Abstract
Primary school students of 1980s’ Turkey remember their teachers in various aspects. Uncovering their reminiscences lets researchers see what factors become decisive in recontructing primary school teachers in the memories of their students. The priority of this paper is to discover the reasons why the 1980s primary school students remember their teachers and find out if the place (center-periphery as a variable) where they got their primary school education has any effect on their remembrances. The method of the study is oral history methodology that has a unique power because it allows the researchers to reach the experiences of masses whose voices have been hidden, excluded and living on the margin of power relations. The research group of the study is the primary school students of the 1980s in different regions of Turkey. The people chosen for the research group were receahed by the snow ball method used in oral history. The structured interviews were performed with 15 men and 15 women via a recording device apart from two trial interviews in order to collect data for the study. During the formation of the text, despite using the original forms of the interviews, the original names of the interviewed people were changed. According to the findings, the students are able to recall their teachers in their narratives due to simply being their teachers, disciplined, punished, loved and discriminated by them. Moreover, even though the findings display that where they got their primary school education did not have direct effect on remembering their teachers, the contents of their narratives do differ to some extent because of the place where they got their primary school education. Key words: Primary school students, oral history, educational experiences, primary school teachers.
Highlights
The course of the study is to expose the narratives of primary school students of 1980s’ Turkey about their teachers
The findings part includes the reasons why the students remember their teachers regarding where they got their primary school education 1980s’ Turkey and it is categorized into three parts depending on the contents of the reasons
When the students of the period were asked whether they remembered their teachers or not, all of those who were interviewed with recalled their teachers regardless of the place where they got their primary school education
Summary
The course of the study is to expose the narratives of primary school students of 1980s’ Turkey about their teachers. Children constitute a great part of societies. It is what they reminisce about their teachers during their primary education as part of their educational experiences becomes considerably significant for their past education, and for child history and history of education in general. Since it is almost impossible to reach to the educational experiences of children in the written documents, it is significant to uncover and reconstruct their experiences with their own words and relate their similarities and differences along with the place where they got their primary school education.
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