Why has the war in Gaza so attracted the attention of university students?

Young people are passionate and incensed about the conflict in Gaza. I hope that comes as no surprise to anybody reading this; the wave of campus protests that began in the United States has also reached many UK universities. Lots of students are still currently in encampments demanding an immediate end to hostilities. Personally, I’ve […]

The Status Quo: Competing claims to religious sites in Jerusalem

“I shall never concede any road improvements to these crazy Christians as they would then transform Jerusalem into a Christian madhouse.” Faud Pasha, the Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire, 1865 Whatever the shape of the ceasefire that eventually emerges between Israel and Hamas, it will almost certainly have done nothing to defuse one of […]

How can history teachers help their students spot what’s fake and what’s fact?

When I was teaching full-time, I was often struck by how long it took pupils to realise that the source skills I was teaching them had an application to the news and current affairs they were consuming. Perhaps it’s the stovepipe nature of the way the curriculum is organised in schools: each subject leader designs […]