Who would’ve guessed that in 2017 we would find ourselves at this new standpoint, looking at a new level of hatred and social injustice? It’s so visible in recent events; the blatant racism and nazi activity in Charlottesville, Trump banning trans people from the forces and deeming them a burden, ever-rising cases of hate crimes and violence against black people, Muslims, women, members of the LGBT+ community and more. We’re supposed to be moving forward, evolving to become more tolerant and loving, or even just more knowledgeable about others. But how can we expect movement when our education is stuck? How can we be inclusive when our education is not?
I was educated at a state school that did well with almost 99% pass rate at GCSE. I came away with good grades, well-rounded knowledge and everything I was told I needed for the next stages in my life. But at age 16, I’d never heard the word ‘transgender’, my knowledge of race relations went no further than Martin Luther King Jr, and I believed women won equal rights when they won the vote. My education taught me what I needed, with a little extra thrown in about democracy and budgeting, but I was naïve to current, on-going social issues. Everything was solved in history, don’t have sex, don’t do drugs, the government is always on your side. I only knew how to pass an exam.
I remember teaching myself most things, I stumbled upon documentaries about transgender kids and issues like suicide within the LGBT+ community. Twitter taught me more than school ever did about institutionalised racism and sexism; news shared on twitter but constantly omitted from the 6pm news taught me that things were still on going. I felt somewhat tricked, like my education stopped at a convenient point, remaining firmly within the safe zone of conservative parents who you can guarantee complaints from if education ever dared to step into the realm of religions other than Christianity, or sex ed that even hinted at homosexuality. But that’s where it needs to be. Existing in the safe zone perpetuates close-minded liminality that is unreflective of today.
If we want acceptance, we need education; they go hand in hand. We need early education on racism, and teaching on slurs to ensure they’re made archaic. Children need to learn about islam and other religions, they need to understand it so they don’t fall for scaremongering and scapegoating. To truly accept LGBT+ people, and make them feel accepted, they must be normalised in our education. Sex ed can no longer be taught through celibacy or simply heterosexuality, it must be inclusive of gay and lesbian sex, it must teach sexuality as a spectrum, it must be factual and frank. How can we help addicts rather than criminalise them without drugs education that goes beyond “don’t do it”. How can we be an ally to young pregnant women, de-stigmatise abortions or adoptions, or even, as women, know how to react to unexpected pregnancy if we are only ever taught celibacy, never our options.
It shouldn’t still be revolutionary to see every corner of society represented in our national curriculum, it’s should be shocking to see them erased. We should know the name of Princess Duleep Singh and the Indian women who contributed so massively to the suffrage movement, we should know the depth of the persecution of gay people during the holocaust, not just treat their deaths as an add-on to the tragedy, we should know history beyond our western homelands, know the history of our neighbours and friends and their ancestors across the globe, we should be aware of how our governments treated them, maybe then we’d stop villainising their anger. Why don’t our children learn about Stonewall, or the vast spectrum of genders, or the history of feminism? Why don’t they read more books by women and people of colour, rather than the same canonised white men? Why don’t they know the names of the women in history? why don’t they know what the Quran teaches?
If you want to call inclusivity revolutionary, so be it. But that’s what we need right now. It can’t save the men we saw as the face of Charlottesville, and it can’t help the woman yelling at a Muslim mother in your local supermarket, but it can move us forward from the next generation. We’d never deny the impact education has on children, so a curriculum based on inclusion, acceptance and education of all and everything, not just white, straight, and western; that has the power to begin progress, raising the next generation to be too smart for hateful media representations, misogynistic power figures, or casual acts of intolerance or alienation. Include everyone in education, accept everyone from the start and they stay accepted, education could prevent marginalisation. It takes time, but it’s powerful.
Malala Yousafzai, a girl that represents unwillingness to lie down and accept hatred and violence, said “one child, one teacher, one book, one pen can change the world.” She credits her father for allowing her to learn, teaching her about powerful woman among all the other things we may have taken for granted as students, and her actions proved how much that means. She stands testament to the power of education, and now imagine if our curriculum matched that. Couple an education of power and inclusive and denial of ignorance, and students with an open future and endless possibilities, imagine what could happen. Imagine the progress.
I shouldn’t have had to find my own education on huge issues, I should’ve left school well-rounded in both academics and social issues. Social media shouldn’t have been my teacher, dispelling myths from my 7 years education, introducing me to peoples entire identity and existence, teaching me that there are whole new layers to society that I had no idea about. And I don’t blame teachers, I have been privilege to learn from some incredible, liberal teachers, but I blame the government and education boards. Education must stay on track, it can slip back 20 years and try to catch up later, the world needs it now, and our children need to know the world from the start.
We can giggle all we want about the thought that one day our great-grandchildren may see photos of us at Women’s March in history books, but it shouldn’t be a distance, futuristic daydream. To progress, we need a curriculum that keeps up. To be inclusive, we cannot be taught cut and stick history with important figures and events removed. We cannot be simply told ‘no’ and that be the end of it. Education must be factual and for everyone, not erasing and safe, catered to the conservative. Inclusivity for inclusivity, knowledge for acceptance, visibility for visibility.