AN EXCITING WEEK

I have had some really exciting emails this week, which have reinforced the impact that bh4schools is beginning to have. Firstly I was invited to a seminar organised by the government’s Commission on Integration and Cohesion 'The seminar should be a really good opportunity to discuss issues of community cohesion in schools and to feed into government thinking on the issue'. Too good an opportunity to miss.

And then I was invited by Professor Heidi Mirza to be a speaker at 'Raising the Race : Teaching and Learning about African and Caribbean History', which is to be organised by the Institute of Education in March. The main audience will be student teachers on the PGCE and teachers more generally,  they will be brought together with representatives from DfES, QCA, GCTE, NUT, representatives from the cultural industries, and social commentators and activists from in the wider community - the aim is to debate the absence, and when present, the specific nature of the way African and Caribbean history is taught in British schools. The aim of the event would be to question how, when and if African and Caribbean history should be taught, and by whom?  To ask what are the resources and politics involved in moving the subject ( and our knowledge ) forward ? How is Empire, the struggle for emancipation and reconciliation represented in our teaching and learning of  African and Caribbean history?  What is 'Black and Asian history' and should it be mainstreamed? We also want to initiate a wider debate on the representation of African and Caribbean lives more generally for young people both in the school curriculum and beyond- by asking 'How is slavery implicated in our contemporary constructions of British identity and what is its impact on citizenship education in a multicultural society? It looks like it is going to be a fantastic event, and a worthy way to support the 200th anniversary commemorations.

So exciting times ahead.

#Posted 20 January 2007 at 11:27 AM

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