Student teachers’ didactic reflections and encounter with difficult knowledge at the museum

Historical museums are environments where visitors encounter objects and narratives about human life,
which they interpret through their own experiences. Increasingly, museums convey memories of war,
violence, loss, and death, known as‘difficult knowledge’(Simon, 2011; Savenije & de Bruijn, (2017).
Britzmann, 1998).
Student teachersface the complex challenge of teaching this difficult knowledge to students, requiring deep understanding of both content and pedagogy. It is crucial for them to recognize how students construct emotional meaning through their own narratives about the subject matter. This involves being attentive to the impact of the encounter with the content on the students and allowing space for their emotional processing (Bormann, 2018, Britzman, 1998; Johannesen, 2022)
This study uses narrative interviews and analysis to explore student teachers’ encounters with difficult knowledge in museums and their didactic reflections when creating emotionally charged educational
materials for students aged 13-16 about a memorial site. The data consists of three focus group
interviews, each with 4-6 participating student teachers. The interviews focus on the student teachers’
experiences during the museum visit and the didactic considerationsthese experiences entail.
The aim isto investigate the considerations and experiences expressed by student teachers as they
transition from the encounter to didactic reflection in their work on conveying emotionally
challenging content about the German refugees from 1945-1949 at the Oksbøl Camp/Flugt Museum
to students aged 13-16. The expected outcome isto contribute to research on difficult knowledge in
education and to expand the field with a focus on student teachers and teacher education