Andy Garner

Hello. I am Andy Garner, and I teach History to students aged 11 - 19. I began teaching in Cheshire, but moved to Suffolk to be a Head of Department. I am STILL a Head of Department! I am compiler/author of the British Historical Statistics database and student guide for the SECOS set of programs. I was an examiner, but gave that up a decade ago in order to do a Masters Degree. I also have a major stake in teacher trade unionism.

Interesting thread. I don't think the discussion of slavery is off the point. The whole concept of Nazi racism was to use Eastern European 'untermensch' as slaves. Indeed, the earliest internments of Jews was in labour camps to work them to death, and not - at first - to exterminate the race through other programmes. This surely is slavery. It provides an ideal link between our Year 8 course which has a topic on slavery, and Year 9 component on the holocaust. It brings forward appropriate consideration of the continuities rather than just the changes in history. Many years ago there was an article by someone - I think he was called Vincent (surname) - on 'Empire, Race and War'. It was about the way British attitudes to 'foreigners' was tempered by our experiences especially in Africa which had led the British to consider themselves the superior race. This is not too far from the later Nazi ideology which, I seem to remember, was bolstered up by the writings of Houston Stuart Chamberlain - a great influence on Goebbels and Rosenberg. At the end of my unit on the Holocaust I ask pupils to consider the question 'Have we Learned from the Past?' They look at genocides after World War Two. In teacher led discussion we look at the nature of some of these. Follow-up homework is to answer the question using a single example or two which pupils research on the internet or in a library. By the way - thanks for correcting the error - i was nearly upset for a moment!! lol

Hi. I just want to know, do any of you have the same difficulty teaching the history of slavery?