On December 3rd and 4th, Association of History Teachers of Macedonia – (ANIM) hosted the final development meeting of the Silencing Citizens through Censorship project. The final development meeting covered a lot of concentrated work and technical improvement of materials by the authors as well as reflection on the developments and next steps of the project. As a part of this convening, two of the authors Harri Beobide and Maria Laura Marescalchi lead a workshop based on the learning activity Forbidden Women which gives insight into how the role of how women were manipulated, censored, and their lives shaped during various authoritarian regimes in the 20th century.
The piloting workshop was a diverse and interactive one, with 22 participants mostly from Skopje, one from Gostivar, and three from Stip. In addition, the rest of the project team participated and moderated the discussion in groups. Furthermore, it proved to engage the participants who discussed, created, and presented their findings and answers to questions by creating an exhibition for the other groups to learn from as well.
Workshop participants learning from the exhibition
In general, feedback from participants was positive; the activity was well-received, interactive, engaging, and offered multiple perspectives. A majority of the teachers said they found the material interesting enough to use it in their own teaching due to its relevance and gender focus, and were happy with the amount of different sources; both in type and in content. Some of the suggestions for improvement were to add more sources, to combine the activity with other activities such as visiting museums and adding more digital solutions to the activity.
The educational resources developed in this project will be embedded to the Historiana portal which will be relaunched during the upcoming EuroClio Annual Conference in Donostia-San Sebastian (2-7) April.
