SAHA holds workshop on primary sources

On October 10 2009, SAHA and the Gauteng Department of Education (GDE) hosted a workshop for secondary history educators on using primary sources in the classroom at Constitution Hill in Johannesburg. One of the aims of the workshop was to pilot a series of educational resources SAHA has been developing called 'SAHA in the Classroom'. This series of booklets presents educators and learners with a broad range of primary sources from SAHA collections relating to South African history from 1976 - 1994, in order to encourage and support the critical analysis of key aspects of this period of history. Each source booklet focuses on a different phase or topic, such as the United Democratic Front (UDF), and provides background information, reproductions of primary sources and accompanying questions following the format prescribed by the Department of Education, thus preparing learners for the source-based National History Examination.

Another SAHA educational product in development was also used at this workshop - a guide aimed at supporting teachers in using the Voices from our past CD of radio documentaries in the classroom to introduce students to examining oral histories as primary sources.

Feedback from educators on the resources was very positive and the Voices from our Past: a guide for educators is now available as a free download from this website. Drawing on the feedback provided, SAHA is now finalising the design and production of  the 'SAHA in the Classroom' booklets. These booklets will be available as free downloads from this website in December 2009. SAHA will also be using these resources in a series of workshops for educators, planned in conjunction with the GDE, in 2010 to support the practical implementation of a source-based study of recent South African history.