Minds of the Movement - The Black Curriculum

Image Credit: Joe Watson

THE BLACK CURRICULUM - CHANGING THE SYLLABUS. CHANGING THE SYSTEM.

On July 30th 2020, we spent the day with some of the women who are changing the way we look at black history. We invited activist Imarn Ayton and the girls from The Black Curriculum down to a studio in Haggerston where we captured their portraits and listened to their inspiring stories. These interviews are just the first in a series where we set out to amplify the voices of important female figures in the black community. These are the minds behind the movement.

Lavinya Stennett

Bethany Thompson

Chantelle Minta 

Founders of The Black Curriculum, interviewed by Jaz O'Hara and Joshua Coombes

Jaz: Could you give us an introduction to The Black Curriculum?

Lavinya: The Black Curriculum is a social enterprise, and our main aim is to give people a sense of identity through the teachings of black history, bringing empowerment through knowledge. So we simply deliver this in schools as a syllabus that we created last year, and we provide that through workshops and longer programmes to schools around the UK. We also go into schools to help teachers to do this better, because through our research there’s a lack of confidence, there’s a lack of resources, and also just more generally around the teacher workforce, there’s not much of an impetus to teach black history. That’s what we’ve all experienced here. That the central curriculum doesn’t really outline in much detail the experiences of black people in Britain, and what that does is it just sends the message that we’re not part of history, or history hasn’t been shaped by us and that’s not true. So we’re aiming to empower young people through our materials and also teachers to implement this collectively.

Jaz: It’s amazing, and I think that the growth of the last year and how quick it’s all gone up shows how important it is. How did it start for you, and what was the trigger initially?

Lavinya: So I always go back to New Zealand because I think that’s where it all really came together and crystallised, but I’d say that when I was doing my degree in African studies, that was an eye opener for me because I didn’t learn anything about black history in school, but in uni it definitely shaped my ideas of the world – being more grounded in literature and also history that was non European. So when I went to New Zealand I was like, ok, I kind of know this but they also have their own system where they teach Māori history, and they’re still trying to implement it in New Zealand properly in primary schools. Because I learnt that information and I saw how it was being taught outside, I thought, well, why can’t we have the same thing here? It doesn’t make sense that we should go through our whole lives and not learn anything about black history. So that’s when it kind of clicked and connected for me. We needed a curriculum, and we needed change on an institutional level, not just individual teachers. 

Josh: After being inspired and coming back from New Zealand, what were your initial steps to start something and bring your ideas into fruition?

Lavinya: I kind of had a sense of urgency, but I knew when I went back to uni I could feel that all the knowledge and connections wouldn’t last, so I had to write it down - like I’m going to start this curriculum, and that same night I actually applied to an arts foundation to fund the building of this curriculum, and then I came back to London in October which was Black History Month for us and we got the grant. On new years, I met a friend and I asked if she could help in putting together this curriculum. Then she introduced me to Bethany.

Bethany: And then we met! We sat down and Lavinya explained what she wanted to do and we explained he ideas that we had and put them together. We did our first focus group just to get a feeling of what people thought, and after that we started interviewing people to create the syllabus for us. Then it was like a cycle so we had content creators, we had researchers and advisors, and in about four months we created the syllabus. With that we had four modules which were migration, art history, land and the environment, and politics and the legal system, and that focuses on contemporary history too, so on some of our modules we would even include things like Grenfell Tower.

Chantelle: I think even in one of our earlier conversations we talked about not teaching chronologically because people have this mindset that something belongs in a certain period. When we think of history thematically we see that things that happened 200 years ago didn’t start and stop there. They’ve actually just rebranded and morphed themselves into something new. Even with things like the Windrush, people are being sent home today and it happened such a long time ago. We have grandparents who are part of that generation as well so they’ve lived through these experiences, and we want to bring that to the forefront. 

Jazz: What about the last few months, how have they impacted the direction of The Black Curriculum?

Lavinya: I think we always had a clear process, so even when we were recruiting people we had a period where, because of Coronavirus, we had to shift a lot of things. We were planning to go to Manchester and do loads of workshops, but then a load of our bookings were no longer there. So we pivoted and did a contingency plan from April to June which focussed on the digital side of things. We started online programmes and animations. Then there was the death of George Floyd, and that really amplified everything that we were doing. It was really interesting to see how things changed. The schools that we reached out to before were suddenly getting back to us, so we decided from June that we were going to run a campaign targeted at the government specifically because there’s no better time than now to take action on all of the incidents that are happening around the world.

Chantelle: I think people began to listen online and as soon as we started getting more followers it shows that you’re doing something right. The first day was crazy, we started with 1,350 and by the end of that day it was on 11k. Then in a week we probably hit 74,000.

Josh: So that was the campaign for TBH (The Black History) 365, and what I love about that is the really clear message with teaching black history, that it’s not just one month that we should learn about black history. It’s 365 days a year. Was this your first campaign or did you have any campaigns before?

Bethany: TBH was always running since we started on social media, but we decided we wanted to start a two-week campaign around it. So we set a date, a deadline, and in those two weeks we wanted to get a response and generate an interest. I think it was successful, it started partnerships and people started listening. And also I think that it helped people to recognise that in schools they teach a lot of Americanised history as well, like Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, and they are important. But that’s also not our history here. We do have black British history, and when that was brought to the forefront people started to notice the difference. 

Josh: You’re completely right, the small amount of black history we are taught in school is focused on America and doesn’t stray far from the slave trade, and you only learn about things like Windrush as an adult. 

Jaz: I guess what we need in the UK is for the government to start taking action to implement this and make it mandatory in the curriculum and I saw that you guys had this amazing win recently because you had a response from Nick Gibb. Tell me where you guys are with the government support of what you’re doing.

Lavinya: I guess it’s an important move for the government to recognise it but it’s not essential as they don’t set the rules on everything we teach. Most schools still follow their own curriculum. We had conversations with different people in politics, outside of politics and we gained support from over 45 MPs across parties. Then the second response came a week later saying they acknowledge the work that we do but they don’t have the time because of Covid. We could meet their officials but they were the same officials that we met last year. 

Adrian: I also want to ask, as individuals, how have you felt over the last few months with this intersection of Covid and the George Floyd protests? 

Bethany: Tired. I joined The Black Curriculum before everything happened so we were still small on social media and working things out, so I think when everything blew up there was just so much noise. I wouldn’t call myself an activist but being someone who’s quite involved in certain movements it was tiring to have to redress the same issues that we have always been talking about. I think one thing that exhausted me personally was just seeing the devalue in black women. Because I think that black women who are also victims of police brutality are almost put on a lower level. We have this whole other layer to deal with. But it was good to have support networks like The Black Curriculum where you can talk to others and express how you feel.

Chantelle: I think it’s also been-eye opening because we’ve known this as an issue for so long. So in some ways it’s like we can breathe now, we don’t have to constantly fight. It’s there, it’s right in front of you and now people are recognising it. So it’s kind of liberating but also tiring because now the scramble is on.  

Find out more at @theblackcurriculum

 Jaz - @theworldwidetribe

Josh - @joshuacoombes