Various uses of memory and human rights archives give teachers in classrooms, according to survey

A preview of the results of the Survey on uses of memory documents and human rights in a pedagogical context was announced by the researcher of the pedagogical line of the project Political technologies of memory and Head of Collections and Research at the Museum of Memory and Human Rights, María Luisa Ortiz, who anticipated that there are forms and curricular contexts in which teachers use rights files humans in the classrooms, who surprise by their creativity and the displacement of the most traditional areas.
The survey carried out by the political technologies of memory project together with the College of Teachers of Chile, was applied online to almost a thousand teachers throughout the country and sought to know the use of documents, images and objects that record human rights violations in dictatorship at the level of basic and secondary education, in the subjects of Language and Communication/Language and Literature, History, Geography and Social Sciences, Plastic and/or Visual Arts.
“We were surprised to confirm that teachers not only use human rights files to teach their students about education, health, pensions or social security (69%), in relation to dictatorship (62%), democracy (61%) or citizen training (54%). They also use them in other subjects such as art in dictatorship, cultural blackout or in the lyrics of popular songs, “said María Luisa Ortiz.
Transversality
In the opinion of the researcher, the above confirms the transversality of the theme of human rights to teach various subjects in the classroom, in basic and secondary education.
“The materials that teachers use the most are audiovisual, in 60%, and photographs, in 40%. Among the most relevant documents in his pedagogical work are pamphlets, posters, oral testimonies and judicial files,” he explained.
When disaggregated by subjects, the survey shows that teachers use oral testimonies and archives to teach Art; in Philosophy, they are nourished by audios and the reports of the Truth Commissions; in Language, they use posters and court records. In the subject of Religion, there are teachers who use burlap of the time and photographs. Even in Mathematics, audios and audiovisual files are used, which shows its diverse and enriching potential for teaching-learning processes in different subjects.
They are not only used in history
In the opinion of the researcher, the idea of an exclusive use of human rights archives in the field of history is questioned through the survey. The case of mathematics, shows as an example how teachers apply the use of frequencies or statistical parameters to the understanding of a phenomenon linked to the problems of violation of rights, and in this way they manage to develop mathematical thinking in a meaningful way for students.
“This type of use confirms that memory and human rights archives contribute to make sense of the understanding of content, located in problems relevant to the society in which students live,” he said.
The use of human rights archives in the classrooms of public and private schools is not limited to the month of September, when the coup d’état is commemorated, but also in other months of the year such as August and October, in addition to the rest of the school year. Also, files are used on average more than twice a semester.
On the other hand, the Museum of Memory and Human Rights is the most consulted source by teachers to support their classes in human rights, which do so 63% online and 19% in person.
María Luisa Ortiz pointed out that there are many other aspects of the Survey on the uses of memory documents and human rights in a pedagogical context, which will be released in December, along with the launch of a Pedagogical Platform to disseminate a pedagogical sequence that incorporates the use of archives in support of the work in the classroom of teachers.
The researcher recalled that the project Political Technologies of Memory seeks to integrate the use and appropriation of memory and human rights documents in the didactic paths of school subjects, for the learning of the recent past.

Original source in Spanish