Tony Gallagher on the Challenges for Teachers and Students in Northern Ireland
Tony Gallagher is a Professor in the Graduate
School of Education at Queen's University, Belfast. Gallagher attended
Facing History's Global Symposium during the Summer of 2005.
During the symposium, we interviewed Gallagher and Cheryl Stafford,
Advisory Officer for History, South Eastern Education and Library
Board, Northern Ireland. In this video clip filmed during the
symposium, Gallagher outlines some of the challenges that students and
teachers are facing in Northern Ireland.
Transcript:
"I think there are a number of challenges that
teachers and students are trying to deal with. One of the challenges is
the fact that most young people go to schools that are almost entirely
Catholic or almost entirely Protestant and most of the teachers in the
schools are merely from one community or the other. And that means that
in most classrooms, there is an absent voice, and that has been a real
difficulty in the past because that context makes it more likely that a
particularistic community in Ireland will be reproduced over time
rather than a voice being given to the different perspectives.
So one of they key things within historical understanding is finding ways of bringing the other voices into the classroom and one of the ways that can be done is to look at other historical contexts, other historical periods, to look at different perspectives, to emphasize the fact that there's more than one track through history. So this is a particular challenge in that regard.
Another challenge which is one that faces the teachers and the pupils and the schools and also faces the wider society is, well it's linked to two things actually. One is the difficulty of coming to terms with the legacy of violence and that's a particular difficulty in our society because of the silence that surrounds these issues. People don't like talking about these things, partly because we, one of the ways that we adapted in a divided society was learning not to speak about these difficult things. Partly as well it's out of a sort of a discomfort, fear that we're not actually able to deal with these sorts of issues, but unless we deal with them, I mean the fact that we don't talk about them doesn't mean that they're not there, they still continue to effect the way we think, the way we act and it's going to continue to effect us into the future. So finding ways of trying to break through that silence, to actually start to come to terms with the legacies of a quarter century of violence, to realize that has consequences for us whether we like it or not and we need to try and get those consequences to work in a constructive way. I think that's a really important challenge."
So one of they key things within historical understanding is finding ways of bringing the other voices into the classroom and one of the ways that can be done is to look at other historical contexts, other historical periods, to look at different perspectives, to emphasize the fact that there's more than one track through history. So this is a particular challenge in that regard.
Another challenge which is one that faces the teachers and the pupils and the schools and also faces the wider society is, well it's linked to two things actually. One is the difficulty of coming to terms with the legacy of violence and that's a particular difficulty in our society because of the silence that surrounds these issues. People don't like talking about these things, partly because we, one of the ways that we adapted in a divided society was learning not to speak about these difficult things. Partly as well it's out of a sort of a discomfort, fear that we're not actually able to deal with these sorts of issues, but unless we deal with them, I mean the fact that we don't talk about them doesn't mean that they're not there, they still continue to effect the way we think, the way we act and it's going to continue to effect us into the future. So finding ways of trying to break through that silence, to actually start to come to terms with the legacies of a quarter century of violence, to realize that has consequences for us whether we like it or not and we need to try and get those consequences to work in a constructive way. I think that's a really important challenge."
Related Videos:
Related Facing History Resources:
Video length:
02 min 12 sec
Date filmed:
Aug 17 2005 
