AN EXAMPLE FOR THE USABILITY OF POSTAGE STAMPS IN HISTORY TEACHING “TEACHING TURKISH HISTORY THROUGH 100 STAMPS; THE YEARS BETWEEN 1863-1950”

Abstract

Political, social, cultural and educational futures of the states are determined by the ruling power and all the areas concerning the state are formed with a similar point of view. In this regard, the state’s policy is the most fundamental factor in determining how both the contents of the postage stamps and history teaching will be. Message given by the stamps and the person, event and objects used to give this message are shaped in line with the ruling power's point of view. For this reason, postage stamps have characteristics that can be a source of information about both the period's political, social, economic and cultural point of view and about understanding the past perception. In this study, written and visual data on postage stamps printed during the Ottoman Period (1863-1919), Interim period (1920-1922) and Republican Period (1923-1938) were examined. As a result of the examination done during the study, it was determined that stamps contained information reflecting the political, social, economic and cultural point of view of the examined period's state and information about history teaching perception of the time. Based on the obtained results, it can be stated that stamps can be used both as a tool in history teaching and in explaining history teaching perception of the period when they were printed.