Published by jessiemackie

I'm a 3rd-year mature student studying history at Greenwich University, London. The decision to go back to education came about when my teenage daughter came home from school with some of the stories from the classroom and things that her teachers had said to her and other pupils. These included outrageous comments such as 'well, at least you're pretty' when she couldn't answer a biology question and the classic 'if you don't listen to me you'll amount to nothing.' Having been a teacher, I know that the smallest comments can have the greatest impact, especially on teenage self-esteem, so I've gone back to University to train as a teacher with the intention of making a positive contribution to the lives of our teenagers. I've started this blog to share aspects of my dissertation journey 'Highways of Empire: From the classroom to the National History Curriculum.' This has already been a great and challenging learning experience and apart from the formal 10,000 word research project, I wanted to be able to write more informally about the issues I've come across and to share my research and ideas. View more posts