Geography: Righting the world?
Written by Steve Brace
Head of Education and Outdoor Learning at the Royal Geographical Society. He started his career as a geography teacher and had previously led the education programmes for ActionAid and the Commonwealth Institute.
Studying geography enables young people to better understand the world’s people, places and environments, the interactions between them – from the local to the global scale.
As Ofsted notes, this requires teachers to critically reflect on the imagery, data and attitudes they portray to pupils, so that geography can accurately represents the nature of the world’s people, communities, economies, diversities and experiences (Ofsted 2021). And, as our world continues to change so must geography. This makes the subject such a fascinating and challenging one to teach and why geography has an important role in supporting equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI).
Geography has one of the best gender balances of all subjects and over the last 10 years its GCSE cohort has become much more diverse. Since 2010 its GCSE entries have increased by over 50% reaching a record high of 282,000 candidates last summer. It is welcome that this growth has come predominantly from those groups who were previously less likely to study geography: Black, Asia and minority ethnic pupils; pupils with lower prior attainment; those from low-income backgrounds; and/or pupils studying in comprehensive schools (RGS 2020)
However, the positive change at GCSE is not yet being seen at A Level and the narrowing of intake continues further at university. This is despite the positive outcomes that geography provides for its graduates, who experience above average rates of graduate employment and ‘top 10’ graduate salaries.
It is recognised by the colleagues across the subject community that more work is needed to better support EDI in relation to the curriculum, resources, the teaching workforce and how the subject can support young peoples’ career aspirations. Examples of current activities include:
- Puttick and Murrey’s research (2020) which identified that the ‘piecemeal approach to geographies of race and racism is insufficient for educating students for the 21stC’
- The scholarship shared through the RGS’s Decolonising geographical knowledges conference
- The Higher Education community’s support for accessible and inclusive fieldwork and pride in the field
- The advocacy and work of Black Geographers
- And teacher led initiatives such as Decolonising Geography , Inspirational Geographers and – alongside many others – that of Shiv Das, Hina Robinson and Hafsa Bobat
There are also opportunities to reduce the gap between geographical research and the classroom, such as through the RGS’s Ask the Geographer podcast which share the work of research geographer with teacher and their pupils. Schemes-of-work can also be updated through the incorporation of new research findings, such as the resources based on the Migrants on the Margins research programme which investigated the lives of migrants in Colombo, Dhaka, Harare and Hargeisa. Such resources are further complemented by the wider contributions of many others including Worldmapper, Gapminder and Dollar Street.
Consideration needs also to be given to not only to what is being taught, but also who is teaching geography. This situation is explored in I didn’t have any teachers that looked like me which shares the perspectives of Black, Asian and minority ethnic trainee and early career geography teachers. And they recommend the need for EDI to be held as a responsibility for all geography teachers, as well as the wider subject community and its institutions.
Geographers can also critically reflect on the subject’s development through Britain’s period of Empire and imperialism, how the subject helped create and share stereotypical views about the world and the continuing legacy of these. For example, the very first volume of the Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society (1857) an author ascribes the Moroccan town of Sala’s decline to “ignorance, despotism and Mohammedanism”. However, dissenting voices – including those of African descent – can be found in geography’s history, such as the 19thC testimony of James Africanus Horton of Sierra Leone and Edward Blyden of Liberia. Both were critics of Eurocentric stereotyping of African cultures and provide an early precursor to Chimamanda Adichie’s warning of a single story. Now in the 21stC there an imperative to rediscover geography’s diverse voices some of which can be seen in the RGS’s Hidden Histories of Exploration which highlighting the important contributions of African, Asian and Inuit people
As the geographer Professor Chris Philo recently said – geography invites both ‘earth-writing’ – words to evoke worlds, and ‘earth-righting’ – actions to improve worlds. For this to be achieved geography needs to become more equal, diverse and inclusive. Many within the subject have been setting a course to help achieve this, though this journey has still significant distance to travel.
Limp Handshakes and Auditory Bias: My Process of Applying for Headship
Written by Kevin Carson
Headteacher at The Royal Masonic School for Girls. A learner, an English teacher, and a dad to 2 fab girls. Originated in Liverpool, enjoying living in the Shires.
I have been attending a monthly Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion leadership programme with Diverse Educators since April 2021. It is led by @Ethical_Leader and @Angela_Browne, and it has uplifted, educated, and inspired me every month.
Hannah and Angie are clear and correct that DEI work is safeguarding work, that well embedded DEI makes school communities safer places. The aim of their programme is not to rush into anything in a knee-jerk way, but to listen, reflect, learn, and then start to put together a 3-to-5-year plan that works for each school: carefully planning sustained change over time.
At the start of this week’s session, mention was made of an excellent candidate for headship who so far has not been appointed and there was a feeling that this may at least in part be connected to his race and from that perhaps also in part to his strong accent. This anecdote stayed with me after the session, conscious as I am that over 96% of male and female headteachers in England are white, and with my own awareness of how frequently my accent was referenced when I was applying to be a Headteacher.
I have decided to share a couple of anecdotes relating to my applications for the post of Head at independent schools when my accent was considered a relevant factor.
I once applied for a Headteacher post where afterwards I was told by the head-hunters, “You were the preferred candidate, the first choice, but the Board have decided not to appoint. They were quite vague and evasive with us about why this was, and they could only give reasons such as ‘His handshake wasn’t strong enough’, whatever that means. I think you can draw your own conclusions from this, Kevin.” A few months later, the Bursar at that particular school later told me straight that the Chair of Governors didn’t wish for somebody from my background as Head of ‘his’ school.
On another occasion I attended a training session with one of the head-hunter firms, as part of a course for half a dozen applicants who they felt were close to headship. Afterwards, the course leader told me, “We agreed that you were the strongest candidate from the process we saw today. You are 100% ready to be a headteacher, but we think that you should seriously consider booking yourself in for elocution lessons because your accent will be the reason that you are not going to be appointed.” As an English teacher I know enough about language, culture, and identity to be able to reply that if a school didn’t wish to take me as I am then they weren’t the right school for me and I wouldn’t wish to be their headteacher.
For those who do not know me, as my About Me section says, I grew up in Huyton, Liverpool, a working-class area that is in the second most deprived borough in England, and I have quite a strong Liverpudlian accent. The Chair of Governors at my then current school did make a decision to directly address my accent in his reference, raising it as a potential consideration before clarifying why this shouldn’t be a factor in a Board’s thinking, pre-emptively calling this out as it were.
I am a straight, white, male headteacher of an independent school. I have a 1st class degree, and an M.Phil. from Trinity College, Cambridge – there is a whole bunch of privilege there. At the time of the anecdotes above I was also Interim Head of The Grammar School at Leeds, a large, diamond model school. I had quite a strong CV on paper, and to be honest I suspect that in a comparable way to my accent wrongly being deemed relevant at interview, it is also not inconceivable that my educational background helped get me to the interview stage. Some Boards like this kind of thing, taking it to signify far more than it should.
I want to be clear that this is not a post about bias and class in the independent sector. I have worked in four independent schools, valued them all, and have found them all to be far more egalitarian workplaces than some might imagine. Very many people working in the independent sector desire to do social good and to help to create a more inclusive and sustainable world. More specifically, in RMS, I have found a values-led school with a strong ethos that is prepared to think differently about all aspects of education. I feel appreciated there for who I am, and my accent or social background aren’t referenced in relation to the job that I do because nobody feels they are relevant.
But I have shared a few of my experiences here, (and each of these are only from six years ago), as anecdotal evidence that bias is still out there in appointing Heads. The education system would be a better place if this were not the case, and we all need to consider the ways in which we can demonstrate commitment to a diverse, equitable, and inclusive staff community in our schools. For me, it was bias in relation to attitudes to social class, and a little bit of auditory bias. The government figures from 2019 indicate the extent to which this is a far greater issue in relation to race and ethnicity.
The data shows:
- There were around 22,400 headteachers in 2019, and over two-thirds of those (around 15,100) were women
- 96.1% of female headteachers were White (92.6% White British, 1.7% White Irish and 1.8% White Other)
- 97.0% of male headteachers were White (92.9% White British, 2.1% White Irish and 2.0% White Other)
A few final thoughts on this topic for now from me:
- I hope and want to believe this bias and prejudice is receding, gradually diminishing. I believe in the transformative power of education as a force for social change that makes a positive difference. Interestingly, the Foundation that found my background not the right fit for them and that blamed it on my limp handshake have changed their entire Board since then, and there are now seven women and three people of colour on a more diverse Board there. You would like to think this would not happen again.
- @jillberry102 was a great source of advice and support throughout my applications for headship. She always said that in the end you find the right school for you, the right fit for you. I do think there is something in this. I can now view my earlier experiences as lucky escapes.
- There is a great deal I have taken from the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion leadership course, both from the leaders and from the brilliant colleagues that are attending with me from both sectors, and from the UK and overseas. I am sure I will write about this learning again, including about how we strive to apply it at RMS. We have just appointed two DEI leads at RMS – they are brilliant colleagues who will do a great deal of good in this role. My first show of support for them was to sign them up for Hannah and Angie’s training course with Diverse Educators.
Supporting pupils with ADHD in schools
Written by Nadia Hewstone
Nadia is a certified executive school leadership coach. She left headship to start Destino Coaching and now supports school leaders with their own development as well as development of their teams.
Even as a parent of a child with ADHD, as a teacher I struggled to find and implement strategies to support my students with the diagnosis. I found many things that ‘worked’, but many more that didn’t. The search continued when I became a Headteacher who was supporting colleagues who also struggled to find the answer. Where things changed was when I stopped looking for what worked and started understanding what I was happening for those students.
In his book Shattered Minds, Gabor Mate identifies a number of strategies, that spoke to me and that I wished I’d discovered sooner in my career. He makes a case for reducing ‘imposed structure and discipline’ and increasing ‘freedom for individuality and self-expression.’
I was relieved he didn’t go on to advocate unstructured classrooms, as I know that would be nearly impossible, in the current climate. Instead, he talks about recognising the ‘supressed energy’ of students with ADHD through our responses to them, which so often includes sarcasm, shaming and shouting.
This principle is the first to master in our endeavour to support these creative and courageous young people. The secret to success in this matter, for teachers, lies in not adding to the problem by alienating these student any further.
I saw the impact of this in my own school when the teaching staff and I made a pact to refrain from any type of shaming response to a child’s behaviour. We did some work as a team to recognise our triggers and manage our reactions to be able to keep to the pact. Behaviour in this group of students improved dramatically.
This came back to bite me again, when my own child’s behaviour invoked explosive responses in me. I was at my wits end. Then I realised I was angry with my child for having the struggles associated with having ADHD. With lots of support from family, I learnt to change the way I responded to her and I worked on accepting her exactly the way she was. Our lives and our relationship improved remarkably.
Unconditional positive regard doesn’t have to come just from parents, we can adopt it as teachers too. It require honestly, courage and a safe environment, but it is possible. Gabor argues that ‘understanding the student is transformative’ and I have seen this first hand, as a teacher and as a parent. There are other considerations such as working with parents, tailored access arrangements in exams and planning for the need to move and play but the commitment to stop trying to fix children with ADHD is the power pill we all need to take.
So when I work with people who want to provide better support for young people with ADHD, I start with pressing the stop button on wishing they were different and start work on meeting them where they are. All the other work is easy after that.
The British Army’s Diverse Resources for the New Term
Written by Eleanor Brown
Head of Education Marketing at Capita
The British Army has developed new resources to help students aged 11-16 build their understanding of why it is important to commemorate significant groups in the history of the British Army. Focusing on diversifying the curriculum, This resource pack features Women in the Army, LGBTQ+ Voices and Black History resources with links to PSHE, History and Citizenship.
Each of the resources are available for key awareness days in the school calendar and include ready-to-use lesson plans, assembly presentations, case studies and films to help students understand the changing roles of service people in the British Army throughout history, reflect on who we remember as a society or individuals and explore what it’s like to serve in the Army today. The resources are part of the British Army’s dedication to addressing the inequalities within the organisation and raising awareness of the contributions of service people both historically and now.
Women in the Army Resources
An excellent resource for International Women’s Day on March 8th, the Women in the Army resources have curriculum links to PSHE / Health and Wellbeing, Citizenship and History. The lesson plan offers interactive tasks to help young people to recognise and challenge harmful stereotypes and prejudice both at work and in society as a whole. Showcasing the significant roles women have played from the 1800s to today, the resources explore key terms such as feminism, gender and intersectionality, encouraging students to consider the evolving roles of women in the Army in the context of wider society.
The assembly slides and the film builds on these key themes, showcasing the contributions and accomplishments of women in the Army and reflecting on the stories we remember. The assembly brings a specific focus to the history of women in wartime and features empowering women including Captain Flora Sandes, who was the only woman to fight on the front line of WWI, and Adelaide Hall, a jazz singer who entertained troops in WWII and was the first Black performer to be given a long-term contract with the BBC.
LGBTQ+ Resources
Perfect for LGBT History Month 2020 in February, The LGBTQ+ Voices lesson resources show the progress made within the Army and in wider society with activities that celebrate the contributions of historical and current LGBTQ+ Army personnel, including WWI soldier Edward Brittain and Deborah Penny, the first trans soldier in the British Army. Students can also learn how they can be supportive of all LGBTQ+ people, and other groups and communities, through the allyship video resource.
By profiling six historical LGBTQ+ figures, such as the mathematician Alan Turing and poet Wilfred Owen, the assembly resource asks students to reflect on their contributions. This is followed by a film featuring current LGBTQ+ soldiers, addressing the significance of LGBTQ+ history to them and the progress that has been made by the Army to ensure everyone feels welcome.
Black History Resources
These Black History digital resources for Key Stages 3 and 4 include an assembly and lesson plan to help students understand the stories of Black British, African and Caribbean service people who have often been unfairly excluded from the history books and help students consider some of the reasons for and effects of these omissions.
The assembly resource profiles service people from throughout history, while the interactive lesson resources offer source materials to help students build core historical skills and explore the contributions and stories of Black Britons, West and East Africans and Caribbean service people during World War One. The resources also offer examples of the impact of the war on different Black women, documenting case studies of a Trinidadian, British and an East African (from the Tanzania-Malawi border region) woman.
Questions at the end of each resource help facilitate discussions that address the significance of Black History Month and studying Black History more broadly and how this relates to modern discussions on race and diversity, including reflections from current Black soldiers to help build student’s discussions.
All the British Army resources can be downloaded for free online at: https://apply.army.mod.uk/base/lessons
New Research: LYFTA Storyworlds Help Reduce Anxiety Around Meeting People From Different Backgrounds
Written by Dr Harriet Marshall
Head of Educational Research at Lyfta and has been a global education advocate for over 20 years, as a teacher, researcher, consultant and education project leader.
A University of Tampere study found that virtual immersive environments that contain interactive human stories can help reduce learners’ social anxiety around meeting people from different cultural backgrounds.
A study using teaching resources from Lyfta has found that the multi-sensory and participatory nature of immersive 360° experiences led to a decrease in learners’ sense of social anxiety about meeting people from different cultural backgrounds. Engaging with new people in an immersive virtual setting gives students the opportunity to identify common interests and, as a result, develop more positive feelings towards them. Although the study was completed with undergraduate students, we are excited about the implications for engaging school-aged students with digital immersive storytelling.
The study has been published in the International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning. Its findings show that the reduction in social anxiety was especially significant among those who had high levels of social anxiety before the learning experience, adding to our growing understanding that immersive digital storytelling can be of particular benefit to students who get little or no opportunity to interact with those from different cultural backgrounds.
The researchers were influenced by our own school-based research (summed up in the video here), where students were shown photos of six people featured in our storyworlds, and asked how much they felt they had in common with each person, before and after exploring their stories. We found that experiencing the storyworlds led to a significant positive difference in students’ attitudes towards the people they ‘met’ there.
Our vision at Lyfta is that by the time a child leaves school, they would have had the chance to experience, and emotionally connect with, human stories from every country in the world. Lyfta stories give students the opportunity to see how interconnected and interdependent we all are. The findings of this study provide exciting evidence that Lyfta’s powerful and immersive resources have real impact in helping to nurture empathetic global citizens.
Read the University of Tampere study in full now
If you are looking to foster global citizenship and empathy in your classroom, you can Register now for free trial access to two immersive Lyfta storyworlds. https://registration.lyfta.com/
Increasingly Visible: Being an ‘Out’ LGBTQ+ Educator
Written by Vickie Merrick
PE and History Teacher at an International School in Rome and has previously taught in Vietnam and the UK.
This post was very much inspired by Dr Adam Brett’s (@DrAdamBrett) recent talk about his PhD findings on what it means to be a visible LGBT+ educator. It is a personal reflection of my journey to becoming visible in an international teaching community.
During my ITT year there wasn’t the same talk and work that there is now about DEI, social justice and decolonising the curriculum. As a white British cis woman going through my training year, I never thought about the importance of representation. “If you can see it, you can be it” wasn’t a phrase that ever crossed my mind.
Now I realise and acknowledge that I have white privilege, I’m cisgender, I’m middle class (in that whilst my parents consider themselves working class, I went to a grammar school, I’ve gone to university twice and am currently back again completing an MSc and these experiences have afforded me the opportunity to emigrate and continue my career abroad) and I was lucky enough to be born in the Global North. There are many things about my life that mean I have an easier time than so many people in the world.
I’m also a member of the LGBTQ+ community. And I have a chronic health condition that impacts both my physical and mental health. These two areas are the only parts of my life where I have ever faced any difficulty due to my identity.
Section 28 left a strange underlying legacy on schools in England. Although I began working in schools a long time after its 2003 repeal, I heard “don’t tell the students about your personal life, it’s none of their business who you are” more than once in the staffroom. Even though my straight colleagues would quite openly talk about their partners/spouses, the insinuation was that I shouldn’t allude to being a gay woman in front of my classes.
In addition I was aware of the cultural background of my students and knew that some may not have heard positive things (or anything at all) about LGBTQ+ people at home. If I was in the same situation now I don’t think I would hide myself at the risk of causing offence (offence after all is taken not given) and would have used it as an educational opportunity to discuss embracing others regardless of their identity. But I was a new teacher concentrating on learning how to teach (something I’m still learning) and was not too concerned with being a representative of the LGBTQ+ community.
There were students who found out that I was gay and I never encountered any problems from them, if anything they were extremely positive and open about wanting to support LGBTQ+ people. On the other hand, I did once experience a student using ‘gay’ and ‘f**’ as an insult to another student in a lesson I was covering so I followed the school policy and the student waited outside for an on call member of staff. The member of staff had a chat with me and the student then brushed off the incident and sent the student back into the lesson. Again, looking back, as a more experienced teacher, I wouldn’t have let it slide. But as an NQT, I didn’t feel that I had any power to insist that this was homophobic language and should be treated in a serious way that shows the student it is not acceptable.
The final reason that I was never fully visible in my first school was more of an internal one. I teach history and PE. We’ve all heard of and perpetuated (myself included when I was a kid at school) the stereotype of the lesbian PE teacher. I didn’t want to be a stereotype. I’d previously been in the Army Reserves for a short time and found the same stereotype about female soldiers. That wasn’t my reason for leaving the Reserves but with the Army, working in sport, and being a PE teacher, it can get tiring constantly laughing with and brushing off people making jokes and having ‘banter’ about a part of who you are. And of course you laugh because they’re your colleagues and friends. They mean no harm but it’s the microaggressions that we know now to be aware of alongside our own unconscious biases that can build up and deeply impact people.
Leaving the U.K. and yearly visits to Pride Parades behind brought a change to my level of visibility. I left the U.K. with my partner and moved to Vietnam. Throughout the recruitment process we were up front about applying as a couple and didn’t face any problems when it came to contracts, housing allowances and dealing with HR in our new country. There was a surprising moment when the estate agent who was sorting out our rental apartment said the landlady was concerned that two single western women would have lots of men visiting and would receive complaints. The estate agent luckily had read the situation well and assured the landlady that she didn’t have to worry about frequent male visitors staying over…
In school itself it was a different story. We often talk about walking into our school and seeing a rainbow painted on one of the corridor walls with the words “love is love” below it. Talk about a welcoming sign. Again, at the beginning I didn’t intentionally come out to any of my students. Not through a conscious choice but I still didn’t really consider the positive impact it could have for LGBTQ+ students to see a visibly LGBTQ+ member of staff. There were other LGBTQ+ staff and couples at the school and openly LGBTQ+ students who felt they could be ‘out’ at school even if they couldn’t be at home due to the traditional values of their families. Over time, and partly due to the nature of international schools, many of the students my partner and I taught learnt that we were a couple- and exactly as it should be, they treated this as a total non-event. They treated us the same as the other teaching couples in the school. My form, however, were so excited on the day they noticed my engagement ring that I had to usher them out of the door to be on time for their first lessons because they wanted to stop and hear the full story of the proposal. And as we were getting ready to leave and say our final goodbyes in the midst of a lockdown and online learning, some of our grade 10 students were insisting that we sent wedding photos to one of our colleagues after the holidays so that they could see our dresses and hair and make-up.
In Vietnam, my visibility as an LGBTQ+ educator had increased because I felt supported by my colleagues, the school and the students. And the more visible myself and other LGBTQ+ educators were, the more I noticed the way the vast majority of our students, even though they were from all over the globe with different cultures, beliefs, values and backgrounds, treated their LGBTQ+ peers with an awareness, a kindness and acceptance. I left that school thinking that the kids are alright.
The transition into our second (well my third, as I had taught at two different schools in Vietnam) international school was where the first real challenges of being an ‘out’ educator were posed. And they were not posed by students. Recruitment during COVID was a struggle. We sent off around 40 applications and did about 15 interviews between us. We had been lucky to get jobs in Vietnam for our first international roles as it became quickly apparent that many other places were not as keen on hiring an LGBTQ+ teaching couple. Sometimes this was due to visa complications or job openings, other times it was the laws of the country (43 jurisdictions still criminalise lesbianism) and laws around housing. After a particularly challenging experience where we had offers rescinded because, after checking, the school decided their community wasn’t ready for an LGBTQ+ couple, we were feeling pretty disheartened.
Many of the schools we were applying to were IB schools. I still struggle to see how the IB, who preach about global communities and international mindedness, can promote schools and allow them to teach the IB programs when the school communities themselves are anti-inclusion.
Nearing the end of our tether with the recruitment process, my partner had an interview with a small school in Italy. Whilst they did not have a role for me, they were willing to make something part time if my partner was offered the job. The interview was a breath of fresh air. They were the first school who had asked about my partner or I as people and wanted to get an idea of us to find out how we’d fit into their community. They were upfront about wanting LGBTQ+ staff as they were aware that they had students who were part of the LGBTQ+ community and they didn’t always see themselves represented in the staff body. After accepting the jobs, my (now) wife was asked about joining the DEI team, and whilst she is careful as she knows this has become or can have the potential to be quite tokenistic in some schools, she is aware that she has the ability to do work with her team members around social justice and to help combat racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism and other forms of discrimination within our school community.
For the first time in a school, as an educator, I have been a visible member of the LGBTQ+ community from the beginning. I am aware that I have a-sexual, transgender and non-binary students (and probably others who identify as somewhere on the gender/sexuality spectrum) and delight when they come to tell me about the first time they went to a pride parade or show me the rainbow item of clothing they have worn that day. Whilst I cannot know or understand all of their experiences, especially as a cisgender woman, I can be an empathetic listener from the large umbrella family that is LGBTQ+. The school has an LGBTQ+ club run by a member of staff who is an ally to the LGBTQ+ community and who knows that providing an inclusive space for our students is everyone’s responsibility. The community isn’t perfect and the country, with its strong religious affiliations, has laws against gay couples adopting. It is a work in progress in our school that will require buy-in from all its members to fully promote inclusivity and celebrate diversity, no matter what that looks like. But it is not tiring to be visible here. Every day when I tie up my rainbow laces (a great campaign from @Stonewall) I know the importance of showing my students that LGBTQ+ people are a part of their community, we’re here to stay and that’s very much ok.
We Wish You an Inclusive Christmas
Written by Shuaib Khan
Shuaib is a teacher, sociologist, poet and podcaster.
As the holiday season approaches, this can become a powerful point of reflection for schools on how inclusive their practices are. This is especially the case for how schools cater for the needs of staff and pupils who have mixed feelings about the festive period as they don’t celebrate Christmas. In this blog (originally published on the Leader’s Digest), we will be looking at ten ways your school can make Christmas celebrations more inclusive.
What is inclusion?
Diversity, inclusion, equality and equity are used interchangeably, but they have different meanings and interpretations. Many schools have their own equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) leaders in an effort to promote fairness, access and equity. During the Christmas period, there is a need to think about alternative provisions for those who, for whatever reason, do not wish to partake in festive activities. So, how do we define ‘inclusion’?
The diversity network Diverse Educators (DiverseEd) provide us with the following definition of ‘inclusion’.
Inclusion is the achievement of a work environment in which all individuals are treated fairly and respectfully, have equal access to opportunities and resources, and can contribute fully to the organisation’s success.
School communities are not homogenous and not every member of staff or pupils will celebrate Christmas. For some, the holiday season can evoke bad memories and the feeling of being excluded as everyone else enjoys school productions, secret Santa, Christmas lunch and the rest of the exciting festive activities. So, how can your school make Christmas inclusive?
DiverseEd reminds us that inclusion should not be viewed as just an add-on but rather as an institution-wide point of reference to meet the needs of everyone in your care. Inclusion should be practiced all year round and not just at the sight of a Christmas tree or at the smell of freshly baked mince pies. The conversation about inclusion is nuanced, requires deep personal reflection and remembering that the holiday season can bring mixed feelings. Leader’s Digest recommendations to make Christmas more inclusive is part of, rather than a substitute for your school-wide equality, diversity and inclusion ethos.
Ten ways my school can make Christmas more inclusive
Create a diverse planning committee
Planning Christmas events requires planning and preparation. As a school leader, having a planning committee that is representative of your school community is one way you can ensure a diverse range of views, ideas and thoughts are heard. Planning committees could be made up of support staff, including teaching assistants and also staff who don’t celebrate Christmas. Your school’s Christmas events planning committee can be an excellent way of understanding the individual needs of your fellow colleagues and also of pupils. In making necessary adjustments or alternative arrangements for those who don’t celebrate Christmas, a diverse planning committee can help identify challenges and collaboratively find solutions.
Having an interfaith calendar
As the festive season approaches, it is important to remember that other faiths will have important events and traditions taking place too and these deserve to be acknowledged and celebrated too. For example, Hanukkah which is an eight-day long Jewish festival begins on November 28th and ends on December 6th. Also, Buddhists celebrate Bodhi Day on December 8th. Both of these religious events take place as the Christmas festive season commences. Your school’s interfaith calendar can be a powerful tool to plan celebrations for these respected faiths all year round and make staff and pupils feel respected and valued. An interfaith calendar can also help avoid scheduling mistakes, plan celebrations and guide your schools religious/PSHE curriculum.
Allowing staff and pupils to opt out
An important element of inclusion is offering people options. Staff and pupils should be allowed to opt out of Christmas celebrations if they wish to without fear of judgement or sanction. Christmas can be a really challenging time for some people and as a school leader, if a colleague or pupil doesn’t wish to partake, their wishes should be respected. A big part of inclusion is respecting others, their preferences and allowing them to have the autonomy to not participate.
Make events optional/voluntary
As with allowing staff and pupils to opt out, festive events should be optional and voluntary. Organising Christmas plays or concerts is often done in non-contact time and a lot of invisible labour takes place to make these events happen. School leaders should reiterate that attending events is always optional and that there will be no pressure or judgement if they cannot attend. For some staff, it is not necessarily the case of being unable to make the commitment to after school rehearsals or concert preparation, but rather they have additional responsibilities outside of work. The wellbeing of staff is of paramount importance in making festive events fulfilling and worthwhile for all.
Provide food options
Food is an integral part of Christmas. To ensure all staff and pupils feel included, just as your school canteen would do, catering for all dietary requirements and personal preferences is key. For example, a good idea would be to have separate tables with vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, Halal, or Kosher food. Another option would be to relay information to pupils and parents about the options and alternatives available during the Christmas period. These are small provisions which will make staff and pupils feel more welcome and included in the Christmas festivities. Going forwards, it is also a really important way of getting to know your staff and pupils. Further to this could be to avoid offering alcohol to staff who don’t drink to avoid offending or alienating them.
Ask staff what they want
How many times have you been stumped on ideas for a secret Santa gift or just unsure if a colleague will like how the school celebrates Christmas? Asking staff what they want is an excellent way to plan Christmas celebrations in your school. This does not mean you have to hand over powers to staff but rather use their intricate knowledge of the pupils to guide your decision making. As a school leader, having ideas put towards you from staff can help refresh how your school embraces the festive season. In liaison with staff, certain practices from previous years that didn’t go well can be rectified or replaced. For example, Christmas jumper day. If a significant proportion of your pupils cannot afford to participate, they will feel excluded. This could easily be replaced with something more cost effective for the local community such as a Christmas tombola. Asking staff, who know the pupils and the school community incredibly well, this can help make Christmas a more inclusive experience for everyone.
Be mindful of the cost
Recently Teaching Assistant’s Digest completed a series of articles on TA pay. Christmas is an additional cost, especially for TAs and support staff who are already facing financial hardships. A £50 staff Christmas meal may seem like a small amount but for support staff, that £50 is days worth of earnings. Part of an inclusive model is including groups who have historically been excluded and TAs definitely fit this criteria. Where possible, if staff events are free or at a reduced cost, SLT should be mindful of this. It’s all good inviting everyone which could easily be interpreted as ‘inclusion’ but what about those who cannot afford to attend? Just because everyone has a seat doesn’t mean everyone can afford to eat! School leaders should also encourage support staff not to spend their own money on school Christmas events such as parties. If they do, an opportunity to reimburse them should be available.
Offer holidays to staff and pupils of other faiths
Again, a part of having an interfaith calendar is knowing exactly when other faiths have their traditions and celebrations. Christmas is a holiday season for everyone but throughout the academic year, other faiths will have traditions and festivals that will require staff and pupils to have time off to observe and celebrate. For example, Eid or Diwaali. Staff and pupils should be entitled to an appropriate number of days to celebrate their religious festivals. As a school leader, it is important to empower your staff with the confidence to request time off and for pupils to feel as though their school values their faith. This can also be done by allowing all staff and pupils to understand the importance of different religious festivals through embedding these into the curriculum and the schools wider inclusive ethos.
Invite feedback
As a school leader, first and foremost, you are a reflective practitioner. The nature of education is that there will always be opportunities to reflect, improve and do better. If a specific event didn’t go too well, encouraging your staff to come forwards and provide feedback is how you can get things right next time. Inviting feedback is the ultimate way of highlighting what worked well and finding areas for development. Feedback could be anonymous, drop-in, staff surveys or asking the pupils about how they found Christmas celebrations at school.
See inclusive practices over Christmas an extension of inclusion
Inclusion should not be something that is centred around December or nativity. As a school leader, it is important to realise that creating a more inclusive festive period for everyone at your school is one step in the right direction. Inclusion is an on-going cultural process of learning, understanding, supporting and of course, including others. Christmas is an opportunity to embed inclusive practices which themselves should permeate throughout your school and enrich everyone along the way.
Although this list is not exhaustive, we hope that it can give you some food for thought. How are you going to make Christmas an inclusive experience in your school? At Leader’s Digest we would love to hear from you.
The Words We Choose, the Words We Use
Written by Chris Richards
MEd in Applied Linguistics and currently works as a Teacher Mentor in Madrid
This year, the blogs I’ve written as part of the #MonthlyWritingChallenge have often explored the etymology of the theme chosen. Language and linguistics is my field and I suppose I am interested in exploring where the words we use come from and how they change.
Although my pedagogical roots lie in a (now demolished) secondary school classroom in Birmingham, I now teach English as a foreign language in Madrid. Appropriacy is a key concept in language teaching. Appropriacy is about ‘whether a word is suitable for the context it is being used in. It is an important aspect of language but an extremely complex one, as decisions about how to say things depend on understanding exactly what is right for the context and the culture’ (British Council). Just knowing the spelling, pronunciation, meaning and morphology (how the word changes according to tense or person) isn’t enough; you need to know the context(s) in which you can use the word. Think about the contexts in which you might use the following range of greetings: ‘Good morning’, ‘Hello’, ‘Hi’, ‘Hey’, ‘Alright?’ and perhaps you use a few more. They’re not interchangeable and this is appropriacy. New speakers of a language have to learn more than the vocabulary and the grammar, they also have to learn when and where and with whom words can be used. What does this mean for native speakers, though? The challenge for us is that like every other aspect of language (spelling, pronunciation, meaning, to name but three), appropriacy is always changing. And we need to keep up. Complaints about language change are commonplace: common across historical time and across languages. “Why can’t we say X anymore?”or “I hate that people say Y now, that word always sounds hateful to me”. Such comments make me think about the story of King Canute commanding that the tide stop. Language change is normal.
Conceptual baggage is another important concept to consider. Conceptual baggage is the associations we have with words and such baggage varies from person to person. As a result, effective communication takes account of these potential associations and when we are speaking formally, or with strangers, we probably avoid potentially problematic, colloquial terms in order to reduce the chance of causing offence. A perfect example is the word “queer”. To some people, it’s an inclusive term that they embrace; for others, especially those who have been on the receiving end of its use as a derogatory term, it retains its power to hurt. The words we choose to use depend on context. Appropriate words in a situation vary across historical time (common words becoming slurs, slurs being reclaimed and embraced) and they vary according to the audience (the words you use with your mum are different to the words you use with your friends, your boss, your students, and so on).
It’s often said that all teachers are teachers of literacy and it follows that all of us are teachers of language. We all have a role to play in showing our students that language is not fixed, but shifting, and its use is contextual. This is not about being Orwellian language police, proscribing terms without explanation. This is about providing an explanation and explaining the importance of context. Take the example of swear words: there are adults who don’t use them, but many do and children hear them being used. Simply telling children that they shouldn’t swear is likely to be ineffective. However, explaining that adults do swear in certain contexts but not in others is more likely to have the desired effect. If we want young people to use language effectively and with empathy, they need to be taught the rules. The rules of appropriacy are as important as spelling and grammar: why one word is considered offensive and why another is considered a more polite and appropriate alternative.
Diversifying the Curriculum, A Perspective
Written by Diana Ohene-Darko
Assistant Head, Pinner Park Primary School; Interim Deputy Headteacher, Holy Trinity Primary School, Finchley; Senior Consultant, Educating for Equality.
Currently, I work in a large London primary school as an Assistant Headteacher. I am a champion for, and have worked extensively on, equality education and children’s rights. We are in a great time of momentum in advocating for racial justice in education. I want to see a curriculum that reflects all the children and families we serve so that there is an inherent sense of identity and belonging.
Introduction
This article aims to shed light on the current situation with regard to race relations in education and diversifying the curriculum. Is diversifying it enough? Considering key documents and events, the article outlines what can be done in order for diversification of the curriculum to take place, or even before it takes place. I offer a perspective on celebrating and appreciating the pupils and staff we serve, rather than ‘tolerating’ each other. In essence, diversity needs to go mainstream.
In May 2020, George Floyd was brutally murdered, and the world was watching. His death sparked a global movement for change, not just for equality but also for equity of outcomes for Black people and people of colour—the global majority1.
In the UK, over 92% of Headteachers are White (DfE, 2021) serving a nationally diverse population. Before even thinking about diversifying, or indeed decolonising the curriculum, there has to be groundwork done in so far as personal reflection for unconscious bias across educational institutions as a whole and for practitioners individually. Time, hard work and commitment are needed to address issues of bias towards the global ethnic majority here in the UK, other disadvantaged groups and those belonging to protected characteristics. Race relations are at a pivotal point in education. Addressing biases is vital to ensuring at least a reasonable understanding of, and appreciation for, all people—and it is about time. By addressing unconscious biases and diversifying the curriculum, education can create a culture of belonging where each individual is celebrated for who they are, rather than being tolerated.
A call for change
It is not enough to say that there are ‘negative calls for decolonising the curriculum’ (Sewell, 2021). No longer can racism be tolerated. No longer can discrimination go unnoticed. No longer can micro-aggressions go unchallenged. Protected characteristics are protected for a reason- they safeguard who we are, our very core of being. Being protected by law carries weight and should be upheld.
How will each child leave school better than when they came? What ‘suitcase’ of learning will they leave with, having spent years in education, ready to travel the world with? How does a child of faith feel represented in the curriculum, for example? What about those from a disadvantaged background? A one-parent family? Those with same-sex parents? How does the curriculum seek to represent the broader population of Britain in all its glory of cultures, ethnicities, traditions, languages and families? Where do children belong? How do educational settings foster a sense of belonging that sees children and young people feel completely at home and at peace with who they are to erase the question of, ‘Where are you from?’ Or worse in response to ‘I was born here’, ‘No but where are you really from?’ In order to demonstrate that we, as practitioners value our learners, the curriculum needs to be ‘truly national’ (Alexander et al. 2015).
The current picture
Some schemes have already sought to address the issue of wider representation, such as the Jigsaw PSHE scheme (2021) and the Discovery RE (2021) programme. In their provision, they offer examples of different families and scenarios that are inclusive of wider society. Some schools are already making headway by creating their own learning journeys for children and young people. They offer urban adventure curricula, for example, and use the new [EYFS] reforms as a basis by which to advance already good practice with a specific focus on what exactly they want children to experience and achieve in order that they become well-rounded individuals, including talking about race. One example of this is Julien Grenier’s extensive work on curricular goals which see children learning to sew a stitch, ride a balance bike and bake a bread roll in Nursery. All aspirational, real-life outcomes for children, no matter their race, background or socio-economic class. On the face of it, there seems no link to race. However, by setting the bar high for all children at the same time, education is, in fact, providing an equality-first experience for our young ones where no learner is left behind.
Consideration of history
The National Curriculum of 1999 (Key Stages One and Two) sought to allow,
‘schools to meet the individual learning needs of pupils and to develop a distinctive character and ethos rooted in their local communities,’ (1999, pp.12).
Then came the (Primary) National Curriculum of 2014 which called for a curriculum that was ‘balanced and broadly based’ (2013, pp.5) promoting the development of the whole child and where teachers were to ‘take account of their duties’ (pp.8) where protected characteristics were concerned. The difficulty is, there are so many unconscious biases at play that even before a diverse curriculum can be devised, attitudes and unconscious biases must be addressed in the first instance as part of initial teacher-training and as part of the wider continuing professional development provision in schools.
The murder of Stephen Lawrence in April 1993 sparked a national debate around race and the impact of structural and institutional racism here in the UK, namely in the police force. As part of its findings, the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry Report (1999), stated that education should value cultural diversity and prevent racism ‘in order better to reflect the needs of a diverse society’ (Macpherson Report, 1999 pp. 382).
With a curriculum that spans British history across both primary and secondary phases, the representation of a generation of Commonwealth workers, including the Windrush generation, who came to help re-build our country post war is barely, if at all, represented. The ‘broad and balanced’ curriculum is one of a vastly colonial view, rather than the narratives of those enslaved as well as those who enslaved others. The same is true for the British rule in India and the impact for Indian citizens and the thousands of soldiers of colour from the Commonwealth who fought for Britain in the Second World War. There is gross under-representation of people of colour and their significant contribution to the British Empire as a whole.
Bringing education into the 21st century
More than twenty-eight years on from Stephen Lawrence and with the brutal murder of George Floyd on 25th May 2020, there is now widespread debate in education once again about the curriculum on offer and how to diversify it. But is diversifying it enough? It seems that colonial attitudes need to be addressed perhaps before diversifying the curriculum. Tackling unconscious (or even conscious) bias, white privilege, micro-aggressions and direct racism may come to be more effective, in other words, decolonising attitudes before decolonising the curriculum.
In the book, ‘I Belong Here, A Journey Along the Backbone of Britain’, the author writes openly about belonging and the ‘deep loneliness and isolation that can affect mental health’ without that sense of belonging (Sethi, 2021). This is in reflective reference to a racist attack she suffered in public as well as countless micro aggressions. Deeply engrained and entrenched racist attitudes need to be challenged. Micro-aggressions need to be challenged. Why? Because it is the right thing to do. The book weaves a narrative that calls for the work needed to be done in order to address micro-aggressions and the wider, long-lasting impact these have on those individuals who suffer them. Equality is everybody’s responsibility.
Imagine how children feel when they do not see themselves reflected in the curriculum- in books and resources, in texts and images, in the learning. There is a deep cavity indeed for children and families of colour. Despite being a global ethnic majority, their experience of the curriculum is all too often white Eurocentric; more specifically that of white, middle-class men, ‘male, pale and stale voices that need to be banished’ (Sperring, 2020 pp. 3).
In order to foster a deep sense of belonging in children, the curriculum needs to address issues of race, in the first instance, as well as other protected characteristics more widely. We are living in a multi-national society with a vast array of languages, cultures and traditions. Even in areas of which can possibly be described as mono ethnic, there still needs to be a national educational commitment to addressing the racial discord that currently exists. Difference should be both appreciated and celebrated. It is not enough to simply ‘tolerate’ other faiths, traditions, beliefs, cultures, customs or backgrounds. Tolerance is such a low bar.
The Black Curriculum Report (Arday,2021) highlights the drawbacks of the current curriculum, more specifically the history curriculum, which distinctly omits Black history, ‘in favour of a dominant White, Eurocentric curriculum, one that fails to reflect our multi-ethnic and broadly diverse society.’ (pp.4). It goes further to make several recommendations, in more detail than the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry Report, for example:
‘conventions of Britishness will always require reconceptualising to incorporate all of our histories and stories. Our curriculum requires an acknowledgement of the ethnic, cultural and religious diversity that comprises the tapestry of the British landscape and the varying identities associated within this.’ (pp.5)
What it calls for is an evaluation of the curriculum to include Black history in order that there be, ‘greater social cohesion and acceptance of racial and ethnic difference’ (pp.4).
By offering a ‘broad and balanced’ curriculum that is tailored to the demographics of the school population, you are reinforcing a deep sense of identity and belonging. Children and young people will feel seen, valued and understood for who they are, not just as individuals, but as a part of their communities. How empowering for our children and young people of today!
Rather than continuing the old-fashioned approach of British history, we should be teaching children and young people to be critical thinkers, to assess and appraise the evidence and different perspectives so that they can come to their own conclusions. No longer is it adequate enough to have diversity days or Black history month; to teach just one perspective. People of colour do not just exist for one day or one month of the year. There are countless scientists, historians and academics of colour who have made huge contributions to society as we know it. For example, although Thomas Edison may have invented the lightbulb as we know it, Lewis H. Latimer made a considerable contribution towards this. However, in those days it was rare for a person of colour to be attributed with such distinguished achievement. Another example is Wangari Maathai, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, known for her environmental activism in Kenya, ‘It’s the little things that citizens do. That’s what will make the difference. My little thing is planting trees.’ (Wilson, 2018). Where are they in the national curriculum?
In the Oxford Learner’s Dictionary, ‘national’ is defined as ‘connected with a particular nation; shared by a whole nation’ (Oxford Learner’s Dictionary). If education seeks to indeed connect the nation, and if it wants education to be a shared experience as a nation, then there is more work to be done. Diversity needs to go mainstream.
Young people need to know that who they are makes a difference. Not who they are because of an out-of-date system that continues to advance the privileged few, rather, who they are without the labels that are thrust upon them. They are not their labels. They are ‘humxns’2(Ricketts, 2021) who make a valid and significant contribution every day. Diversifying the curriculum should reflect this. Decolonising attitudes is the right thing to do- creating safe spaces to open up dialogue, offering long-term quality staff training, enriching the curriculum with a broader representation of different communities, making equality training mandatory for initial teacher training.
Data from the Department of Education shows that 92.7 per cent of headteachers and 89.7 per cent of deputy and assistant headteachers in the UK are white (DfE,
2 Humxn is the gender-neutral term for human. Urban Dictionary: humxn (2021) Urban Dictionar. Available at: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=humxn. 2021). These figures show that all-white leadership teams run the majority of schools in the country, which is not necessarily reflective of the communities they serve, or even our nation as a whole.
More needs to be done to actively recruit and retain professionals from ethnically diverse groups. For example, anonymising applications for name, age, gender and university to name a few categories; randomising responses to scenario questions and eliminating the personal statement response so that colleagues can show what they would do as opposed to what they have done, thereby showing their potential against their experience and expertise, skills and qualifications.
Conclusion
These are just a few starting points. Essentially, good, quality equality work means hard work. It means making the uncomfortable comfortable. It means braving being vulnerable. It means addressing racism head on so that attitudes can change, as well as behaviours. ‘In this world there is room for everyone’ (Chaplin, 1940). Children should leave with a rich tapestry woven from learning and experiences that celebrate who they are, that give them every chance of further success in life, that elevate them in their sense of self-worth and identity. When a child asks, ‘Where do I belong?’ you can confidently say, ‘Here.’
References
Alexander, C., Weekes-Bernard, D., & Chatterji, J. (2015) History Lessons: Teaching Diversity in and through the History National Curriculum. London: Runnymede Trust. http://www.runnymedetrust. org/ uploads/History%20Lessons%20-%20Teaching%20 Diversity%20In%20and%20Through%20 the%20
History%20National%20Curriculum.pdf.
Arday, J. (2021) The Black Curriculum, Black British History in the National Curriculum Report 2021. pp.4-5.
Charlie Chaplin, The Great Dictator speech, taken from the film, The Great Dictator (1940) available at: https://www.charliechaplin.com/en/articles/29-the-final-speech from-the-great-dictator
Department for Education (2013) The National Curriculum in England: Framework Document. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/
uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/ file/210969/NC_framework_document_- _FINAL.pdf (pp.5, pp.8)
Department for Education data available at: https://www.ethnicity-facts figures.service.gov.uk/workforce-and-business/workforce-diversity/school-teacher workforce/latest
Discovery RE Scheme Of Work | Discovery RE (2021) Discovery Scheme of Work. Available at: https://discoveryschemeofwork.com/ (Accessed: 16 September 2021). Primary and Secondary PSHE lessons fulfilling RSE | Jigsaw PSHE Ltd (2021) Jigsaw PSHE. Available at: https://www.jigsawpshe.com/ (Accessed: 15 September 2021).
Macpherson Report (1999), as part of The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attach ment_data/file/277111/4262.pdf pp.382
Oxford Learner’s Dictionary, ‘National’ definition, available at:
https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/national_1?q=national
Ricketts, R. (2021) DO BETTER, SPIRITUAL ACTIVISM for Fighting and Healing from WHITE SUPREMACY
Sethi, A (2021) I Belong Here: A Journey Along the Backbone of Britain. Bloomsbury, London. ISBN 9781472983930.
Sewell, T. (2021) Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities: The Report, can be found at:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attach ment_data/file/974507/20210331_-_CRED_Report_-_FINAL_-_Web_Accessible.pdf
Sperring, K. (2020) Decolonising the curriculum: male, pale and stale voices that need to be banished. Available at: https://uclpimedia.com/online/lets-banish-the hierarchy-topped-by-male-pale-and-stale-voices-and-decolonise-the-curriculum
The Equality Act 2010 guidance, can be found at:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/equality-act-2010-guidance
The National Curriculum 1999 available at:
http://www.educationengland.org.uk/documents/pdfs/1999-nc-primary-handbook.pdf. pp. 10, pp.12.
Wilson, J. (2018) Young, Gifted and Black. Wide Eyed Editions. ISBN978-1-78603- 983-5.
Attention Policymakers: We Need to Update the School Curriculum
Written by Naida Allen
Naida is a writer and blogger, fuelled by coffee and dark humour. She is a mental health advocate and regularly uses her own experiences to raise awareness about social issues. Her aim is to break stigma around taboo topics and enlighten the masses through the art of words. She loves dogs, and hates the patriarchy.
Given the significant impact of the Black Lives Matter movement on the criminal justice system, it’s only natural for this event to trickle into the education system. The British school curriculum is outdated at best. It will come as no shock to know that 85% of secondary school texts studied were written by White authors. The lack of diversity is damaging both socially and educationally. The year is 2021, and we are still waiting for change.
After the murder of George Floyd, the world woke up. We could no longer stay silent; the time to take action had arrived. Amongst many deep-rooted racist issues that still exist in British society, one that became impossible to ignore was the issue with the school curriculum. Secondary school pupils across the country (and the world for that matter) are not taught the truth about the UK’s shady history. The broad lack of diversity exists across all school subjects, from English and Drama to History and Science.
Even the American K-12 curriculum lacks punch. The Coalition of Educational Justice (CEJ) in New York recently published a shocking set of statistics that puts the school curriculum to shame. Their enquiry into the lack of diversity found that 4 out of 5 books studied in English were written by a White person. Similarly, a national UK study by Penguin Books found that less than 1% of GCSE students studied a book by a writer of colour.
It goes without mentioning that it is not just Black authors and people of colour who are marginalized. No; it is also women — and worse still — Black women who are frozen out. There is rarely a platform for LGBTQ+ authors, or awareness in their struggles, which adds to the exclusion and creation of ‘otherness’.
Yet it has to be a top-down approach for us to succeed in any social change. The current school curriculum contributes to perverse attempts to sugarcoat the past, allowing White people to hold the monopoly of power. Gestures that arguably verge on tokenistic, like “Black History Month” are the bare minimum. They are designed to keep the peace, but are ultimately just performative in nature. As Jean Alexander states, “it is a game play for the survival of a democratic society”.
My message today is to the policymakers: we need to update the school curriculum. If history, implicit and institutional racism, or celebrating Black achievements are not prioritised in schools, we can assume change still sits on the backburner. Young people will only learn when we own up to our mistakes. For there to be any hope in a harmonious society, we need to right our wrongs as best we can. The optimum approach is an authentic one.
So, teach students about Britain’s role in colonialism. Explain why the prison population is overrepresented by Black people and ethnic minorities. Study fiction and non-fiction texts across all subjects written by non-white authors. Take English as an example; whilst Shakespeare is undoubtedly important for the development of language, Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God remains underrepresented. Consider adding Zadie Smith and Reni-Eddo Lodge to the English syllabus. This will by no means erase centuries of oppression; it will, however, inspire development.
The fact of the matter is, these texts are not hard to come by. There is a long list of potential contenders written by Black women, from textbooks and fictional narratives to plays; and they are all critically-acclaimed. Why, then, are we not capitalising on this opportunity? There is no better way to teach students about human rights and social justice than directly from the horse’s mouth.
An example of where this sincerity has worked is in Germany; their school curriculum shows significantly more willingness to revisit and admit to past mistakes. Teachers will openly discuss the German role in the Holocaust and WW2; many students will at some point visit a concentration camp. At no point do they attempt to disguise their atrocities. In doing so, they are now more respected by other nations. This is how to rewrite the future.
The irony is, British schools are the first to slander Nazi Germany for their war crimes, particularly when it comes to the Holocaust. Where is this zealous attitude when documenting our own actions on the History syllabus, for example, as colonialists? Instead, students learn about what makes Britain so Great. We share how we were the first to abolish slavery, but not that explorer, John Hawkins, was the first to start the slave trade in 1562.
Reform starts in school. We cannot expect the youth of today to differ from our predecessors if we do not light the torch. For students to thrive, they need to be represented in all their diversity. It is simply not good enough for only 0.1% of pupils to study a text by a Black female author. When you do not see yourself represented, your dreams and options are extremely limited. This is what inevitably leads to apathy and missed opportunities in the community.
We need to mention the achievements and discoveries of both people of colour and Black people – scientists, mathematicians, poets, historians. For example: Madam C.J. Walker who created the first African-American hair care products; Elijah McCoy who invented the ironing board; Tu Youyou who discovered artemisinin, the treatment for malaria.
At the very least, we need to incorporate texts written by minority authors to study in the classroom. It’s important to keep current and move with the times, rather than promote a false representation of the “good old days”.
Let’s inspire all students — regardless of their gender, race, or sexuality — to know their worth. Britain as a whole needs to understand their history and address their ignorance. The only way to do any of this is through policy change; otherwise we remain stuck in bad habits. It is time to update the school curriculum.
This is not a plea. It is an order.