High School History Recap

We delve into some Irish history with Prof Liam Kennedy. Liam has published a myriad of books on Irish history. We look closely at his 2020 book "Who was responsible for the Troubles".

These are some of the questions we try to answer:

• What is a brief definition of the Troubles?
• What period are we looking at?
• Is Ireland part of the UK?
• What is at the heart of the violence of the Troubles?
• Which events led up to the Troubles?
• How did the division/partition of the island of Ireland come about?
• Why are the Troubles often described as a religious conflict?
• How does Irish English differ from British English?
• What are the roots of the ancient Gaelic language? What does it sound like?
• How did markers like Catholicism and Protestantism perpetuate divisions?
• Why does this division not extend to the Irish rugby team?
• Which events between the 1920s and 1960s laid the foundation for the Troubles?
• What was the nature of the Civil Rights Movement in Ulster?
• How successful was the Civil Rights Movement in bringing about equality in Northern Ireland?
• How did the IRA differ from the provisional IRA?
• Did the Republic of Ireland support the provisional IRA?
• What was the international extent of the Troubles?
• Why is December 1969 considered a turning point in the start of the Troubles?
• What was the nature of the conflict during the Troubles? What were Bloody Sunday and Bloody Friday?
• Who is responsible for starting/perpetuating the Troubles?
• Who were the leaders of the IRA?
• Why is the role of regional paramilitary groups so obscure?
• Why can't the Troubles be seen as a binary conflict?
• How did the Good Friday Agreement come about?
• How did Brexit change the dynamic on the island of Ireland?
• Who is the new IRA?

Please send your questions and suggestions to [email protected] or find us on Twitter @WilliamHPalk or @C_duPlessis.

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Link to Untextbooked.

Have you ever heard about the East Bank Location Massacre on 9 November 1952? Neither have we. Dr Mignonne Breier joins us to talk about her book Bloody Sunday in which she uncovered the gruesome details of this massacre that upends the conventional apartheid narrative.

Here are some of the questions we consider:

• Why do so few people know about the East Bank Location / Duncan Village Massacre?
• How was it possible to hide the murders of 200 people?
• Where is East Bank Location?
• Was it just geographical isolation or a purposeful cover-up?
• What is the story behind the East Bank Location / Duncan Village Massacre?
• What was the involvement of the ANC in arranging the meeting? Why didn't they expose the massacre?
• Who was Sister Aidan? Did her murder exacerbate events?
• How were the people of East Bank Location / Duncan Village killed?
• How does Bloody Sunday (the East Bank Location / Duncan Village Massacre) change the apartheid narrative?
• How would this massacre have changed people's perceptions of apartheid if they had known about it?
• Why did the Truth and Reconciliation (TRC) fail to uncover the massacre?
• Why did protesters' families not report their loved ones' deaths to the police?
• Why did Mignonne choose the title "Boody  Sunday"?
• How should we memorialize the Duncan Village Massacre of 1952?
• Why were the deaths of the people of Duncan Village dismissed?
• How did seven years of research change Mignonne's perception of South Africa's past?
• How does this story become part of the "conventional" apartheid narrative?
• What is Mignonne's advice to young people?

You can email Dr Mignonne Breier at [email protected] or find her on Twitter @MignonneBreier.

Send your questions and suggestions to @WilliamHPalk or @C_duPlessis.

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In this episode, we get our hands dirty with some military history. Prof Timothy Stapleton of the University of Calgary joins us to discuss South Africa's turbulent past. We look at wars from the earliest colonial times to the end of apartheid.

These are the questions we try to answer:

• What is Prof Timothy Stapleton's connection to South Africa?
• Why do humans go to war?
• Is warfare irrational?
• How does the approach of the military historian differ from that of the ordinary historian?
• Do military historians glorify warfare?
• How are South African wars best categorised?
• Is there a unifying factor or golden thread to South Africa's military history?
• How did the British colonisation of the Cape Colony tip the balance of power?
• Did the Zulu kingdom manage to build a standing army?
• Which of the South African wars deserves its own movie?
• What is the link between the Mineral Revolution and warfare in South Africa?
• How significant was the South African War (Second Anglo-Boer War) in shaping modern-day South Africa?
• How did World War I divide South African society?
• Did the Second World War play into the creation of the apartheid state?
• When and where did the apartheid wars take place?
• Why are historians reluctant to talk about the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale?
• How did warfare bring about the end of apartheid?
• Are there any major security threats for the people of the African continent?
• To what extent does foreign intervention contribute to warfare in Africa?
• Where in Africa can we expect an upsurge in violence?

You can email Prof Timothy Stapleton at [email protected].

Find us on Twitter @WilliamHPalk or @C_duPlessis.

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How should we combat misinformation in the history classroom? What does it take to stop misinformation at the outset? Dr Jon Roozenbeek is a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Psychology at the University of Cambridge and joins us to discuss his team's latest research on "prebunking" misinformation.

Some of the questions we try to answer:

• Did Covid-19 contribute to an increase in fact-checking?
• Did the extent of misinformation grow in the last couple of months?
• What is the history of misinformation?
• How does prebunking misinformation differ from fact-checking?
• What does the Theory of Inoculation describe?
• What is the link between misinformation and social media usage?
• Are some social media platforms more prone to spreading misinformation?
• Does misinformation always rely on manipulation techniques?
• What are some examples of manipulation techniques?
• How easy was it to scale research on misinformation?
• Why does it work to "inoculate" people against misinformation?
• Why shouldn't we tell people what to believe?
• What is psychological reactance?
• Can you change attitudes with facts alone?
• Are we wired to be sceptical about the truth?
• What is more critical, cognition or being sociable?
• What is the future of misinformation?
• Should teachers play a more prominent role in fighting misinformation?

Find Jon on Twitter @roozenbot and the five prebunking misinformation videos on Youtube.

Send your questions and suggestions to @WilliamHPalk or @C_duPlessis.

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Many streets and clinics bear Lilian Ngoyi's name, but who was she and what was the nature of her accomplishments as an anti-apartheid activist? Dr Martha Evans is working on a substantive biography of Ma'Ngoyi and joins us to share some interesting insights about Lilian's remarkable life. 

Here are some of the questions we try to answer:

• Why is Lilian called "the mother of black resistance against apartheid"?
• What was apartheid South Africa like?
• What is narrative literary journalism?
• Why are there so few historical sources on Lilian's life?
• What are the details of Lilian Ngoyi's life?
• Why didn't Lilian pursue her dream of becoming a nurse?
• How did living in the Shelters raise Lilian's political awareness?
• Was Lilian a founding member of FEDSAW?
• How did the Defiance Campaign contribute to Lilian's rise in the ranks of the ANC?
• Was there a conflict of interest between the ANC and being a member of FEDSAW?
• How did Lilian's travels to China and the Soviet Union change her perspectives?
• What put Lilian on the radar of the apartheid government?
• What was the Women's March of 9 August 1956 about?
• Why does Lilian's political career seem shortlived?
• What was it like to be banned and placed under house arrest?
• Why didn't she receive more support while she was alive?
• What should Lilian Ngoyi be remembered for?
• What would have been Lilian's message to women today?
• What was Lilian and Mandela's relationship like?
• What is Martha's favourite thing about Lilian Ngoyi?

You can contact Dr Martha Evans at email [email protected] or Twitter handle @MarthaEvans16.

Please send your questions and suggestions to @WilliamHPalk or @C_duPlessis. 

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Prof Bob Bain joins us, probably one of the biggest names in history teaching. This conversation brought a whole new dimension to what effective history teaching should look like.

Questions we set out to answer:

• Does Bob Bain play the guitar?
• Why are all historians, in essence, teachers?
• The power of that ONE inspirational history teacher/lecturer
• Why in the world would anyone want to study history?
• What is the purpose of situating the present in the context of the past?
• How do we deal with different accounts of the past?
• What is the OERProject all about?
• How is the OERProject different from typical MOOCs?
• How did the OERProject come about?
• What is the difference between Big History, World History or Global History?
• How does scale influence our understanding of the past?
• How do we link all the ways in which historians write history?
• What is the importance of scale switching?
• Does Big History move beyond the scope of history itself?
• "Bain's Hall" as a thinking tool in the history class
• Why are claim testers central to the OERProject?
• How should history content/skills be assessed?
• How can history teachers be more innovative?
• Why should we be more mindful of employing thinking tools in the history classroom?
• Bob's favourite history books
• Bob's motivational words for history teachers

Books mentioned: "The Idea of History" by RG Collingwood and "Historians' Fallacies" by David Hackett Fischer.

Visit the OERProject at www.oeproject.com and find Prof Bob Bain on Twitter @bain_bob.

Please send your comments and suggestions to @WilliamHPalk or @C_duPlessis on Twitter.

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In this first episode of our fifth season, we explore the field of learning. Dr Carolina Kuepper-Tetzel is a cognitive psychologist who specialises in how we learn best. She is part of an inspiring initiative called the Learning Scientists. She shares some of her valuable insights with us.

Questions we explore:

• Is there a trick or a secret to communicating "science"?
• What motivated Carolina to take up a specialisation in learning?
• How do we find a balance between what and how we teach and how people learn?
• Briefly, what are the six learning strategies? The strategies include retrieval practice, spaced practice, elaboration, interleaving, concrete examples and dual coding.
• Do we remember visuals better than words?
• Are then any pitfalls to using the six learning strategies?
• How important is routine in learning?
• What is the importance of testing the learning strategies?
• How should we go about finding evidence-based content on the subject of learning?
• Books mentioned: Powerful Teaching by Pooja Agarwal and Patrice Bain, Uncommon Sense Teaching by Barbara Oakley, Beth Rogowsky and Terrence Sejnowski, How Learning Happens by Carl Hendrick and Paul Kirschner, Small Teaching by James Lang, any book by Kate Jones
• Blogs mentioned: The Learning Scientists (of course) and The Effortful Educator by Blake Harvard
• Podcasts: Besides The Learning Scientists also Exam Study Expert by William Wadsworth or The HippoCampus Podcast by Lisa Quinn
• How do the Learning Scientists decide on which topics to cover?
• A quick question on intersectionality...
• Are there different learning strategies for content and skills?
• Is scaffolding retrieval practice good practice?
• How does a learning expert design a lesson?
• Is the school model compatible with the research findings on how we learn best?

Find Dr Carolina Kuepper-Tetzel on Twitter @pimpmymemory and the Learning Scientists @AceThatTest. Visit www.learningscientists.org and listen to their podcast at The Learning Scientists Podcast.

Please send your comments and suggestions to @WilliamHPalk or @C_duPlessis.

Thanks for listening!

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The following twitter post accompanies this episode of The Cradock Four.

https://mobile.twitter.com/valavoosh/status/1276826105740169218

The historian, Zikhona Valela, joins us to talk about the Cradock Four and, more specifically, misinformation around the supposed famous photo of the Cradock Four. Zikhona tells the story of the four men who were murdered on June 27th, 1985. How did it happen that two of the four men, and the trauma of their families, were actually erased from the historical record? Why do we continue sharing convenient narratives that are, on closer inspection, inaccurate and untrue? Zikhona helps us to piece together some of the missing parts of the Cradock Four. We also consider some of the failures of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).

Some of the questions asked:

• Who were Matthew Goniwe, Fort Calata, Sparrow Mkhonto and Sicelo Mhlauli?
• What motivated Zikhona to fight misconceptions about the past?
• Is the South African public apathetic about their past?
• How should we go about dispelling misinformation about the past?
• What is missing from the conventional narrative of the Cradock Four?
• How do we do the story of the Cradock Four justice?
• Is the 1980s a turning point in South African history?
• How did the United Democratic Front (UDF) come into existence?
• Is the murders of Sparrow Mkhonto and Sicelo Mhlauli a case of mistaken identity?
• How does the supposed photo of the Cradock Four perpetuate a false narrative?
• How did it happen that Mbulelo Goniwe and Madoda Jacob were erased from history?
• Who took the photograph of the Cradock Four? When was it taken?
• The importance of crediting photographers
• What did the families of the Cradock Four know before truths were revealed at the TRC?
• Would the truth about the Cradock Four have come to light without the perpetrators testifying before the TRC?
• Why did the Mbeki government not proceed with TRC recommendations?
• Why was the late 1980s and early 1990s more violent than earlier decades?
• Why would some people think of Nelson Mandela as a sell-out?
• What were some of the failures of the TRC?
• What should the lesson be that we take from the story of the Cradock Four?

Follow Zikhona Valela on twitter @valavoosh. Send questions and suggestions to William H Palk at @WilliamHPalk and Colin du Plessis at @C_duPlessis.

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Join us for a conversation with Prof Sean McMeekin on his new book Stalin's War: A New History of World War II. This is a very timely discussion in light of the unfolding war in Ukraine.

Some of the points of discussion:

• How is Stalin’s War different from the conventional Hitler-centric account of World War II?
• How is it possible to even write a new history of World War II 77 years after the fact?
• Is the way we teach World War II unbalanced?
• How likely was the Hitler-Stalin pact?
• What are the main differences between fascism and communism?
• How much of a surprise was it when Germany invaded the Soviet Union?
• How much of the Nazi defeat can be attributed to Stalin’s planning?
• What are the gaps in the conventional Hitler-centric account of the lead-up to the outbreak of World War II?
• Are there similarities between the invasion of Poland before World War II and the recent Russian invasion of Ukraine?
• What about Japan’s role in the outbreak of World War II?
• What are the circumstances around “Poland’s betrayal” at Tehran?
• What did Stalin want to get out of World War II?
• Is Stalin a model for Putin?
• Is Putin trying to establish the Soviet Union?
• Why didn’t NATO seize to exist when the Soviet Union collapsed?

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Michael joins us again to challenge some widely held beliefs about the causes of WWI. The long-term causes of World War One are often conveniently taught using the acronym MAIN, which stands for militarism, alliances, imperialism, and nationalism. It is often argued that the presence of these ingredients in Europe made the First World War inevitable, or to use a term Michael taught us, overdetermined.  But by looking at each one of these factors, we learn that this is not necessarily the case. In fact, militarism, alliances, imperialism, and nationalism might have only really come to life because of the war itself!
If you are comfortable with the conventional narrative and you want to keep MAIN as the centerpiece of your WWI causes, we suggest you do not listen to this episode!

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