ERIC Number: ED166083
Record Type: RIE
Publication Date: 1978-Nov
Pages: 14
Abstractor: N/A
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
The Myth of Time.
Hantula, James
This paper offers a variety of approaches to teaching the concept of time. Many social studies courses traditionally emphasize time as measured by clocks and as useful for recording when events occur in relation to each other. In addition to this approach, the author suggests that students should reflect upon four other modes of time. These are concepts of time as present, as past, as perspective, and as simultaneity and succession. A number of techniques can be used to illustrate these modes. Present, or short-term time, can be understood by focusing on specific activities of the moment. Comparisons of various reports of the same current event may be made. Although calendars, diaries, and time lines usually illustrate long-term time, biological interpretations of past time can be more personal. Students may chart their own or some other person's biorhythm, which is the innate cycle of physical, emotional, and cognitive rhythms. To direct thinking toward the problem of time as perspective, case studies of cultural concepts of time and creation are effective. Time as simultaneity and succession is imaginative time; it is the time in which events occur at the same time. Life studies, interviewing people about their concept of time, and examining allusions to time in literature provide understanding of imaginative time. Such transformations of student understanding result in the knowledge that time is a subjective concept and that individuals are the true source of time concepts. (KC)
Publication Type: Speeches/Meeting Papers
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Note: Paper presented at Annual Meeting of the National Council for the Social Studies (Houston, Texas, November 22-25, 1978)