Lessons bring history into the present

Northcote College students Stevie-Ray Ratcliffe Harriet Carter, both 16, see how research for a history class has been used at Auckland Museum's Pou Maumahara gallery.

An NCEA history assignment has become a life-changing lesson for a group of Northcote College students.

Year 11 pupils in teacher Noeline Ashby's history class were asked to research the "Birkenhead boys" - a group of young men from Birkenhead and Northcote who fought in World War I and received letters and parcels from Alice Mickle, the wife of the local doctor.

Mrs Mickle, who had known many of the boys since they were children, collected their photographs and letters in an album, captioning each one with details about their service. The album can be seen in Auckland Museum's new gallery Pou Maumahara.

The students chose a solider from the album and provided more detailed information about who they were, their lives before they joined up and what became of them. This information has been used in an interactive display which complements the album.

Student Miriana McGechie says they couldn't turn to textbooks and official records - often written in hard-to-read cursive script - for all the information as these were only a starting point.

"We needed to go beyond the records and find the person behind the name," says Miriana.

Classmate Harriet Carter says they wanted to make the soldiers real.

"Not just someone you read about in an old scrapbook and, for all we knew, we could have been living in the same house or street that they did."

Once they started, the students quickly discovered young men who sometimes had similar interests to them or attended Northcote College (the school opened in 1877). In a serendipitous coincidence, Harriet and best friend Stevie-Ray Ratcliffe found the two soldiers they were researching had also been best friends.

Briar Mann says it made history far more personal when they could see it around them in their daily lives while Stevie-Ray agrees it's given them a new perspective on their neighbourhood.

"I don't think any of us will ever think about war in quite the same way," she says. "For the rest of our lives, I think we will remember the soldiers we researched. We can relate to some of the 'Birkenhead boys' because we had - have - things in common with them so there are connections."

Their discoveries have made them more aware of the personal impact war has; as fellow student Lauren Palmer points out, every person they researched had a story - even if it was challenging to uncover - family and community connections. The stories often ended tragically; few of the Birkenhead boys made it home alive and unscathed while one soldier survived WWI only to die during the 1918 influenza epidemic.

The students acknowledged it made it more difficult to be impartial observers of conflict - however distant - because every person involved would have a story to tell and lives bound up with those of others.

Piper Worboys was amazed to see how their research has been used by the museum, saying it's well laid-out and easy to follow.

"It makes it real."

Pou Maumahara includes digital interactive displays, photographs, diaries, books and records, military equipment and military medals - thought to number around 1400 - laid out in visible and easily accessible storage drawers. It is also home to Auckland Museum's Online Cenotaph.