Memory & Education – Seminar
“Life is not what one lived, but what one remembers and how one remembers it in order
to recount it.” – Gabriel García Márquez
Memory is a central but controversial topic not only in Education Studies and the Philosophy of
Education but also in educational practice. In many educational systems, memorisation is both
required and seen as undesirable; numerous philosophies of education relate it immediately to the
much-derided ‘rote learning’ while failing to present a convincing conceptual account of memory.
Many institutions and curricula explicitly focus on skills rather than the retention of knowledge, but
skilled action and thinking are bound up with what a learner knows and can recall (Baer, 2022;
Willingham, 2017), for example when they engage in hypothesis testing or evaluation of a creative idea
(Halpern, 2014). Students and educators alike are easily misled by counterintuitive memory processes
(Yan et al., 2016), and rarely is the relevance of memory and remembrance for the development of
personal identity (Ricoeur, 2004) acknowledged in pedagogical practice.
Further, memory is not simply an individual cognitive process; it is also a social, cultural and
political category. Educational sectors as much as the individuals within them are shaped by collective
memories, traditions, and inherited practices (Halbwachs, 1992; Olick et al., 2011); recent discussions
around the cultural practices of remembrance are proof of the relevance as much as of the difficulties
connected to such traditions (Enslin, 2020). There are major challenges in the selection of and
therefore prioritisation among different cultural artefacts and perspectives, as well as a need to tread
the line between educational influence and indoctrination (Lewin, 2022).
This one-day seminar supported by PESGB invites researchers to explore memory’s role in
educational theory and practice (both concepts broadly conceived).
Please see call for papers below if you wish to submit. Attendance is free for presenters and non-presenters.