It has been the end of another week working up to the student's first major project on memorials. I think it was Karl Popper who said "never answer unasked questions". There has been a bit of me asking unasked questions this week and there hasn't been quite the same sense of momentum as, say, my social studies class where every activity has seemed to unfold from the previous one and into the next lesson in a way that my social studies teaching hasn't quite cohered before. As one of my students pointed out, we need to get our teeth into something. There has been some interesting discussion about the nature of history and memory and how the past is remembered. It has also been good to see that students in their journals are starting to notice memorials a bit more and reflect on their role as cultural markers. However, in my attempt to underpin the classes with "historical thinking" it has come at the expense of having a real reason to do this.
But you live and learn. Keith Barton, the U.S academic is back in town this week to do some research in my classroom and a couple of other schools. We have asked him to inquire into students' understanding of Agency, Perspective, and Evidence and to see if there are any changes in students' understanding of these concepts over the year before he comes back towards the end of the year. That should keep me on my toes. I kind of want there to be some discernible difference! My probings so far have revealed some interesting ideas about the past, for example:
- People in the past didn't think as much as people in the present
- Learning about racism in the past might actually make it worse today
- And there is a real sense that the criteria for something to be of historical significance requires it to be about "people who have made a difference" and political events.
I would really like to do a topic on the everyday life of a community completely different from our own and in the students' journals there is an interest in ancient Rome and Medieval Europe. When I lived in Germany on a student exchange I learnt more about New Zealand than I did Germany in many respects. I wonder if the same can work in history. If we learn about a way of life really different and look for similarities and differences, perhaps we can better understand and evaluate society today and the kind of world we want to live in. The main thing I want to discuss with Keith is the difference between history and social studies. Identifying a "problem" or "social issue" seems easier when it is occurring today than for history and I don't want history education to be solely about understanding the roots of contemporary events, as laudable as that goal is.
Anyway, memorials. The intention was to go and visit the five I have selected and I would tell them a bit about the person or event that it represented to try and get them thinking about which they might choose - if any of them. Unfortunately it rained so only one class got out so I only got to the Parihaka Prisoner memorial and the National War Memorial. Earlier in the week I had found a section from Jock Philips and Chris McLean's book on NZ war memorials and there was a really interesting section from someone who was writing shortly after World War One about the disgrace in the way we make memorials beautiful when they should be hideously ugly to remind us about the true nature of war. This fits with Jay Winter's thesis that memorials are as much about forgetting as they are remembering. Many students agreed with the general idea - what would be important to get across next time is just how privileged that viewpoint is. Only in peace time and without the imminent threat of war or the pressure nationalist jingoism can we so easily reject war. It would be cool if some students looked at the agency of people who disagreed with the decision to go to war and the structural conditions they faced and that made their lives so difficult and, of course, the agency of soldiers who enlisted prior to 1916 conscription.
Most seem to be enjoying the field trips. Next week I will finish them and they will need to decide on a person, event, or issue to research that is represented in a local Memorial. Today 40kg worth of clay was dropped off on my desk. It is so great working in a school which can resource the kind of teaching I am doing. I am looking forward to the lesson when having completed the research they have to mold the clay to represent the person/issue/event in the manner they think more appropriate or at the very least, different. I like the idea of literally molding an idea into a form for others to see in an artistic sense. Looking through their journals, there are a lot of students whose favourite school subjects are art and drama. This I will need to use to my advantage....
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