Petition for a Diverse Education at Queens College

We, proud Queens students, demand an education up to scratch with the modern world, one which teaches about sexuality, race , gender, religion, culture and refuses to back down from the tough issues in order to allow all students to develop into 3 dimensional young adults, who at an absolute minimum have a working understanding of the societal implications of the systematic discrimination and oppression of people of colour, the  LGBTTQQIAAP community and other such oppressed groups. We need our children to have better understanding of gender and their relationship with it. It’s time to embrace rather than tolerate

There is also a fundamental disconnect with The Black and LGBTTQQIAAP community in the curriculum. We should learn about Rosa Parks, The Black Panthers and etc. For instance In English we don’t get taught about black poets and writers. In history we barely get taught about Martin Luther King and the Stonewall riots but, what we’re there isn’t a fair representation of minorities and the LGBTTQQIAAP community in subjects such as English, history, music, politics and et cetera, as most of our studies focus on heterosexual white males and it’s an unfair representation of the society today. Many cultural movements start in these communities, why isn’t that taught? Also why aren’t the countless atrocities during the colonial era never even mentioned in the curriculum. We need to explore the good, bad and disgusting in our history.

We propose that during the years 7, 8 and 9 in history, PSHME and English we are far more extensively taught about such subject matter as we’ve previously mentioned. We also suggest days in which we focus on a certain countries culture, say Jamaica. For music we could be taught about Reggae, in history we could explore native and colonial era Jamaican history,  English we could do Marlon James, Una Marson and in food tech we could cook multi-cultural foods. We seek a better cultural awareness of the traditions in countries whose peoples have a strong presence in the U.K. We also must insist that LGBTTQQIAAP and Black curriculum be introduced, taught about and normalised from year 2 up.  We would also ask that a gender neutral uniform be optional and available. We must stress  Race is an integral part of modern societal dynamics. It is essential we come to understand in full the oppression of the Black,, Asian and other minority communities. There’s also a lack in diversity of teaching staff, this will inhibit any attempts to amend the lack in diversity in our curriculum 

We hope our group of appointed student representatives can work with the school to deliver a more mature, diverse and representative curriculum.

We demand to learn about: Malcolm X, Apartheid, Stonewall, Pride, Magnus Hirschfield and the many heroic movements and people who go unappreciated 

This petition was put together by, Munopa Nhete, Harvi Baréz-Brown, Louis Reynolds, Faith Davies, Felix Amos and Maeve Kennen