On Wednesday, NLCS was delighted to host the inaugural Teaching Women in Medieval History conference.
This event was co-organised by academics and teachers, with the NLCS History Department taking a leading role, to promote the study of women from across the globe in the History curriculum in schools. Speaking to an audience of teachers from across the UK in both the maintained and private sectors, speakers such as Professor Jonathan Phillips, Dr Ellie Woodacre and Dr Natasha Hodgson gave detailed overviews of the lives of women such as Queen Melisende of Jerusalem, Shajar al-Durr and the Empresses Yingtian and Chengtian of Khitan Liao. We also discussed the current challenges that teachers faced in teaching women on the curriculum, the resources needed to facilitate teaching of more women and potential lesson ideas to ensure that the stories of these women reach our students.
This is the first in what we hope will be a series of talks aimed at secondary school teachers which aim to diversify our study of the Middle Ages and ensure that the role of women, marginalised for too long in History, is put back into the narrative of History lessons. As one delegate powerfully put it, without references to the women who contributed so much, it is simply bad History.
Vicky Brock, Teacher of History
