Ana María Lobeto, who teaches history at the Juan José Calvo Miguel de Sotrondio Institute, tells us that, in the subject curriculum, in her second year of high school, only a brief mention is made of Isabella I of Castile. The Catholic queen only appears in passing and of the rest of the women, in all ages, there is no trace.
María Álvarez, professor of Medieval History at the University of Oviedo, is the principal investigator of a didactic innovation project, funded by the Institute for Educational Innovation of the University of Oviedo (INIE), whose aim is to remedy this lack and give visibility to women in textbooks At her side Carla Rubiera, professor of Ancient History, also from the University of Oviedo, both engaged in an initiative that has already concluded its first year and will continue for another year, and which they titled “I’m Not in My Story Books Teaching and Changing Teaching to Reclaim Women.”
“History continues to be written by men and women do not appear. What interests us is to make a social history of women, and from the eyes of women,” explains María Álvarez. It is a problem that concerns compulsory schooling, but also extends to the University. “Even here, women are still absent from the history books. This work of normalization and elimination of anthropocentrism is transversal, it touches various subjects of the degree», adds his partner Carla Rubiera. “We can’t look back and ignore women,” she says.
The result of that first year of work, in collaboration with various secondary education institutions, is the exhibition that until 31 January 2023 occupies the atrium of the Aula Magna of the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters, on the Milanese campus of Oviedo. It is organized into four panels with general information and another six with specific educational proposals: women in the Asturian Paleolithic, in the history of mining in Asturias or in Al Andalus, goddesses and priestesses, the revision of the myth of Cleopatra or the return to the world of British botany Jeanne Baret, the first woman to complete it. There are many others, all with huge tools to delve into each topic. All are available and accessible to teachers, indefinitely, on the website where all the material is published (www.unioviedo.es/innovahistoria/).
The project involves universities and institutes, teachers and researchers and students. It begins in institutes, noting female absences in programming; It continues at the University, where students prepare materials tailored to the different levels of Secondary to fill these gaps with complementary activities.
Carlos Gutiérrez is one of the university students who brought the program to the institutes, that of Sotrondio in his case. There they talked about women in Andalusian society, organizing workshops attended by about 80 second-year high school students, and as told by Marcos García, one of her classmates, the response was mixed. “Some pay more attention than others,” he acknowledges, and you have to make an effort to “try to find the point of contact.” For future historians, the experience is interesting because it represents a first approach to pedagogy, one of their possible professional choices.
“It’s an excellent mutual contact”, comments Ana María Lobeto, who has noticed a certain “pessimism” among her students for some time, to the point that “many see the University as inaccessible”. Having young college students among them has a stimulating effect on them.
The team developing the project includes, in addition to those already mentioned, Fernando Rodríguez del Cueto, professor of Prehistory; Juan Díaz Álvarez, of Modern History; Jorge Muñiz Sánchez, of Contemporary History, all from the University of Oviedo, and Sonia García Galán, from the IES de Llanera; Elena Casáis Acebal, of the Virgen Mediadora School of Gijón; María Cristina López Meana, of the Real Jovellanos Institute of Gijón, and Natalia Fernández, of the IES Peñamayor, of Nava.
