Social studies, our history, monuments

Ryce and Rudder have raised a serious lesson for us and will force us to pay attention to our schools’ curriculum. They initiated a protest about the Vidya Maharaj social studies text which omitted mention of Emancipation Day.

Maharaj is the author of a series of social studies texts and is listed as having a teacher’s diploma and 33 plus years of teaching experience The author says that the Social Studies Made Simple texts were written in accordance with the objectives of the social studies curriculum.

But the point is that social studies in TT has a limited relationship to history. The Secondary Education Modernisation Programme, Secondary School Curriculum, Forms 1-3, Social Studies, published in September 2008 by the Curriculum Planning and Development Division, Ministry of Education, is a document with which we should become familiar.

Clearly, it has the input of the Inter- American Development Bank which is listed first in the acknowledgements.

The rationale states, “A primary purpose of social studies is to enable students to function comfortably in today’s society. Thus, the curriculum is not designed or intended to teach the discrete social science disciplines such as history, geography, or economics. Rather, it takes what it needs from such disciplines in order to achieve its aims and objectives.” In effect the status of history (as well as geography and economics) had been depreciated as a subject in our schools.

The other matter which has bearing on our history is what Shabaka Kambon and Dr Claudius Fergus are doing with the Cross Rhodes Freedom Project.

It brings to mind the significance of statues and monuments because the project is a campaign to look at how “we celebrate in our public spaces and rebranding these spaces with our local heroes.” Among other matters, the project seeks to remove the statue of Christopher Columbus from its present location behind the Roman Catholic Cathedral in downtown Port of Spain.

Clearly, Kambon and Fergus are following in the footsteps of Makandal Daaga, Khafra Kambon (Shabaka’s father) and others who during the 1970 TT revolution advocated for the changing of the names of certain streets and other sites to be more in harmony with our independence.

The Cross Rhodes Freedom Project parallels international movements such as the ones led by Cleo Alberta Lake from Countering Colston in Bristol, England and Michael Quess Moore from Take Em Down NOLA in New Orleans.

While our activists are concerned about Caribbean history, one person who doesn’t know his country’s history is US President Donald Trump. He needs to be told that the statue of Robert E Lee which was being venerated by the “alt-right” is one of 700 monuments to the Confederate cause which were built particularly during the Jim Crow and segregation eras and their purpose was to maintain the memory of white supremacists.

No wonder that since the protests and subsequent death of the young woman, Heather Heyer, certain cities and states have hastened their plans to remove Confederate monuments from public property.

Among the cities are Birmingham (Alabama), Brooklyn (New York), Gainesville (Florida), and the states of Maryland, North Carolina and Tennessee.

We need to pay attention to our history lest we are condemned to relive it. The concerns of Ann-Marie Ryce, Akende Rudder and Shabaka Kambon must not become nine-day news items.

AIYEGORO OME Mt Lambert