Monuments as Spaces for Enhancing Social Justice and Sustainable Learning in History Teaching: A Case of the Voortrekker Monument

Abstract

The study proceeds from the premise that meaningful history teaching requires that educators should be able to expose their learners to different types of historical sources and resources in order enhance their quality of teaching. One of the ways of doing this is the use of monuments as spaces to supplement and support what is done in the classroom. Since monuments are made by people who had a particular perspective about the past, it is very important for educators to use monuments to encourage an open, engaging and critical way of looking at the past. The focus in this study is on how the Voortrekker monument can be used as an educational resource to enhance social justice and sustainable learning in history teaching. This will provide some answers to the debate on how history teaching can be enhanced through the use of monuments. For the purpose of this study, a critical pedagogical lens will be used to analyse the purpose and the displays at the Voortrekker monument. The study highlights how certain societal stereotypes; discursive sources of power; dominance; inequality and bias are still promoted by what is depicted at this monument. Furthermore, the study argues for the use of critical pedagogy in explaining the Voortrekker monument as space for history teaching and learning. Lastly, the study demonstrates the need to re-organise such monuments in a more inclusive manner to enhance social justice and sustainable learning in history teaching.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n7p491