It is a bit late for Black History Month, but you may like to explore / listen to the various interviews with people who were there at key moments in civil rights history, from Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a dream’ speech, to surviving Robben Island with Nelson Mandela. There is plenty of good British content too. For example, as this controversial world cup kicks off, have a listen to Viv Anderson taking about being the first black man to play for England.
These programmes are taken from the BBC World Service programme Witness, 2009 – 2013 and can be found by clicking here.
Mr Kydd.
Posted inEnrichment|Comments Off on Enrichment – something to listen to – BBC Witness clips
Lower Sixth – following on from our conversation about taster days and Oxbridge, this is the UCAS search engine. There are over a hundred pending taster days for history alone.
Posted inPersonal statements|Comments Off on UCAS taster days search engine link / a day in the life of an undergraduate historian at Oxford.
If you click here you will get to The Spectator’s review of Personality and Power: Builders and Destroyers of Modern Europe by Ian Kershaw. The review is by Jay Elews.
What brings strong personalities to power?’ asks the historian Ian Kershaw. ‘And what promotes or limits their use of that power?’ Those two questions are at the centre of this book, a study of some of the 20th century’s most important leaders. The result is partly an analysis of character, but also an attempt to gauge how much history’s main players directed world events, and how much events directed them...
Have a read and see if you want to borrow my copy (Kershaw is particularly rude about Lenin).
The University of Reading’s Stenton lecture is an annual event. It is a lecture that is open to the general public, and is excellent enrichment. This year it is on 17th November from 6.00. If you are interested, it is free, but you do need to register. Click here for details.
Mr Kydd
Posted inEnrichment, Places to go|Comments Off on Enrichment – somewhere to go. The 2022 Stenton lecture
The US mid-term elections are this week. Have a look at this lament from Bill Maher. Do you agree? Is American democracy doomed? What about democracy in the United Kingdom? Let me know what you think.
Mr Kydd.
Posted inEnrichment, Politics|Comments Off on Enrichment – something to discuss – how vulnerable is American democracy?
If you click here you will get to Adam Curtis’s seven part series on Russia from 1985 to 1999. It is called Traumazone, and it explores the collapse of communism and democracy in those years. It is excellent enrichment for our Russia course, and will give a bit insight towards the current world view of many around Putin. A review from The Guardian can be found here.
Mr Kydd.
Posted inEnrichment, history in the news|Comments Off on Enrichment – something to watch – Traumazone (on the BBC iPlayer)
If you click here you will get a chance to listen to something rather special. It is a 20-minute podcast from Kim Phuc Phan Thi. She became famous as the girl in the Napalm photo of 1972 in the Vietnam War. Fifty years on she still bears the scars – both physical and mental. Yet the message she wishes to spread is not of anger or revenge, but of forgiveness and peace.
As such, I warmly recommend it to you.
Mr Kydd.
Posted inEnrichment|Comments Off on Enrichment – something to listen to:- Napalm Girl: Spreading forgiveness 50 years on
If you click here you will get to information about the Gresham competition. Year Twelves only I am afraid. If you want to know more, please come and find me.
Mr Kydd.
What is The Gresham Competition?
Gresham College is launching a Competition for Year 12 students in September 2022, to promote the art of communicating complex information in a clear, concise and compelling way. This will
support the development of oracy skills;
help students with UCAS applications and job interviews;
promote a deeper understanding of the environment;
introduce students to the inspiring research of world-class academics.
This year the competition is focussed on the environment / sustainability in a five-minute, recorded presentation. Shortlisted candidates will then be invited to present again in person in London, and there will be three awards (including prizes for student and the school).
Participating in the Gresham Students competition will help students develop oracy and presentation skills useful for interviews and public speaking opportunities; it will also enhance CVs and UCAS applications.
The entry process is quick and easy, with entries filmed and submitted within 5 minutes.
Finalists will meet a panel of prestigious judges.
Winners will receive cash prizes and medals: £250 gold, £200 silver and £150 bronze.
The schools of winners will also benefit with priority access to lectures, visits from Professors or senior leaders, and a certificate.
Since 2022 is a pilot year, we expect fewer entries.
Key Dates
15th September 2022: Competition opens
15th November 2022: Competition closes
30th November 2022: Entrants notified
24th January 2023: In-person presentation at Gresham College.
Posted inEnrichment|Comments Off on Enrichment – Debating. The Gresham Competition
If you click here you will get to the website of the excellent Radio 4 programme – You’re dead to me. This is excellent enrichment for you on topics as diverse as Mary Seacole, the history of ice cream, and prohibition. It describes itself as follows.
You’re Dead To Me is a funny and factual podcast designed to delight both people who hated history at school and people who loved it. We combine hilarious comedians with PhD-wielding expert historians, and tackle subjects you think you know (but don’t), or ones you should know.
Pick what interests you, and when you listen, think about how effective arguments are constructed. Click here for your choice of the 97 available episodes. A good example can be found here. Greg Jenner (host), Dr Emma Southon (historian) and Sara Pascoe (comedian and all-round good person) discuss the important questions surrounding Queen Boudica including: Is she a feminist icon? How do you pronounce her name? And was she really ginger?
Mr Kydd.
Posted inEnrichment|Comments Off on Enrichment : Something to listen to. BBC Sounds – You’re dead to me…
In face as we return to school this post has two obituaries in it for two reformers who passed this summer.
Roy Hackett and Mikhail Gorbachev
If you click here you will get to get to The Guardian’s obituary for Roy Hackett MBE – a leader of the Bristol Bus Boycott. It is perhaps a bit of British Civil Rights history that does not get the attention that it deserves outside Bristol.
In April 1963 Roy Hackett, who has died aged 93, stood in the middle of Fishponds Road in Bristol to block the entrance to the city’s main bus station. His mission, as one of the organisers of the Bristol bus boycott, was to draw attention to the Bristol Omnibus Company’srefusal to employ black and Asian people as conductors and drivers. The boycott, which Hackett planned with three fellow campaigners, Paul Stephenson, Owen Henry and Guy Reid-Bailey, lasted for four months until the company caved in. The rigidly enforced colour bar – which had been encouraged and supported by the Transport and General Workers’ Union – was perfectly legal. Hackett’s mobilisation is credited with helping to persuade Harold Wilson’s Labour government to introduce the first piece of anti-racist legislation in Britain: the Race Relations Act of 1965.
If you click here you will get to the BBC obituary for Mikhail Gorbachev: the leader who perhaps more than anyone else should be credited with the peaceful end of the Cold War.
Mikhail Gorbachev was one of the most influential political figures of the 20th Century. He presided over the dissolution of a Soviet Union that had existed for nearly 70 years and had dominated huge swathes of Asia and Eastern Europe.
Yet, when he set out his programme of reforms in 1985, his sole intention had been to revive his country’s stagnant economy and overhaul its political processes. His efforts became the catalyst for a series of events that brought an end to communist rule, not just within the USSR, but also across its former satellite states.
All the very best for your new term and new courses.
