This year's Network17 invitation was a fascinating impetus to look at my dissertation (which I am currently writing at Vilnius University, on the retrospective and perspectives of Roma education policy and practice 1956-2024 in Lithuanian schools) from a completely different and unplanned angle - the emotions of the individual in a historical context. Nevertheless, today, balancing between two intentions: 1) to present a small part of the research data related to the teacher's memories of his/her experiences of working with three different generations of Roma pupils (from the late 1980's onwards), and 2) to criticize myself as a researcher who has been applying oral history for perhaps the first time, I pose the question: What emotions and feelings emerged in the teachers' narratives about the past, and do these emotions in the current context have implications for their work, and perhaps even for future strategy planning?

In answering this question, the analysis revealed a wide range of emotions and feelings experienced in the past, which can be summarised as "negative", meanwhile in terms of the present, educators identified much more "positive" emotions. This can be explained by the fact that teachers are now very happy about their successes and are aware of the enormous impact that, for example, a simple transition from one class to another can have on some Roma pupils, but both in the past and in the present this happiness, seems to be clouded by the pressure of the public "a piori problematic" discourse on Roma education, because as Matras mentions, "No tabula rasa is available when it comes to briefing politicians, media, or the wider public about Roma/Gypsies and their needs or aspirations" (2013).  Thus, from a historical perspective the "resignation to defeat"  of the past were transformed in the present - into a context of lower expectations. Teachers tend to view truly noteworthy pedagogical changes with a very modest attitude, as "small steps on a long journey". Interestingly, this phrase tends to be used by teachers of both the old and the young generation, which allows us to speak of a kind of reproduction of pedagogical emotions in the context of a future programmed in the past, i.e. a present of low aspirations.

The "good" features of oral history were particularly highlighted in the context of this study as an opportunity not only to create a source of unique information, but also to involve the Roma and the educational community in the construction of history.  Nevertheless I have also encountered the "classic" difficulties of the novice researcher: trying to understand how individuals relate to their past and how historical understanding unfolds over time (Ricoeur, 2004), navigating between the twists and turns of memory and history, where the resulting testimony is "never the same twice in a row" (Portelli, 2009), and the difficulties of interpretation and the transition between the micro and the macro history of history (Domanska, 1999). I understand and apologise in advance to those who may find my newbie-level observations about the use of oral history in educational research naive and even self-evident, but perhaps by analysing myself rather than others I am much more in line with the longing theme of this year's ECER Network17 call - by sentimentally reminding experienced educational historians of their own first oral history research and nostalgic career beginnings.

This presentation presents only a small part of the data (selected according to the theme of this year's conference and Network17 invitation) collected at Vilnius University during the implementation of a dissertation research project on the retrospective and future perspective of Roma education policy and practice in Lithuanian schools (1956-2024). Combined with elements of biographical research oral history was used as the main research method with the participation of three different generations of Roma with experience of schooling in Lithuanian schools since 1956. Oral history has received a great deal of attention from scholars who have addressed key theoretical and methodological issues either in general (Thompson, 2000; Perks, Thomson, 2006, Thomson, 2007), or within the framework of a particular period (Vinogradnaitė et. al, 2018; Švedas, 2010),so it was chosen as appropriate for recording voices from marginalised groups (Portelli, 2009). It is also important to mention that the general study used archival (mostly school’s archival data) document analysis (G. McCulloch, 2004). Another important voice in the research was that of educators working with the group in question in Lithuanian schools since 1985 (educators of the younger generation also had the opportunity to be involved in the research - their narratives were used in a comparative aspect). Currently, 23 educators from different Lithuanian cities and different types of schools have already been involved in the study. Data for all participants in the study are depersonalised. The collected oral history interviews were transcribed (audio recordings ranging from 30 minutes to 2.5 hours) and the data were analysed using thematic analysis (Braun, Clarke, 2022). In preparation for this presentation, the array of data collected during the general dissertation research has been revisited through a re-targeted thematic examination of the narrative of educators' emotions, as well as a re-analysis of my interview notes in relation to capturing the educators' emotions, and a personal research diary (which has become extremely useful for capturing my own emotions and reflection, following Nadin, Cassell (2006); Trainor, Bundon (2020)).

1) Analysing the narratives of the professional memories of teachers working with Roma pupils since the late 1980s, the following dominant emotions emerged: frustration/hopelessness, disappointment, fear, feelings of loneliness, joy/pride. Some of them were more related to the organisation and implementation of the educational process, others to the assessment of educational achievements. Feelings of frustration/despair, fear have evolved and transformed in the historical perspective, taking on new forms, the narrative of feelings of joy and pride has become more connected to the future parallel, and the feeling of loneliness seems to have remained unchanged in the past-present perspective. Interestingly, the process of oral history interviews itself often veered in this direction of emotions and feelings, and seemed to turn not only into multi-perspective personal/collective testimonies and reflections on the past, present and future, but also into a kind of psychotherapeutic analysis of the genesis of individual emotions. 2) I will not be contradicting myself by saying that the oral history method requires a lot of effort on the part of the researcher, but the analysis of that effort becomes another interesting field of research. As a young historian of education applying this method for the first time, I have encountered, perhaps, a number of difficulties: 1) in the process of data collection; 2) in the management of the enormous amount of data; 3) in the context of the tension between history and memory; 4) and most importantly (for this particular topic) – in the ethical issues of historical research. Some of the questions that arose during the research resolved themselves, while others remained unanswered, intriguing and tempting me to delve into the depths of philosophy of history in the hope that I would find answers to them "when I grow up and become a historian of education".

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