Integrating the Visual Arts with History education can be a powerful approach to exploring the past and representing historical narratives including difficult ones. In this presentation, we (i.e., an art and history teacher) share two arts-integrated history projects that saw secondary History students engage with ‘difficult history’ and express their knowledge and newfound understandings in creative ways. Specifically, the first project saw secondary students first learn about the tragic history and ongoing impacts of Canada’s decades-long system of Indian Residential Schools and then create ‘visual essays’ in response to the memoir of one school survivor. In the second project to be described, students learned about the history of the Holocaust before creating an installation of suitcase assemblages exploring the lives of young Holocaust victims. Our presentation will begin by situating the two projects within the specific context of our school environment and best practices in the field of arts integration. The bulk of the presentation will then be dedicated to walking the audience through the projects while images of the student work created will provide supporting evidence for the outcomes being presented. In sharing these projects, we hope to inspire other art and history educators to cross disciplinary boundaries to create safe spaces for their students to explore other difficult historical truths.

Authors:
Agnieszka Chalas, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Michael Pitblado, Overseas Family School, Singapore

About the Presenter(s)
Dr. Agnieszka Chalas is an Assistant Professor at the National Institute of Education (NIE) at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in art and art museum education

Connect on Linkedin
https://www.linkedin.com/in/agnieszka-chalas-phd-98887a38/

Connect on ResearchGate
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Agnieszka-Chalas-2

Additional website of interest
https://dr.ntu.edu.sg/cris/rp/rp02263

See this presentation on the full schedule – Sunday Schedule

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