Peer reviewed
ERIC Number: EJ696135
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2004-Feb
Pages: 26
Abstractor: Author
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0195-6744
EISSN: N/A
Murals as Monuments: Students' Ideas about Depictions of Civilization in British Columbia
Seixas, Peter; Clark, Penney
American Journal of Education, v110 n2 p146 Feb 2004
Around the world people confront monuments that celebrate historical origins, movements, heroes, and triumphs no longer seen as worthy of celebration. While an analysis of these "lieux de memoire" themselves can reveal historical consciousness, the sites become particularly interesting at the moment when they inspire debate, namely, when people ask what can be done with these artifacts of earlier power configurations, outdated modes of understanding, and bygone identities. Recent protests over a series of murals depicting the origins of civilization in British Columbia, located in the central rotunda of the British Columbia Legislative Buildings, offer this opportunity. This article analyzes a sample of 53 essays written by senior high school students, responding to the dilemma of what to do about the murals. It explores four different orientations toward the past implicit in the student responses, using theoretical frames adapted from Nietzsche and Rusen. These have implications for identities, public policies, and the teaching and learning of history in the present.
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, High School Students
University of Chicago Press, Journals Division, P.O. Box 37005, Chicago, IL 60637. Tel: 773-753-3347; Web site: http://www.journal.uchicago.edu; e-mail: subscriptions@press.uchicago.edu.
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: High Schools
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Canada
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A