Young People and Their Historical Consciousness

Resumo

To understand this article - written as a lecture in Curitiba two years ago, actualised here of course - and its intention in a correct way, some remarks are necessary. To anticipate the message of the text: Even if you would like to copy the German theories of teaching history (which I warn you explicitly instead of advising you!), you could not successfully do so (some good reasons for this warning are following). Instead of that, it may be very useful to compare German and Brazilian ideas and experiences and to decide after own reflections, what German proposals should be experimented with.2 Cultural diversity of Brazil and Germany: Brazil is in a postcolonial and post-slavery status, as a global player in globalization in the second generation. It is a “tiger-state” of the BRIC-group, together with Russia, India and China. This means a threshold-state on its way to a world-power (among others). Germany is a big (but second order) European country, though with late and little direct colonial experience (none in America), but by chance it gave the first intensive description - Staden 1557 - of the country to Brazil (at least its natives). Germany waged an imperialistic and genocidal war of extermination in 1939/45, not only against Jews.3 Now it is an old industrial society in a confederation of European states, with some actual problems.