Workshop Round 1
Monday 27 April 2026, 14:00 - 15:30
The following session will happen at the same time
Democracity
Facilitator: Leen De Smedt
Description: This workshop guides participants through the construction of an imagined society by moving from individual priorities, to group priorities, to the needs of a broader community. Using a role-playing format, participants collaboratively design a model city by selecting buildings and structures that reflect shared social values. Through this interactive game, educators experience the mechanics, constraints, and dilemmas of representative democracy, gaining insight into institutional functioning and practical strategies for teaching democratic processes.From Chaos to Context. Primary sources on transatlantic slave trade as a pathway to multiperspectivity in history education
Facilitators: Kariin Sundsback, Tine Petersen Malonæs
Description: Designed to move students from initial disorientation to evidence-based multiperspectivity within a single lesson, this hands-on workshop presents a condensed version of the Chaos Method using curated Danish–Norwegian primary sources on the transatlantic slave trade. The method follows a structured, step-by-step sequence in which participants actively engage with sources through guided prompts, combining classic source-based history didactics with new technology. Materials include slave ship journals, newspaper articles, police reports, paintings, and a VR simulation, enabling deep exploration of complexity, perspective, and historical interpretation. Reflection is embedded throughout the session via short digital reflection logs completed before, during, and after the activities. Teachers leave with a practical guide for implementing the Chaos Method in their own classrooms.Fujimori, Failed Democracy and Flint AI: Applying Democratic Values through Real-World Case Studies
Facilitators: Sinéad Fitzsimons, Sue Min
Description: Democratic values are increasingly contested across Europe and beyond, raising the question of how students can learn about democracy not only as a concept, but as a lived practice. This interactive workshop introduces a hands-on, inquiry-based classroom simulation that connects history and citizenship education with action-oriented learning for change. Using Robert Dahl’s criteria for democracy as a shared analytical framework, participants work with curated source packs on issues such as press freedom, civic participation, and minority rights to assess how democracy functions in different national contexts. In the “Funding Democracy” simulation, groups take on the role of a pro-democracy NGO applying for support from the European Endowment for Democracy, designing evidence-based initiatives that strengthen democratic resilience while aligning with EU values. Proposals are reviewed through an AI-supported evaluation process, modelling real-world accountability and feedback. Participants leave with a transferable classroom sequence, practical strategies for integrating democratic theory into learning tasks, and concrete ideas for using digital tools to deepen engagement, reasoning, and democratic agency.Impact Mapping – (re)Building “Hopeful Constellations” Historical and Contemporary Event Analysis
Facilitator: Fanni Hédi
Description: Impact Mapping introduces a transferable method for analysing how historical and contemporary decisions—such as discriminatory decrees, policies, and individual actions—shape the lives of individuals and communities through cumulative “snowball effects.” Rather than focusing only on large-scale outcomes, the approach traces detailed chains of consequences while also highlighting acts of solidarity, resistance, and civic responsibility that generate positive change and sustain hope. Using visible thinking, multiperspectivity, and a transnational lens, participants map connections between rights violations, escalating violence, and genocide alongside constructive legal, grassroots, and community responses. The workshop supports educators in identifying warning signs threatening democracy and the rule of law, strengthening critical thinking, empathy, debate, and civic engagement, and framing hope as an active educational tool that fosters responsible citizenship.Making History Meaningful: The Case of Toussaint Louverture
Facilitators: Marian Heesen, Amaia Lamikiz
Description: Drawing on the case of Toussaint Louverture, a key leader of the Haitian Revolution, this session explores how controversial historical figures can serve as entry points for addressing broader historical questions. By engaging with Louverture’s struggle against French colonial rule and slavery, participants reflect on themes such as the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, freedom and equality, and the continuing significance of revolutionary movements today. Using the guiding question “To what extent are revolutions successful?”, the workshop presents lesson materials and invites hands-on engagement, discussion, and co-creation. Participants are encouraged to critically assess the approach and provide feedback, contributing to the further development of resources grounded in multiperspectivity, transnational history, democracy and human rights, and anti-racist, anti-colonial practice.Peace Lesson
Facilitators: Johanna Norppa, Antanas Jonušas
Description: This workshop presents four ready-made peace education lessons centered on the voices and lived experiences of young Ukrainians affected by war. Originally developed for the First Ladies and Gentlemen Summit (under the patronage of Olena Zelenska), the materials combine videos, texts, and reflective tasks to cultivate empathy, emotional literacy, and intercultural dialogue in history and civics classrooms. Participants will actively engage in one lesson activity, discuss its pedagogical foundations, and begin sketching their own lesson plans using the provided resources. The workshop equips educators with adaptable, student-centred tools to promote peace, agency, and inclusive learning in diverse educational contexts.A Word is Worth a Thousand Pictures: On Teaching the (Untold) History of Africa
Facilitators: Carlos Djomo, Nyanchama Okemwa, Michael Privot
Description: Research shows that African history in schools is still dominated by Eurocentric narratives that foreground colonial actors, treat Africa as a monolith, and underrepresent pre‑colonial achievements. As a response and, in line with the House of European History’s mission to “research and exhibit a diversity of memories, experiences and interpretations” this workshop supports secondary school history teachers in adopting a decolonial approach to teaching African history. Leveraging the positive Afro-critical approach, participants are encouraged to critically examine the language, metaphors, and narrative structures used in their classroom as they introduce or discuss Africa-based historical events. The workshop provides for handson demonstrations, situated learning exercises, and collaborative discussions. As such, participating teachers will engage in practical activities such as annotate textbook excerpts, corewrite lesson segments, and leave with sample reusable classroom projects to draw inspiration from.
Through Many Eyes: Rethinking the Battle of Mohács – A Turkish-Hungarian Interactive History Lab
Facilitators: Benedek Alpár, Áron Fekete, Cem Durak, co-hosted by their students: two from TEV İnanç High School and Mathias Corvinus Collegium
Description: Using the Understanding by Design (UbD) framework, this interactive World Café–style session highlights how disciplinary history approaches can enrich transnational learning. Turkish and Hungarian students collaboratively analyse primary sources on the Battle of Mohács—an event central to both nations’ histories—first in national groups and then through cross-national exchange, practicing multiperspectivity and uncovering differing historical interpretations. As part of a year-long quincentennial twinning program, student participants guide the workshop alongside their teachers, presenting their research and leading inquiry-driven, inclusive activities. By engaging with Turkish and Hungarian primary sources and applying IB and AP Approaches to Teaching and Learning (ATL) skills, participants explore how history education can foster empathy, democratic understanding, and balanced, objective perspectives across national narratives.Critical History Tours Workshop: Why do we need critical history tours?
Facilitator: Olivia Durand, Paula Larsson, and Waqas Mirza
Description: We are co-directors at Uncomfortable Oxford, a community interest company working on public history, contested heritage, and inclusive learning in urban spaces. Trained as humanities researchers at the University of Oxford, we now focus on how walking tours can become democratic classrooms rooted in critical reflection. In this workshop, we invite participants to map the “narrative landscape” of their own cities, identifying which stories are highlighted, which are missing, and how we might engage different audiences with more complex and hopeful readings of the past. An important part of our work is training guides to handle difficult questions and disagreements in ways that encourage dialogue. We are particularly interested in how critical history can help learners connect local places to broader structures of power, inequality, and resistance, and in how educators can use tourism as a site of civic education. We see each workshop as a chance to learn alongside participants and to experiment with sharing authority in history education.
“What is Racism?” - Understanding systemic racism and its colonial roots via HistoriCall
Facilitators: Mackda Ghebremariam Tesfau’
Description: This workshop introduces educators to What is Racism?, the House of European History’s new HistoriCall digital module designed to support the teaching of racism through a historical, structural, and inquiry-based approach. Participants will navigate the module’s experiencing the activities from the perspective of their students. Through hands-on exploration, teachers examine how the module integrates historical content with pedagogical scaffolding to address sensitive concepts such as colonialism, racial ideologies, and systemic discrimination. The workshop also offers space to discuss classroom implementation, inclusive facilitation strategies, and how the module can enrich existing curricula across diverse educational settings.Hope Manifesto Drafting Part 1
Facilitators: Jeanne Perreul, Garance Monnier, Ariane Ioannides, Yves Mathieu
Participants are invited by the House of European History to co-create a European Hope Manifesto: a collective statement on the role of history and civic education in shaping democratic futures. Three World Café–style workshops will take place during the conference to co-draft the Manifesto. An Editorial Committee of volunteer participants will then be responsible for consolidating and finalising the Manifesto. In this first part, participants will discuss their experiences and learnings as teachers and educators and how they currently experience hope in their practice.
Workshop Round 2
Tuesday 28 April 2026, 12:00 - 13:30
The following session will happen at the same time
Where Does Multiperspectivity Start?
Facilitator: Jacek Staniszewski
Description: The workshop will focus on one of the Pilecki Institute's projects and the related activities, including exhibitions, workshops, and commemorative events, as well as the international controversies it has sparked. The project Called by Name is ongoing and is dedicated to commemorating local people who, while attempting to rescue persecuted Jews, did not succeed. Together with those they tried to save, they were killed by the Nazis. The main aim of the workshop is to explore to what extent the initiative can be considered multiperspective and what risks or challenges it faces today. During the session, we will also present the educational materials developed as part of the project.EmpowerED. Unlearning Racism in Schools
Facilitator: Marie Moïse
Description: How can we address systemic racism in educational settings — from curricula to everyday microaggressions? How can we teach anti-racism and critical thinking in schools, and challenge the assumption that pedagogical work can ever be “non-political”? How can we interrogate the role of whiteness within the pedagogical relationship? From A for Affirmative Action to V for (Secondary) Victimisation, passing through Decolonisation, Positioning, and Privilege, the workshop offers practical keywords and decolonial pedagogical tools for countering discrimination in secondary schools. Through storytelling, body practices, and circle time, participants are guided through an embodied process of learning — and unlearning — the racist/anti-racist matrix that shapes our community relations.Co-Creating Democratic Citizenship Education Tools
Facilitators: TBA
This interactive workshop gives educators a unique opportunity to work alongside the European Commission in shaping the early development of guidelines for democratic citizenship education and an EU citizenship competence framework. Rather than offering a completed version, we’ll present key ideas and explore them together. We want to gather your feedback and insights to ensure the final tools truly reflect classroom realities and meet teachers' needs. Together, we will explore what an “EU dimension” of citizenship education can realistically mean in the classroom, and beyond, how citizenship competence can be translated into teachable and assessable learning outcomes, and what conditions are necessary for effective implementation in real school contexts. Participants will engage in small-group discussions and practical reflection exercises focused on topics such as addressing controversial issues, navigating identity and belonging, fostering democratic participation, and building an open classroom climate. This session is an early co-creation moment — a chance for you to share what works in practice, what’s missing, and what would truly make a difference in teaching and learning.Hope across Oceans: Building Bridges to Sustain Democracy and Ourselves
Facilitators: Jessica Ellison, Willem Naus
Description: A chance encounter at EuroClio 2024 sparked a transatlantic collaboration between educators in the Netherlands and the United States, fostering hope and solidarity amid growing global threats to democracy. The session traces this shared journey, including the development of a Dutch educational program focused on the 2024 U.S. elections and the early stages of a project connecting history students across the Atlantic. Using World Café methodology, participants engage in small-group conversations to explore successes, challenges, opportunities, and barriers in building transnational history education communities. The workshop emphasises peer learning and collective reflection, equipping participants with ideas and inspiration to create or sustain strong international networks in history education.Hopeful Histories: Teaching and Learning Hope from the Local to the Global
Facilitator: Douglas Bell
Description: How can we teach history without leaving students in despair? Surrounded by stories of crisis, climate change, and war, they rarely see history’s enduring stories of hope and resilience. This workshop introduces the Hopeful Histories model as a practical way to identify and teach hope across local, national, and global scales, and through the roles of agents, allies, and storytellers. Using case studies from Wausau, Wisconsin, Indigenous Bolivia, and western feminism, participants use the model to explore how hope takes shape in action, support, and narrative. They then apply the model to their own practice and teaching. This process equips teachers with a transferable, classroom-ready method for designing lessons that make hope both a visible and analytical category in the study of the past.Learning for Change: Exploring Polarised Topics in History Classes
Facilitators: Violeta Georgieva (Stoycheva), Dimitrinka Arnaudova
Description: Parallel Histories presents an interactive, discussion-based approach to teaching contested and sensitive histories through dual narrative, source-driven inquiry. Using curated historical sources (including maps), teachers experience how investigating controversies from opposing perspectives can disrupt stereotypes, challenge preconceptions, and strengthen students’ ability to distinguish proportionate from disproportionate claims. Through small-group analysis and structured debate activities, the session models a safe, non-competitive format that builds oracy, empathy, and confidence to engage respectfully with disagreement, while sharpening disciplinary skills such as evaluating provenance, reliability, and evidential strength. The workshop demonstrates how this framework supports democratic citizenship by equipping young people to navigate polarised narratives, misinformation, and populism—and provides teachers with practical strategies and materials to teach divisive topics with clarity, balance, and critical rigour.Making History Meaningful by Teaching contested Historcalical Figures: the case of Leni Riefenstahl
Facilitators: Elise Storck, Mirela Redžić
Description: Addressing the challenge of making history teaching more relevant and adaptable, this session presents newly developed EuroClio lessons that use controversial historical figures as entry points to explore major historical questions. Designed as interactive learning experiences built around central “big questions,” the lessons support students in connecting historical understanding to present-day issues and future challenges. Participants—both novice and experienced teachers—are invited to collaborate, experiment with the materials, and provide feedback for further development. Using Leni Riefenstahl and her work as a case study, the workshop offers tools to examine the blurred boundaries between art, documentary, and propaganda, encouraging critical reflection on the responsibilities of artists and media creators in today’s world of TikTok, AI, and digital influence.Rewriting the Narrative: Confronting Colonial Language in History Teaching
Facilitator: Jeanette Jones
Description: The workshop equips teachers to recognise how colonial language continues to shape history teaching and how it influences the narratives students inherit. Using an anti-racist, decolonial Project-Based Learning framework, participants learn to identify colonial framing in contemporary teaching materials and redesign learning sequences that support evidence-based historical reconstruction through both dominant and marginalised voices. The session promotes multiperspectivity and transnational approaches by working with sources beyond national borders and tracing how colonial frameworks circulate globally. Positioned within “History and Hope: Learning for Change,” the workshop frames educators as agents of transformation—offering practical tools for critical inquiry, inclusion, and narrative rethinking as pedagogical responsibility and democratic practice.Teaching about elections in times of populism: a European and US perspective
Facilitators: Jeremy Stoddard, Bjorn Wansink
Description: This session explores teachers’ experiences navigating recent elections and populist environments in the Netherlands and the U.S., drawing on research findings to frame discussion. Participants share their own experiences, identify challenges and successes, and work through case studies of dilemmas educators currently face. The workshop emphasizes ethical decision-making in teaching and encourages participants to develop practical strategies applicable to their own classrooms. Focus is placed on addressing populist contexts through multiperspectivity, critical engagement with mis- and disinformation, and reinforcement of democratic values and institutions.The Nakba: Understanding 1948 Through Primary Sources
Facilitator: Rania Assily
Description: The Nakba (the catastrophe) of 1948 Lesson Plan is a synthesis of primary sources aimed to provide teachers of secondary level education a deep analysis proving the connection between the Holocaust and the Nakba of 1948. The lesson grants agency and voice to the millions of Palestinians whose stories have not been exposed for various political reasons. It also seeks to amplify Jewish voices that do not subscribe to the Zionist national project, illustrating the diversity of perspectives within Judaism itself.Hope Manifesto Drafting Part 2
Facilitators: Jeanne Perreul, Garance Monnier, Ariane Ioannides, Yves Mathieu
Participants are invited by the House of European History to co-create a European Hope Manifesto: a collective statement on the role of history and civic education in shaping democratic futures. Three World Café–style workshops will take place during the conference to co-draft the Manifesto. An Editorial Committee of volunteer participants will then be responsible for consolidating and finalising the Manifesto. In this second part, participants will enrich their experiences with highlights from the ongoing annual conference.
Workshop Round 3
Wednesday 29 April 2026, 11:30 - 13:00
The following session will happen at the same time
AI-Enhanced Teaching of European Values and Democracy
Facilitators: Juha-Pekka Lehtonen, Sari Halavaara
Description: The workshop equips participants with practical, easy-to-adopt AI tools and teaching methods for history and social studies that strengthen European values, democracy education, and students’ AI literacy. Developed over three years at an upper-secondary school with support from an EU Jean Monnet grant, the session combines a brief introduction with hands-on activities in which participants work as students, individually and in small groups, using tools such as Copilot, ChatGPT/Perplexity, NotebookLM, and chatbot-based role play. Participants learn how to use AI to process complex source materials (e.g., EU Commission enlargement country reports), design prompts for analysis, and build engaging simulations and creative knowledge transformation tasks (speeches, concept maps, reflective responses), while practicing fact-checking to address hallucinations. The workshop ends with reflection and concrete transfer ideas to help teachers implement AI responsibly to increase student agency, motivation, and democratic participation.Unfinished Stories: Finding Hope in the Korean War
Facilitator: Ute Boeros
Description: Participants explore a newly developed instructional toolkit on the Korean War as a case study for integrating the lens of hope into the teaching of complex, ambiguous, and unresolved histories. The freely available resource, created through a partnership between EuroClio and the Korean War Legacy Foundation to accompany the new IB DP History Course, draws on historical sources, oral history testimonies, and activities that strengthen historical thinking and disciplinary skills. The session combines hands-on engagement with toolkit activities and structured collaboration to identify concrete entry points for hope-oriented learning (resilience, empathy, renewal, and future possibilities from an unresolved past), and to transfer these approaches to other topics in participants’ curricula. While especially relevant for IB History teachers, the principles and strategies are adaptable to all teaching contexts.From Bias to Balance: Digital Citizenship and Constructive Narratives in the History Classroom
Facilitator: Mirela Sakej
Description: This workshop integrates historical narrative analysis with essential digital citizenship skills, showing how hope-based narratives can transform polarized or negative stories into constructive, empathetic learning experiences. Participants collaboratively analyze historical sources and online content to detect manipulation, misinformation, and digital bias, while exploring practical tools for fact-checking, source verification, and safe online engagement. The session equips educators with strategies to help students navigate digital spaces responsibly, fostering critical, balanced, and democratic historical thinking in both online and classroom contexts.How can we teach for active hope in times of crisis?
Facilitator: Bjorn Wansink
Description: This workshop explores how history and civic educators can sustain and cultivate realistic, active hope amid escalating violence, war, and global polarization. Designed for history and civic teachers, it invites participants to reflect on the tensions between their personal feelings about the contemporary world and their professional responsibilities as educators for peace, human rights, and democracy. Through community-building activities, guided reflection, and dialogue grounded in Dialogic Self Theory, participants examine the competing personal and professional voices shaping their work. Drawing on scholarship and practice in history and citizenship education, including examples from (post-)conflict contexts, the workshop supports educators in envisioning concrete approaches, resources, and ways of being that foster education for hope in a divided world, while strengthening a sense of learning community and shared purpose.Before the next viral lie: Teaching media literacy with HistoriCall
Facilitator: Florian Tuder
Description: This workshop introduces educators to Media Literacy, the new HistoriCall digital learning module designed to strengthen students’ critical engagement with historical and contemporary media content. After a short introduction on how the module was developed and its rationale, participants can discover it first-hand. What awaits users are AI-powered instructional videos, historical and contemporary case studies, quizzes, and exercises to foster critical thinking. Two difficulty levels cater to the needs of different age groups of learners. The workshop offers participants space to discuss how the module’s historical and psychological lense on Media Literacy can help students to become informed and empowered digital citizens.Reclaiming Hope: Teaching Contested Histories in Times of Polarisation
Facilitators: Amaia Lamikiz, Ander Delgado, Clara Isabel Serrano, Sérgio Neto
Description: This interactive workshop invites educators to examine how radical movements use history to reshape collective memory and identity, with case studies from Spain and Portugal. Participants analyze revisionist narratives about controversial pasts and collaboratively design classroom activities that turn polarization into dialogue. Through a World Café discussion, they reflect on hope and historical responsibility, exploring ways history education can equip students to resist disinformation and strengthen democracy. The session offers practical tools, source materials, and ready-to-use examples that foster debate, empathy, multiperspectivity, and civic hope in the classroom.Utilising Music in the History Classroom
Facilitators: Daan Krahmer, Joost van Oort
Description: In this workshop, Joost van Oort and Daan Krahmer explore the stories conveyed through song lyrics and demonstrate how teachers can encourage students to listen with a fresh, critical ear. Popular music is rich with societal themes that mirror both past and present realities, making it a powerful and accessible entry point for discussing complex historical and contemporary issues. Despite its potential, music remains an underused educational tool. By engaging with popular music, students can develop empathy for historical figures and events, and encounter a wider range of perspectives—making lessons more diverse, relevant, and appealing, especially for teenagers. Through practical analysis, participants will examine how music and song lyrics can be used as historical documents in the classroom.V@lues without Borders 4 EUth
Facilitator: Cristina Iulia Gila
Description: This workshop involves participants in a dialogue about universal values through history. By examining how rights were won (and lost), educators empower today's "EUth" to recognize their roles as active citizens in a shared European future. The case study, "The Courage of the Word," explores Romania's transition from a totalitarian regime to a democracy, using the Mugur Călinescu case and the 1987 Brașov Rebellion as catalysts for the 1989 Revolution. Drawing on participants' experiences, we will share strategies to motivate students to become engaged, creative citizens through nuanced and critical historical thinking.Virtual Role Play Game - step into the shoes of an MEP
Facilitator: Tamara Gojkovic
Description: Participants step into the role of a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) in this hybrid, gamified workshop designed to simulate the EU legislative process. Assigned to one of four fictional political groups, they debate, negotiate, and vote on a law proposal regarding food labelling, interacting with EU institutions, citizens, civil society, and other stakeholders. The activity provides a simplified but realistic experience of parliamentary work, illustrating the responsibilities of MEPs and the process of lawmaking. Through committee discussions, plenary debates, and strategic compromises, participants gain first-hand experience of democratic decision-making and are encouraged to become more engaged citizens. The game is facilitated online, with participants using personal devices to receive instructions, cast votes, and track progress while interacting in person during discussions and negotiations.Whose Memory Counts? Monuments, Controversy and Under-Representation
Facilitators: Vassilki Yiannou, Lidija Zupanic Suica
Description: Public memory is rarely neutral—contested monuments and invisible communities reveal how societies negotiate the past, and how remembrance can either reinforce exclusion or open pathways to change. Based on the Monument(al) Challenges project and its Tool Kit, this interactive workshop connects directly to “History and Hope – Learning for Change” by engaging participants in two complementary learning tracks: a role-play debate on a controversial monument and a creative design task focused on underrepresented groups missing from public space. Through multiperspectivity, critical dialogue, and collaborative design, participants examine conflict and silence as key dynamics of remembrance and develop concrete proposals for more democratic, inclusive memorial cultures. The workshop concludes with shared reflection and transferable classroom applications.Hope Manifesto Drafting Part 3
Facilitators: Jeanne Perreul, Garance Monnier, Ariane Ioannides, Yves Mathieu
Participants are invited by the House of European History to co-create a European Hope Manifesto: a collective statement on the role of history and civic education in shaping democratic futures. Three World Café–style workshops will take place during the conference to co-draft the Manifesto. In this final workshop, participants will discuss with members of the Editorial Committee to prepare the final draft of the Manifesto and discuss the impact and dissemination strategy.
Workshop Round 4
Wednesday 29 April 2026, 14:00 - 15:30
The following session will happen at the same time
Connecting History Education with Futures Literacies
Facilitators: Karena Kalmbach, Stefanie Holzheu, Christian Engelbrecht
Description: Building on and expanding Futurium’s “Future Box” educational toolkit, the session invites participants to explore possible futures of democracy through speculative, hands-on activities. Using the morphological box method, social, cultural, ecological, and technological parameters are combined to generate future scenarios that function as prompts for critical reflection rather than prediction. Speculation is framed as a tool for developing futures literacies—the ability to imagine possible and desirable futures as a foundation for learning for change. All materials are provided as open educational resources, and participants engage directly with the toolkit while discussing both the conceptual underpinnings and practical applications of the method, highlighting how history didactics and future-oriented thinking can productively inform one another.DEMOS: Strengthening Democracy and European Values through Dialogue
Facilitator: Tvrtko Pater
Description: This workshop introduces participants to DEMOS: Strengthening Democracy and European Values through Dialogue, an educational programme developed to enhance democratic culture through structured dialogue. Drawing on methodologies and resources available at democracydialogues.eu, the session guides educators through tools designed to help learners practise active listening, respectful debate, and constructive disagreement. Participants will be introduced to the project’s pedagogical rationale and have the opportunity to experience selected activities first-hand. The workshop focuses on how dialogue can be used to navigate polarisation, encourage inclusive participation, and strengthen shared democratic values in diverse learning environments. Through facilitated exercises, attendees explore approaches that help learners articulate their views, understand others’ perspectives, and collaboratively build solutions. Beyond experiencing the methodology, the workshop provides space to reflect on the role of dialogue facilitation in strengthening democratic resilience and supporting meaningful civic engagement in the classroom or community.Embedding Culturally Relevant and Anti-Racist Pedagogy into Teaching Practice
Facilitators: Soni Kaur, Rasmus Sam Dige Pedersen, Mette Toft Nielsen
Description: Grounded in culturally relevant and anti-racist pedagogy, this workshop invites participants to examine student populations, ethnicities, and backgrounds through case scenarios that situate different learners. Educators reflect on how to implement more culturally responsive and anti-racist approaches, recognising how culture, societal structures, and lived experiences shape teaching environments and learning processes. Draft guiding questions will be developed by the facilitators together with members of the SPARK Teachers community. The workshop raises key questions such as: How do curricula, materials, and pedagogical choices reflect the students we teach? What changes can foster a stronger sense of belonging for all learners? How does one’s own positionality influence the way we hold space for students and the decisions we make in lesson planning?Hope in the Process: Conceptual and Skills-based History Teaching (Korea IB Case Study)
Facilitator: Lexi Oudman
Description: A newly developed, freely available textbook is presented as a practical case study in concept- and skills-based history teaching, created through a partnership between EuroClio and the Korean War Legacy Foundation to accompany the new IB DP History Course. Authored by IB teachers, the resource focuses on Korea (1840–1945) and includes 12 in-depth instructional activities designed to strengthen historical thinking and disciplinary skills, with a focus on understanding arguments, evaluating perspectives, and drawing evidence-based conclusions. The session offers hands-on engagement with selected sources and activities, allowing participants to experience the approach as learners, analyse the underlying teaching strategies, and extract transferable principles for concept- and skills-based inquiry in their own contexts. The workshop concludes with collaborative planning and reflection on how these approaches can deepen multiperspective learning and build hope for the future of history education.Making History Meaningful: Klemens von Metternich as a Controversial Figure
Facilitators: Henk Bolk, James Diskant
Description: Responding to the need to make history education more relevant, accessible, and adaptable, this session introduces newly developed EuroClio lessons that use controversial historical figures as entry points to explore major historical issues. Built around central “big questions,” the interactive lessons support students in connecting historical knowledge to present-day and future challenges. Participants—both novice and experienced teachers—are invited to collaborate with the developers, experiment with the materials, and contribute feedback for further refinement. Through hands-on strategies, the workshop focuses on the essential question of diplomacy: which approaches to resolving international conflicts are effective, and which prove successful in the long term.Object-based learning: on the nexus between past, present and future
Facilitators: Brent Geerts, Karel van Nieuwenhuyse
Description: This workshop guides you through an interactive methodology, inviting you to dynamically approach historical objects as catalysts for wonder, emotional and cognitive learning, and critical reflection. Based on three hands-on cases on colonialism and the Holocaust, we jointly explore how object-based learning in museums and classrooms can contribute to a transformative learning experience incorporating both critical historical thinking and a transformative learning experience. This means that we do not solely look at the past of an object, yet we also generate a future-oriented perspective by considering what role an object can play in the longer term. At the end, we provide you with a hands-on manual, telling of our commitment to create a learning environment where theory and practice genuinely inform each other.Stories That Move: teaching about discrimination and diversity through real-life stories
Facilitators: Marta Closas Casasampera
Description: Stories that Move is a free online educational toolbox that supports teaching about diversity and discrimination through young people’s real-life stories and experiences. Grounded in storytelling, the approach encourages learners to reflect, share their own thoughts and emotions, and listen to others in order to foster dialogue and empathy. The workshop introduces the platform’s core pedagogical principles and selected youth voices before focusing in depth on the historical Learning Path Life Stories, including the friendship story of Holocaust survivor Ágnes Bartha and the case of Stephen Lawrence, whose mother’s pursuit of justice led to significant reforms in the UK police system. By engaging with these narratives, participants explore how history education can present individuals not only as victims, but as complex, multi-dimensional actors whose lives offer both challenge and inspiration.Using Debate to Explore History and Human Rights
Facilitators: Alexander Schinkel
Description: This interactive session demonstrates how debate can actively engage students in exploring history and human rights. Participants practice accessible debate formats, learn to design compelling motions, and develop skills in structuring arguments and refuting opposing points. Emphasizing inclusion, the workshop offers concrete tools to activate all students while fostering critical thinking, empathy, and effective argumentation. Participants also gain access to lesson materials and an archive of debate motions that can be directly applied in their classrooms.Why didn’t we see what was coming? Teaching contemporary Russian history through cartoons
Facilitator: Uli Schnakenberg
Description: International political cartoons are used as a powerful entry point into post–Cold War Russian history, showing how cartoonists across the world interpreted key developments from the Yeltsin years to today’s “Putinocracy.” Working with a curated set of cartoons, teachers analyse how visual satire captures themes such as political chaos, the Chechen wars, rising nationalism, idealisation of the Soviet past, repression of opposition, and the gradual consolidation of authoritarian power under Putin. The session supports critical discussion on the strengths and limitations of cartoons as historical sources and helps participants develop innovative classroom methods for working with visual material. The workshop concludes with shared teaching ideas, demonstrating how cartoons can sharpen source analysis, media literacy, and historical interpretation while encouraging reflection on ignored warning signs in Europe.Your Historylab: Reimagining Local History – Dare to Think Big!
Facilitators: Judith Blum, Ekaterina Malygina
Description: Our workshop gives inspiration to the question: What if learning about the shared and contested past became a space where diverse voices and global connections shape how we remember and imagine the future? In this interactive YourHistoryLab workshop, participants explore how participatory remembrance projects can cross borders, link cultures, and bring multiple perspectives together. By combining local history with creative tools such as Design Thinking and the Brave Spaces approach by Beth Strano, we experiment with new ways of engaging with memory, dialogue, and empathy – and participatory with young people. Participants will learn how to create their own HistoryLabs to uncover overlooked stories of victims of the Second World War and discuss how local communities can face their histories collectively. The workshop also highlights how shared remembrance can foster courage, openness, and new ideas for the future. Expect a hands-on, reflective experience connecting history, creativity, and collaboration. It is an opportunity to co-develop inclusive approaches to remembrance and discover how the past continues to shape our present and inspire shared action for change.
