teachers, the depth of their general historical knowledge is astonishing.
THE REASON FOR FASCISM
During my years as a guide, I would go on 10-15 day summer tours with groups of high school teachers. I later became friends with some of the people who participated in this trip. I visited them when I went to Germany. They would talk about “the level of education being lost, programs being dulled” and “the general knowledge of history being increasingly neglected”. They would say, “The fascism we are experiencing is due to not learning contemporary history, we should focus on that”. Years passed after that. I think at the end of the 10-15 year period, I saw that the students I encountered at the Faculty of Political Sciences where I was teaching were the product of this degeneration. Their knowledge of the Treaty of Westphalia, which was a priority for German history, signed in 1648, was very poor. They only remembered that the treaty ended the Thirty Years’ War. However, with this peace treaty, the diplomatic system of modern Europe, international relations based on a secular legal order, the acceptance of different sects, but also the reduction of interventions in public life had begun.
BAD TEXTBOOKS
After a while, I saw that those who graduated from French high schools had limited knowledge of France’s brightest period, namely the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. I cannot say that our history education in the past was very proud. I was one of the students who never read bad textbooks. Were there no history books in the world? Over time, history textbooks began to instill a distorted ideology in Europe. “We were superior, we were born into democracy,” it was said. However, democracy remained a characteristic of English-speaking nations on the European continent, or rather outside the continent, for a very long time. The transition to Latin and the chance to survive, especially for Central and Eastern Europe, should be treated with caution in such myths.
ABOVE THE USA It is true that there have been advances in history teaching and education. In fact, there is no continent for this. In Iran or India, very brilliant applications in this field are also seen. In any case, history education in Russia is far above the USA. In Israel, history is like a savior medicine for the life of the nation.
TEACHERS SHOULD BE TRAINED
Unfortunately, in history education, as in all other branches, we are not improving but regressing. It is not possible to find a solution in elective courses. It is intolerable for branches such as mathematics, music, science, history and literature to be elective and to be removed from the curriculum for even a few years in the education life of the youth. The result is completely half-baked people. These are branches that are the basis not only of Western civilization but of all educational activities since the Sumerians. We cannot teach our children grammar, mathematics, history and literature. We cannot fix it with palliative measures. We need to train teachers.
MUST BE RE-ORGANIZED
I am sure that private schools, which have reshuffled the books with the latest decisions, will throw half of their history teachers out the door. This is not really due to redundancy, but because history education is not established as an institution and is being pushed to one side. All the universities in the provinces are full of history departments, but still, history teachers of the desired quality cannot be trained. People who will be history teachers need to be trained from high schools. This can be possible by reorganizing the high schools, which are ridiculously called Social Sciences but will actually be called Humanities, in an exemplary manner.
CEZERİ'S MAGNIFICENT MACHINES
ISMÂİL b. Rezzâz el-Cezerî was an engineer who lived at the crossroads of the 12th and 13th centuries AD. His work titled “Kitâb fî marifeti'l-hiyeli'l-hendesiyye” should be examined to determine to what extent he played a role in determining the principles of mechanics. The book has the distinction of being one of the oldest manuscripts that has survived to the present day regarding engineering practices.
WRITED IN DIYARBAKIR
This magnificent book of El-Jazari was written 820 years ago in Diyarbakır in the Artuqid Palace. It is known as “Kitab-ül Hiyel” in short. The superiority of the Artuqid State in architecture, metal, mining works and other branches that feed this architecture such as glasswork is indisputable. It is clear that this statelet in our southeastern lands was extremely prominent in industry and crafts. El-Jazari was also a favorite consultant and technical man of this state. The Artuqid period was a period when Mesopotamia experienced its richest and happiest period after Rome for many years. So geography is not “fate”, sometimes people and state administration can create their own conditions.
WITHOUT GOING DOWN TO AYAZAĞA
Currently, an exhibition called “Cezeri’s Extraordinary Machines” is reaching everyone under the leadership of the Çalışkan family. It is easy to find, it is exhibited inside UNIQ Istanbul when you turn from Maslak to Ayazağa. The aspect that impressed me the most in this exhibition is this: Cezeri’s instruments in the Istanbul Museum of Islamic Science and Technology History in Gülhane Park are models. It is not possible to detect and see their operation. However, here, the deceased father of the Çalışkan family, Durmuş Çalışkan (1950-2018), as an engineer, has presented each of these instruments with mechanics that master their functions through examination and measurements.
THANKS TO THE 'HARD WORKING' ONES
The famous technical scientist of the Artuqid era, Al-Jazari, is an engineer that Orientalists and Fuat Sezgin have been talking about for a long time with his great works, but the display of the tools that will show this engineer was only possible with this exhibition. Investment support is needed for the exhibition to continue. As Turkey, we owe a debt of gratitude to Mehmed Ali Çalışkan and Selami Çalışkan, the children of the late Durmuş Çalışkan, who looked after the legacy they received from their father and prepared the exhibition. The exquisite catalogue published by Babil Kitap (“Cezeri’s Extraordinary Machines-Cezeri for Everyone”) is a publication where both those who visit the exhibition and those who are far from Istanbul and are curious can learn many things.
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