A rewrite of the history syllabus is long overdue

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/jun/14/a-rewrite-of-the-history-syllabus-is-long-overdue

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Letters: Calls for more inclusive teaching in schools have been ignored for years, writes Marika Sherwood, one of the founders of the Black and Asian Studies Association. Stewart Fergusson reminds us of Gove’s response to an expert review. Plus letters from Maria Goulding, Alan Jenkins and Belinda King

That the school curriculum had to be changed (MPs demand review of national curriculum, led by black leaders, 10 June) was a major issue taken up by the Black and Asian Studies Association from its foundation in 1991. We were in constant correspondence with the Department for Education, including Ofsted, and even met with their heads. In 2005 we organised a conference on “Putting the ‘black’ back into British history: teaching inclusive history in schools”. As we all know only too well, we were ignored.

The history we teach must include not only Africa prior to the arrival of Europeans, but the history of Africans in this country. As far as we know at the moment, they first arrived as a whole regiment within the conquering Roman army; some settled here when discharged. So it is a very long history.

My research has been mainly on black political activists from around 1900, when the first pan-African conference was held in London. Through interviews in various cities I discovered that there have been black organisations everywhere, for many years, often taking up issues of racial discrimination. So I tried to search local archives and the National Archives at Kew. The very few files available indicated that the organisations and activists had been under surveillance and that reports had been sent to government departments. So I made requests under the Freedom of Information Act for the release of papers on these organisations and activists.

In 1988 I also began writing to the Foreign Office, the Home Office, MI5 and the Metropolitan police, asking for the release of papers. Nothing was released. Not wanting to give up, I asked Paul Boateng if he could ask in the House of Lords for the release of files. In October 2019 he asked for the files on Claudia Jones and George Padmore – two activists on whom there should be many files. Response: no files on Jones; two on Padmore – one will continue to be withheld, the other will be “edited”, then released.

So the government manipulates “history” by withholding files from researchers. So no black population here prior to the Windrush, and no racial discrimination issues!Marika SherwoodOare, Kent

• It’s deja vu as MPs call for a review of the history syllabus. Less than 10 years ago Michael Gove called on the distinguished historians Niall Ferguson, Simon Schama, David Cannadine and Richard J Evans to advise him on the form and focus of the history curriculum. They called for history to be compulsory until the age of 16 and, in Cannadine’s words, for it “never [to] be used merely as a means of relaying a desired national narrative”.

Bewitched by the outdated Our Island Story of Henrietta Marshall, Gove predictably ignored the advice of the experts. Schama panned Gove’s response as “insulting and offensive” and characterised the proposed curriculum as “1066 and All That, but without the jokes” and Evans wrote of the “narrow tub-thumping jingoism of Gove”.

If we are to get young people to have a balanced view of our history then I hope Gavin Williamson will be open-minded. He could usefully start by consulting Cannadine’s two thoughtful books on the subject, The Undivided Past and The Right Kind of History. But don’t hold your breath.Stewart FergussonCountesthorpe, Leicestershire

• What a wonderful piece by Diana Evans (Overcoming fears, discovering nature ... what I have learned from lockdown, 13 June). She’s given Gavin Williamson what he needs for a long overdue rewrite of national curriculum history. Rosa Parks, the slave trade, Christopher Columbus and the meaning of colonisation, the bloodthirsty greed of the British empire, Jamaican independence, Nelson Mandela, the indigenous tribes of the Caribbean islands and the kingdom of Benin. Her own children and her primary pupils are lucky indeed, but what about all other children of whatever heritage who are denied this knowledge?Maria GouldingGateshead, Tyne and Wear

• The Fawlty Towers episode titled The Germans should be a compulsory part of the school history curriculum (UKTV to reinstate Fawlty Towers episode The Germans, 12 June). As someone born in 1940 I grew up with the history of the evils of the Germans in the 20th century. Sadly I doubt my children got a more nuanced critical perspective on such issues. Nor do I expect the current school curriculum à la Michael Gove offers such understanding.

However, that episode opens up such understanding as to take us forward – into complexity.Alan JenkinsOxford

• Lockdown gave my husband the chance to sort out his study. Among many interesting finds, he came across a set of Guardian posters from 2008, entitled Black History Timeline. This is so relevant now, would you consider an updated reprint? After re-reading it, I am going to send it to my 12-year-old granddaughter in the hope that she will at least read some of it and keep it for future reference.Belinda KingAssington, Suffolk

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