Publication
Educación sobre memoria y derechos humanos : recomendaciones para abordar el pasado reciente en Chile
Education on Chile's recent past is indispensable for shaping individuals who are aware of their history, with a deep appreciation for democracy and respect for human rights, with the aim of committing to the necessary actions to avoid repeating these serious violations and actively building peace.
Fifty years after the coup that overthrew the government of Salvador Allende, teaching about this historical episode and the dictatorship in schools still poses a challenge. Teachers addressing it often encounter various difficulties, ranging from conflicts arising within the student body due to their preconceptions; to the ideological image attributed to these activities by school administrators or guardians, and superficial references to human rights violations in Chile present in textbooks and school materials.
For this reason, the Regional Bureau of Education for Latin America and the Caribbean (OREALC/UNESCO Santiago), the Museum of Memory and Human Rights, and the French Institute of Chile have set out to develop a pedagogical booklet with contextualized recommendations on how to approach traumatic pasts, from the framework of memory pedagogy, with an emphasis on the period of the civic-military dictatorship in Chile; to contribute to the role of education as a guarantee of non-repetition and in reconciliation.
This booklet includes an introduction, historical background, a presentation of some memory sites, pedagogical strategies, a proposal for activities, and digital and bibliographic references. The texts are accompanied by some academic references to guide and support the pedagogical work and complement some conceptual and methodological aspects. Furthermore, the document is based on a perspective from the general to the local, in the dimensions of human rights education and memory pedagogy, so that, when planning and conducting a class or a guided visit to a memory site, memorial, or museum, teaching staff can have a conceptual and didactic tool. This includes recommendations for integrating these activities as part of the official Chilean curriculum or civic education plans, also bearing in mind the Teaching Profession Standards and the Framework for Good Teaching (2021) published by the Centre for Improvement, Experimentation, and Pedagogical Research (CPEIP) of the Ministry of Education of Chile.
