Mendive. Revista de Educación, april-june 2019; 17(2):183-192
Translated from the original in Spanish
Determinants for the teaching of Cuban History in the context of medical education
Determinantes para la enseñanza de la Historia de Cuba en el contexto de formación médica
Martha Elena Barrera Breijo1, Ileana María Hernández Rodríguez2, Tania García Andarcio1
1University of Medical Sciences of Pinar del Río. Department of Philosophy
and History. Cuba. Correo electrónico: marthaebb@infomed.sld.cu
2University of Pinar del Río «Hermanos Saíz Montes de Oca». History Department Cuba.
Correo electrónico: ilylma@upr.edu.cu
Received: Octuber 1st, 2018.
Approved: April 5th, 2019.
Introduction: The teaching of Cuban History in Higher Medical Education needs to
be anchored in specific determinants for what it can contribute to the integral formation of
the future graduate.
Objective: To base the determinants on which the educational process of Cuban history
should be based in the context of higher education.
Materials and methods: Qualitative research aimed at strengthening the educational
process of the discipline History at the University of Medical Sciences of Pinar del Río. Based on
the dialectical materialist method, it used theoretical methods: the historical-logical and
systemic approach. From the empirical methods level, a survey and an observation guide were
applied to classes. Descriptive statistics was used.
Results: 44.4 % (12) do not master the professional model defined in the Medical Sciences
for each of the careers. 55.5 % (15) know the professional model although they acknowledge
that they do not know it entirety. 85.1 % of teachers (23) acknowledge that they
superficially dominate the objectives defined for each year in the different careers. 44.4 % (12) of
the teachers think that defining the historical processes to be studied at this level of
education is difficult . Only in 48.1 % (26) of the classes visited the teachers did work according to
the professional model. 27.7 % (15) of the observed classes showed to be tributary to
the objectives defined per year. In 51.8 % (28) of the classes, work was visualized based
on research, and in terms of historical processes, 50 % (27) were able to project work
with process conception.
Conclusions: The teaching of Cuban History emerged in Higher Medical Education with
the objective of continuing to consolidate the integral humanistic formation of future
health professionals who will also carry out educational work in the community. The particularities
of the teaching of Cuban History in the context of medical training require a different
approach based essentially on the model of the professional and that leads to the teacher becoming
a counselor, driver, of students who are autonomous, reflective and capable. In
correspondence with these purposes, the determinants for the teaching of Cuban History have been defined
in this research, which, without claiming to be a recipe, can reorient the teaching of a
Discipline that is called to be a center in the formation of future health professionals
Keywords: Teaching of History; determinants; formation process.
RESUMEN
Introducción: la enseñanza de la Historia de Cuba en la Educación Médica Superior
necesita afianzarse en determinantes específicas por lo que puede aportar a la formación integral
del futuro egresado.
Objetivo: fundamentar las determinantes en las que debe sustentarse el proceso
docente educativo de la Historia de Cuba en el contexto de la educación superior.
Material y método: investigación cualitativa dirigida a fortalecer el proceso docente
educativo de la disciplina Historia en la Universidad de Ciencias Médicas de Pinar del Río. Sustentada
en el método dialéctico materialista empleó métodos teóricos: el histórico-lógico y
enfoque sistémico. De los métodos empíricos se aplicó una encuesta y una guía de observación
a clases. Se utilizó la estadística descriptiva.
Resultados: el 44,4 % (12) no dominan el modelo del profesional que está definido en
las Ciencias Médicas para cada una de las carreras. El 55, 5 % (15) conocen el modelo
del profesional, aunque reconocen que no en su totalidad. El 85,1 % de los profesores
(23) reconocen que dominan de manera superficial los objetivos definidos para cada año en
las diferentes carreras. Al 44,4 % (12) de los profesores le resulta difícil definir los
procesos históricos que deben estudiarse en este nivel de enseñanza. solo en el 48,1 % (26) de
las clases visitadas los docentes trabajaron en función del modelo del profesional. El 27,7 %
(15) de las clases observadas se mostró tributar a los objetivos definidos por año. En el 51,8%
(28) de las clases se visualizó trabajo en función de la investigación y en cuanto a los
procesos históricos el 50 % (27) lograr proyectar un trabajo con concepción de proceso.
Conclusiones: La enseñanza de la Historia de Cuba surgió en la Educación Médica
Superior con el objetivo de continuar consolidando la formación integral humanista de los
futuros profesionales de la salud que ejercerán también una labor educativa en la comunidad.
Las particularidades de la enseñanza de la Historia de Cuba en el contexto de formación
médica requieren un enfoque diferente sustentado esencialmente en el modelo del profesional y
que conlleve a que el profesor se convierte en un orientador, conductor, de alumnos que
sean autónomos, reflexivos y capaces. En correspondencia con estos propósitos han
quedado definidas en esta investigación las determinantes para la enseñanza de la Historia de Cuba
que sin pretender ser una receta pueden reorientar la enseñanza de una Disciplina que
está llamada a ser centro en la formación de los futuros profesionales de la salud.
Palabras clave: enseñanza de la historia; determinantes; proceso de formación.
INTRODUCTION
The teaching of the History of Cuba in Higher Medical Education needs to establish itself in specific determinants, so it can contribute to the integral formation of the future graduate. The University of Medical Sciences, in its indissoluble link with the Society, today more than ever has to be transformed and frightened according to the new demands of this.
According to the criteria of Horruitiner Silva (2006),the current society is demanding a professional that is far from what was needed and was used three decades ago, therefore the University is required today to look towards its formative processes, to change, transform what is necessary, to that the professional who forms corresponds to the needs of society, and it is in these purposes where the aforementioned discipline comes into play.
The complex conditions in which today's world unfolds, and especially the island of Cuba, have revealed the need to develop in the population a general and integral culture that strengthens their sense of national identity and serves as the basis for a clear political awareness The role of the university as a social institution will be of vital importance if it is assumed as a mission offered by Horruitiner Silva (2006), shared by the author of research, to preserve, develop and promote, through its substantive processes and in Close link with society, the culture of humanity.
The Cuban University has been strengthening its training processes, teaching, extension and research, to fulfill the aforementioned social order. Díaz Domínguez (2004)summarizes criteria of university academics when he defines that today there is talk of a pre-active university where the following characteristics prevail:
In this context, a criterion defended by Ferreiro González (2015), it is necessary that the teaching of the History of Cuba at the University of Medical Sciences manages to leave a lesson, contribute to elevate the human condition, enrich it attitudinally. This reasoning is also supported by Barrera, Hernández and Díaz (2012) in addressing that the strengthening and deepening of the teaching and learning of the History of Cuba is an increasingly latent need for Cuban Higher Education, since the professional graduated from The universities need to be identified with the National History and the various processes through which the formation of the nation people of which it is a part has been passed in order to be able to understand its contemporaneity from the preceding historical process.
In this order also Ferreiro González, (2015) reaffirms the need for a university education, which should not reiterate the contents of the preceding level, but deepen and apply the essentials of the processes with the knowledge of documents. It is not about saying how much the teacher knows, but what the health professional is interested in and should know, in an entertaining, dialogue, participatory manner, that also develops skills and reinforces adequate human convictions.
Given the need defined above, it is pertinent for the teaching of History in Higher Medical Education, to make a qualitative leap in the educational teaching process based on certain proposals that may become conductive threads in the teaching of this discipline that guarantees to travel new paths, the deepening, scientific, creation and updating.
Based on the aforementioned purposes, the determinants on which the educational teaching process of History must be based in the context of higher education are based on this work , which has been declared a priority for the integral training of future professionals Of the health.
MATERIAL AND METHOD
The present study was based on a pedagogical research framed in the educational teaching process of the subject History at the University of Medical Sciences of Pinar del Río in the period 2017-2018. Based on the materialistic dialectical method, the historical-logical and systemic approach were used as theoretical methods; Within the empirical methods, a survey of history professors and a class observation guide were applied. Within the statistical methods descriptive statistics were used. The sample of professors selected for the study coincided with the universe of 27 professors who teach the discipline.
The questionnaire applied and the observation guide were based on informed consent, on the anonymity of the information provided, and on its exclusive use for scientific purposes with the intention of professional growth.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
History, according to Torres Cueva's analysis (2006), is one of the oldest social sciences in Cuba; from its earliest manifestations historiography developed in intimate relationship with the national process; She has shown the factors that over time united the Cuban people and the problems that he it had to face to forge the nation and guarantee its integrity.
For authors such as Romero Ramudo (2006) and Barrera and others (2012) The subject History of Cuba is one of the main bearers of historical memory, which serves as a basis and reinforces the culture and identity on the Island; no other subject can impersonate it in this task, although it can complement it. These reasons make today a prioritized discipline in all teachings.
When the Revolution triumphs in the teaching of History, important transformations occurred in its historiographic conceptions, with the application of historical materialism, in its approaches and in the urgent search and dissemination of historical truth, so distorted by the texts used for the subject throughout the republican period.
The History of Cuba is, by definition, the main source for understanding the present, which is history tomorrow, and, even more, one of the components in the analysis of alternatives to the future, as defined by Romero Ramudo (2006). Given this definition, an analysis of the role of history teaching in the new training scenarios is imposed.
Ferreiro González (2015) states that the teaching of the History of Cuba, in higher medical education, defends the need not to return to the path traveled at the previous level, but to deepen certain knowledge that allows a better interpretation of our history and the interests of the social progress of the people, which is concretized in a solid technical, humanistic and scientific formation of high ideological, political, ethical and aesthetic values.
With respect to other Universities the teaching of this discipline arrived late to the Medical University, only in the 2000-2001 academic year is it introduced with the purpose that future health professionals acquire a comprehensive general culture where historical culture would be an essential component for their training and their performance in society.
When the professional being treated in higher education authors such as Horruitiner Silva (2006), Díaz Domínguez (2004), Iznaga (2002), Valenzuela (2010) coincide in one way or another in their criteria, pointing out that you have to form a professional who knows his science and knows how to solve theoretical and / or practical problems, in addition to doing this from certain values that guarantee not only that the student participates in his learning, but that he assumes a position of commitment to his reality, which constitutes a University for life, a University linked to its social context.
This means a professional, progressive, thoughtful, who responds to the interests of the nation, knows its problems and consequently contributes with its participation to solve them. It is necessary to train men of their land and their time, which does not imply in any way being isolated from the previous time but taking it into account.
In order to improve the teaching of the History of Cuba, they were prepared by a group of authors who fulfilled the suggestions made at the National Workshop on Teaching the History of Cuba in Higher Education, held at the University "Camilo Cienfuegos" of Matanzas the guidelines of the History of Cuba for Higher Medical Education.
In this document, based on the criteria of Díaz Pendás, Garófalo Fernández, López Civeira (2007), the following aspects were defined:
To carry out this research, from a universe of 27 professors who teach the discipline at the University of Medical Sciences of Pinar del Río, the 27 that provide their services in all the careers of Medical Sciences were taken both in professional training and in Professional technical education. The instruments mentioned above were applied to them.
The following regularities were obtained as a result of the diagnosis:
In the survey applied to professors it was observed that 44.4 % (12) do not dominate the professional model that is defined in the Medical Sciences for each of the careers. 55.5 % (15) know the professional's model, although they recognize that it is not entirely.
85.1 % of teachers (23) recognize that they dominate superficially the objectives defined for each year in the different careers. It is appropriate to specify that 25.9 % (7) of the cloister are instructors without experience in Higher Medical Education, 37.03 % (10) are assistants and 37.03 % (10) are auxiliary.
100 % (27) of the professors recognize the importance of knowing the professional's model and of the objectives defined per year to teach quality teaching that meets the requirements of the context, which complies with what is established in the program of Discipline and that guarantees the deepening.
44.4 % (12) of the teachers find it difficult to define the historical processes that should be studied at this level of education as part of the educational process of History and what if it is well defined are the elements of knowledge that should not stop boarding.
In the observation guide to class it was found that only in 48.1 % (26) of the classes visited teachers worked according to the professional model. 27.7 % (15) of the observed classes were shown to be taxed to the objectives defined by year. In 51.8 % (28) of the classes, work was visualized based on research and in terms of historical processes, 50 % (27) managed to project a work with a conception of process.
The previous elements allow to affirm the need to establish and base determinants for the teaching of History in the context of Medical Sciences that guarantee a teaching not only according to what is established and achieve greater impact on training and consequently on the modes of action professional.
With the purpose of forming a graduate with a solid scientific-technical and the author of the research defines humanistic preparation, the following determinants for the teaching of the History of Cuba in Higher Medical Education:
Each career in its Study Plan has defined the professional concept model under the broad profile budget, being defined that it must be characterized by having a deep command of the basic training of their profession, so that it is able to solve at the base of his profession, with independence and creativity, the most general and frequent problems that arise in the different spheres of his professional activity.
This definition specifies the object of the profession, the fields, spheres and modes of action, as well as the professional profile; These features should be taken into account in the training process of future health professionals so that when planning the PDE these elements should be taken into account. Working according to the professional model is left institutionalized in the Regulation of Teaching and Methodological Work of Higher Education (2018).
Putting the teaching of the History of Cuba in line with the medical professional's model requires, first of all, that the teacher knows the contributions that this discipline generally makes to the formation of the future health professional. From this budget, students can be motivated by demonstrating the importance of each of the subjects for their professional training and future performance. In addition, this element must distinguish the teaching of history at this level.
The dialectical relationship between instruction and education, as one of the principles of Higher Education defined by Horruitiner Silva (2006) and which is retaken in the Teaching and Methodological Work Regulation of Higher Education (2018), also assumes in this case the indissoluble link between education and society and the preparation of the individual to function in society. An education aimed at the unity of the affective and the cognitive, an education seen as a social process, which means that the individual appropriates the social culture and finds ways to meet their needs.
The teaching of this discipline in the context of Medical Sciences has to be able to educate from the instruction. In this sense Baxter (2000) addresses that it is necessary to take advantage of all the potential offered by the content to reinforce values, this applied to the medical context means preparing future health professionals for their future professional performance and for life in general, what should always be properly used by teachers.
In correspondence with this idea in this research, the criterion of Castro Ruz (2001) is shared when he expressed that educating is everything, educating is sowing values, is developing an ethic, an attitude towards life, is sowing feelings, is looking for everything good that may be in the soul of a human being. The above shows the importance of achieving a dialectical relationship between instruction and education.
Achieving the national-local history-international context relationship will guarantee the development of historical reasoning that presupposes seeing the object of study under development because history is a dialectical process and information needs to be contextualized. Understanding the links and contradictions between historical events, phenomena and processes is essential in this way of reasoning, in which time and space are avenues of intelligibility of social development. Baxter, (2000)
Díaz Pendás, Romero Ramudo (2007) , agree that the deepening, updating, debate, reflection and confrontation of arguments will constitute an essential pillar in the teaching of history, as well as the development of opinions, the strengthening of own criteria , the establishment of an ideological, humanistic and scientific commitment to exercise criticism from a historical, revolutionary and transformative attitude. The above must be a practice in the educational teaching process of the teaching of the History of Cuba so that it transcends the process of training of the professional of the medical sciences.
Similarly, the aforementioned authors point out that work with historical sources and historical knowledge constitute an essential basis for the approach to the historical process from the original sources and that the student can achieve explanations, arguments, assessments and reach their own conclusions.
From this investigation it is defended that in the teaching of History it is essential to work with historical sources and historical knowledge, to promote an objective and scientific approach to the historical footprint, but at the same time emotional, taking into account the student's interests and needs and of society. In addition, this element may constitute an aspect that allows compliance with what is established for this teaching at this level, deepening and traveling new paths.
The History of Cuba class must provide tools and intellectual resources to think, must train in a methodology of social historical inquiry, and must also provide avenues for ethical prosecution, must leave a human lesson that enriches the student integrally, that allows growth of his personality, the individual improvement in his social insertion, the development of a humanizing knowledge. Several authors such as Barrera and others (2012), Ordáz, Reyes and Salazar, (2018), defend this idea.
Ferreiro González (2015) points out an important idea shared by the author of this research, stimulating research from the teaching of history as an indispensable element, it is necessary for the student to learn to discover the internal gear that exists under the diversity of facts that they study, that they find for themselves answers to their questions through inquiry. Historical research will ensure the relationship between past and present.
The author of this research considers that taking into account these determinants in the teaching of History in Higher Medical Education will generally imply paying tribute to the professional model and assuming a new way of teaching, which will undoubtedly have a greater impact. In future health professionals who will be delivered to society with a higher level of knowledge, skills and values being better prepared to assume their transformation.
It is concluded that the teaching of the History of Cuba arose in Higher Medical Education with the objective of continuing to consolidate the integral humanistic formation of future health professionals who will also carry out an educational work in the community.
The peculiarities of the teaching of the History of Cuba in the context of medical training require a different approach based essentially on the professional's model and that leads to the teacher becoming a counselor, driver, of students who are autonomous, reflective and able.
Corresponding to these purposes have been defined in this investigation the determinants for the teaching of the History of Cuba that without pretending to be a recipe can redirect the teaching of a Discipline that is called to be a center in the formation of future health professionals.
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Copyright (c) Martha
Elena Barrera Breijo, Ileana María Hernández Rodríguez,
Tania García Andarcio