Teaching Contested Histories—Cross-Border Perspectives

Teachers Centre & History for Peace present

                                  Teaching Contested Histories—Cross-Border Perspectives

A workshop that functioned as an inclusive discussion and brainstorming session on how to teach controversial historical events in the classroom. The narratives prescribed in school textbooks are often limiting and one-sided, especially when it comes to crucial nation-building events (such as Partition). The challenge of going beyond the books and adding depth and nuance to the student's understanding of history is what this session tackled. Facilitated by Meher Ali, the session looked at the different ways these trans-national events are written and taught on the different sides of the border (how Pakistan writes the history of Partition, for example, or how Bangladesh textbooks presents the history of the 1971 independence war) to identify the points of historical bias. The workshop then shared and considered different ways to present a multi-faceted and critical understanding of those histories, within the limits of school curriculums and syllabi (through creative class projects, for example).

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