History Excursions 2019 - Perth College
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2019 vol. 54
no. 3
History Excursions
print post approved 100002409
Contents
agora
2 Reflection
Rosalie Triolo
2 Editorial
Katrina Burge
Thema 3 Planning Purposeful Excursions
T
Peter Hoban and Alice Barnes
Perspectives on the theme
8 The Shout-Out Project: Connecting to Community through
Incursion
Helen Avery and Jessica Vuckovic
14
Versailles: The Ultimate ‘French Revs’ Excursion
Andrew A. Pyrcz
22
McCrae Cross-Cultural Experience
Michelle Kiag
Praktikos 28
Celebrating Country: Excursions to Indigenous Sites
Kara Taylor
Teaching ideas P 33
Excursions Made Easy
Nick Adeney
36
Excursion Tips from HTAV Members
38
Ancient History Excursion in Melbourne
Christopher Gribbin
44
A Living Chessboard: Make Your Own Medieval World
David Waldron and Paul Michael Donovan
50
Marching North to Engage in the Chinese Revolution!
Tom Ryan
52
Fundraising Ideas for Trips and Travel
Ricky Craw
56
Shadows and Sunshine in Europe
Paul Iannazzo
59 A Capital Idea: Exploring Australia’s National Institutions in
Canberra
Fiona Bowen
Kritikos 62 Reviews available online
Reviews
Reviews
K
agora 54:3 (2019) 1
Reflection
Rosalie Triolo president
History exists ‘in the real world’, and only because students spend most of their day within four walls
do teachers expeditiously draw upon textbooks, websites and augmented reality as representations
of otherwise inaccessible times and places. Even so, at my last school where few parents could afford
excursions, I regularly took students on walks in the residential and light industrial streets around
the school. With supportive readings and activities before and after our walks, I asked students to look
closely at the architecture of homes and factories, monuments, street names, other signage, shops,
foods within shops, non-native plantings and vestiges of original vegetation. Despite all the times
students had bussed, ridden bikes along, or walked those streets, I asked in conclusion if they had
ever closely contemplated what ‘the real world’ could teach them about their community’s history. I
opened students’ eyes to ‘history in the world all around them,’ as they had never imagined it.
Historio-cultural institutions that offer strong representations of different places and pasts should,
of course, be visited wherever possible. At an art gallery recently, I purchased a pack of ‘Curiosity’
playing cards, with self-guided prompts for thoughtful observation in any gallery. My favourite card
says, ‘Slow down the pace at which you look at a work of art. Imagine a work of art is a door to a new
world and imagine stepping inside the image. What would the place look like?’ A good History teacher
would ask further, focused questions – as this Agora will prompt you to.
Editorial
Katrina Burge editor
Hands up if you remember a great excursion from your own school days. As a student, excursions
were great fun. We loved the welcome break from the routine of daily school life, without necessarily
realising how much learning we were actually doing at the time. As adults and teachers, we
have more insight into the pedagogy underpinning excursions and carefully plot their learning
intentions, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be fun as well as rigorous.
Empathy reaches new levels when the only thing separating you from impassioned Vietnam
conscription debates or dinner at Versailles with the Sun King is a thin mist of time. These are the
unforgettable moments when knowledge leaps out of the textbook into embodied experience, and
each of us, for a fleeting instant, becomes that famous person we’ve just been reading about. History
teachers delight in creating these powerful learning opportunities, and for students, they are often
what they remember decades after their own school years.
The benefits and highlights of excursions are evident, but of course there’s the other side too – the
endless admin, the risk assessments, concerns about student engagement and behaviour, arranging
transport, funding, chaperones and all the details that conspire to take the fun out of excursions.
And yet, despite all that, you still arrange plan the field trips, the museum visits, the neighbourhood
tours, the historical incursions that enrich your teaching and stimulate your students. This issue of
Agora provides you with a wealth of ideas, tips and resources for future excursions, and salutes and
celebrates the hard work you do when you take your students out of the classroom.
agora vol. 54, no. 3 (2019) agora agora , HTAV’s journal, promotes ideas,
Send submissions to agora@htav.asn.au information and good classroom practice.
ISSN: 0044-6726 (print) © 2019 By submitting an article to agora, contributors It exists to foster and improve the effective
ISSN: 1837-9958 (electronic) © 2019 agree to the terms of the Author Agreement. learning and teaching of history.
Printed in Melbourne by BGS Printing Editor The opinions expressed in this publication are
Dr Katrina Burge k.burge@htav.asn.au those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect
the views of HTAV. While reasonable checks have
been made to ensure the accuracy of statements
and advice, no responsibility can be accepted
for errors or omissions, however caused. No
responsibility for any loss occasioned to any
Suite 105, 34–36 Cambridge Street person acting or refraining from action as a result
Collingwood, VIC 3066 of material in this publication is accepted by the
03 9417 3422 ABN 44 005 739 239 authors, HTAV or the Sungraphô Editorial Board.
www.htav.asn.au All reasonable attempts have been made to
cover image The History Teachers’ Association of Victoria is trace copyright holders of material published.
Adobe a dynamic professional organisation committed Material contained in agora is protected
to nurturing and leading History education. under the Copyright Act (Cth) 1968.
2 54:3 (2019) agora
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The Shout-Out Project: Connecting
to Community through Incursion
Students flourish when they find inspiring stories close to home.
Helen Avery and Jessica Vuckovic
Perth College, Mt Lawley WA
Bringing History to Life The final process in the project involved sharing the
students’ creations with their peers and interviewees. We
As history teachers, we believe it is imperative to bring realise that not all teachers will have the luxury of three
history to life for our students, but we know that it is consecutive days for an incursion, so we also suggest
challenging to provide excursions that are relevant and timeline alterations to suit differing schedules.
cost-effective, while developing students’ historical skills
and creating a sense of belonging in their community. Inspiration for the Incursion
The PC Shout-Out Project was an incursion for Year 8 The idea for this incursion developed when our school
students that took place at Perth College Anglican Girls’ decided to run a flexible learning program in the final
School, a K–12 school. The aim of the project was to week of Term 4, 2018. Each year group from Years 7 to 10
encourage students to develop their oral history skills would be involved in a project-based activity run over
and form greater connections with members of the wider a number of days, supervised by staff from different
community, while engaging with the Positive Psychology learning areas. While many of our colleagues saw this as a
that underpins our school’s leadership program.1 chance to engage in further STEM-based projects, we saw
it as an opportunity to activate enthusiasm for the value
The incursion was a three-day multi-disciplinary project of history in the wider school community. Running an
in which past Perth College graduates visited the school to incursion rather than an excursion meant that we could
be interviewed by the Year 8 students. The students used collaborate with other learning areas, so the learning and
the interview data to write narratives about interviewees benefits of the activity were shared beyond our history
and created artworks that reflected their key strengths. classrooms.
Helen Avery and Jessica Vuckovic, ‘The Shout-Out Project: Connecting to Community through Incursion,’ Agora 54:3 (2019), 8–12
8 54:3 (2019) agora
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The incursion was inspired heavily by The resource and planning
the book, Shout Out to the Girls: A Celebration booklet for the Shout-Out
Project can be downloaded
of Awesome Australian Women. 2 This book from www.htav.asn.au/
contains brief biographies (‘shout-outs’) of agora.
fifty inspirational Australian women from
a variety of fields and times. These include
famous figures such as Edith Cowan, Cathy
Freeman and Turia Pitt, as well as lesser-
known but by no means less significant
individuals. Each shout-out also included
an illustration of the individual, created by a
female artist. It is hard not to be inspired by
such an immense collection of exceptional
women, and as history teachers we found it
exciting to discover the stories of Australian
women whose achievements were previously
unknown to us. We wanted our students to
share this excitement, and realised that the
activity could be made even more powerful 0
1 Broadly speaking, Positive
if it was the students themselves who were Psychology concentrates on
strengths, not weaknesses,
discovering the stories, and if they realised you could reach out to community service
and on developing
that inspiring stories could be found close groups, extended family, retirement homes characteristics that help
to home. or local employers to find subjects for your individuals and institutions
students to interview. to flourish. It is associated
Within our extended school community, we with Dr Martin Seligman,
former president of the
realised that there were likely to be some Curriculum Links American Psychological
interesting stories to tell. The motto of Perth Institute. For more
College is to inspire girls to become ‘capable, As well as connecting our students to information, see the Positive
courageous and caring’ women, yet our relatable role models, the incursion was also Psychology Centre,
current students are generally unaware designed to improve their historical research University of Pennsylvania,
ppc.sas.upenn.edu, and
of how former students enact this in their skills and immerse them in the community
Courtney Ackerman, ‘What
lives following graduation. Although the through oral history. As noted in a recent is Positive Psychology and
school runs a variety of programs to help Agora article by Yoel Doron, studying oral Why is It Important?,’
past students stay connected to the school history can encourage students to take on a PositivePsychology.com,
and each other, there was no mechanism more active role as historians in an inquiry positivepsychology.com/
what-is-positive-
to connect these valuable stories and project and helps them connect their own
psychology-definition.
experiences with current younger students. experiences with those who came before
Our recognition that current students were them.3 The inclusion of a student-created 2 Penguin Random House
Australia, Shout Out to the
missing out on learning from women with artwork created cross-curricular links to
Girls: A Celebration of
whom they already had a connection (their the Arts, a connection that is sometimes Awesome Australian Women
school) sparked the creation of the PC difficult to foster within History teaching. (Sydney: Random House
Shout-Out Project. The incursion as a whole was strongly Australia, 2018).
related to the ‘General Capabilities’ of the 3 Yoel Doron, ‘Using Oral
Utilising members of our school community Australian Curriculum. Creating a narrative History to Engage Students,’
meant that we could keep the costs of response to the interviews provided explicit Agora 54:1 (2019), 41–46.
our incursion relatively small, without engagement with the ‘Literacy’ aspect and 4 Australian Curriculum,
compromising the quality of the experience. throughout the project, students developed Assessment and Reporting
We found that past students were eager to their ‘Critical and Creative Thinking’ and Authority, Australian
participate, as they were keen to reconnect ‘Personal and Social Capability’ as they Curriculum (Sydney:
ACARA), www.
with their school and share their stories drew on their personal strengths and australiancurriculum.edu.
with current students. If your school does demonstrated their understanding of au/f-10-curriculum/
not have access to numerous past students, their interviewees’ experiences.4 The PC general-capabilities/literacy.
agora 54:3 (2019) 9
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Helen Avery and Jessica
Vuckovic are passionate
educators with The project demonstrated that much of what we cover in
backgrounds in pastoral
and academic history can be useful to student learning in other subjects.
leadership. They have
previously collaborated
Shout-Out Project also provided students question development. Specialist staff were
on projects presented at
the National and with real-life practice in implementing also available to provide literacy support as
Western Australian focus questions and immersing themselves needed. This meant that our incursion was
Positive Education in oral history in a small group. more inclusive to our student cohort and
Conferences and have a was supportive of a wider range of learning
keen passion for needs than would otherwise be possible in a
Structure and Scheduling
developing engagement more traditional excursion.
in history and
When developing resources for the project,
empowering students
through a strengths- we soon realised that it could link closely The incursion was planned to take place
based approach to to our school’s positive education and self- over three days. This time period allowed
learning. leadership program.5 The positive education for critical reflection and editing, and also
program aims for optimal well-being, based provided a practical time frame for the
on Martin Seligman’s PERMA framework. It incursion to involve external participants
is constructed to reflect the elements of: without having to rush the project. The
• Positive emotions first day was spent exploring aspects of
the PERMA model and preparing for the
• Engagement interviews. The second day centred on the
• Relationships interviews, followed by time for creating the
narratives and artworks, which continued
• Meaning for part of the third day. The afternoon of
• Accomplishment.6 the third day was spent sharing student
work through reading circles. Scheduling
This gave us a focus for our incursion which is described in more detail below, but if
was integral to the success of running an time is an issue, it can easily be revised. The
oral history project. The incursion drew interviews could be conducted on-site or
upon the PERMA aspects of ‘Relationships’ out of school as required, with the follow-up
and ‘Accomplishment,’ encouraging writing and artworks worked on during class
students to build connections with the or for homework.
wider community and promote the idea of
flourishing. This was achieved by students Day 1: Preparing
focusing on the character strengths of their On the first day of the incursion, students
interviewee and maintaining this theme in were provided with a booklet (see previous
their narrative and artwork. page) to guide them through the inquiry
5 Perth College, ‘InsideOut process. This involved completing short
Self-leadership Programme,’
www.perthcollege.wa.edu.
While a specific theme for an incursion workshops based on Positive Psychology
au/learning/senior-school/ can be chosen to suit your school’s needs, principles, such as learning to identify the
inside-out. having that central theme is important character strengths of other people. We
6 See Martin Seligman,
because it provides students with a way to explored how to construct interview and
Flourish (North Sydney: frame the conversations with their subjects. focus questions. It was also important to
Heinemann Australia, 2012) When scaffolding this task for students with provide guidance on appropriate etiquette
and the Positive Psychology learning difficulties, having a central theme and supply context to help the students
Centre’s PERMA Theory of allowed us to differentiate the difficulty level interact with people from different
Well-Being and PERMA
Workshops, ppc.sas.upenn.
of the incursion more easily. Differentiation generational or cultural backgrounds.
edu/learn-more/ was provided through alternative booklets
perma-theory-well-being- that included scaffolded writing prompts An advantage of running this activity as
and-perma-workshops. and an apprehension guide to assist with an incursion was that staff from different
10 54:3 (2019) agora
T
Student artwork created for
the Shout-Out Project
learning areas could share their expertise interviewees, who were contacted via our
and provide support so that students were Old Girls’ Association, were asked to share
gaining transferable skills that would their insights into the proudest achievement
benefit their future learning, both within of their life, describe a challenge they faced
history classes and in other subject areas. For while at school and how they overcame
example, explicit instruction on narrative it, and offer advice to current students
writing was provided by English teachers, studying at Perth College.
while a science teacher offered guidance
on how to develop inquiry questions. This To combat student nervousness about
highlighted the value of interdisciplinary interacting with new people, the students
skills, and demonstrated that much of what were organised in small groups to conduct
we cover in history can be useful to student the interviews, and encouraged to make use
learning in other subjects. of the skills they had been practising the
previous day. Using members of our school
It was surprising to note that one of the community as interviewees was helpful
key challenges for students was their lack because it created a point of commonality
of confidence in speaking to community – and to the amusement of our Year 8s, a
members they had never met before. This number of the past students shared stories of
is a skill that is not frequently taught in the mischief they caused at school! Inviting
secondary schools, but it is increasingly guests who were known to the school
important to develop interpersonal skills to community also decreased potential risk-
prepare student for their future workplaces. management issues. In addition, providing
interviewees with the general theme for the
Day 2: Interviews, Narratives, project allowed them to prepare appropriate
Artwork stories to share.
Interviews were conducted on the second
day of the incursion. A morning tea was set The remainder of the second day was spent
up to provide a more relaxed atmosphere creating the artwork and narratives based
for the students and interviewees. In total, on the stories of the interviewees. Time
135 students participated in the incursion, was also allocated to this for the first part
with 75 past students being interviewed. The of the third day. Again, having access to
agora 54:3 (2019) 11
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Student artwork created for
the Shout-Out Project
limited options available to them as women
when they graduated had meant their lives
were more ordinary. It was gratifying to see
that the students gained life lessons and
drew inspiration from many women who
had initially deemed their own experiences
‘unremarkable.’
We strongly advocate using an authentic
audience of people who were involved in the
experience, because presenting to people
staff from a variety of learning areas meant who will gain meaning from the outcome
that students could receive personalised enhances the meaning and value of this
feedback and support as they worked on incursion.
the project. Students also had the freedom
to break out into different areas of the Student and Community
school, which enhanced their creativity Response
and the quality of their final product. While
we understand that not all teachers will be Following the incursion, many interviewees
able to conduct an incursion in this way, reached back to the school to express their
we would encourage the use of a flexible thanks and their willingness to again share
learning space for this part of the project. their experiences and expertise, particularly
in the areas of humanities and social
Day 3: Sharing the Learning through sciences. Developing these relationships has
Reading Circles given us access to a large number of guest
speakers, some of whom have returned this
A powerful outcome of the incursion was year to provide career advice and mentoring
watching the students share their narratives to some of our older students. This has
and artworks. Although we had hoped that opened the door to further incursion
the interviewees would hear the narratives opportunities and has proven the ongoing
in person, timing constraints meant that value of the project.
instead the girls shared their narratives
with each other in reading circles, with the After completing the project, students
final narrative and artwork mailed to their were surveyed anonymously on their
interviewee. An unexpected strength of the experiences. The results demonstrated that
reading circles was that students engaged they had relished their engagement with
with a wide range of oral histories by hearing members of the wider school community
each other’s works. and appreciated the flexibility of the
incursion project. These findings supported
Our oldest interviewee was a graduate from our initial hope that stronger relationships
the class of 1953, while our youngest guest would be formed between past and current
had graduated from the school the previous students, and that this incursion would
year. Some interviewees were prominent provide an opportunity to connect to our
members of the local community, while school and community history.
others felt that their lack of experience or the
12 54:3 (2019) agoraYOUTH CHALLENGE 2020
Brought to you by the National Museum of Australia with the generous support of Gandel Philanthropy
WHAT ARE YOUR TOP 10 DEFINING
MOMENTS IN AUSTRALIAN HISTORY?
This latest in the popular Youth Challenge program series – organised and run
by Ryebuck Media and the National Museum of Australia – will set students the
challenging task of deciding Australia’s top 10 defining moments in Australian history.
PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE: KEY YOUTH CHALLENGE PROGRAM
PARTICIPATION INFO:
Launch and demonstration of ‘Exploring Defining
Moments in Australia’ interactive website Aimed at Years 8-10 students
What are the student workshop groups’ top 10 Run for one day in every state and territory in
defining moments in Australian history? July & August 2020 (dates TBC)
Competing to see which group's top 10 most closely Canberra Melbourne
matches our historians' top 10 Sydney Adelaide
Townsville Darwin
What defining moments to look for in your
Bunbury Launceston
community: Introduction to the national 2020
Defining Moments competition: What is Your Schools are invited to nominate up to 8 students
Local Community Defining Moment? Is it worthy of (overall numbers are restricted to around 130
being included in the National Museum of Australia’s students as this is a very hands-on program)
‘Defining Moments Hall of Fame’? The program commences at 9.00am and ends
at 2.45pm and is free of charge
REGISTER YOUR SCHOOL’S INTEREST NOW
We expect the program to be very popular so your school’s best chance of attending is to register your interest now!
To register your school please send the following details to: definingmoments@ryebuck.com.au
Teacher/school/ email address
Your school details including phone number
Number of students you may wish to bring
on the day (Maximum of 8)
FOR ALL ENQUIRIES RELATING TO THE PROGRAM
Please call Bernadette Lightfoot at Ryebuck Media
03 9500 2399
or email definingmoments@ryebuck.com.auYou can also read
