Who are the real racists: teachers who treat black and white children equally, or Lefties who complain about it?
Who are the real racists: teachers who treat black and white children equally, or Lefties who complain about it?
In the 1970s and 1980s, Britain was a pretty racist place. Black children were constantly held back in the school system, the police stopped young black men for no reason and white gangs would terrorise black families. While Britain has come a long way from those days, racism is still alive and kicking. As I alluded to in my speech at last year’s Conservative Party conference, black children are undermined by the British school system because we expect too little of them.
This doesn’t mean that all teachers are racist, by any means. In fact, racism in the way that so many imagine it to exist in schools – white teachers punishing black children disproportionately, or black children all being put into bottom sets when they are bright enough to be in top sets – hardly exists at all, in my experience. The racism that does exist is that black children are treated differently to white ones. Incidentally, this doesn’t just happen to black kids. It also happens to the white working class or to anyone with some silly label, like anger management problems or ADHD. And it isn’t the ordinary teacher who is at fault. It is the senior management teams who refuse to ensure that the school rules should apply equally and fairly to all.
White middle-class Johnny doesn’t hand in his homework and he is punished for it. The next time, having learned from the experience, he makes sure it gets done. Meanwhile, black working-class Annie doesn’t hand in her homework, but because it is assumed that things are tougher for her, that she may not have a quiet room in which to do her work, or her father drinks a lot, or she simply lives on an estate, or simply because she is black, teacher turns a blind eye. Or, more often, teacher punishes her but then is somehow undermined by the systems of the school so that when teacher needs the deputy’s support, the support is nowhere to be
In the 1970s and 1980s, Britain was a pretty racist place. Black children were constantly held back in the school system, the police stopped young black men for no reason and white gangs would terrorise black families. While Britain has come a long way from those days, racism is still alive and kicking. As I alluded to in my speech at last year’s Conservative Party conference, black children are undermined by the British school system because we expect too little of them.
This doesn’t mean that all teachers are racist, by any means. In fact, racism in the way that so many imagine it to exist in schools – white teachers punishing black children disproportionately, or black children all being put into bottom sets when they are bright enough to be in top sets – hardly exists at all, in my experience. The racism that does exist is that black children are treated differently to white ones. Incidentally, this doesn’t just happen to black kids. It also happens to the white working class or to anyone with some silly label, like anger management problems or ADHD. And it isn’t the ordinary teacher who is at fault. It is the senior management teams who refuse to ensure that the school rules should apply equally and fairly to all.
White middle-class Johnny doesn’t hand in his homework and he is punished for it. The next time, having learned from the experience, he makes sure it gets done. Meanwhile, black working-class Annie doesn’t hand in her homework, but because it is assumed that things are tougher for her, that she may not have a quiet room in which to do her work, or her father drinks a lot, or she simply lives on an estate, or simply because she is black, teacher turns a blind eye. Or, more often, teacher punishes her but then is somehow undermined by the systems of the school so that when teacher needs the deputy’s support, the support is nowhere to be