Memorial Project posting 1

For this project I want explore with students the role of memory in society and the kinds of historical markers humans create to maintain certain memories in certain ways and not others. Jock Phillip’s idea that memorials are “historiography in stone” is a really provocative one. It seems that the way we remember the past says a whole lot about the values of people in the past and the present and the connection between the two. The role of legacy, which seems to be one of the more interesting and controversial concepts in history education becomes important. Our cultural landscape is strewn with the names of people and events, which represent attitudes, politics and beliefs that we would probably no longer accept as being particularly worthy. By us naming the landscape like this do we somehow perpetuate these attitudes and values? For example, it is very obvious that Queen Victoria and the Empire she represented was a very important person in Wellingtonian’s cultural psyche. We name a University, a large hill, a suburb and large a tunnel after Victoria and of course there is a fabulous statue of her on Cambridge Tce. Do we still support the colonizing values of an empire that subjugated so many people, alienated so many people from their lands, was absolutely convinced of their own cultural superiority and was complicit in trans-Atlantic slavery? These are quite interesting questions and one of my goals for this unit is for students to start noticing these associations and at the very least being able to discuss them in an informed manner.

I gave students the question “How do we remember the past in our local community” and sent them out in groups with a digital camera. They took photos of street signs, the names of tunnels, war memorials, a piece of local graffiti which commemorates a local musician and is repainted every time the council paints over it, an old Volkswagen car, old photographs and plaques of the school, a sculpture of a WW1 medic and his donkey, a memorial to some prisoners, a poster of the Treaty of Waitangi, a gate to a sports field with a name engraved into it, me (as a history teacher!), an old crest on Government house, the school name and a few more.

During lunch I downloaded their findings into a folder and next period students explained what and where the photo was taken and what they thought it said about the cultural values of people in past and present. That proved a little hard for all the photos and we needed to discuss their findings in relation to what counts as historically significant. We also need to develop some criteria for that. For example the unofficial graffiti, while it may have an entry on Wikipedia, is significant only with in a small circle of people. And the plaque of the founding of the school may be interesting to an historian of the school but ultimately it isn’t all that interesting. We did get some good discussion and one student made the comment that once you start thinking about how the past is remembered you start to see examples everywhere. We talked about the different types of memorials, for example, unofficial ones, ones to specific people and events or to what an event represented. It was interesting talking about whether or not there should be a memorial to a local teenager who was murdered by two people who objected to his sexual orientation. Overall the discussion was quite good but with lots of potential for more sophistication and complexity.

Then I asked them to write a short statement explaining how the past was remembered in the local community. Some students just listed the different ways, for example, memorials, street names and plaques. So I asked them to do this in relation to some questions I had given them on the assignment sheet, which asked “whose stories are remembered and whose are not”. That helped. One student said people who are powerful, men and those “further up the social hierarchy” are remembered. Another made a comment that this is because the way society is and it is unlikely that the people who didn’t make a big difference would be remembered in the way these people were. This suggests that their notions of ‘historical significance’ might be limited to political history and powerful individuals. I might need to explore this further with them. Social history and the role of citizen dissent and disobedience in society is an important issue to discuss. How likely would it be for a sizable memorial to be established near the National War Memorial (or as part of it?!) that commemorated the efforts of WW1 and WW2 conscientious objectors? What does the unliklihood tell us about the society we live in and our involvement and reaction to war? This could lead to a discussion about New Zealand sending elite troops to Afghanistan, also a war not without its controversy!

Last period I had my other history class which was much bigger and for a Friday period 5 on a stinking hot summer’s day much more unsettled. I hardly blame them! What better activity than to send them outside! And, in one of those great moments that you can’t predict, there was a big memorial service with politicians and representatives from Canada, the U.S and Australia taking place at the National War memorial commemorating 65 years since the end of World War Two. Many were really excited and one student raced back to say they might not get back at the time I said they needed to be. I haven’t seen what they took photos of yet – if they were at a service they might be of all the same thing!