History, memory and learning to teach

Abstract

How do individual and social memories get re-worked in the crucible of a teacher education program, as student-teachers prepare to teach history to the next generation in a democratic, multicultural, and multinational state? This study posits four key competencies that student-teachers need in order to transcend history as the simple transmission of social memory. It takes the form of intertwined autobiographical narratives of the three authors: two were student-teachers and the third, their instructor. It recounts their experience with memory and history prior to the teacher education program and then follows them through the program and into the schools. While it demonstrates their work with critical historical competencies, it also acknowledges a necessary persistence of issues of memory.