The article analyzes three experiences of
classes that I lived at different moments
of my teaching career. In all three, the use
of images in History class is the fundamental
concern. History as a discipline
was born with writing as its main source
of knowledge. The relationship of historical
research with images is recent and
complex and is reflected in some way in
different trends in history teaching. This
complexity appears clearly in the experiences
that I am going to analyze. I want
the images that I use in my classes to
have a central role as a way of approaching
the past and not as a simple illustration
of the oral or written story of the
class. Images from the past are like reflections
in mirrors. These mirrors are human
products that are intended to reflect
in a certain way. Understanding the complexity
of the mirror – of the image of the
past – is the question.
