{"id":3042,"date":"2018-02-26T10:27:47","date_gmt":"2018-02-26T10:27:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/0318da2.netsolhost.com\/pwarchive\/?p=3042"},"modified":"2018-05-14T12:30:03","modified_gmt":"2018-05-14T12:30:03","slug":"history-in-the-making","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/0318da2.netsolhost.com\/pwarchive\/?p=3042","title":{"rendered":"History in the Making"},"content":{"rendered":"

Addressing educators at the Open House <\/a>\u00a0last year, Professor Romila Thapar spoke about the importance of questioning and \u2018being suspicious\u2019 of what one reads and teaches. She also spoke of how she references detective novels, particularly Mrs. Marple, for what is a historian, but a detective?<\/p>\n

At History in the Making\u2014a workshop on discovering history through everyday objects, we spoke with 25 middle school students about that very need, the importance of questioning. Being young detectives and discovering history through the world around you, not just textbooks.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_9620\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The venue for the workshop was The Chaitanya Library, one of the first public libraries in Calcutta, now over 125 years old. The students\u2014from Chowringhee High School, Oriental Seminary School, Bidya Niketan and Kailash Vidyamandir\u2014had never seen a library like this before. Sumona showed them a few of the books, telling them how they can find out about the \u2018history\u2019 of the book by looking at the publishing details at the beginning. After a brief introduction to the Chitpur Local project\u2014which the workshop was a part of\u2014Sumona spoke to the students about the importance of looking beyond history textbooks and delving into the history of everyday objects. The students then went to Bidya Niketan school, where they walked through \u2018 Our (Un) familiar Streets\u2019 a trail that had been set up by the students from the school. The trail uses photographs and everyday objects that are found commonly in that area: from the school to Jorasanko Thakurbari.<\/p>\n\n\t\t