Ett levande klassrum : Undersökningar kring hur reenactment och historiska lekar kan implementeras i historieundervisning på högstadiet

Sammanfattning: In today’s history teaching in Sweden, role-play and historical re-enactment receive little attention. Even though many students find history as a subject boring and irrelevant, very little is done to improve the mode of teaching. My theses is that this could be done by presenting new ways of teaching and at the same time find a way to make more students interested in history. The main aim is to investigate if there are ways to offer students an experience of history by carrying out different interactive exercises with a touch of roleplay and historical recreation. In this essay, three exercises of that type have been constructed based on how historical role-plays have been used at museums and historical centres, the opinions of people who are engaged in re-enactment and living history, and on the curriculum for the Swedish upper level secondary school. The three exercises (a role-play exercise, a lecture by an invited re-enactor, and a theme week) have been analysed by four teachers who teach at upper level secondary school and high school. They responded very positively to the exercises, and judged the exercises to be fully viable in a classroom context. In conclusion, there are ways to implement re-enactment and role-play in history education to make the teaching more varied and interesting for the pupils. I argue that history is something you have to experience if you are to understand its full extent.