Posted on: November 23rd 2018
During our recent Diverse History Week, pupils from Form 1 to Form 6 spent time finding out about different black or ethnic minority people who have accomplished a variety of achievements. Each person needed to show resilience in face of discrimination to stand up for their principles and what they believed in. This is what the children had to say:
Form 1 (Zhane Q, Emilia B, Zak W and Sophia B):
“We have been learning about Garrett Morgan. Garrett was born in America and he was concerned that people were dying in car crashes. Garrett Morgan invented the traffic light to stop cars from crashing into each other. His first traffic sign had ‘Stop’, ‘Go’ and ‘All Stop’."
Form 2 (James E, Siyaana C, Jye A and Alex M):
“We learnt about Fela Kuti. We learnt that he was born on the 15th October and created a type of music called Afrobeat. We also learnt that Fela Kuti’s music was his way of protesting against the Nigerian government and their laws. He was very resilient as he got arrested 200 times! Fela Kuti died on the 2nd August 1997 and one million people went to his funeral!”
Form 3 (Ava, Max G and Alfred):
“We found out about Malala Yousafzai. She lived in Pakistan and she loved going to school. Her father was a teacher in a girls school. She really wanted to learn but was stopped because she was a girl. She was very brave. She tried to stop the rules and power of the Taliban from stopping girls learning and going to school. We learnt that you can do anything no matter how old you are or where you come from.”
Form 4 (Emma, Jessica and Rose):
“In Form 4, we learnt about the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo. She was inspirational because she painted amazing self-portraits despite being badly injured and disabled. We learnt that Frida loved animals (especially her pets) and nature. It seemed in every picture there was nature of animals in the background. Due to her disabilities, one of her most famous quotes was “at the end of the day, we can endure much more than we think we can.””
Form 5 (Cristina C):
“Dorothy Vaughan was a woman who worked for NASA. She coded a huge computer to create numbers to aid a rocket going into space. Many people had been trying to do this for a long time, including many people in more senior positions in NASA, but she snuck in to find the solution. To do this, she went to a whites-only library section, in which she was told to leave (but she had secretly taken the text that would help her). When NASA realised what she had achieved, they hired her as a Computer Scientist.”
Form 6 (Holly and Eva):
“This is fascinating, wonderful and inspired us with the detail. I never knew of the sacrifice made by Walter Tull. This has made me think of the prejudice that Walter faced and how determined he was for it to not stop him achieving his ambition in football because he was a black player in an all-white team. In World War One his bravery took him to a higher rank in the army. He was totally brave.”
