It is something they feel is worth doing. One could argue that it will change nothing, or that it is virtue signalling. One could argue the opposite. What I'm about to write is from the perspective of a white male in his 50s living in the UK - and could easily be seen as irrelevant given the scale and longevity of the injustices that have taken place for centuries between those in power and who hold particular views, and those with little voice.
However, I thought it was important to take a look at what we can (continue to) do, and how the GA has supported the work of teachers on educating about this issue through its existence.
And what will we do tomorrow?
In response to a request earlier in the day from Paul Turner about the work that the GA, RGS and others were doing, I used spare time around teaching from home today to delve a little (this is a superficial first search). The GA has had a long involvement in anti-racist / multicultural / fully inclusive education and reinforcing the need for teachers to accept a responsibility for dealing with issues like this in their classroom and removing the descriptions that were part of early textbooks in the subject.
Subscriptions to the relevant journals will be needed to read the pieces, although they may be accessible with a free JSTOR account to read on screen.
The GA responded to the need for support for teachers from the 1970s onwards in a coordinated way.
Nick Hopwood in this THINK PIECE touched on the idea of teacher neutrality (and presenting both sides of an argument...)
In the late 1960s Lawrence Stenhouse led the Humanities Curriculum Project (or HCP; Nuffield Curriculum Centre website; Stenhouse 1975), which explored ways of teaching children about controversial issues. Stenhouse advocated a teacher role of neutral chair (not revealing his or her views) rather than a committed advocate. It was argued that teacher authority in a classroom is strong, that pupils are vulnerable to following a teacher's view as the 'right' one, and that this can create the impression that controversial issues can be settled by recourse to higher authority – i.e. ask the teacher. The neutral approach was promoted by the HCP on the understanding that this would enable a range of opinions to be expressed, and that the questioning pupils' assertions and recourse to evidence and reasoning would model a more appropriate way to teach and learn about controversial issues. Suggestions that teachers should be neutral when teaching about racism (rather than committed to anti-racist agendas) sparked a major debate, demonstrating how even though most people would accept that racism is socially unacceptable, issues of how to teach them quickly bring the controversy back to life. How we approach teaching about controversial issues, and how we would like pupils to learn about them at school, are at least partly dependent on the sort of outcomes we envisage. A geography teacher might feel their role is to advocate strongly on behalf of environmental agendas (i.e. adopt a committed approach) because we need a generation of environmentally committed people if any serious headway is to be made in these respects.
Source: https://www.geography.org.uk/write/MediaUploads/research%20library/GA_TP_S_valuesissues.pdf
In 1985, Rex Walford announced the GA's Anti Racism Policy Statement.
A lot of work was done in Primary schools at this time as well, with their focus on 'Far Away Places' to ensure they were represented fairly.
Other Humanities subject also revisited teaching of topics such as the American West at this time.
Peter Jackson wrote on Racism and Reaction in 1988
Jackson, Peter. “Beneath the Headlines: Racism and Reaction in Contemporary Britain.” Geography, vol. 73, no. 3, 1988, pp. 202–207. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40571418. Accessed 2 June 2020.
David Lambert contributed two pieces on this theme at the turn of the century.
The first, from 2001 with John Morgan was as part of a special Working Group that the GA had convened following the publication of the Macpherson report into the Stephen Lawrence enquiry in 1999.
The group was made up of Mary Biddulph and Roger Firth, David and John, Robert Chessman, Huw Jones and the late Jagdish Gundara from UCL.
MORGAN, JOHN, and DAVID LAMBERT. “Geography, 'Race' and Education.” Geography, vol. 86, no. 3, 2001, pp. 235–246. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40573580. Accessed 2 June 2020.
He quotes Kobayashi:
'Students need to be firmly theoretically grounded, to develop the concepts they need to analyse a complex social process such as racism.
The more important theoretical challenge is to uncover deeply rooted essentialist notions of race, and to clarify the ways in which racialization occurs through social construction. In addition, students need facts, both as a basis for knowledge and to empower them in their antiracist actions.
They need to understand the history of racism in our society, and they need to be able to fix racism in terms of the concrete circumstances of life for racialized people' (1999, p. 179)
The second, published in 2002, explored the very word 'race' and the way that it was framed within the classroom. This is a characteristically thoughtful piece by David Lambert.
LAMBERT, DAVID. “Geography, 'Race' and Education: Further Perspectives.” Geography, vol. 87, no. 4, 2002, pp. 297–304. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40573763. Accessed 2 June 2020.
Peter Jackson wrote on Geographies of Diversity and DifferenceJACKSON, PETER. “Geographies of Diversity and Difference.” Geography, vol. 87, no. 4, 2002, pp. 316–323. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40573765. Accessed 2 June 2020.
A book was published as part of the Theory into Practice series.
This book focuses on the contribution secondary school geography teachers can make to anti-racism.
The book explores key themes including unsettled geographies and migration and the ‘invisible whiteness’ of geography. The book describes how teachers can use critical approaches to help students adopt new ways of thinking about difference and offers practical tips and strategies for doing this
Arun Saldanha from the University of Minnesota (a city which has been affected by the current unrest) wrote about the Concept of 'Race' in 2011
Saldanha, Arun. “The Concept of Race.” Geography, vol. 96, no. 1, 2011, pp. 27–33. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41320323. Accessed 2 June 2020.
Keith Ajegbo wrote on cohesion at a time when the idea of 'community cohesion' was strong.
The book explores key themes including unsettled geographies and migration and the ‘invisible whiteness’ of geography. The book describes how teachers can use critical approaches to help students adopt new ways of thinking about difference and offers practical tips and strategies for doing this
Arun Saldanha from the University of Minnesota (a city which has been affected by the current unrest) wrote about the Concept of 'Race' in 2011
Saldanha, Arun. “The Concept of Race.” Geography, vol. 96, no. 1, 2011, pp. 27–33. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41320323. Accessed 2 June 2020.
Keith Ajegbo wrote on cohesion at a time when the idea of 'community cohesion' was strong.
Ajegbo, Keith. “Diversity, Citizenship and Cohesion.” Teaching Geography, vol. 36, no. 2, 2011, pp. 46–48. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/23755405. Accessed 2 June 2020.
Ruth England talked about countering stereotypes in 2015.England, Ruth. “Countering Stereotypes through Global Learning.” Teaching Geography, vol. 40, no. 2, 2015, pp. 64–66. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/26383093. Accessed 2 June 2020.
In 2017, Mary Biddulph's Conference Theme was 'Inclusive Geographies' and this piece was inspired by that conference, and published in 2018.
Peter Hopkins is Professor of Social Geography in the School of Geography Politics and Sociology, Newcastle University, UK (email: Peter.Hopkins@newcastle.ac.uk); Katherine Botterill is Lecturer in Human Geography in School of Applied Sciences, Edinburgh Napier University, UK; and Gurchathen Sanghera is Senior Lecturer in the School of International Relations, University of St Andrews, UK
A look through the JSTOR archive of the journals reveals tens of articles by Jeff Serf, John Morgan, David Hicks and others, and the late David R Wright did a lot to explore the issues with textbooks.
I'm going to request the text of this paper by Peter Jackson:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233233240_Challenging_Racism_Through_Geography_Teaching
There is so much more that all organisations, individuals, governments, publishers and all involved in education could do to continue working in this area.
Teaching about the current situation would be more difficult done remotely than it would be in a classroom, with students physically present and responsive.
We will continue and we will prevail.
This piece (as with all posts on this blog) represents the personal thoughts and views of Alan Parkinson.
Update
I was reminded of the work on de-Colonising the curriculum by Fran Martin. I heard some of that at the Charney Conference, where there are other pieces published in the book edited by Simon Catling.
Also check out episode 4 of GeogPod with Daniel Hammett.
