The Monument(al) Challenges program is part of the Contested History Initiative, which proved challenging for us, being situated in a small rural town in Sweden with very few local historical monuments to work with. If we look at the monuments we do have, it is hard to claim that they are examples of contested history. Therefore, we chose to focus our workshop on the history represented in the local monument and on the history that has been omitted. We also wanted to focus on hands-on activities to provide the participants with actual tools to use with their own students. 

The workshop was led jointly by John Hjalmarsson and Jens Andersson, who started with an introduction to the Monument(al) Challenges project and to the Contested History Initiative’s Manifesto. Participants were introduced to the “Emotional Networking” method, and sugar was chosen as the focus for the exercise. For this, the Vipeholm experiments were introduced as a very controversial scientific study that happened in Sweden between 1945 and 1955, where patients at a mental institution unknowingly were used as test subjects in a study on caries (tooth decay). The exercise led to a fruitful discussion, and the workshop participants appreciated the Emotional Networking method. 

Later on, the Monument(al) Challenges Toolkit and the Contested Histories Initiative database were presented. John and Jens highlighted the example of “comfort” women and also offered their own Swedish example of a controversial monument: a statue of King Karl XII, a seventeenth-century Swedish king traditionally hailed as a warrior king.  After discussing how to view and interpret monuments and which history to display, the participants were tasked with designing their own monument. The idea was to design a local historical monument; in other words, the task entailed both deciding what history to display and how to display it. Participants came up with a variety of interesting ideas, which sparked further discussion. 

In the second part of the day, the Swedish team set out on a walk around town to view and discuss the monuments in central Hudiksvall. The walk sparked a lively discussion on several topics: How was the decision made about which history to display? How is the choice of placement made? Many monuments were almost hidden from the public eye. Naturally, since all participants were teachers, the discussions often returned to the topic: “How can I use this in class?” 

The day was concluded with discussions around the use of history, the relative lack of contested history monuments in the area and how to use what we had learned during the day in our own classroom. A final reflection, shared by everyone, was that the day had been an example of the kind of continuing professional development we often lack: fruitful discussion with our peers.

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The workshop brought together 30 participants from across Serbia, including educators, historians, and students. The main goal of the workshop was to present the deliverables produced within the Monument(al) Challenges project, introduce case studies from the MONCHAL educational kit, and provide practical guidance on their implementation.

This workshop highlighted the importance of addressing sensitive historical issues, as students in Serbia who are currently leading protests in response to the Novi Sad canopy collapse are encountering situations similar to those explored in our lesson plan.

Presentation by Professor Marko Šuica: “Monuments, Memory, and the Challenges of Teaching Contested Pasts”

In the first part of the workshop, Professor Marko Šuica presented the conceptual and educational framework of the Monument(al) Challenges project, showing how citizens and students encounter urban heritage — statues, street names, buildings, and memorials — that carry diverse cultural and historical meanings, capable of both connecting and dividing communities through complex identity narratives.

Focusing on the intersection of heritage, history, and the sense of inclusion or exclusion, Professor Šuica emphasised that monuments serve as entry points for discussing sensitive and contested histories. Professor Šuica posed several guiding questions:

* How do we remember conflicts — and how should we remember them?

* Whom or what do we commemorate, and why?

* Do we mythologise, celebrate, mourn, or critically reflect?

* Which narratives are remembered, and which are silenced?

* What messages do our monuments send to new generations? The Monument(al) Challenges.

During the workshop, Professor Šuica introduced teachers to two important resources developed within the Monument(al) Challenges project. The toolkit provides a comprehensive set of teaching materials, including 12 case studies with structured lesson plans:

* Lesson plans

* Basic information on each monument

* Useful existing sources on contested historical issues and monuments

* Glossary of key terms

The set of critical classroom incidents focuses on guiding teachers through challenging classroom situations, helping them address sensitive topics, facilitate discussions, and support students in engaging critically with contested histories. Together, these resources equip teachers with practical tools to explore monuments meaningfully, foster critical thinking, and promote democratic competencies in the classroom and during on-site learning activities.

Presentation by Luke Bacigalupo, Researcher, on the Self-paced Course for the Monument(al) Challenges Project

Luke Bacigalupo, researcher (Great Britain/Serbia), presented the self-paced course based on the Monument(al) Challenges toolkit, designed to help teachers enhance their instructional techniques through innovative teaching strategies. The course focuses on three lesson plans, each offering exemplar activities, reflective questions, and classroom guidance. Teachers can complete the modules in any order.

Lesson plans:

* “Comfort Women” statue – Seoul, Republic of Korea

* JP Coen – Hoorn, the Netherlands

* Radio Television Building – Belgrade, Serbia

Modules provide step-by-step guidance, deepening the logic and pedagogy behind each lesson. Each begins with a recorded introduction by the authors, explaining the aims and key questions. Following the toolkit structure, modules include:

* Structured lesson plans

* Additional sources – videos, maps, timelines, etc.

* Assessment tools

* Links for further exploration

Presentation by Lidija Županić Šuica on the RTS Building Lesson Plan for the Monument(al) Challenges Project

Lidija Županić Šuica presented a practical classroom activity using a role-play strategy centred on the RTS building. During the workshop, teachers took part in the role-play, experiencing firsthand how a lesson plan based on the RTS building case study can be applied in practice, effectively demonstrating the use of a place-based approach in history teaching.

Participants were assigned roles, along with supporting materials and site photographs, representing perspectives such as:

* Families of the victims

* State officials

* Officials from NATO countries

* Tourists

The activity was particularly sensitive, as it coincided with the scheduled commemoration of the 16 victims of the Novi Sad canopy collapse the following day (1 November). The cases of the canopy and the RTS building revealed notable parallels: in both incidents, 16 people lost their lives, and in neither case had the state initiated a joint commemoration or acted promptly to assign responsibility.

This analogy underscored the relevance and significance of the lesson plan, demonstrating how such activities can engage students with contemporary social and historical issues while simultaneously fostering empathy, critical thinking, and promoting civic participation and activism.

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The morning session was hosted at Liceo Classico “Quinto Orazio Flacco”, where we were warmly welcomed by headmistress Dr Maria Rosaria Clelia Gioncada. After a brief introduction to the MonChal toolkit and the pedagogical aims of place-based learning, discussion moved quickly from theory to local practice: participants shared examples of contested memorials from their own communities and reflected on how to frame delicate topics in the classroom.

The emotional and intellectual focus of the morning was a rare guided visit to the Casa del Mutilato, a fascist-era building normally closed to the public. Seeing and discussing its façade, inscriptions and interior spaces in person made the themes of representation, power and silence immediately concrete. The visit prompted questions about how architecture communicates values, which voices are amplified or erased, and which classroom activities (source analysis, role plays, or student-led guided visits) best support students’ critical interpretation of such sites.

After lunch, we moved to Libreria Bonhoeffer, in the socio-cultural centre IN, hosted by coordinator Valerio Berardi. In a more informal setting, participants worked in small groups with the toolkit materials. The groups explored practical proposals, including emotional mapping of monuments, student-led walking tours combining archival and oral sources, classroom debates on naming and commemoration, and alternative commemoration projects that give voice to overlooked communities. Oral feedback collected at the end of the day showed strong appreciation for the balance between conceptual framing and hands-on practice.

The Bari workshop successfully translated critical reflection on contested monuments into concrete, teachable activities and renewed enthusiasm for bringing contested histories into students’ learning!

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Teachers were invited from the Magherafelt and Rural Learning Partnership (MRLP) and the current cohort of Ulster University’s Post-Graduate Certificate in Education History students.  There were 20 at the training, plus Dr Clare McAuley, PGCE Lecturer.        

The workshop was broken into two parts:

1. The Theory of Place-Based Learning

2. Putting Place-Based Learning into Practice

Morning in St. Mary’s Grammar School – The Therory

Mairtina McCormick led the first session, where teachers were taken through the pedagogical theory that underpins utilising the interrogation and exploration of Monuments, as a key method to discuss contested histories, as well as looking at the techniques and strategies for discussing difficult topics with students. This also involved looking at the benefits of place-based learning, in allowing students to discuss and connect their learning to the Monuments, Murals and Structures that all hold historical meaning and significance.  Denver Charles then took the opportunity to look at some of the Case Studies from Contested Histories, to give some further background into how Monuments in certain spaces can generate intense dialogue, while also using modern day examples from Northern Ireland to illustrate the point, such as statues of Winnifred Carney (City Hall) or a recent statue of Bobby Sands in Twinbrook.  Mairtina McCormick mocked this up in another short presentation, commenting that it would be great to utilise these approaches at the City Hall in Belfast.  Doing this highlighted the applicability of Place-Based Learning to Northern Ireland and demonstrated how the resources can be transformed to suit the Northern Ireland context, and encouraged teachers to get out and about exploring with their students.

Afternoon in Derry/Londonderry

While the training is directly applicable to investigating all statues and monuments in every locality, it was felt that it would be good for teachers and beginning teachers to go somewhere where there is a vast array of Monuments, Murals and Structures, many of which are clearly contested.  Teachers were broken into groups of three or four, and after trialling the approaches live at the newly unfurled Factory Girls Sculpture, the groups were sent to several different Monuments throughout the City.  Some dealt with potentially controversial material, while there were clearly other monuments, where the controversy has relented and the Monument has become more accepted in time.  Monuments ranged from the Bogside Murals, H-Block Memorial, to Governor Walker’s blown-up monument and the imposing Cenotaph in the centre of Derry. Teachers had been given the sheet that the students will be given, thus preparing them for working with the students.  Derry/Londonderry is small, and groups were able to visit more than their designated monument as part of the training.

Highlights

The clear highlight was being able to take a group of twenty educators to Derry/Londonderry to trial the lessons.  The feedback on this aspect was extremely positive. This allowed the teachers to get ready for running the same programme with students during the week after. We were also delighted to host the teachers who are at the beginning of their careers, and to introduce Monument(al) Matters and Contested Histories to them. They will find this invaluable. The Maiden City is renowned for indifferent weather, so we are happy to report that the weather was also perfect.     

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Morning Session: 

Ayse Bilgic introduced the project outline to the participants. We talked about the background of the project partner institutions, special attention given to Eurocilo and its central role in international sectoral cooperation and advancement in history education in Europe and around the world. We also stated the goals, steps, and outcome of the project. Afterwards, we talked about our role and how we participated and have done so through 2024-2025, including receiving face-to-face and online trainings. 

In the second presentation, Nihan Erol Şahin made a presentation about project opportunities for Social Study/History teachers, trainees, and educators in the Erasmus program. After the coffee break, Ayşe Bilgiç shared the Monument(al) Challenges Toolkit with the participants, methodological guidance for teachers to deal with contested histories, and introduced lesson plans to the participants, as well as the lesson plan outline. 

Afternoon Session: 

After lunch, we ask participants to work with us on case studies that we have developed for this workshop. We have organised 2 learning activities and 1 lesson on monuments, naming, and organising public spaces in the name of the public, history, and youth.

The 1st Learning Activity was a warm-up activity: based on choice of trees planted in public beaches in Edremit town, we discusses what and where is the public spaces, who organize and makes decisions about how to use them and whose benefits are sought after and if these decisions are the right ones or making sense for locals.

The 2nd Learning Activity was an Emotional Network and Monument(al) Challenge activity for participants. In the first section, we have used a Public School Wall Plaque, which shows the image of numerous historical figures. We asked participants these questions:  what they see, if they feel represented there, what/who is missing, what is right or wrong in the plaque historically. And at the end, we asked participants to make recommendations to the school board to create a new and improved historical plaque for our school. 

After the last coffee break, we organised the last part of our workshop. We used our lesson plan, which we developed for this activity: Monument(al) Challenges: Based on a Stadium Name, History, Identity and Memory. Saraçoğlu was a Turkish statesman who was a leading figure from the early Republican era. His name is given to a Stadium in İstanbul by Fenerbahçe SC in 1998. His bust was erected in his town, Odemiş, as well. We organised four groups. Each group discussed Saracoğlu’s various ideas, works, actions, and legacy in politics, law, sports, etc. Later, participants were asked to decide if his name in the stadium, his bust in his hometown, and his name in the capital Ankara’s neighbourhood shall be kept. They asked to give answers according to the timeline in the 1920s, 1940s, and 2000s. 

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The topic of the seminar was: Contested Monuments – Monumental Challenges – The Euroclio Toolkit and was based on the Train the Trainers seminar we had attended in The Hague, last September (2024). It was divided in 4 parts.

Three presentations under the titles:

In the first presentation, Vassiliki Yiannou commended upon the philosophy and the objectives of the EuroClio project, as well as the toolkit developed after the completion of the Monument(al) Challenges project: This is a project designed to address the need for analysis of historical memory in the public sphere through educational practice. An activity focused on the study of the Freedom Monument in Cyprus, included in this guide, was implemented in the following workshop, that would explore the notion of plurality and examine how representations of events and persons may differ from Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot perspectives, aiming to cultivate metacognitive and reflective skills, providing a safe framework for the development of critical thinking and democratic dialogue.

The second presentation examined the “monumental challenges” emerging in the 21st century through the controversial and conflicting aspects of the monumental landscape. The demand for decolonisation of public space, the demand for monuments, historical and social, equitable and for more inclusive memorial spaces, is taking on global dimensions, and new types and forms of memorialization are beginning to take shape. Eugenia Alexaki also focused on the importance of the “biography” and the historical context of a monument (commissioner, commissioning/competition/selection process, sitting, type, artistic style, the monument’s course in time, the community’s relationship with it, etc.), as their study allows us to understand better the monumental claims, narratives or even the monumental conflicts that the monument in question produces, being in dialogue with the Toolkit.

The third presentation by Zeta Papandreou aimed to provide a multifaceted understanding of the concept of space when teaching history in secondary and tertiary education. The first axis of presentation was connected to the examination of the dimensions of traumatic memory that a specific historical place exudes and the theme of the teaching project was “The Civil War in Florina. Examination of an informal treaty of “dialogue” between the Military Cemetery of Florina (1947 – 1949) and the Monument of the Democratic Army of Greece of Florina (2016)”, focusing on contested memories, contested monuments, contested spaces. The second axis was the study of Eptapyrgion. The topic of the teaching proposal was Eptapyrgion: Byzantine fortress and place of confinement. The significance of the monument in public history. Using elements from EuroClio Toolkit on Monument(al) Challenges we explored the contested memories of the monument serving successively as a fortress, prison, confinement space and museum.

The presentations were followed by a workshop, where the participants were split into three groups, dealing with each case, based on questions relevant to the content of each case study. There was an interesting discussion on how these cases function as a motivation for students (and teachers). The aim of the workshop was to implement the theoretical tools presented and discuss difficulties or good practice in class. The core aim was to underline the importance of public history – part of which is the monuments- when building historical consciousness and active citizenship. The seminar provided valuable tools to comprehend the importance of monuments and public space, especially contested ones, in the teaching of history and civics. The city of Thessaloniki was the ideal place to organize the event, as it bears a bitter past, and is full of contested monuments, debatable street names, buildings, and other physical representations of historical legacies in public spaces, connected with the recent or distant past (Jewish legacy, Nazi collaborators, extinguished ottoman past etc, junda/dictatorship etc). It was connected to the anniversary of 50 years of democracy, after the fall of the dictatorship. So, this was a unique opportunity to address history education in secondary and tertiary education through this topic, especially now that radical political parties, mostly far right, seem to exert an important influence to youths.

In the discussion which followed the workshop there were a lot of ideas on how to detect and deconstruct historical narratives hidden in public space, such as controversial monuments (statues, commemorative plagues, buildings, street names etc), engaging students to pose more questions, research, historicize and try to interpret their meaning and significance through time. There were also some questions expressed on how these tools will be successfully implemented to audiences who are indifferent or “difficult”, resulting on pointing out the significance of suggested use of experiental methodology and personal involvement in class and out of class. Identity, heritage, awareness of the multinational past and the erased or constantly desacred monuments (Jewish mainly) are core issues to be dealt with. The evaluation of the event by our colleagues was mainly very positive.

We also suggested that these methodological tools, such as the EuroClio Toolkit, be connected with previous seminars on how to deal with traumatic and difficult issues and contested memories. Finally, the event ended with a visit to the War Museum of Thessaloniki which hosts a valuable collection of objects, documents and audiovisual material on the resistance of, especially, young people and students during the dictatorship. Our guide was a special figure of the resistance movement at the time, Dr Triantafyllos Mitafidis, a historian and history teacher and a distinguished political figure who has been constantly attacked for his efforts to save monuments and resist oblivion of the colourful and diverse past of the city of Thessaloniki. Before reaching the museum, we had an interesting historical walk in part of the city discussing its past, its present and its future through its monuments. We believe we organised a high-quality event by inviting two distinctive scholars and experts in the field from Athens, Dr Eugenia Alexaki and Dr Zeta Papandreou, with the valuable help of our co-organiser from Thessaloniki, Mrs Vassiliki Yiannou, a dedicated teacher.

References:

Mazower, Mark. Salonika, City of Ghosts: Christians, Muslims and Jews 1430-1950. Harper Collins Publishers, 2004.

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