Why are
witches often imagined as women? How did witch-hunters in 17th century Europe
discover witches? Would you be prepared to stab a picture of someone you love,
and if not why not? Why do some people think that four-leaf
clovers are lucky?
These and
many other questions are raised by our new learning resource which can be found
at www.mowlearning.org.uk The aim of the project is
to use objects from The Museum of Witchcraft Collection to spark conversations
and learning about the history of witchcraft and magic, criminality and
justice, scapegoating, human psychology and much more.
At the
website you'll find pictures of selected objects from the Museum collection.
Each photograph comes with a series of questions intended to stimulate
discussion and debate (some short films will be added soon, where staff from
the museum introduce each object). Weblinks are provided with each object so
that students can do their own research. There's information about ways the
site can be used for both teachers and learners and of course links to the main
Witchcraft Museum site.
We hope
that this resource will be useful not only in the history part of the Secondary
school curriculum but also in areas such as Personal, social, health and
economic (PSHE) education, Religious Education and more. We also hope that
schools outside Britain and people in many other educational settings
(such as youth groups, colleges, adult learners and many others) will make use
of this resource.
We've
created a survey to capture feedback from users, and we have access to
Google data showing the number of people visiting the site. Over time
we hope to add more objects and a gallery of work created by people using this
resources.
What's
next?
The next
stage of the project is to encourage people to use the site. This is where your
help could be invaluable! If you're a teacher yourself please try
using this resource. If you have contacts in education who you think
would benefit from the site, please send them the link. We've already got
several organisations we plan to approach to raise the profile of what we're
doing, but please do get in touch if you have any great ideas about marketing
or individuals you feel we really should be speaking to. Thank you!
Julian
Vayne
