European Association of History Educators

Remembering and Commemorating History

EUROCLIO’s Annual Professional Development Conference of 2000 was organised in Portugal’s capital Lisbon from March 22-26. This year’s theme was ‘Remembering and Commemorating History’. Host of the conference was the Portuguese History Teachers Association APH . With a large team of volunteers they organised a conference with perfect circumstances for working and meeting. The lectures and workshops of the conference were organised in the building of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. The spacious lobby was during the breaks a busy meeting place of the 112 history educators from 35 countries. One of the participants proclaimed no other opportunity exists to meet so many other history educators from so many countries. As every year many international relations were established and reinforced. The opportunity of the conference was grasped to meet each other again and develop new plans and appointments for cooperation, exchange and support.
The content of this year’s Annual Conference was focusing on commemorations and their role and meaning in society and for history education. The theme was discussed trough various means, such as lectures, workshops and visits. The very vivid workshop of Angela Anderson on the European Schoolnet was appreciated very much by the participants. The European Schoolnet is a European educational computernet, containing educational projects and materials, also for history. The lectures were also very interesting, especially those of António Hespanha, Isabel João and Pierre Léglise-Costa. To enable the participants to get acquainted with the history and culture of Portugal the conference programme contained visits to the historical site Belem, the EXPO ’98, dinners in Cascais and the castle St Jorge and Fado music. All in all EUROCLIO’s Annual Conference 2000 was a very interesting and useful experience for the participants.