Oral history in the classroom: Linking historical research and history education Voices of the past: Historical research, new trends and findings and their value for teaching

Background to PhD research South African Prisoner-of-War Experience during and after World War II: 1939 – c.1950 Oral history 12 interviews during 2010 and 2011 (86 – 97) Diaries Memoirs Archival research Secondary sources

Individual experience POW Experience 1939 – 1945 General experience Individual experience Decision to volunteering Battle experiences Capture Camp life Escape / liberation Homecoming Formed by attitude (pessimist or optimist) Reactions to external events Interpersonal relationships with enemies & allies (extrovert or introvert) Ability to adapt

Oral testimony & history education?

In the classroom...

Historical context (Husbands, C. 2003. What is History Teaching Historical context (Husbands, C. 2003. What is History Teaching? Language, ideas and meaning in learning about the past. Open University Press.) Context = Historical understanding Learners see past as ‘pre-existing present’ Fail to ‘identify the ways in which people in the past were similar to us.’ ‘fail to grasp historical actors’ intentions in choosing particular course of action.’ Fail to see ‘underlying causal connections between different actions and events.’ ‘lack historical frame of reference [...] unable to locate individual actions and events in the range of possible actions, or beliefs available to historical actors.’

Achieving historical understanding... ‘Hard’ understandings (i.e. Who, what, where, when...) Context (values, beliefs, ideas...) Expose learners to wide range of models for causal connection in history Understand events had multiple causes and Varying importance Understand that events had different social, economic, political and religious causes or Had interconnected causes

Learners’ mini-theories Gut & lay mini-theories Restructure or create new mini-theories Learners encounter past through Events, objects, evidence (Husbands = Museum education) Abstract ideas (beliefs & ideas of past) Historical Fact + Context = Historical understanding

Historical facts Historical facts: Fall of Tobruk on 21 June 1942 British 8th Army General HB Klopper (2nd South Africa Division) General Erwin Rommel Union Defence Force (volunteers) 30 000 Allied Troops captured 10 722 South Africans captured

Fact & mini-theories ≠ historical understanding Mini-theory reaction on issue of volunteers: gut mini-theories: ‘they were stupid’ Lay mini-theories: media Fictional & popular – NOT historically accurate

Using oral testimony to clarify historical context and achieve historical understanding

Context Extracts from oral testimony ‘...also why did I volunteer? Because I was 17, there was a war on and I didn’t want to miss it, you know it was sort of a boys’ adventure story.’ ‘Well at 19 years old we obviously had a pretty fair idea of right and wrong and we’d been recognising over the years that Hitler was a threat to peace and ruining the lives of [a] great many people and so I think we joined up out of principle...’ ‘when war started I thought I’ll go and do my bit, and I volunteered when I was 17 telling them I was 18 as all kids did in those days ...’

Critical analysis of testimony Why do men go to war? (present) What does each extract tell you about why each man decided to volunteer? What does the extract reveal about the man’s personality / sense of responsibility? (values & beliefs, i.e. context) Why did he say [....]? Why did these men go to war? (past)

Examine individual experience Restructure understanding of motivation Recognise multiple causes for events / circumstances Understand beliefs and abstract ideas of those involved in past events Opportunity for learners to link their perceptions (mini-theories) to historical framework

Oral testimony links the present to the past