The presentation deals with the recent trends and digital tools available in Czech high-school education, focusing on colonialism, racism, and intercultural exchange from the perspective of both a high-school teacher and an ethnology scholar.
Paper long abstract:
History education in the Czech Republic underwent a significant transformation in the past decade. A shift to what education practitioners call “research-oriented work” has been motivated both by the new understanding of education and its goals, the rise of digital media, and increasing interdisciplinary collaboration. Simultaneously, as a significant number of ethnology/anthropology students find their job in education, ethnological knowledge is ever more present in Czech schools. The proposed presentation reflects on the recent trends from a dual vantage point of both a teacher and an ethnology scholar. The aim is to review two educational programmes that focus on the history of colonialism, racism, and intercultural exchange. 1) an online research tool (historylab.cz) created by a state-sponsored institution and 2) a critical ethnology museum visit as practised by individual teachers. A confrontation of both old and new media will provide a space to review limits as well as new promises of using digital technologies in teaching colonialism. The author would also like to use the opportunity to reflect on how ethnological knowledge benefits the education work in the classroom, and vice-versa, what an ethnologist learns from being engaged with young adults.