Why I’m not calling for Black History to be included on the national curriculum.

I am a Black teacher. A first generation born in the UK from the Caribbean. I am a mother, an aunt, a sister and a daughter.

But I am not joining the call for Black history to be included in the National Curriculum.

That might anger some, disappoint others and confuse a great many people who know me and how I have used my voice in the past to support campaigns.

I was fortunate to be raised in a family where we talked about our known ancestors, the generations before, shared our known history and explored our shared history; often through watching films Like Roots, reading books like Anancy and going to Saturday school in Oxford. 

It became apparent to me early on that our stories, our history and our experience as Black people in Britain and beyond has been at best appropriated when suited (think food, dress, music, use of language) and systematically erased at worst ( how many know about Nanny and the Marrons, Bussa,  Mansa Musa, the many struggles for independence). 

The campaign for the introduction of Black British history in the curriculum (recently reignited) has been a campaign for decades and during teaching my career I have seen some progress, the inclusion of Mary Seacole in the primary curriculum.

Don’t get me wrong, I supported this campaign and wholeheartedly support her experience being included in in the curriculum but those of us in the education sector know that when there is no clear mandate, schools will interpret how to deliver. The Primary curriculum states that “Pupils should be taught about the lives of significant individuals in the past who have contributed to national and international achievements…Mary Seacole and/or Florence Nightingale”.  

For many schools Mary Seacole is presented  almost as a conditional part of Florence Nightingale’s story.  Mary Seacole’s name becomes known but for many children it is in tandem with the more ‘recognised’ Nightingale still seen as the mother of nursing.  We really must think about the message that is being communicated not just to Black children,  who are often boosted by seeing themselves in their formal education.

However the responsibility doesn’t stop at primary. For the majority of secondary schools they will defend their curriculum by stating that they do cover Black British history, often whilst admitting not enough, through the inclusion of the transatlantic slave trade.  Recognised as the most traumatic, generational experience of the Diasporic African community.

Our experience is often ‘reduced’ to a term of work which often focuses on the trade of peoples for goods.  For most schools (and I have seen it myself) there is also an attempt to have pupils ‘empathise’ with what it feels to be a slave – this includes re-enacting the middle passage (cramped together under desks), ‘slave’ auctions, putting faces on slave posters, I could go on. This often centres the Black children present in the trauma, whether intentionally or not.

It is crucial to talk about empathy – put yourself in the place of children of African and African descent being in that room being asked to put themselves in the shoes of their ancestors…… considering we all are still experiencing the consequences of a process that relied on the systematic dehumanisation of Black bodies to be able to establish and maintain an economic market that profited from Black bodies as property, less than human -  an ingrained process still prevalent in 2020.

For a number of Black children, this experience leads to feelings and emotions that they are unable to process, let alone articulate.  However the lesson bell goes and it’s on to the next lesson or out to break with friends who may or may not want to talk about what just happened, sensitively or not.

In most instances, our children are taught that slavery ended because William Wilberforce decided it would be so and well-meaning white people/ abolitionists finally saw the light.  Where is the Black agency? Because until then Black people are presented as benevolent, almost willing participants. Where is the voice of Mary Prince? Equiano and many others who fought the system from outside?

When Kanye West said "When you hear about slavery for 400 years ... For 400 years? That sounds like a choice."  he was almost reflecting how the subject is delivered and presented to our children and young people.

   

Where is the recognition of the Africans who fought before capture, who led rebellions before being led on to the ships? On the ships? In the slave pens? On the plantations? It feels as if those accounts aren’t included because they reawaken a mainly white ‘fear’ based on their perception of Black empowerment or power.  We have seen this well and truly reawaken on social media with the ‘Karen’ phenomenon, the push back against Black Lives Matters protests (presented as riots) and continued calls for the removal of statues and monuments.

What message does this give to all children? Children Black and White that the Black experience is confined to slavery and ended by white saviours? (BTW Slavery didn’t end in the colonies in 1833, my grandmother used to tell me about how it was replaced with a system of indenture involving the same people the slave-owners had been compensated for by the UK government)

And THIS is why I am not calling for JUST more Black history on the national curriculum. The true struggle of colonialization must be included and the history curriculum needs to more away from the presentation of colonisation as civilisation.  Where Empire is discussed, it needs to be in the context of the systematic, enforced subjugation of cultures and communities that were already on the land, with their own histories, languages, societal structures and economic systems – even if their oral history has been lost.

 Schools have a duty under the Public Sector Equality Duty and the Equality Act to recognise and promote equality and positive relations between those of protected characteristics and those without. What we teach in schools must be cross-curricular and invested in by ALL teachers. 

This is why many of us teachers are calling for a review of the whole national curriculum, to ensure that each subject includes the black experience beyond a tokenistic gesture that can be confined to Black History Month celebrations.  The Black experience must be integrated into each and every subject, from KS1 to KS5. From Design Technology to philosophy to music to religious studies to geography. No subject is exempt and each and every teacher is responsible for contributing to a national curriculum that recognises the Black contribution to British society, past and present. 

The survey carried out by the Impact of Omission https://impactofomission.squarespace.com/survey  and the excellent campaigns by the Black Curriculum https://www.theblackcurriculum.com/ among others, demonstates that this a cross-curricula issue impacting on our adult lives and needs a wholesale response.

Black children need to see themselves not just presented as a part of a difficult and violent past based on subjugation and oppression but also taught that we have and do continue to contribute to British society.  Education has a duty to open possibilities, whether this is access to STEM like Maggie Aderin-Pocock , becoming a historian like Dr Olusoga, the use of English to become an award winning writer like Dorothy Koomson, or leading the largest teachers union in the UK. Education has a duty to open opportunity and present possibility to the next generation.

Did I mention that I am a citizenship teacher? Citizenship continues where history stops. This why I believe decolonisation of the curriculum is for every subject, for every child for every part of the UK. This has to be our starting point. The government have a responsibility to engage the right stakeholders, academics, educationalists, teachers, community activists and exam boards.

 We must demand more for our children and that’s why I am not limiting myself with the the call for curriculum decolonisation to Just history. The education sector must