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Oral history in Lithuanian schools: current situation and challenges
Date Issued |
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2016 |
The article presents a brief overview of the role of oral history in Lithuanian schools on the basis of the Programme for the Teaching of History developed in 2008 and the examples from history textbook for grades 5 and 10. The author discusses three most relevant aspects of oral history education. The article first explains why the topic of Soviet repression takes an important place in history teaching in Lithuanian schools and why it is the dominant topic in oral history. It reveals what makes the memories of certain contemporaries of historical events unreliable and gives some pieces of advice on teaching pupils how to determine whether the memories are objective. Secondly, the article brings forward the problem of pupils' perception of historical context, as ir prevents a complete understanding of the memories shared by contemporaries of events. Several ideas on how to help pupils' perception of historical context, as it prevents a complete understanding of the memories shared by contemporaries of events. Severalideas on how to help pupils to prepare for communication with a contemporary of the events of the past are put forward to ensure that the information provided by the informant is uderstandable to pupils. The author points out the third relevant problem – the drawbacks of the questions addressed to the informant (interview). The article also provides the recommendations of certain authors for avoiding the aforesaid drawbacks.