Link to this page: https://archive.socialistparty.org.uk/issue/1168/33786
From The Socialist newspaper, 23 February 2022
Tories instruct teachers to wipe Britain's real history
Chris Holmes, North London History Teacher, Camden and Haringey Socialist Party
The Tories in the Department for Education (DfE) are issuing guidelines to teachers about impartiality in the classroom. In particular, the teaching of the history of the British Empire and the legacies of 'significant historical figures'. They claim to want to ensure that teachers are presenting complex issues without 'bias'. What they mean of course, is that they want to assert their own biases in the classroom!
This is a thinly disguised offensive in the culture wars launched by the 'anti-woke' brigade to reverse some steps that have been taken to decolonise the curriculum, which have been happening for years and crystallised around the Black Lives Matter movement of a couple of years ago. It is a thoroughly reactionary move, which is not only an insult to the professionalism of teachers, it is also very bad history.
If Education Secretary Nadim Zahawi has his way, we will return to the days when students learned about Elizabeth I defeating the Spanish Armada, but not about her partnership with John Hawkins in establishing the slave trade. Or about how inventors of new machinery like Richard Arkwright drove Britain to become the first industrial nation, but not how the new industries were financed by slavery. Or how the Black presence in Britain goes back centuries before the Windrush generation arrived in the 1950s.
In truth, the DfE guidelines will have very little effect and will be widely resisted. Most teachers will continue to promote critical thinking and questioning, because that is why we entered the profession, and it is what we trained to do! We also know that to engage students, they need a curriculum that reflects the multicultural society we live in, and that also actually reflects the academic developments in their subjects.
The work of popular historians such as David Olusoga, and his television series, means that many of the public are better informed about the legacy of slavery and empire than most of the Tory cabinet. The real significance of the new DfE guidelines is not that they will change what teachers are doing, it is that they betray quite how reactionary and out of touch this government is!
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In The Socialist 23 February 2022:
News
Unite and fight for a decent pay rise
Johnson scraps Covid safety measures
Tories instruct teachers to wipe Britain's real history
International news
Ukraine: Workers' unity against capitalist warmongers and imperialist meddlers
Canada: Prime Minister Trudeau invokes Emergencies Act to end 'Freedom Convoy'
One year after the military coup in Myanmar
NHS
Privatisation and crisis in the NHS
Erdington by-election
The Erdington byelection and the fight for a new mass workers' party
Vote Nellist for a workers' MP in Birmingham Erdington
Workplace news
Tube workers strike in defence of pay, pensions and conditions
University workers continue strike against bosses' attacks
Coventry bin strikers lobby strike-breaking Labour council
Scunny scaffs action forces bosses to the table
Usdaw: 'Reinstate Max' week of action
Trade union support for standing anti-cuts election candidates
Barts NHS workers to walk out again on 28 February
Just Eat couriers continue action to fight pay cut
Rail workers strike in Sheffield
Students
Workers and students unite and fight
Fighting fees and marketisation after 2 March student walkout
Campaigns news
Restore Cardiff's slashed services
Brighton Green and Labour cuts - workers and communities fight back
Surrey: Unions and campaigns say stand as an anti-cuts candidate
Newham City Farm - closed with no consultation
London Socialist Party women's meeting
1 March: Socialist Party new website launch
Review
TV review: This is Going to Hurt
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