From 1-18 February 2017 the EuroClio Learning Event “Teaching Remembrance and the First World War” took place. The event was organised in cooperation with eTwinning and reached out to 85 participants from all over Europe and beyond. Participants were drawn from the pool of teachers registered on eTwinning as well as student teachers from EuroClio ambassadors Huub Oattes, Sylvia Semmet and Dean Smart.

The Learning Event was an extensive online course that dealt with the topic of teaching the First World War and offered educators and students the opportunity to teach and learn about history in a multi-perspective and critical way. The Learning Event took a philosophical approach focusing on historical significance of the war and on memory and remembrance. By analysing and engaging with sources from Historiana, participants were encouraged to reflect in an interactive way on questions such as “What do we choose to remember?”, “What do we choose to forget?” and “How do we make such choices?” Through a combination of theory and practice, participants further learnt how to deal with sources in a responsible and critical way and how they can include them in their teaching.

Feedback for the Learning Event was overwhelmingly positive with participants responding that they enjoyed working with the topic and they would like to see more online courses of this kind. It provided an opportunity to communicate with other history (student) teachers, to share knowledge, to exchange ideas, opinions and experience, to learn from each other and to discover new teaching methods. As there are few opportunities for history teachers of this kind, this Learning Event gave them a rare and much appreciated possibility to engage with the topic of history as such. One particular strong point mentioned by participants was the multi-perspective approach which, in their opinion, made the Learning Event unique. By discussing and creating a lesson plan together, they were exposed to different viewpoints about the First World War and different ways to commemorate it. This possibility of sharing views with other (student) teachers from different parts of Europe and beyond enabled them to approach the topic from angles that were previously unknown to them.

The extensive report on this Learning Event can be downloaded below.

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