The UK Historical Association conference, Bristol, 8-9 May 2015: Helen Snelson presented some of the materials from the Decisions and Dilemmas project to a workshop of UK secondary school history teachers in Bristol. The World Wars and the Cold War often feature in history teaching in the UK and as part of that students learn about the international relations of the 20th century. However, these studies are rarely focused on Europe per se and rarely reach back into the past.
In the workshop Helen used the timeline about the ‘long search for political stability in Europe 1648-1945‘ that is being developed by the Decisions and Dilemmas team. Participants created a large wallpaper colour chart to show when different ways of establishing stability have been tried in Europe. Helen also presented a selection of the life stories of European people living in the period 1945-49. These life stories are being developed in order to engage students with the human stories behind the years that followed the end of World War Two. They are being developed to help students consider how similar and different experiences were across the continent, and to enable students to use source material to consider how typical was the experience of their character.
Participants were enthusiastic about these and gave useful feedback to the team as they continue their development work.
