"Pandemia en la escuela": una exposición para preservar la memoria de una época incómoda de la Historia de la Educación

Abstract

The School Museum is located in Marrazes neighbourhood, near Leiria, an ancient town in the centre of Portugal. There you can appreciate school objects and documents that portray the History of Education in Portugal. In order to preserve for the future, the memory of this unique period never experienced before in Education that was the Covid-19 pandemic, the School Museum has endeavoured to collect information on how schools, teachers and students adapted to the rules required by the Direção-Geral da Saúde – the Portuguese National Health Service – in order to stop the spread of the SARS-COV2 virus. As a result, the photography exhibition "Pandemic at School" was developed, which reflects all the work and effort in schools to respond to this new reality in 26 municipalities in the centre of Portugal. It also shows empty schools because of the several confinements in which distance learning had to replace face-to-face teaching. It is a portrait not only of a part of our country, but of what was felt all over the world, that remained in everyone's memory and produced so many different feelings. This article focuses on these hard school memories, on the School Museum as a space where school legacy is preserved and on this exhibition.