From their Website: “Sweet Patootee Arts create high-quality arts and heritage projects rooted in Black heritage – to engage multicultural audiences. We use oral testimony and archive sources to inspire interdisciplinary storytelling for the arts, learning, heritage, community development, and wellbeing sectors. 

Formed in 2017, our practice is driven by inclusive outreach and collaboration for in-depth public engagement. TURNING POINT is our first major arts and heritage project.”  

Schools History Project - Sweet Patootee Arts

Sweet Patootee have done a huge amount of inspiring work which can be accessed from their website - Home - Sweet Patootee Arts

Their work on uncovering the Taranto Mutiny is documented in their film Mutiny (1999) Watch Mutiny | Prime Video

In the shared resources you will find six lessons, which could easily be expanded into more, answering the question ‘Why was there a Turning Point in the Caribbean identity in the 1920s?’. The lessons, lesson resources, and supporting materials should give any teacher who wants to teach the enquiry a strong starting point to work from. We have all taught these lessons in our school, and enjoyed students’ engagement in the enquiry.

This enquiry has been developed by a working group of History teachers working with Sweet Patootee Arts on their TURNING POINT project.

Through the lessons we ask students to explore how identity can be forged out of adversity and prejudice, and how this change can be inspiring to everyone (Principle 1, 3, 4). We ask students to explore significant events in the 20^th Century; the First World War, the building of the Panama Canal, and the work of the UNIA (Principle 6). This created opportunities to talk about events that were hugely important to the development of an important part of the British Empire which is not otherwise covered in our curriculum (Principle 6).  The stories Sweet Patootee are telling, and the outcomes of the enquiry we have created, are hugely relevant to students today (Principle 4).

There is a focus on the substantive focus on identity in the lessons (Principle 3) which enable students to see the links and similarities between themselves and people in the past. This enables students to see that factors influencing identity can change and develop over time (Principle 4), rather than being a fixed and unchanging idea.

The lessons each focus on a different character from the TURNING POINT film, telling unique but overlapping stories of their change in identity in the 1920s (Principle 2). The stories act as a springboard into the history related to the character’s experiences and attitude, and chart the journey from the legacies of slavery and racism, to a new sense of identity and Black pride (Principle 3, 6 and 7).

The lessons all have a clip of one or TURNING POINT’s characters to get students to either establish the nature of the Turning Point (lesson 1) or explore the reasons why Caribbeans experienced that change. This really encouraged students to connect with Caribbeans in the 1920s (Principle 4) and means that they are invested in their stories (Principle 7).

The pupils then learn about the different causes of the TURNING POINT in identity and relate that back to the film clips they have seen (Principle 2). This enables students to build a picture over the lessons of the different causes of the Turning Point.

By the end of the enquiry students will have a visual representation of the ‘ripples’ that different events in the 1920s caused in Caribbean identity, and they will be able to link the clips from the TURNING POINT characters to a piece of evidence to demonstrate the extent of that change.

Second order concepts

The main disciplinary / second order focus is causation, with students explaining the interplay of different causes in creating a change in identity. Students are encouraged to see how different causes worked together alongside economic and political factors to create a change in every aspect of the way Caribbeans felt about who they are and their place in the world.

Substantive knowledge

Several threads run through this enquiry:

●       Caribbean Black pride

●       The way racism permeates every aspect of life in the Caribbean

●       The ways in which Caribbeans have stood against racism and discrimination

●       The importance of the First World War, the building of the Panama Canal and the UNIA and how they interlink to create a new sense of identity for Black Caribbeans.

●       British attempts to prevent autonomy for Black Caribbeans