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One of the many great challenges in planning a history curriculum is spotting our own blind spots and gaps. Often, it is only w hindsight informed by current events, issues and crises, that we spot omissions in our curriculum that might aid understanding of the modern world.
eg In the UK, 9/11 and rising Islamophobia prompted more schools to teach about the Islamic world. BLM and Windrush have accelerated decolonisation efforts. GCSE courses on the foundation of the USA have new found significance under Trump.
The answer? Well, partly it is that a curriculum shouldn’t only be driven by “relevance”, but with finite curriculum time and the dangers of ignorance, having “relevant” historical knowledge is vital for an informed citizenry...
So, we do need curric that is or has the potential to be at least in part “relevant” & given that the future is hard to predict, this pushes us more twds breadth than depth, alongside inspiring a desire to learn more, an awareness that our K is limited, & questioning disposition.
Plus we need to have often challenging conversations with ourselves as teachers about who, where and what we are omitting and considering what harm such omissions might cause and what wonders we might uncover if we explore them with pupils. What are our (and their) blind spots?
