Throwback: Why All Black schools are not the answer to failing black pupils
Posted on 29. Nov, 2009 by GoRealer in Education, Politics, UK
A recent study carried out at Warwick University claims that teachers have a lower level of expectation for afro-caribbean kids than their white counterparts.
The study conducted by Dr Steve Strand concluded that Caribbean pupils are less likely to be entered into the higher tier Maths and Science tests against equally able white pupils. It is believed that the behavior of Caribbean children is usually used to come up with such an assumption rather than any academic proof that would suggest so.
This has lead to the call for all black schools from race relations campaigner Lee Jasper. Mr Jasper, who was Ken Livingstone’s advisor on racial issues, has suggested that it is time the black community began to run their own schools, with black personnel from teaching to governor level.
He goes on to stress that these institutions will be open to people of all races, but would be ‘focused in terms of their ethos, ethics and curriculum to the needs of our children.’
There seems to be quite a diminutive level support for such a system within the black community, especially after an independent study is able to confirm what many parents believed was the reason behind the poor performance from some black youths. Mr Jasper has been pushing for black run schools for over 8 years now and one of his examples has always been that Black institutions in America have historically been a monument for educational excellence, usually concluding that…
‘Some of the greatest black leaders in the world - Dr Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, to name just two - attended all black schools and universities.’
My Point of View
May I begin by stressing one thing; both of those great leaders did not have much choice because they grew up in societies that did not exercise multi racial education systems.
Then there is the example of Muslim and Jewish schools which tend to perform well compared to state run system. That is purely because they are in a much stricter learning environment and any parent who has invested time and money in the educational welfare of their children is likely to be more supportive in the child’s education than a parent that is happy to send their child to a state run school.
Therefore the environment in the school is carried on at home; this is possible because a religious structure is much more stable than a racial one, hence why pastoral schools -which are not necessarily black schools, but tend to be highly populated by black pupils-, tend to perform well.
It is pretty confusing that on one hand come black history month, we are taught about the great works of leaders like Martin Luther King, who had a dreamt of a united society, and then on the other hand there is a need to segregate ourselves from society. These are the type confusing message that many young black people have to deal with. It is this notion of ‘we’ and ‘our’ that is the cause of the growing fragmentation in society.
But as I have mentioned in previous articles, many of the problems faced by black people are parallel to those faced by working class whites, Asians and other ethnic groups. We should not put everything down to race, and we need to be able to differentiate institutionalised racism to individual racists.
Someone show me where in the British constitution, it is written that the educational system should continue to oppress black people, especially when Black Africans are the third best performing ethnic group. It is not that Caribbean children are any less intelligent than any other ethnic group, but the stigma that is created by the ethnic achievement graphs and findings do not help ones confidence, or teacher’s perception of the least achieving group.
Put that in the mix with the message of institutionalised racism, you have an even less motivated individual.
As shocking as the study is, it does not confirm institutionalised racism; it merely proves teacher inability to separate ones behaviour to the results that they are academically achieving. Now teachers are human beings, and no matter how bureaucratic we make the recruitment of teachers, we will never be able to control their judgement of character.
We should be trying to reinforce the importance of mathematical judgement over emotional ones. Maybe the process of exam applications should be centralised to an independent panel, but the call for black schools as an answer to this finding is senseless.
I always look at these requests along with having more black teachers and police officers, as if to suggest that black people can only interact with people that look and sound like them. It is rather insulting that we are only expected to react to a certain faction of society. This will do nothing for our employment opportunities, because countless recruitment studies have shown that the ability to integrate into the office environment is key to certifying a job.
Just another example of what a catastrophic move this will be for the economic welfare of the attendees, because they will be less likely to have any network outside the black community, which is likely to increase the unemployment rate amongst the ethnic group.
Solution
Separating people on grounds of colour will not work, being able to understand the cultural differences and giving ever single child the belief that no matter their background they can be successful through a fair and just education system.
There needs to be greater parental involvement in children’s education, because form experience it seems as though certain parents leave the educational welfare of their children purely to the schools. To many parents, schools were like a free child minder service while they went off to work, barely interested in what the child’s development.
This is particularly harder for single parent mothers who are less likely to balance work, household and the child’s education on their own. The most disturbing thing is if we are able to put the single parent ethic group table up against the low school achievers, we will see a parallel reading.
So this goes on to confirm the importance of parenting on the educational process of a child.
So in conclusion it is not about more funding or segregating pupils, it is about understanding that we cannot change people’s instinctive or at times selective judgement about situations or people that may seem alien to them. But we have the power to inspect and consult teachers relationships with their pupils, with parents at the forefront of any discriminatory argument towards their child, not race relation campaigners, because all we tend to get from these factions is nothing more than a cry to separate the country further than it already is.
Pic Sources http://swaymag.ca/spring2008/images/2008spring/community1_img1.jpg http://www.emel.com/images/revelations_muslim_school.jpg http://www.lawtonps.org/departments/Elementary/Multicultural-Boys.jpg http://blog.adw.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/black-school-kids-13.jpg
