rantshoutwhisper

Haven't been on here for ages: had a site overhaul and work's been coming in... but I thought you might want to take a look at this site. It's incredibly clear and informative.

www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/caribbeanhistory

Just came through BASA digest today:

http://www.blackhistory4schools.com/

Not managed to get a proper look, but it seems to come half-way between a portal [i.e. a links page] and an article base... half excited, but will give proper read-through and review when less busy. OR you could post a comment and let me know what you think!

UPDATE [12 Mar]: Oh yes. A valuable resource for parents and teachers, set up by Dan Lyndon from the Henry Compton School in Fulham. It's definitely more of a portal; but the articles add extra values and are worth checking [and perhaps showing to your school]. Spread news of this site like butter!

UPDATE [23 Mar]: Dan has written a comment to this post. I'll put it here so that you can read it quicker: the emphasised part is my formatting.

"Thanks for posting up details of the website. I hope that this will be more than just a portal as the intention is to have lots more Black and Asian British History teaching material that can be used directly in the classroom. The website will grow if people are prepared to contribute to it so if you know any teachers working on this area, or should be producing material then hassle them to get in touch with me. There will soon be a blogging / discussion element to the website and I am currently working on a major project to coincide with the 200th anniversary of the ending of the slave trade in 2007."

So contact Dan through the web-site and get involved if you can!

This is extremely interesting: dry, to the point, but extremely interesting.

http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/history/communities/

the reason why it's interesting is that it gives more of a picture of the status and treatment of slaves and settlers in London. Let's discuss! I don't think you have to be a member to send comments so please do so on any of the articles I put on here.

After Max Hastings' nonsensical article in the Guardian yesterday [go to http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1673892,00.html] I felt I ought to to just balance it all a bit and show this, which is quite old but written by one of the most enthusiastic people I know - Marika Sherwood. As one of the main driving forces behind BASA she works tirelessly, it seems. It shows more adequately - along with all the other articles I've presented here - that the multicultural contribution to this country is highly significant.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/war/wwtwo/colonies_colonials_01.shtml

And now, to rant.

I'm going to use an old essay as well.

I agree [partly] with Hastings about the fact that the QCA might have got it wrong. The word here is balance. I have no problem with kids learning about Drake or Pepys, and I don't necessarily think that they SHOULD learn about Shaka Zulu [although no one ever said that they would].

What I have to take umbrage with is that someone can be enthusiastic about British history and not be an advocate of multiculturalism. To quote me:

Just as it is seen as ludicrous to speak of a mono-cultural England, it is also seen as illogical to offer a view of England with a singular, linear history (as taught in schools).

Nevertheless, there is one dominant feature of English history that prevails from when it was first invaded; this factor was perversely intensified by the process and (physical) death of colonisation; it is the culture formed and the heritage gained by bastardisation or mixing. It began with the Vikings; continued with the Romans and the Normans; and flourishes today.


Not homogenisation: the colour of “Englishness” is not a muddy brown (or perhaps more appropriately, pink); nor is it a simplistic rainbow; we are not equal. We do not occupy the same space as the colours do in a child's painting. Like Neapolitan ice-cream, there is an underlying flavour, shot through with other flavours and sauces. We know it's ice-cream, we know it's different flavours of ice-cream. But ice-cream it is.

We learn about the Vikings, Normans, Romans, etc. Instead of examining these occurences from a "dominance" perspective, let's look at this from a different angle. The evidence of bastardisation spreads through British history: it is only because of the focus on battles that most histories do not give more examples.

c.500 BCE - Evidence of the spread of Celtic customs and artefacts across Britain; more and varied types of pottery in use, more characteristic decoration of jewelry. There was no known invasion of Britain by the Celts; [my emphasis here] they probably gradually infiltrated into British society through trade and other contact over a period of several hundred years; Druids, the intellectual class of the Celts (their own word for themselves, meaning "the hidden people"), begin a thousand year floruit.

54 BCE - 43 CE - Roman influence manages to increase in Britain during this time, even though Roman troops are absent, as a direct result of trade and other interaction with the continent.

To fail to see the immigration of people who have contributed some of the best cuisine, language, literature and thinking to a nation as something worth teaching children is a poor thing indeed.

The site is quite interesting generally; but this quite fun and short interactive journey is something a child from 9 upwards could do with a little parental support.

http://www.revolutionaryplayers.org.uk/learning.stm

The idea is to assemble a front page of a newspaper by connecting the right stories and images together. You get a score at the end, which means that you can tell how well you've done. Because you have to read things to make the right connections, you learn as well... genius.