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Education: should it have a specific forum?
#16
(01-04-2016, 11:43 AM)jvrjenivs Wrote: Isn't most (european) re-enactment Educational? I mean, all shows I do are at school, museums or educational festivals and are meant to introduce the Roman period to the general public.

Okay, some of the 'hands-on' programms I developed over the year are more educational than some other 'camp activities' but they are all to educate ourselves, our friends and the public.

Indeed they are. That is what we do mostly, but support from anyone is pretty rare.

In the US, reenactment/demonstrations do not as a matter of curriculum cover everyone in schools: we are extremely hit or miss. I am arguing for making hands on and demonstrations a standard part of curriculum, which is what the kids building the roundhouse were doing. What it occurs to me to find out, and I know where to ask, is who in the school system thought of doing this?

For example, look Prof Jones-Lewis at UMBC, who felt that getting outside and acting the battle of Cannae out with the classics and history classes was an essential teaching tool. 
Joe Balmos at the U Penn museum has built a large collection and orients this to inner-city Philadelphia kids who would otherwise never see this stuff, for example. I believe he convinced the museum to fund the effort because it is in the museum's charter to do outreach. I think some Spanish municipalities fund reenactors as part of their cultural heritage programs.
Richard Campbell
Legio XX - Alexandria, Virginia
RAT member #6?
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#17
This might help. I just noticed that here is a UK organization, Classics for All (http://classicsforall.org.uk) that hands out grants to promote the teaching of classics. In the view of classicists our hobby and activities are unfamiliar, strange, and not seen as benefiting any interest in the classics. I think this should change as my opinion, which I hope you all may share, is that what we do actually does improve interest in the classics and history.

Along these lines I applied to the Paideia Instute, normally a group that is purely classics oriented. But their president was really interested in our activities with Latin students, so wants to help promote us as a means to enhance interest in the classics.
Richard Campbell
Legio XX - Alexandria, Virginia
RAT member #6?
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#18
Well, in the UK loads of pupils will have a re-enactor visit at school as part of the curriculum. I also know of more frequent school visits in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany and i expect the same for other European countries. Working in secondairy education myself, I even see it is sometimes hard to arrange a school visit within my own school (as I don't teach history myself), but there is more and more interest.

I can even see the Dutch curriculum changing to loads more room for these kind of activities and I hope it will, as I've done several very nice schoolvisit presentations in the past at different school in the Netherlands.

Furthermore, the Nijmegen Roman festival has a two days 'school' programm the days before the event will be open for the public and also has a 'romeinenweek' which did visit lots of schools along the dutch Limes in the past. Activities get bigger every year.
________________________________________
Jvrjenivs Peregrinvs Magnvs / FEBRVARIVS
A.K.A. Jurjen Draaisma
CORBVLO and Fectio
ALA I BATAVORUM
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#19
While I agree pretty much with Jurjen, I think a section about discussing teaching methods and approaches might indeed be helpful. However, as I stated on fb already, where my statement miraculously disaapeared, we should keep the terminology right. Experimental archaeology is an academic discipline, which includes developing a question, building up an experiment, conducting the experiment, evaluating and discussing the results, and publication (!) of the results. If one of these steps is missing it is just a personal test or such, nut not experimental archaeology. "Reenactment" as much is a method of history / source investigation , but most people understand something else by it nowadays, i.e. wearing historic costumes etc. The actual and correct term for what most people here do is "Living History", which may have an educational character or a private character. Meanwhile there is a bunch of academic literature on this subject, about the how´s and don´ts etc. Here are some helpful titles I really recommend to read:
http://www.amazon.de/Museum-experimentel...3899744004
http://www.amazon.de/Geschichtstheater-H...=hochbruck
If you know German.

The there is this helpful book:

N. Merriman (Hg.), Making Early His- tories in Museums, London 1999.

in it one article by ur Simon James, really worth reading:

S. JAMES, Imag(in)ing the Past: The Politics and Practicalities of Reconstructions in the Museum Gallery, in: N. Merriman (Hg.), Making Early His- tories in Museums, London 1999, P. 117-135.

Also interesting:

S. LEHMANN-BRAUNS et al. (Hgg.) The Exhibition as Product and Generator of Scholarship, Preprint 399 des MAX-Planck-Insituts für Wissenschafts- geschichte, 2010, http://www.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/Preprints/P399.PDF .

J.R. Mathieu (Hg.) Experimental Acrhaeology - Replicating past objects, be-
haviors, and processees, Oxford 2002.

E.U. PIRKER et al. (Hgg.) Echte Geschichte. Authentizitätsfiktionen in populären Geschichtskulturen, Bielefeld 2010.


P.B. RICHTER, Experimentelle Archäologie: Ziele, Methoden, Aussage-Möglichkeiten, in: M. Fansa (Hg.), Von der Altsteinzeit über „Ötzi“ bis zum Mittelalter, Ausgewählte Beiträge zur Experimentellen Archäologie in Europa 1990-2003 (Experimentelle Archäologie in Europa, Sonderband 1), Oldenburg 2005, S. 95-128.

M. SCHMIDT, Museumspädagogik ist keine Experimentelle Archäologie. Einige
kurze Anmerkungen zu 14 Jahren museumspädagogischer Arbeit im Archäologischen Freilichtmuseum Oerlinghausen, in: M. Fansa (Hg.), Von der Altsteinzeit über „Ötzi“ bis zum Mittelalter, Ausgewählte Bei- träge zur Experimentellen Archäologie in Europa 1990-2003 (Experi- mentelle Archäologie in Europa, Sonderband 1), Oldenburg 2005, S. 263-268.

M. WALZ, Sehen, Verstehen: Historisches Spiel im Museum - zwischen Didaktik und Marketing, in: J. Carstensen et al. (Hgg.), Living History im Museum, Möglichkeiten und Grenzen einer populären Vermittlungs- form, Münster 2008, S. 15-43.

generally:

J. CARSTENSEN et al. (Hgg.), Living History im Museum, Möglichkeiten und
Grenzen einer populären Vermittlungsform, Münster 2008.

There is much more, though.
Christian K.

No reconstruendum => No reconstruction.

Ut desint vires, tamen est laudanda voluntas.
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#20
Thanks for your patience guys. I understand the gist of the OP now. Yes I think something like this could be useful.
Author: Bronze Age Military Equipment, Pen & Sword Books
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#21
I totally agree with you Christian, but In the past I've found that the different backgrounds of members have made that kind of discussions about impossible to have and only result in heated talk, unfortunatelly, with it climax of some very good members leaving a couple of years ago.

i personally don't wanna create such a discussion again.
________________________________________
Jvrjenivs Peregrinvs Magnvs / FEBRVARIVS
A.K.A. Jurjen Draaisma
CORBVLO and Fectio
ALA I BATAVORUM
Reply
#22
I agree with you too Christian. Not sure which arguments there were a few years ago.

But, the biggest philosophical distinction now seems to be for 'closed' vs. 'open' events. Some dislike "tourons" and want only to go to private immersion events. I am in the 'open and education' camp.
Richard Campbell
Legio XX - Alexandria, Virginia
RAT member #6?
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#23
Well, on a "closed event" you can do pretty much what you want, I think. =)
Christian K.

No reconstruendum => No reconstruction.

Ut desint vires, tamen est laudanda voluntas.
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#24
Well here in the U.S. they basically don't teach Roman history at all. In a nutshell, in K-5th grade you learn U.S./American History. In 6th Grade you cover the founding of civilization through the Renaissance, which is divided up into Sumeria, Egypt, Greece, a brief mention of Rome, and then medieval Europe and the Renaissance cover the other half of the class. In 7th grade you go from the Renaissance to like just before WWI. In 8th Grade you do U.S. History in general. In 9th Grade you do World Geography, and then in 10th-12th grade you have to do U.S. History again and U.S. Constitution. In college you generally have to take a U.S. History course to knock your history and constitution general credits out of the way.

You literally will learn more about ancient Rome and the Medieval Era playing "Age of Empires" and "Total War" then you will in a college-level history course.

So that's the real problem. We have some teachers that do try and make their 6th grade history course interactive: a guy who joined our Legion is a 6th grade teacher and he contacted us about coming out and he was having his classes all dressed up like "Romans" and "Celts" using cardboard and duct tape and stuff to have a battle. I was the only one who made it out, but IMO it's teachers like that who make the difference.
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