Celebrating school remembrance days “rebooted”

Abstract

Historical remembrance days and related celebrations are part of a culture of remembrance and are characterized by processes such as the typical use of language in speeches or songs (Huszar, Prikler, forthcoming), and possibly the inclusion of tools reflecting the historical age or nature of remembrance, such as wreaths, flags, etc. Participation in such events is also a form of socialization, especially when it takes place at school and is planned, organ- ized, and conducted by teachers together with the children. In socialist Hungary, by all means school celebrations had to symbolize the unity of the Hungarian people under the leadership of the Hungarian Socialist Party. This purpose was achieved with the use of in- dividual symbols, such as perhaps the most prominent red tie of the schoolchildren pioneers and the blue tie of the so-called “little drummers”. The celebrations followed a unified scenario, leaving little room for creativity in both the organization and the program. After the change of regime, public holidays celebrated in school also changed. Hereunder, the authors put forward a hypothesis that, following new research findings in pedagogy and child psychology, as well as the changes in subject didactics, a new process has been launched, intended to make school festivities national memorial days. Answers to the research questions concerning how exactly this celebration takes place, how children feel about the program, how educators convey the meaning of the historical event to the children, are the empirical matter of this paper. In the following, first an introduction of the historical memorial days as part of political culture will be presented, based on an empirical survey that is not representative but, according to the authors, attempts to demonstrate the change celebrations of national days underwent during the past decades. The research was conducted in the primary school age group, and the students’ knowledge and awareness of the historical background of a givencelebration were scrutinized. Finally, the authors propose to initiate more experiential learning opportunities related to school memorial days.