Guidelines for the content selection and organization for history instruction in Korean elementary social studies can be seen in Social Studies Curriculum, textbooks, and their teachers' guides. These guidelines, however, do not seem to be reliable for development of children's historical thinking as a goal of history education. They need to make it clear whether they are actually guidelines teachers get aid or law teachers have to obey. If not, it will be hard to practise various good teaching methods and techniques in the classroom.
Korean social studies curriculum demands to select and organize the contents based on the principle of "environment expending" This principle has been claimed not to be appropriate for historical education as it appears in the debates in USA over the issue of content selection and organization in primary social studies. For example, one of the best way for students to learn key notions and generalization in the history course is try to organize their own family history. According to the principle of environment expending, however, this is not possible to apply to 3th and 4th year history classes.
Aa an alternative, I suggest that the content selection and organization for history instruction in Korean elementary social studies should be based on students' interest. Since reconstitution of textbook contents is a basic part of the content selection and organization, it applies to history classes as one of the most important work by teachers. Before this, it is crucial for teachers to understand that the curriculum, textbooks and their teachers' guide should be taken just as a good reference, not as law.