Professional Development Course

 🗓️ 19th–20th November 2025

 📍 Shiv Nadar School, Noida

Register here: https://bit.ly/43eET3p

History for Peace, in collaboration with Shiv Nadar School, Noida, invites educators to the third edition of our Professional Development Course, exploring this year’s theme —Sifting Fact from Fiction.

After two years of engaging online sessions, this year marks the first in-person edition of the course—designed by teachers, for teachers. The keynote addresses will be delivered by Shwetangna Chakrabarty and Natasha Haque, with Sunita Biswas, Gowri Mirlay Achanta, and Madhusree Dutta Majumdar facilitating the sessions.

In a world where narratives are increasingly shaped by emotions, selective memories, and agenda-driven retellings, the line between fact and fiction often blurs. This course invites educators to critically examine how we can help students:

*Develop an evidence-based understanding of the past.

*Engage with multiple perspectives in history.

*Identify and challenge distorted or fabricated narratives.

As we gather to reflect, learn, and reimagine our approaches to history-teaching, this two-day course hopes to reaffirm the classroom as a space for truth, inquiry, and critical thinking.

WORKSHOP DETAILS

Keynote Address [Virtual]

Shwetangna Chakrabarty and Natasha Haque

Shwetangna Chakrabarty is the Senior Curriculum Manager for The Middle Years Programme (MYP) at the International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO). She is currently overseeing the Enhanced MYP project. Before joining the IB she was working in international schools spanning continents. With over 18 years of experience in teaching diverse curricula across continents, her career encompasses significant roles including Academic Dean, Assistant Principal, Curriculum Coordinator (IB DP and IB MYP), University Counsellor, Capstone/Research Project Manager, CIS/NEASC Accreditation Coordinator, IB Examiner, IBEN Programme Leader,  Council of International Schools (CIS) Forum Planning Committee member and teacher (DP/MYP Math HL and DP Business Management).  She serves as the Co Chair in IB’s Opportunity and Belonging Council (OBAC). Shwetangna holds dual master’s degrees in business administration and education and is also a certified college counselor. She is passionate about fostering internationalism within the education sector, serving as a dynamic change-maker and thought leader. Her contributions extend into the literary world as a published author with works available through Routledge Taylor and Francis (Bringing Innovative Practices to Your School) and IGI publications (Educational Reform and International Baccalaureate in the Asia-Pacific). She has also been the Editor of The International Educator (TIE).

Natasha Haque is a Teacher Coach with the Aga Khan Schools network, working with the International Curriculum Schools in Kenya, Mozambique, India, Bangladesh, and Uganda. With over two decades of experience in international education, she has served in multiple roles, but prior to becoming a coach was an MYP Coordinator and teacher of Humanities in Tanzania. Natasha’s work focuses on teacher capacity-building, coaching cultures, and building contextual and culturally relevant curriculum with coherence.

She has presented at multiple conferences and global education forums and has published with The International Educator, IB Blogs, and Routledge (Bringing Innovative Practices to Your School).

Natasha holds a Master’s in Education from Murdoch University, an MSc in Development Studies from SOAS, University of London, and a BA (Hons) in Geography from the London School of Economics. She is currently pursuing her Doctorate in Education at the University of Bath, exploring teacher identity across the Global South.

Tiger Tales and Gora Sahibs

Gowri Mirlay Achanta

In her session Gowri explores two inter- related topics , both close to her heart. Tipu Sultan , the Tiger of Mysore, one of the last Kings to stand up to British rule, is viewed through several coloured lenses in present times. Sifting through fact and fiction and learning to look at his reign through a transparent lens is an exercise which will enable us teachers to handle such sensitive topics with the neutrality it calls for.

Having defeated Tipu Sultan, the British created a Cantonment in Bangalore about two centuries ago. Was Colonial rule a boon or a bane ? How do we equip our students to view this legacy for what it really is? Let’s walk through this fascinating topic and use multiperspectivity to enable our students to make informed decisions.

It has been forty years since Gowri Mirlay Achanta stepped into St Joesph’s Boys’ High School Bangalore to teach History to teenage boys. Stepping up to the challenge of holding the attention of a bunch of fellows who would rather be on the Sports field or snoozing , led her to be inventive and creative in the classroom. Along the way Gowri gathered a University Gold Medal , several District , State and National awards for teaching, published a book , traveled to historical locations like Lothal , Samarkand, Tranquebar and Xian to name a few. Being deeply attached to the Jesuits who run her school she conducts workshops for them in tribal and rural areas. It was a dream come true when she recently created a Museum dedicated to the history of her school which was established in 1858.

Understanding by Design (UbD)

Madhusree DuttaMajumdar

History as a discipline is not only the study of past events but also an engagement with competing narratives that shape our understanding of societies and identities. In an era where misinformation and selective storytelling are increasingly prevalent, it is essential for learners to develop the ability to critically distinguish historical facts from fiction. This workshop aims to introduce educators to Understanding by Design (UbD) as a powerful pedagogical framework to achieve this goal.

The Understanding by Design (UbD) framework, developed by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe, provides a powerful approach for fostering deep, transferable understanding instead of surface knowledge. By focusing on big ideas and essential questions, UbD helps educators develop learning experiences that equip students to discern fact from fiction in historical study.

This workshop aims to engage educators, researchers, and history enthusiasts in exploring how UbD principles can be applied to history education. Through guided sessions, participants will learn to design curricula and instructional strategies that cultivate learners’ ability to interrogate narratives, analyze sources, and resist misinformation about the past.

Madhusree DuttaMajumdar is an experienced educator with over twenty years of teaching across ICSE, ISC, and CIE (IGCSE, AS & A Levels) curricula at premier institutes in Kolkata and Bangalore. She currently serves as Lead Educator and Head of the Department of History and Political Science at Vidyashilp Academy, Bangalore, where she designs and implements curriculum and lesson plans using multimodal and interdisciplinary pedagogical approaches.

A trained Oral Historian, Madhusree has curated numerous workshops, exhibitions, and capacity-building programmes for educators and students across India. She has served as a CISCE Resource Person for ISC History, conducting national-level training on NEP objectives and new assessment formats, and collaborated with organizations such as History for Peace.

Her published work includes contributions to From Whispers to Resonance (Routledge, 2024), ThinkingTeacher.in (2020), and the Oral History Association of India Newsletter (2019). Madhusree remains committed to bridging classroom learning with real-world perspectives, fostering critical engagement with history and citizenship.

Moving from ‘either/or’ to ‘and/but’ in history teaching

Sunita Biswas

History textbooks in school, as most teachers maintain, usually do little to encourage students to actually engage with the subject. Added to that, changing policies of omission and commission, not new but intensifying every day, result in textbook content that has been described as ‘post truth’ – that is, motivated narratives that lack historical objectivity. Often this textbook, flawed and problematic, is the mainstay for students (and teachers) leading to a skewed understanding of the subject.

At the same time there is the growing popularity of popular history, easily accessible to everyone through social media engagements, civil society initiatives, books and films. All this is shaping the public imagination of a much broader audience, transforming complex narratives of the past into easy, engaging storytelling. However, there is often a push to fulfil a certain agenda by blurring the line between fact and opinion. The sources used are sometimes one-sided and manipulative and can lead to a distorted understanding of the past.

In this workshop educators will explore ways to go beyond the textbook, (which in the end is a tool to be used), and train students to look at History with objectivity and inclusion. At the same time, it is equally important to move beyond the classroom and the school into the wider world where disinformation waits at every turn. As Sam Wineburg says, ‘We live in an information age. But it is also an age of boundless credulity.’ The workshop will also examine ways to equip students to pause, scrutinise and question monochromatic versions of the past that polarise the present.

Sunita Biswas taught history at the middle and senior levels at Modern High School for Girls, Kolkata. For more than 30 years her aim has remained to share with her students her passion for the subject. She has taught different curricula across different schools. In the classroom she has always tried to instill a questioning, critical interest that goes beyond the textbook and the curriculum, and that stretches far beyond school. For this she encourages her students to delve into songs, pictures—still and moving— posters and advertisements, among other sources. She likes to use a multi-disciplinary approach, encouraging students to join the dots and use lateral thinking to engage with History.

Sunita is a Senior Programme Officer at History for Peace.

Register here: https://bit.ly/43eET3p

For further details and timings see: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1asDPlKcS1KF9sGDrJlpnhbLOkgVFxc0mEUBz92-WhoA/edit?tab=t.0