Tag: thematic

Teaching a history of mental health to improve thematic understanding in a packed curriculum

by YorkClio, posted in Resources, Subject development

Following on from our work that featured in TH 173 about teaching a history of people with disabilities, we have focused our recent development work on resources for teaching about mental health in the past. Here are the resources that we presented in our session at the HA conference in Chester in May 2019. This work is ongoing and we are also working with colleagues in the Netherlands. It would be great if other people would like to get involved.

Resources are provided here for a single lesson with the EQ: How differently have people viewed mental health?

We have a moral duty to reflect the diverse past in our classrooms and the Equality Duty Act of 2010 requires us to eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimization, advance equality of opportunity between different groups and foster good relations between different groups. Respecting the past of everyone is part of fostering this.

From this lesson we want students to learn that:
• Mental health has a past and therefore a history
• Ideas of what constitutes mental illness and health have changed over time
• Ideas of what causes and the treatments for mental illness have changed over time due to these changing ideas, but also other cultural and societal changes.

It could be taught at the start of GCSE or as a KS3 study to encourage conceptual understanding of change over time (thematic).

The resources you need are here:

There are also a selection of slot-ins on the YorkClio slot-in page.

The starter images are here:

Hidden in Plain Sight – resources for teaching the history of people with disability

by YorkClio, posted in Resources, Subject development

Following on from our HA conference session in Stratford, here are the copies of the resources. We have a duty to reflect the pasts of all people in society in our classrooms. Our session focused on subject knowledge about the history of disability and ideas for teaching. We worked with a mini-thematic activity exploring disability through time. You can find a Word file of these resources here: Timeline headings and text  Pics for timeline

We suggest that you can first match headings and pictures, then sort the material onto a timeline, then ask questions about continuity and change in attitudes. For example, how complex are attitudes across the medieval period? When was the worst time to be a person with disability in the past? What is the role of factors such as religion, the state, war etc in the story.

This sort of mini-thematic could be used at KS3 (to help students learng to think thematically) or at the start of teaching ‘Medicine Through Time’ (as it explores some very relevant themes to that topic).

The image featured on this blog is a Bruegel called ‘Carnival and Lent’. We ask students to imagine walking through the scene noticing the people. Disability is not hidden away.

We have also developed the idea of ‘slot-ins’. Recognising that the history curriculum is jam-packed, we want to encourage you to recognise the stories that are within the topics you already teach. Slot-ins (not bolt-ons) allow you to introduce richness and diversity to topics from the Tudor court, to slavery abolition, and to civil rights post 1945. You can find these materials here.

Thanks to the team who worked with us yesterday and please do share great ideas for bringing more of these important pasts into our history lessons.

Another useful timeline is here: Disability timeline

Teaching bigger history – great free resources!

by YorkClio, posted in Resources, Subject development

Huge thanks to Dan Nuttall and Laura Goodyear for sharing their resources with everyone in the history teacher tribe. We are really pleased to publish the link here. People at the HA’s recent Yorkshire History Forum were able to hear them explain their work. If you missed it, do get in touch with Dan and he will happily explain the thinking behind these resources in more depth.

Frameworks and teaching bigger history
The link below will take you to five units that all deploy a frameworks approach as a method for teaching big/bigger history. The units cover:
– Big History (covering the development of humankind from hunter-gatherers to the present). Eight KS3 lessons with resources.
– C20 international relations. Seven KS3 lessons with resources.
– Power and the monarchy c.1000-present. Eight KS3 lessons with resources. Could be adapted for GCSE Power and the People.
– Big History of slavery (from Palaeolithic to the present). Seven KS3 lessons with resources (intended to be taught as well as, not instead of, transatlantic slavery).
– France 1776-1830. A framework with diagrams, not a complete unit, for A Level.
These are shared to encourage further experimentation and discussion into the ways in which students can be taught to comprehend larger scales of time, and thereby develop greater historical consciousness.  Please see the ‘Further reading’ bibliography.
Please feel free to share with colleagues and the wider history teaching community.*
Feedback and discussion more than welcome, to danielnuttall1981@gmail.com.
Thanks and happy experimentation!
Dan Nuttall
* – no commercial use please without permission.
– please credit the authors. ‘Power and Monarchy in Britain’ unit by Rick Rogers and Dan Nuttall. ‘France 1176-1830’ by Dan Nuttall, images by Laura Goodyear. ‘C20 International Relations’ by Dan Nuttall, images by Laura Goodyear. ‘Big Story of Us’ by Rick Rogers (framework/grid), Laura Goodyear and Dan Nuttall (lessons and resources). ‘Big History of Slavery’ by Denis Shemilt (framework), Laura Goodyear and Dan Nuttall (lessons and resources).
– I do not own copyright for any images that may be contained within the resources.