초등학교 향토사교육의 실제와 지향점

Local history at the elementary school level is classified as part of social studies. Social consist largely of three disciplines, geography, history, and sociology, and local history is classified as an elementary level of history. In other words, local history at the elementary school level is dismissed as a temporary instrument to history education as it is taught only during the first sememter of the third or the fourth grade when one's historical consciousness is about to begin to grow. However, it is important to bear in mind that local history is not only part of national history but it also carries meanings as important as world history and national history. It is even more important as the importance of local history gets fresh attention in the historical studies that have come to the fore recently. Local history can be said to supplement existing historical research that tends to uniformly approach to Korean history focusing on central history. Viewed in this light, local history education is beyond an temporary instrument to history education and can be treated as a meaningful step toward regional history education that realizes new historical study in practical ways. The vitalization of local history education at the elementary school level can be achieved through diversified efforts. Above all, there should be various ways to systematically provide elementary school teachers with sources related to local history. Also, there should be an interest in local history education at the level of the local community. One way to do so is to offer regular lectures on local history education for local residents, on the one hand, and open various local history study programs for children and their parents, on the other, under the sponsorship of the museums or the history departments of local universities.