Facing History and Ourselves: The Eternal Examination

Fieldwork site: Facing History and Ourselves, Summer Institute, Presentation Center, Los Gatos, California

This fieldwork seeks to explore the relationship between school history and soul history. It searches for ways of linking our outer experiences of history to our inner lives. It considers five different ways of connecting between the conscious world of school history and the unconscious. These methods arose out of the Facing History and Ourselves Summer Institute, and are shaped throughout by the root metaphor of the Holocaust. The five different ways are: Reflections on a provocative reading about the dangers of racial stereotyping called “Little Boxes”; Creating a personal identity chart; Listening to the testimony of a Holocaust survivor; Working with dreams; Reflecting on education and the history of the eugenics movement.

Drawing from the lessons of the Holocaust regarding the perils of measurement and racial testing, the paper then considers these dangers with regard to current changes in the English Education system. What are the consequences for world soul of, being trapped into a system of eternal examination?

Ruth Dale