Now more than ever we live in one world ...

an urban secondary school …

This school is a case in point. It is in the earliest stages of developing a focus on studies of Asia. In fact it is less the story of a school than of an individual teacher - not a traveller, not an expert on one or more aspects of Asian culture, not an avid participant in Asia-related professional development, but a teacher who picked up a brochure.

Actually, I was sitting in the staff room having a cup of coffee thinking about what I was going to do next in Year 9 SOSE. We were just finishing a unit on medieval English politics, the Magna Carta and so on, and I was considering the next one - which was 'Ancient Civilisations', an old friend but a bit hoary - and I was thinking how I could brighten it up.

The given options are Sumer, Greece, Rome, China and Egypt, and we usually pick one of Greece or Rome and one of Sumer or Egypt. It gives you a contrast, geographically and in terms of nation states and historical periods, that type of thing - and it's all very easy to do something with. We've got the class sets and, to put it mildly, there's no shortage of content. This is the thing about the SOSE curriculum: there's always so much you could teach.

 

"I wouldn't say that I was an Asia-phile or anything."

 

Anyway there was a brochure on the table in front of me, as there so often is in staff rooms, but in this case for Crosscurrents [an Access Asia text for middle and upper secondary SOSE with an emphasis on civics and citizenship]. I picked it up and glanced through it. It sounded like quite a good resource; but, more to the point, I thought just for something different I might include China in 'Ancient Civilisations'. I didn't know much about China from an historical point of view, or a contemporary point of view for that matter, but I think you often teach something you're learning yourself better, or with more energy at least, than something you've taught over and over again.

So I had a look in our library for resources and there were a couple of very good books there that had rarely been borrowed, one of them never, got some stuff off the net, and off we went.

The whole unit, of course, could have been about China. This is very interesting material: printing 600 years before Gutenberg, movable typesetting hundreds of years before it was thought of in the West, the mechanical clock, spinning wheels, deep boring through the earth for gas and salt water (to 700 or 800 metres, I think it was) in the second century BC! They had iron chain suspension bridges and, critically, harnesses for horses 1000 years before they surfaced in the Middle East and Europe. Amazing social and political structures. It was sort of like rewriting history for me. The kids and I got very excited about all this, especially me.

Building houses in Cambodia is part of an experience
that radically changes student perspectives.

I eventually got a copy of Crosscurrents and started thinking about how useful it would be to flesh out our Civics and Citizenship courses with some Asian perspectives. On that basis I wrote up a couple of units which are available for other staff to use. One of them has now become a core unit at Year 10, which is great. Every time it gets taught we find and share new resources. It's great really. I get quite a buzz out of that.

I wouldn't say that I was an Asia-phile or anything. You're talking to the wrong person if you're looking for that. Neither would I say that the school has shifted markedly in the direction of Asian studies. There are no special resources or plans, and we don't have a campus in Chongqing or anything weird like that, although I know two other members of staff who can now successfully pronounce 'Chongqing'. That could be an indicator of progress!

What has happened, I think, is just that we've improved our curriculum. That's all. But that's always worthwhile.