engleski

Exploring the 1991 Battle of Vukovar through experiential learning

As a transitional justice policy developed to manage the issue of transgenerational transmission of trauma and remembering in post- war Croatia, the government sponsored national educational project is implemented in the city of Vukovar (since 2016/2017 School Year) as a mandatory field trip to memorial sites for all Croatian 8th Graders. Systematic experiential learning is used as an integral part of students’ history classes about Croatian liberation war and the Vukovar 1991 Battle provided by the Memorial Centre of Homeland War Vukovar. Based on the surveyed narrations created by students and teachers in the aftermath of their field trip, this sociological research provides an insight into how history, knowledge and experience developed through systematic experiential learning impact students and teachers alike. Teacher’s and student’s ‘retrospections’ (type of narration) although different in nature (properties of narration: facts / impressions) indicate that Croatian 8th graders are impressionable and affected by the experiential learning in Vukovar. The impact of used educational methods is so far positive. Analyzed student’s ‘retrospections’ show that formed ‘impressions’ about what they have learned and experienced in Vukovar contain no hostility towards ‘the enemy’ and/or ‘the aggressor’, which can be subsumed under the slogan ‘To forgive, but never to forget’.

experiential learning ; memory ; the 1991 Battle of Vukovar ; critical discourse analysis

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