Available now: TURNING POINT-inspired lessons by History Teachers of our Schools Working Group…

03.09.2024

“The videos… [help] me imagine experience[s] more firsthand as I can visually see their emotions” – Kenzi

 

In 2021 the Schools History Project brought together a group of teachers to work with Sweet Patootee Arts to create lessons linked to their TURNING POINT project. We were invited to be part of the project because of our existing interest in teaching the legacies of slavery and decolonised history in our different schools. Three years later we finally have lessons that are ready to share. In the intervening years the four teachers who started the project have collectively had two weddings, at least three school/ role changes, one new baby, and one exciting move to another continent entirely. We started the project when the TURNING POINT film was an exciting idea, and have finished the lessons with the film having been shown across the country in may prestigious venues. The lessons have been planned, replanned, taught, adapted and replanned many times over in the three years we have been working on them.

(Go to the page to download our resources by clicking here – or read on…)

“…I think it’s an important history to teach on how mindsets toward White people in power changed and how Black people in the Caribbean became less subservient” – Nia

 

Despite the time it has taken, the importance and relevance of the lessons is not diminished in the slightest. The stories Sweet Patootee are telling, and the outcomes of the enquiry we have created, are hugely relevant to students today. We ask students to consider identity, and how people define themselves. We ask them to explore how identity can be forged out of adversity and prejudice, and how this change can be inspiring to everyone. We ask students to explore significant events in the 20th Century; the First World War; the building of the Panama Canal, and the work of the UNIA. These lessons came out of the inspiring TURNING POINT film and our strong response to them. Our biggest challenge was narrowing down our focus so the lessons were manageable and coherent, there are dozens of other directions we considered after seeing the film – and others we may explore in future.

As history teachers we were all inspired by the passion and enthusiasm of Tony and Rebecca. Their work on collecting the stories of Caribbeans who experienced the TURNING POINT of the 1920s opened up new avenues of historical knowledge and enquiry that we were all excited to share with our students. The stories they have been able to draw out of the past are inspiring to us as historians, and the TURNING POINT film is a unique way to bring that alive for our students. 

The lessons each focus on a different character from the TURNING POINT film, telling unique but overlapping stories of their change in identity in the 1920s. The stories act as a springboard into the history related to the character’s experiences and attitude, and chart the journey from legacies of slavery and racism, to a new sense of identity and Black pride. In the shared resources you will find six lessons, which could have easily be expanded into more, answering the question ‘Why was there a TURNING POINT in the Caribbean identity in the 1920s?’. The lessons, lesson resources, and supporting materials should give any teacher who wants to teach the enquiry a strong starting point to work from. We have all taught these lessons in our schools, and enjoyed students’ engagement in the enquiry.

Our idea initially was to focus on the concept of a ‘turning point’ in history by considering change and continuity. However, our usual approach of getting students to consider to what extent an event is a ‘turning point’ did not seem to sit well; we didn’t want to use Sweet Patootee Arts’ work to lead students into arguing that there was not, in fact, a turning point in identity in the 1920s. To do this effectively would also mean expanding the historical focus of the enquiry far past the 1920s. This led us instead to causation as our dominant second order concept focus. We decided we wanted students to be able to explain why there was a ‘turning point’; considering the different factors that the characters in the film reflect on. This led us to discussions about how we develop students’ understanding of this concept. We grappled over this for some time as we felt that our ‘stock’ approach to teaching the concept of causation (which often includes ranking factors in order of importance) again did not quite work for this. What we really wanted students to get from the enquiry, and what the film really helps students to understand, is the interplay and importance of all three aspects, and how they work together to create the ‘turning point’; one cannot really be placed as ‘most’ important and we did not want to diminish the role of the others. This led us to considering how the mutiny at Taranto was a ‘spark’, how Panama was a ‘trigger’, and how Marcus Garvey and the UNIA ‘inspired’ in our lesson titles. This also led us to our final outcome which uses the analogy of ripples in water. We wanted students to consider how one event can help cause change both in the immediate and very long term, and for our final outcome, how ripples can ‘bounce’ off each other to lead to greater change. This meant that students were asked to focus on the interplay of the causes, rather than prioritising or diminishing any of them. All of this meant thinking about these concepts in a slightly different way to the way we do in other enquiries in our departments, but we felt that was in response to the unique nature of the stimulus and work of Sweet Patootee Arts and their TURNING POINT film.   

(Go to the page to download our resources by clicking here – or read on…)

“The clips showed the story of racism from their perspectives… it told us their emotions… it was like they were there” – Ahsan (Year 9)

 

The enquiry has been taught as part of three very different History department curricula – all focussed on teaching a more global and inclusive history, but all approaching with our very different student demographics in mind. We all taught the lessons at different times in the planning process, but were all struck by our students’ responses. The clips of the TURNING POINT film were a brilliant ‘hook’ to students – who were engaged by the stories told by the film, and by the way they were told. Students had emotive responses to the stories, and were eager to find out more, but also commented on the making of the film, and work of the actors. it meant we could open up conversations about the way Sweet Patootee Arts constructed the scripts from their historical research, the way the actors interpreted the scripts, and the visual and auditory effects of the films as well. The students’ response to the lessons suggests that what they have taken away from them is more memorable and meaningful because of the use of the TURNING POINT film.

The lessons would sit comfortably alongside many different threads running through a curriculum, including the story of decolonisation, complementary to or as an alternative to the Partition of India. They would work alongside a study of the developing fight for equal civil rights, or as part of a study of the British Empire. The enquiry would also compliment students’ future study of the Harlem Renaissance, Black British History after the 1920s, and the struggles and achievements of the campaigns for independence in the Caribbean after the 1920s. 

 

“…I have found learning about Caribbean turning points very interesting; almost always when we are taught Black history, it is negative and implies that Black people are weak; this history is a lot more positive.” – Maliha

 

It would be most effective if the students already had a good grounding of knowledge in the history of the British Transatlantic Slave Trade, and the reasons for the ending of the Slave Trade in 1807, and British slavery in 1833/ 1838. As a group we were inspired by the work of Justice2History in their approach to teaching this, both from the historical and pedagogical perspective.

These lessons are just one response to the TURNING POINT film, and there are many ways in which the film has inspired us to consider other aspects of what and how we teach. We hope that others find the resources inspiring, both to them as teachers and historians, as well as to their students.

Go to the page to download our resources by clicking here

To send us comments or feedback, please email us via contact@sweetpatootee.co.uk

Pam Canning, Jack Brown, Sarah Paul (Weidenmüller) August 2024 

 

Pam Canning
Jack Brown
Sarah Paul (Weidenmüller)