Exhibition

THE TEXTBOOK – For Those Who Want to Know More


 

Organizer

Croatian School Museum, Trg Republike Hrvatske 4, 10000 Zagreb www.hsmuzej.hr

 

On the Behalf of the Organizer

Anita Zlomislić

 

Author of the Exhibition

Branka Manin

 

Exhibition Curator

Branka Manin

 

Visual Design of the Exhibition

Ana Zubić

 

Proofreading

Gordana Malnar

 

Digitalization of Material

Nikica Renić

 

Educational Programme

Ivana Dumbović Žužić

 

Marketing

Marijana Bračić

 

Print

Ars Kopija, May 2024.

 

From May 17 to September 14, 2024

 

The exhibition and catalogue were financed by the City Office for Culture and Civil Society and the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia.

 

  

Collection of textbooks and handbooks is one of the collections of the Croatian School Museum in Zagreb. It preserves more than 15600 units of textbooks and handbooks, available to researchers and is processed by computer. Recognizing the importance of textbooks, basic school books that systematically and didactically exemplify the content of the individual school subject for which it is intended, the Museum singles them out into a special museum collection.

Scientific or professional content is specially processed in the textbook in accordance with specific pedagogical, psychological and didactic-methodical principles. Textbook has two roles to fulfil. The first one is a transmission role that implies the transfer of information (prescribed by the curriculum). The second one is a transformational role and it implicates didactic-methodical dimension based on textbook design coordinated with scientific achievements  related to teaching  and learning processes with the main purpose of fulfilling educational goals (instrumentation used to fulfil educational goals). The element that distinguishes textbook from other professional and scientific texts is its didactic design. Textbooks can be whole, branched or programmed, multimedia and digital.

Today, textbooks and handbooks in the Republic of Croatia are regulated by the Textbook Standard, the Law on Textbooks for Primary and Secondary Schools, the Law on Textbooks and Other Educational Materials for Primary and Secondary Schools and the Ordinance on Textbook Standards and by Members of Expert Commissions for the Evaluation of Textbooks and Other Educational Materials. By reviewing the regulations throughout history (which were valid for the area of today's Croatia during the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries), and related to the issue of textbooks, we can conclude that it was under the jurisdiction of the state.

Contemporary textbook is visually attractive, and the visual and graphic design has become an extremely important component in its creation. When examining the textbooks, we can see that the didactic-methodical design has evolved from almost non-existent to a highly designed one in order to highlight important content, clarity, and higher quality learning. Older textbooks were "only content" and illustrations, art and graphic representations are gradually appearing. The first textbook is a primer, and our first textbooks were considered the so-called Our Father primers.

Centralization and decentralization of textbook production alternated over time - from the Imperial Royal Printing of School Books (Vienna, 1772) during the Habsburg Monarchy, i.e. Austria-Hungary, through the appearance of other publishers to post-war (WWII) monopolization and complete centralization to today's complete liberalization, decentralization and hyper production.

An important textbook of the 19th century is an encyclopaedic-type reader, which, in addition to training in basic reading, had to support language training in general, and served as a textbook for a special school subject that comprised of learning history, geography and natural history, while more modern readers are determined by the school subject. Furthermore, by studying textbooks, we can follow their longevity or shortness, the emergence and disappearance of certain school subjects, the influence of socio-political circumstances, direct or hidden ideologies and interpretations of certain contents.

Although there have been attempts to reject it as a teaching aid or at least marginalize its role in the teaching process as well as the development and progress that makes information and knowledge easily available, the textbook in the form of a printed book remains an irreplaceable factor in the teaching process.

Datum objave: 11.10.2024.