Abstract
The documents inscribed on the MoW International Register are currently being used by the MoW IAC Sub-Committee on Education and Research Working Group for Schools as the basis of a programmatic series of pedagogical packages aimed at all of the world’s school children between the ages of 6 and 18. The goal of these pedagogical packages is to bring alive the archives inscribed on the MoW International Register, by having the world’s schoolchildren create and participate in a living global dialogue organized around a common culture of a selection of these MoW universally significant “memories”. This is done with a view to furthering peaceful understanding, mutually respectful encounters and dialogues between the globe’s future “citizens of the world”. It is an enormous undertaking, very much of its time. The logistical issues are numerous and significant. Nonetheless, with careful co-ordination between numerous actors, from the UNESCO MoW administrative structure to the archival specialists and the officials of the world’s national educational curricula, infused with the right spirit and a shared determination, it is a project that could provide a significant landmark in the education of the future citizens of the world.
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Notes
- 1.
See below for activities related to this list of “facts”.
- 2.
Putting to one side the issue of how this material is presented to the students (e.g., through some form of individual engagement with the material in some sort of computerized laboratory, or ex cathedra by the teacher), I would suggest that, at this point, the teacher just allows for oral reactions to the clip.
- 3.
The shelf-life of this exercise will depend on the developing film literacy of young children, who are exposed to more and more films at a younger age these days.
- 4.
Later, if they become more familiar with the trench system, they will realize that another “fake” aspect of this re-enacted scene is that it does not take place in a trench.
- 5.
The issue of how this would be done – using a computer with an access limited to a number of specific pre-prepared sites or using a pre-arranged body of printed content is not discussed here.
- 6.
Alternatively, this activity could be inserted into a module on the history of cinema/the moving image, or even more broadly, the history of technology and society, at which point students could be introduced to other MoW items such as the thirteenth-century Printing woodblocks of the Tripitaka Koreana and miscellaneous Buddhist scriptures (submitted from the Republic of Korea, included in the International MoW Register in 2007), through the Mercedes Benz Patent of 1886 (submitted from Germany, included in the International MoW Register in 2011), to the Lumière Films (submitted from France, included in the International MoW Register in 2005), and the Universal Bibliographic Repertory (submitted from Belgium, included in the International MoW Register in 2013), and so on.
- 7.
The notion of “resistance” in the face of evil or injustice is a universal theme.
- 8.
Submitted from Mexico, inclusion in the International Memory of the World Register in 2013.
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Porter, M. (2020). UNESCO’s “Memory of the World” in Schools: An Essay Towards a Global Dialogue Around a Common Culture of Universal Memories. In: Edmondson, R., Jordan, L., Prodan, A.C. (eds) The UNESCO Memory of the World Programme. Heritage Studies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18441-4_16
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