Skip to main content Skip to navigation

Rainbows in Our Windows: Childhood in the Time of Corona

logo

Saturday 11th July 2020
9 am - 7.30pm (BST)
To be held on Zoom
Thank you to all of the 250 audience members who registered to attend this conference.
For anyone who couldn't make it on the day, recordings of the talks and publications of the presentations will be available shortly.

An interdisciplinary conference, hosted by the Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies,
for all those interested in supporting children's education and health, both during and beyond the pandemic

Keynote by Andy Hargreaves, author of Moving: A Memoir of Education and Social Mobility (2020)

‘Childhood’, the poet George Herbert once wrote, ‘is health’.1 Perhaps in children, we might glimpse the full meaning of health. Alongside the physical, health could include intangible qualities, such as a sense of curiosity, a willingness to learn, an ability to adapt, playfulness, and an openness to cooperation. This conference brings together academics, authors, economists, educators, health specialists, psychologists, and members of humanitarian organisations, at a moment of crisis. We will discuss how children are experiencing the pandemic, and how best to support them. How can we improve our children's health, in all senses of the word, at a time when everyone’s health is threatened?

Three themes will be addressed:

  1. Children’s Literature: How can we communicate most effectively about the pandemic to children, both with words and with images? How are children’s experiences of the pandemic being represented?
  2. Children’s Education: How is education adapting to the new climate? How might those adaptations influence educational models in the long term?
  3. Children’s Health: What are the effects of the pandemic on children’s mental and physical health, and on their literacy? What needs to happen in order to mitigate those effects?

Each panel will consist of 3-5 presentations, followed by a group discussion among panellists and members of the audience.

-- 1. Herbert, George. “Holy Baptisme (II)”, in The Temple (1633)