BEd 2nd Year Source Method Study Material Notes

BEd 2nd Year Source Method Study Material Notes: a2znotes.com presents Study Material Long Question Answers based on the Latest BEd syllabus for Source Method of Pedagogy of Social Science. Long Question Answers are one of the major scoring ways as far as the BEd Pedagogy of Social Science Exam is concerned.

Here in this post, we are Long Questions and Answers for the Definition and importance of the Source Method, Different Sources of History, Primary and Secondary Sources, Techniques of Using Sources, Advantages of Source Method, and Limitations of Source Method. If you are preparing for BEd 2nd Year Pedagogy Social Science Examination, this can help you a lot with preparation. At a2znotes.com you can find all the study material, notes, question answers, and sample model practice papers in a single place.

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Source Method

This is another activity method of teaching history. According to this method, the pupils are expected to build up a history with the help of available source material. For example, the spread of Buddhism during Ashoka’s period may be studied with the help of edicts. Samudragupta’s conquests may be studied with the help of inscriptions.

One of the most important skills that the students of history must learn is the skill to use sources—how do we know history? It is very important, therefore, to teach the use of sources, i.e., to accept it as a method of teaching history.

While the use of the source method is advocated, it does not mean that the aim is to convert the pupils into historians. The objectives are quite limited. (BEd 2nd Year Source Method Study Material Notes)

They are :

(i) To develop critical thinking by using the sources and weighing historical evidence.

(ii) To form their own independent judgment through a critical analysis of sources

(iii) To develop elementary skills of collecting data, sifting the relevant matter, organizing and interpreting it.

(iv) To create a proper atmosphere to make the people and events of history realistic to students.

(v) To stimulate the imagination of the students for reconstructing the past.

(vi) To develop and promote interest in the study of history from the right perspective.

Different sources of History

History is a subject that mainly deals with the past. Past, as we know, cannot be easily observed directly and is equally difficult to recall. But luckily there are certain ‘traces’ left behind by past events and well-preserved by the foresight of man which helps the historian to reconstruct the past. He weaves a systematic and logical account of the past event with the help of different sources. He seeks, selects, analyses, compares, contrasts, and reconstructs the past with the help of these sources.

Sources are classified as. Archaeological sources, literary sources, and oral traditions. The archaeological sources can be divided into three categories:

(i) Monumental Findings include buildings, images, pottery, terra-cotta figures, and other antiques.

(ii) Epigraphics include inscriptions on stone slabs, pillars, rocks, copper plates, walls of buildings, bricks of terra-cotta, stone seals, and images. (BEd 2nd Year Source Method Study Material Notes)

(iii) Numismatic evidence is collected from the study of coins.

Literary Sources. These sources can be divided into three groups:

(i) Sacred or Religious Literature. The Vedas, the Epics, the Puranas, Buddhist religious literature contained in Tripitakas: the Vinaya-Pitaka, the Sutta-Pitaka, and the Abhidhamma, the religious books of the Jains-the Angas, etc.

(ii) Secular Literature. It can be divided into two classes—Private literature and official literature. Private literature includes dramas, novels, poems, books on grammar and astronomy, medicine and art, biographies, autobiographies, diaries, travelers’ accounts, etc. Kalidasa’s Shakuntala and Vikramorvashi, Visakhadatta’s Mudra Rakshasa, and Kautilya’s Arthashastra.

Aryabhatta’s Aryabhatiya and Babar’s Babarnama come in this category. Official orders, despatches, sanads, firmans, and decisions of the law courts, come in the category of official literature. (BEd 2nd Year Source Method Study Material Notes)

(iii) Foreign Testimony. Accounts written by foreigners like Fa-Hein, Megasthenes, and Nearchus come in this category.

Oral Traditions are very helpful in imparting information about local history. Tod’s annals, Dipvamsa and Mahavamsa come under these sources. (BEd 2nd Year Source Method Study Material Notes)

Primary and Secondary Sources

Primary Sources are those sources that are the accounts prepared by persons who were either directly connected with an event or were eye-witnesses to it. Minutes of parliamentary and judicial proceedings, laws, treaties, official papers of states, and autobiographies come in this category. (BEd 2nd Year Source Method Study Material Notes)

Secondary Sources are the sources that were prepared by persons who were far away from the scene of the actual happening but who took the help of the eye-witness accounts in preparing them. The standard historical works of the various periods generally based on original accounts may be classified as secondary sources. (BEd 2nd Year Source Method Study Material Notes)

Source Method at Different Stages. The source method can find a good scope for profitable application, although its use will be different at different stages. Dr. Keatings points out that original sources can be used for creating an atmosphere in the junior stage. Such a use of these sources does not necessitate any great exposition. Its use is almost self-evident.

It is easier for pupils, for instance, to realize the atmosphere of nervousness that benumbed Aurangzeb and to get an insight into the circumstance leading to his death when they read Guru Gobind Singh’s Zafarnama, the victory letter sent to Aurangzeb through his emissary, Bhai Daya Singh. (BEd 2nd Year Source Method Study Material Notes)

Or it may be much more interesting for them to understand the reasons that led to Alexander’s giving up his idea of the conquest of the whole of India which the Greeks listened to Plutarch’s account of the reports that reached that camp of the vast army that was lying in wait at Pataliputra. (BEd 2nd Year Source Method Study Material Notes)

Use of the sources, as an exercise, can be profitably used at the upper middle stage. As the first step for introduction to the source, it would be better to ask the pupils to find out the author of the document or to ascertain other essential particulars about his form internal evidence. They should also be told that an account given by an independent individual is more valuable as it is unbiased and that a chronicle is possessed of a greater value if it is written by a contemporary or by one who has lived not long after the events or near the place where the events took place. (BEd 2nd Year Source Method Study Material Notes)

With this knowledge from initial experimentation in the method, the young learner can then be left to himself to collect, examine and correlate the facts and even to compare and rationalize conflicting accounts of characters. The exercises, to begin with, should be fairly simple and graded in difficulty. (BEd 2nd Year Source Method Study Material Notes)

To achieve satisfactory results, these points should be borne in mind :

(i) It is better to give a litter practice as the initial stage in giving well-considered answers.

(ii) An original source, especially an extract, must be seen by each child and read carefully by the children themselves. In the absence of the sourcebook, cyclostyled copies of the extracts should be pasted on the blackboard to be copied by the pupils.

(iii) The teacher should try to get good books containing the sources of history.

(iv) Pupils should be encouraged to study the source books in the library after the oral work by the teacher is over.

(v) After the pupils have read them, a separate time should be fixed when the teacher, along with his pupils, could discuss the sources.

(vi) After the discussion work is over, the teacher may give the assignment to the pupils. They may be asked to write their own impressions and inferences. (BEd 2nd Year Source Method Study Material Notes)

Techniques of Using Sources

Pre-Lesson Use of Sources. The teacher can use sources to motivate the pupils for a particular topic. He can recite a number of couplets of Bhakti saints and thus prepare the pupils for the study of the Bhakti movement.

Mid-Lesson use of sources. The use of sources can be made for developing the lesson also. The teacher tries to substantiate and illustrate the information the viewpoint with the help of sources. (BEd 2nd Year Source Method Study Material Notes)

While teaching about the people of India during Harsha’s reign, the teacher quotes the following extracts from the accounts of Hieun-Tsang. (BEd 2nd Year Source Method Study Material Notes)

“Although they are naturally light-minded, they are upright and honorable. They are not deceitful in their conduct and are faithful in their oaths and promises. In their rules of government, there will remarkable rectitude.”

The teacher can also quote Bane’s progressive views on certain socio-political institutions. He denounced, for instance, the divine origin of the king in no uncertain terms. “By looking upon himself as having alighted on earth as a divine king with a superhuman destiny, though in reality subject to all mortal conditions, the stupid king only wins the contempt of his people.”

The legend of Dussehra can be related. Dussehra is celebrated to commemorate the victory of the Goddess Durga over Mahishasur, the crimson monster who sprang offensively from the neck of the buffalo and created terror around. Alarmed by his horrendous activities, the celestial beings approached Lord Bramha for help. He asked them to invoke the goddess Durga.

The goddess appeared in her ferocious mood on a lion and decapitated the monster with the golden lance. The teacher can quote the inscription found in a cave near Gaya describing the incident thus (translation by Charles Wilkins as referred to in the first volume of the Asiatic Researches). (BEd 2nd Year Source Method Study Material Notes)

“When the foot of the goddess, with its tinkling ornaments, was planted upon the head of Mahishasur, all the blossoms of the new blown flowers of the fountain were dispersed with disgrace by its superior beauty. May that foot, radiant with a fringe of refulgent beam issuing from its pure bright nails, endue you with a steady and an unexampled devotion, offered up with fruits and show you the way to dignity and wealth.”

The teacher can motivate the students the use sources with the help of some research being conducted by eminent historians, appearing in the newspapers and periodicals. The figure shows that a Soviet scholar Mr. Mukhtarov discovered a stone with an autography of Zahirrudin Mohammad Babur which is now on display at the Institute of History, Tajik Academy of Sciences.

There is another question posed by the news item given in the figure Chinese discovered America first. This can motivate the students to study further on the issue. (BEd 2nd Year Source Method Study Material Notes)

Sometimes we hear of coins, pottery, and some idol that have been found by the people. They also tell us about history. The figure shows that a Surrey Nikol has been dug out of an ancient mound in Mard Khera village, 60 km from Patiala. Experts have dated it earlier than a similar 13th-century idol found in the Surya temple at Konarak in Orissa. Such like finds do make the students of history believe that history deals with real people and things. (BEd 2nd Year Source Method Study Material Notes)

These extracts create more appeal, impart reality and vividness to the lesson and reinforce the impact of teaching, Curiosity of the pupils is whetted and they become eager to learn more, (BEd 2nd Year Source Method Study Material Notes)

 Post-Lesson Use of Sources. Sources can be used by the teacher after he finishes the lesson. Useful extracts from the original or secondary sources may be given to students and they may be asked to write answers to some questions on their basis. This technique will be for a particular topic, do some critical thinking and analysis and prepare an account of their own.

Advantages of Source Method

(i) It develops a sense of vividness and reality. If the method is harnessed to serve history, it will not remain merely a tale of magic people for children, it will turn into a living reality. (BEd 2nd Year Source Method Study Material Notes)

(ii) It can satisfy the curiosity of children about the questions “How do we know this?” The method according to Hasluck, “gives the children an insight into the methods by which history has been built up.” The method develops the historical sense in pupils. The sense of objectivity, which is so very important to a student of history, can be particularly developed through this method.

(iii) The original sources serve as an effective means for creating an atmosphere for the child to learn the subject. “The sources vitalize the child by giving him the associations and atmosphere of the past,” says Ghosh. Keatings points out that the original sources can be used for the production of a congenial and motivating atmosphere.

(iv) The use of sources provides certain useful mental exercises-right thinking and imagination, comparing and analyzing, drawing inferences, self-expression, and discussion. This is not possible through any other methods of teaching history.

(v) The original sources can be used to illustrate more important points in support of an oral lesson or to supplement the one-sided picture of historical events. (BEd 2nd Year Source Method Study Material Notes)

(vi) The method initiates the pupils in historical research. This can prove useful to them later.

(vii) Though the method is most suitable for the pupils of higher classes, it can be used with advantage by pupils of the primary classes. The study of local history through this method will make history more concrete and meaningful for them.

Limitations of Source Method

(i) It is not always possible for the teachers of schools to have easy access to the sources-particularly the original sources,

(ii) Utilisation of sources is not easy, for the teachers as they are not trained in historiography-The teachers should be given training in the elementary knowledge of historiography. (BEd 2nd Year Source Method Study Material Notes)

(iii) The method is too complex and technical. Hence the use of this method is difficult at the junior stage. Its frequent use even at the senior stage is doubtful. (BEd 2nd Year Source Method Study Material Notes)

(iv) The sources available are in various languages and scripts covering a period of more than three thousand years. All teachers are not conversant with different scripts. Hence their use is difficult.