Jacyntha England, Histories of forgetting, geographies of remembering: Exploring processes of witnessing and performing in senior secondary humanities classroom(s).

I studied history at university for my BA.  I then, as part of my teacher training, studied to become a history teacher - and solely a history teacher. The British system is different, your teacher-training is catered specifically to the subject you are going to teach.  Since arriving in Canada in September I have explored the issues with history's supposed 'objectivity' more deeply than I have ever done before and my own assumptions about history, the past and my educational background and training have been challenged.  That said, I am still 'saturated' in history to a certain extent and I am used to reading historical articles or literature related to history.  Jacyntha England's thesis was therefore surprising to me in terms of its open positionality and subjectivity.  Post-modern critiques of history as a discipline have called into question the idea of objective historical inquiry but within the discipline there is a general coherence and acceptance of a certain narrative style and the use of narrator voice in writing (mainly that this should be limited, and if heard, matter-of-fact rather than infused with emotion). Jacyntha's thesis does not follow this format, as she is not an historian so it is not surprising. Even though I have explored alternative academic literature, I still found the openness to positionality and sense of self surprising. 

Three things that I can take away from this thesis:

1. You can adopt multiple narrative styles within one thesis.

2. You can use anecdotal snippets from research data to emphasise a point or theme without analysing them in detail or even explaining them or where they came from.

3.  It is helpful to ground your world view / theoretical standpoint / positionality in the literature.  Jacyntha England does this very successfully by offering clear definitions of the different elements that contribute to her own position and the theoretical grounding of her research.