Artists believe that more diverse history lessons could encourage greater “empathy and mutual understanding”
(Picture: PA)London schools have been urged to teach children about a wider range of diverse historical characters to encourage greater “empathy and mutual understanding”.
A pair of artists, supported by the trip-hop band Massive Attack, have created a series of lesson plans to help pupils learn the “hidden histories” of notable people of African descent.
Charles Golding, one of the artists behind Cargo Classrooms which produced the lesson plans, said he wants London schools to embrace the project. Cargo Classrooms, which was set up by Mr Golding and his childhood friend poet Lawrence Hoo, features in a BBC documentary tonight which shows their lesson plans being used for the first time in schools in Bristol. Mr Golding said he hopes the initiative now takes off in London schools.
He launched the project, which is partly funded by the Arts Council, Bristol University, Massive Attack and private donors, to enrich the national curriculum and to provide case studies that can be slotted into lessons by teachers. The free resources have been downloaded more than 100,000 times.
Each lesson plan is based on a poem by Mr Hoo and includes a video that teachers can play in class with original music created by Massive Attack.
They include lessons about Nanny of the Maroons, who fought against the British in Jamaica after escaping slavery and helped free hundreds of slaves, and Dutty Boukman, an early leader of the Haitian revolution, as well as Lonnie Johnson, who invented the Nerf Gun and Supersoaker.
Mr Golding told the Standard: “We want London schools to embrace this.
“London is a rich multicultural society and everyone stands to gain if we have a greater understanding of each other, and more perspectives.
“These are not black stories, they are universal stories of oppression and success within oppression. Everyone can relate to that.”
Mr Golding, whose American grandfather Charles Hauser, like Rosa Parks, refused to move to the back of a bus in a stand against segregation, said: “We are trying to communicate with teachers that this material is not niche, it’s for a broad section of the public. It is not black history for ethnic minorities it is everybody’s history.
“They are powerful individuals with incredible stories.”
