The Project
aims to develop and research work on teaching Black British history in
secondary schools, through Key Stage 3 and beyond. It is being planned as a
joint declaring that the history of peoples of African and Asian descent is
already a part of England’s National Curriculum history, and is not to be
simply designated as ‘non-British history’; that teachers can be led into much
more creative and authentic ways of interpreting the demands of the National Curriculum
after the forthcoming changes, to enable students to learn a diverse range of
‘British histories’, and also to pursue those studies in examination courses in
the 14-19 phase.
The organisers state: ‘Studying African-American history,
and even African history, is quite common across schools and universities, and
some even think that Civil Rights (U.S.) will soon be up alongside Hitler and
Henry VIII in the common school history diet. We want the history of Black
people in Britain to be as well known. It will take a lot of work to develop
such courses and to give teachers the confidence to move it forward, and the
project we are proposing would do that. The United Nations declared 2011 to be
the 'Year for People of African Descent', and we hope this event will play some
part in honouring those who have in recent centuries followed the whole of
humanity in 'coming out of Africa'.’
The launch was mainly taken up with speakers, and two unduly
short sessions to address two key questions. Marika Sherwood spoke about the anger she still had about the lack of teaching
of black history when she started teaching in the 1960s. O spoke about his
personal journey of discovery about black history after being told at primary
school that he had lied that his grandfather had fought in the Second World
War. A group for former Year 11 pupils at School talked about the impact on
them of undertaking a project on Britain’s multi-cultural history. Hakim Adi
spoke about some of the problems in the University world.
While there was a good buzz among the audience, to me it
felt like being back years ago. There was no recognition of the changes that
have taken place, the enormous amount of research and writing that there has
been on British Black History. It was a pity that two of the best teachers
present were not asked to talk about their work: Martin Stafford and Dan
Lyndon.
To my mind key issues facing the development of the
Project include:
(1) the
continual battle to have British history re-told to include the Black (and as
Hakim said women and workers).
(2) the
approach to teaching about Britain’s centuries old multi-cultural history because
the increasing diversity of the population means we cannot ignore those who do
not regard themselves as Black (whether in its colour or political meanings), or
African (as many ‘Caribbeans' do not) and those from Chinese, European
and other heritages.
(3) the
promotion of the enormous range of resources already available.
(4) making
materials available to teachers in a format they can understand and use.
(5) recognising
the difficulties schools have in including special projects into their timetables.
If the Project starts with a negative approach of
out-of-date criticism then it will have no influence at all.
More details can be been on the Project’s website: http://allourhistory.tumblr.com/post/9251111907/tackling-the-taboo-solving-the-dilemma-for-history-in.
My thoughts on the
National Curriculum can be seen at http://historyandsocialaction.blogspot.com/2010/11/british-black-asian-history-in-national.html
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