I was privileged to get tickets to the Press Night of Random at the Royal Court last night and it really was one of the most incredible plays that I have ever seen. The performance by Nadine Marshall was extraordinary. The writing by Debbie Tucker Green hit the mark every time. This was theatre stripped to the bare minimum - a monologue, no set, just a spotlight - and yet evoking the most powerful imagery. That one actor was able to bring to life so many characters made it even more impressive. I won't go into the content, you need to read the previous entry to find that, but I was deeply affected by the play. I spent most of the time thinking about Kodjo Yenga, (a former pupil of mine who was stabbed to death last year - you can read about him here) and Random was a painful reminder of his tragic loss. And yet uplifting in one sense, that something as moving and important as Random came out of Kodjo's death and the death of all of the other young people around the UK. I will be taking as many students and staff that I can muster to another performance as soon as I can.
Listen to extracts from the play here and GO AND SEE THIS PLAY.
These fantastic images are from the new play random by Debbie Tucker Green which will be performed at the Royal Court Theatre from March 7 - April 12. Random is an important, powerful and urgent new play following a day in the life of an ordinary family whose world is turned upside down when one of the characters is involved in a street fight. It is written from the perspective of the family and tells the very real and human story that exists behind the headlines.
The Royal Court are also are offering free workshops to schools and youth groups where their outreach workers - including playwright and director Gbolahan Obisesan - will go along to work with the students. This is a great opportunity to help engage young people with, not only the play, but also different acting and writing techniques. See the Royal Court Theatre website for details.
Just a quick post to share some exciting news that I have just heard from Teachers TV who want to make two films about the work I have been doing about Walter Tull. They should be coming to film at my school with my year 9s after half term and want to do one film in a lesson and one talking to the students about their experiences of learning about Walter Tull. Excellent news and hopefully will continue to get Walter the exposure that he deserves. I'll keep you updated as events progress.
Welcome to 2008 and what promises to be another exciting year for bh4schools. To get the year started I have posted up some new material about Walter Tull, the Black professional footballer and first Black Infantry Officer in the British Army during WW1. You can hear an excellent radio interview that I did with some students from my school about the work that we did on Walter as well as talking about visiting the site of his death in Favreuil, France last March. I have also added some taster material for the (still forthcoming!) education pack which should be available soon. I have yet to receive my copies so I guess there is a bit of a hold up in the production.
Plans are under way for a new addition to the website with some interviews with leading figures from the Black British History world and contemporary culture. So watch this space - the first interview should be with Steve (S I) Martin who I had the pleasure of meeting a few weeks ago at the inaugural Marika Sherwood Lecture at UCL. It was Steve's INSET at the Museum of London many years ago that set me off on the path to integrating Black and Asian British History into the curriculum so I am really looking forward to interviewing one of my heroes. The second interview will hopefully be with playwright Roy Williams, a former student at my school, who is undoubtedly one of the most talented writers in contemporary theatre. I went to see Roy's play, 'Joe Guy' at the Soho Theatre and some of the scenes were so powerful and prescient (particularly in light of the Man Utd Christmas Party) that I was replaying them constantly. Roy's particular talent is in picking up the language of the street / playground and working it in to his characters so well.
It was also great to read in the latest edition of Teaching History (issue 129) the article by Dale Banham and Rosie Sheldrake 'Seeing a different picture: exploring migration through the lens of history' in which they write about their experiences of teaching about the West Indian community in Ipswich. They used a community oral history project set up by the Ipswich Caribbean Association who had filmed interviews with 25 people to integrate this fantastic local history into their schemes of work. It was most gratifying to read how they have really taken on board the new requirements of the National Curriculum 2008 in teaching about diversity and enhanced their pupil's enjoyment and understanding of our history.
Finally a huge thanks to everyone who supported the website in 2007, just under 40,000 people visited the website, with over half a million hits which meant that traffic to the site trebled compared to the previous year. Spread the word in 2008.
to everyone who visisted blackhistory4schools during Black History Month, i hope you found what you were looking for (if you didn't then please take a minute to fill in the questionnaire that popped up when you logged on to help me improve the website). I was delighted to register over 100,000 hits and more than unique users in October. The website will continue to spread the message about mainstreaming Black and Asian British History into the curriculum. A big thanks too to everyone who came to the Museum in Docklands for the launch of their fantastic London, Sugar and Slavery permanent exhibition on Sat November 10th. There were hundreds of people there for the opening day events and the debate about teaching the slave trade raised some interesting issues around cultural awareness and the question of reparations. If you ever have a spare hour the Museum is really worth checking out as they have put a lot of thought into the exhibition which is handled very sensitively and imaginatively.
The 'Raising Horizon's event took place today at my school and was an outstanding success. It is extremely gratifying to be able to arrange an event where people are prepared to give up their time to inspire young people and share their talents and experiences with them. The response from the students was magnificent and the vote of thanks at the end of the day was heartfelt. I will post up the interviews from the day shortly, but if you want to look at the photos you can see them here (but you will need to sign up for a Flickr account).
Not my words, but those of 'Aunty Janet' of the Kelewele Drummers and Dance Troupe who came to perform at my school on Friday. In the morning they gave three workshops with Year 7 classes and then a virtuoso performance in front of the whole year group. A picture can paint a thousand words so who knows how many you can get from a youtube video:
The final preparations for Raising Horizons are being made and hopefully there will be a short video on here by the end of the month. I have also been sent some really great teaching material that I will be reviewing shortly and there is the possibility of the first bh4schools interview with an eminent historian, so don't touch that dial.
The preparations for Black History Month are well under way and this year's Raising Horizons seminars and Question Time event looks like the most exciting yet. We have managed to recruit a really diverse range of speakers and have got some great plans to make the whole month exciting and stimulating. The confirmed line up for Raising Horizons so far is: Rani King MBE, and Colin Adams from the Department for Children, Schools and Families; Professor Heidi Mirza from the Institute of Education; Kieran Hebden (Four Tet and nephew of the school's Headteacher, Dinesh Ramjee); Anthony Thomas from hiphopgeneration "harnessing the power of Hip Hop as a cultural phenomenon to rise a generation ‘from the streetz to streetz’ and unite the Hip Hop driven youth of the world"; Sharon Walker from the Commission for Racial Equality and Marge Lowhar from tranzition.co.uk. Our guests will be coming into school on October 15th to be interviewed by Year 10 Gifted and Talented students about the critical influences on their lives and then will take questions from an audience of year 10 and 11 students in the afternoon on topics related to multiculturalism, fighting racism and the power of role models. It will be fascinating to see how the students respond once again. You can see a short film about last years event below:
Other events lined up include taking students to the Shaw Theatre in Euston for a performance of Nobody Knows produced by Krik Krak (Marge Lowhar's theatre company), which fuses drama, dance, music and images to tell the story of slavery through the eyes of ‘Equiano’, a former slave. We will also be entering the 100 Black Men of London competition for the third time, with great hopes of reaching the final this year. Our International Food Day will be run, I am looking for African Drummers for a music performance and there will be assemblies and competitions all month.
I have been involved in some interesting discussions with Hammersmith Council about their failure to fund any Black History Month celebrations for the second year running. I received an email from one of the councillors who said that the council were "supporting a number of events marking BHM through offering subsisided or free room hire, exhibition space and equipment hire". I really think that is derisory. Hammersmith was the home of Marcus Garvey for many years, whose great nephew went to my school, and is the resting place of Granville Sharp and Mary Seacole. It beggars belief that the Council continues to ignore this history and snubs so many of its own constituents. I hear that plans are being made to take on the Council over the coming year to reinstate funding for BHM so watch this space.
A final couple of plugs to finish off - The Equiano exhibition starts this week in Birmingham so make sure you get along there before January. The programmes that I made for Teachers TV are being shown again for BHM so check them out if you haven't seen them already.
So with just a few days left of the most non-summer summer holiday in living memory, it is time for an update before term starts again. The most exciting news is that the Equiano Exhibition at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery will be opening on September 29th and running through to January 30th 2008. The exhibition is free and will have some absolutely fantastic exhibits, as well as a really impressive Education Pack (if I say so myself!). Arthur Torrington, of the Equiano Society and the team from BMAG have really worked hard to make the exhibition really dynamic and inspiring, and some of the highlights include originals of Equiano's autobiography 'The Interesting Narrative', abolitionist memorabilia, seafaring artefacts similar to those that Equiano used and there was even talk about having some of the Benin Bronzes which would be the first time that they have ever been exhibited outside of London. Any school which visits the exhibition will get a free copy of the education pack, which includes eight lessons based on the different episodes in Equiano's life, a CD Rom with all of the worksheets, additional information packs (and possibly some images) and a poster. The lessons have been written to cover a wide range of activities including role play, podcasting and using moviemaker, and the pack has been designed very professionally so that the material looks really great. I was very excited when I saw the proofs a few weeks ago and can't wait to see the final product. I am also really looking forward to the launch / private view of the exhibition on the evening of the 28th September.
There has been a lot of talk recently about the need for Black role models, particularly after the recent spate of attacks by or on young Black men. It is interesting to note that there hasn't been the same outcry after the shocking killing of Rhys Jones in Liverpool recently. I wonder why that is so? I have been posting up some thoughts about role models on the new Facebook club that I set up earlier this summer. I shall again be organising the annual Raising Horizons event at my school, where invited role models will come in to be interviewed by the boys and then participate in a Question Time event in the afternoon. Any volunteers most welcome, just email me or let me know here.
I have also been having some potentially very interesting discussions with the soon to be defunct Commission for Racial Equality about their website www.teachingaboutslavery.org.uk/ which will carry some fantastic material from across the whole curriculum about the Transatlantic Slave Trade. I will keep you posted about any further developments.
Of course Black History Month is almost upon us so keep it locked for more news on that front soon.
I thought that I would quickly update you with the latest bh4schools activities as there are a few forthcoming events that I will return to later in the year; I have been commissioned recently to write two education packs that should be available for sale in September / October. The first pack is on Olaudah Equiano and is part of the new exhibition that is being held at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery in September. The pack will cover eight areas of Equiano's fascinating life including his life in Africa, his experiences of the Middle Passage, life in the Royal Navy, his career as a merchant, his expedition to the North Pole as well as his life as a campaigner against the slave trade. The second pack is about Walter Tull, the professional footballer and first Black Infantry Officer in the British Army during WW1 and has been produced by Northamptonshire Black History Association. Earlier this year I was able to take pupils from my school to the battlefield in Favreuil, in the Somme region, where Tull was killed in March 1918. We laid poppies and had a minute's silence in his memory, a powerful and moving event. I will also be presenting two workshops on Walter Tull at the Schools' History Project annual conference in Leeds, June 6-8th. A couple of final things to round off; it was very gratifying to read in the Historical Association's report on Teaching Emotive and Controversial History that they support my 'recommendations that Black history be incorporated across the history curriculum rather than taught discretely'. I will also be appearing on Radio London tonight to discuss the issues around teaching Black history in schools, so tune in if you can.
