Naomi Tiley (Librarian) reports:
‘This young future teacher’s approach has been changed forever, and I feel grateful that I can start my career having had this experience rather than adjusting after working for however long without it.’ So said one of the 19 US and UK teaching professionals — from heads of department to newly qualified teachers — who attended the Teaching the Transatlantic Slave Trade seminar series delivered by Balliol in partnership with the Museum of the American Revolution (MOAR) in Philadelphia between September 2021 and February 2022.
The seminar series used the Library’s 2021 Slavery in the Age of Revolution exhibition as a jumping-off point for four afternoons of online talks and workshops about how to teach transatlantic slavery in secondary schools. Its aims included telling a fuller story about transatlantic slavery by foregrounding the role of Black people in the struggle for abolition, and increasing awareness of the lasting impact of transatlantic slavery on the way we live and think today; it also aimed to address the needs that the participants had flagged in a pre-seminar questionnaire.
Talks from Professor Marisa J. Fuentes (Associate Professor, Rutgers University, and Oliver Smithies Visiting Fellow at Balliol 2019–2020), Professor Toby Green, Dr Sudhir Hazareesingh (CUF Lecturer in Politics and Tutorial Fellow in Politics), Dr José Lingna Nafafé and Dr Philip Mead (Chief Historian and Curator, MOAR) helped participants develop deeper understanding of the subject matter. A workshop with The Black Curriculum gave guidance on how to share this information with students and faculty, emphasising the importance of the subject matter while using appropriate, sensitive language. Ideas for inclusive, accessible, and stimulating lessons and resources for students were discussed in workshops with Oxford History Faculty; with per stellas production company, who created a 50-minute video to coincide with the exhibition and to serve as a discussion tool for the seminar series; and with Adrienne Whaley from the Museum, who got us all thinking by using objects from MOAR’s collections. A broader knowledge of West African histories and cultures was also important to participants and we were privileged to round off our discussions with a performance and look into the West African Griot tradition with Senegalese kora musician Kadialy Kouyate.
Post-seminar feedback showed over half of the respondents having already implemented changes following the seminar series and 83% of respondents feeling more confident about advocating for more accurate and sensitive teaching of transatlantic slavery. One teacher wrote, ‘Thank you for running the seminars. They were really eye-opening and have had a big impact on me, my students and my department.’
The project does not end here. The Museum of the American Revolution has invited all participants to a week-long, in-person extension conference in August, where the group will continue to build on the foundations of the online seminars.
You can see the Slavery in the Age of Revolution video and exhibition catalogue here as well as more information about the exhibition.
Creamware punch bowl (Museum of the American Revolution), shown at Philip Mead’s session
French gorget (Museum of the American Revolution), shown at Adrienne Whaley’s session:
Title page of Poems by Phillis Wheatley, the first published African-American author, formerly enslaved (Museum of the American Revolution, Gift of Dr. Marion T. Lane):
