History's contribution: Attitudes and behaviours
Attitudes
- I value equality and individual liberty, democracy and the rule of law.
- I am open to people from other cultures and/or different faiths and beliefs
- I am able to understand and appreciate development issues from other people’s point of view, including from ‘developing’ countries.
- I understand that people in the past thought and acted differently to the way we do today
- I understand that ‘different’ does not equal ‘worse’
Behaviours
- I am respectful of people from other cultures and/or different faiths and beliefs.
- I collaborate and communicate effectively with those from a range of different backgrounds and understand the perspective of others.
- I am able to engage in positive, constructive dialogue with people from different backgrounds (including from ‘developing’ countries) by understanding and recognising other people’s cultural values and beliefs.
For example:
- Saxon Primary School, Surrey, approached global learning through enhancing learning and values through global issues. They developed a culture of empathy, inclusion and fairness and Ofsted reported that, ‘pupils from different ethnic backgrounds are respectful of each other’s beliefs and cultural heritages’. https://drive.globaldimension.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/glp/GLP_pdfs/Case_Studies/Saxon_Primary_School_Surrey.pdf
- Asians in Britain: Using the resources of the British Library to explore the lives of Asians in Britain, especially from 1858–1950 bl.uk/learning/histcitizen/asians/asiansinbritain.html
- Otto and Elise Hampel: Brave or Foolish? This unit provides a historical context to the question: Do you stand up against something you believe is wrong, even if it might end in your death? Available from: https://globaldimension.org.uk/resource/global-learning-and-history/
Checklist for practice
Does the work:
- Help pupils understand their perceptions of their own cultural heritage and those of others; how culture and belief have, historically, shaped values and decisions; and how the perspectives of others have been shaped by their cultural heritage?
- Develop communication and questioning skills, for example ask and answer historical questions to make sense of the complexity of people’s lives, the process of change, the diversity of societies and relationships between different groups?
- Develop tolerance through their ability to appreciate different perspectives on historical events?
- Help pupils to think critically about the complexity of people’s lives, the process of change, the diversity of societies and the challenges of our time?
- Help pupils develop a ‘sense of period’ and what it was really like to live at that time. Having learnt about the lives of people from different periods in the past, consider what might have been the motivation for the decisions they made which continue to affect our lives today?
- Include the voices/perspectives of named people from ‘the South’?
- Avoid stereotypes and combat prejudice?