The central point - that what I witnessed from a schoolteacher, and what I was taught as a PGCE student, were stupendously crap lessons in inclusion, and seriously backfired - remains unchanged. What has changed is my knowledge, and I have a lot of people to thank for that.
What the people described in this post purportedly wanted to teach was about unconscious bias and how it feels to be isolated. What they ended up teaching was "don't trust your teacher. They'll have a go at you for doing exactly what they told you to do."
I wrote that I was a basically naive and straightforward person and liked myself that way. It never occurred to me that a person of colour might not be able to be that way, even if it was their nature, because they'd always have to be on the lookout for threats or duplicity. I wish I had thought of that.
I wrote that it wasn't good to always be worrying that what you say is construed as racist. I didn't realise that that is only the point when you're surrounded by white people looking to have a go at each other (as I was at the time). I didn't know that saying racist things can be done by the most innocent people with the best of intentions - that it's not about using bad, specific, well-known words but a whole power dynamic that affects people's employment, likelihood of going to prison, life expectancy and a hundred other things. And that intention doesn't equal impact. And that if you're accused of racism, that's not the worst thing in the world and defending yourself with the old platitudes about having friends of colour, etc, is not the way forward. Rather, knowing that you've grown up in a society and culture that systematically advantages white people means it can happen to anyone and a better response is, "Whoops, sorry! Thanks for letting me know. I'll try and learn more/think this over/do better next time," and even though such growth can initially hurt, it's very gladdening in the long run to know more. And trust me, people will respect you a lot better. I wish I had thought of that.
It is really valuable to know about unconscious biases, and not to waste your time getting angry, feeling guilty or scrabbling around for overused ways to defend yourself - but rather to find out what specific ways some people receive advantages or disadvantages, and press for your school or workplace to address these. When you see people of all genders, colours, sexualities, physical and mental disabilities and more all flourishing, then more inclusive thought is probably going to come much more naturally to you!
I also expect that in another ten years I'll look back at the kind of stuff I write today and be embarrassed or worried at having missed something really important, and therefore unknowingly leaving people to suffer. So I want to keep learning.
In the meantime, I recommend you follow some awesome people on Twitter, who've taught me a huge amount: Sunny Singh, Katelyn Burns, Chandra Prescod-Weinstein (who I hope is back on Twitter soon!), DN Lee, Ijeoma Oluo, "Elainovision", and many more who I can't remember offhand but who you'll see me retweeting a lot.
Anyway, I doubt this old post gets read any more but just in case, here it is, with the limitations as described above.
* * *
A couple of years ago, as many of you know, I was doing the science PGCE - training to be a secondary school science teacher. As many of you also know, I didn't complete the course. But many things happened during it which I'd still like to share. Here's one of them.
A well known trick to get people thinking in science lessons is to give them a surprise. For example: Here are the four fundamental forces, which do you think is the strongest? Put them in order. Then, once everyone's claimed that gravity is the strongest, put a magnet on the table and use another magnet to make it jump up - demonstrating that magnetism is stronger than gravity.
(At least, that particular strength of magnetism is stronger than Earth's gravity. Do the same experiment on a neutron star or with a really pathetic little magnet and you might get a different result. *Update: how embarrassing. I'd missed the point of the experiment. The Earth has a much larger mass than the magnet and that is the important thing. If you put 1kg of magnetic stuff and 1kg of non magnetic stuff next to each other in space, the magnetism will - for this given weight - carry much more force than the gravity. Anyway, back to this post.)
I witnessed a similar method of teaching in a PHSE lesson (Personal, Health and Social Education) for a year 7 group (11-12 year olds). It made an excellent point. The task: get into pairs and draw what a bully looks like and what a victim looks like.
The pupils spent some considerable time at this task, getting the angle of the cigarettes and baseball caps exactly right, showing teeth and stubble, paying attention to the way people were standing. The pictures were detailed and graphic. They took a great deal of trouble over them.
The form tutor then went up to the board and drew two identical stick figures and said: "Exactly the same."
The point being that you can't tell that someone's a bully just from what they look like. And they went on to discuss what to do about bullies.
The problem with that was that those kids had really put a lot of effort into their work, only to have it universally rubbished. Next time they might be a lot more cautious about going to so much trouble. They might start fishing around for what the teacher's not saying. Get into the habit of that and lessons become a game of "Guess what is in the teacher's mind", as well as "Avoid taking any trouble, you'll only look stupid." Neither of these attitudes are conducive to learning. I don't recall there being any discussion about why bullies were perceived to be big and scary-looking, let alone the teacher acknowledging the work the pupils had done.
The very same week, I attended a day at college focussing on people whose English was not their native language. It was not taken by our regular professors, but two ladies from a public project dedicated to helping such people - I forget the exact details. Some of their demonstrations were excellent, such as one of them playing a gypsy lady who only spoke Spanish trying to get her kids enrolled in a local school, and the other playing an indifferent council worker who shoves a long complicated form at her, is embarrassed by her half-English-half-Spanish attempts at asking questions and keeps her head down hoping she'll go away. I enjoyed a lot of the day and felt even more determined to help the (very few) non-native pupils in the schools I worked in.
A complication was that this was an area with an almost exclusively white population. One of the demonstrators was brown-skinned and there was one Muslim girl in one of the classes I taught, and I think that was about it. We did have a lot of Eastern Europeans - I was living with three of them, and they were the nicest housemates I've ever had - but all of them were pretty fluent and generally I think doing fine. For me, a born Londoner, who'd spent the previous six months in Brighton, this was not my natural environment at all; and the acute, carefully-worded, self-conscious discussions about it made me extremely uncomfortable. It was like suddenly having to be incredibly conscious of the fact that the sky is blue, and that if for a moment your mind happened to drift into thinking of the sky any other way, that was morally wrong and everybody would know. And for the locals who did not venture far outside their area, this whole business was theory, not practice.
In fact, the area was so homogenous that in many schools, ESL (coded term for English as a second language) pupils often had to be protected from trainee teachers struggling to pass their course - you have to provide evidence that you have done specific work on these pupils in order to get your teaching certificate, but there were far fewer of them than of trainee teachers!
What also worried me was that the demonstrators did not seem to be offering realistic strategies to help non-native speakers. They seemed to be coming from an all-or-nothing perspective - these people need to be with full-time interpreters, for example. They also spoke at length about how gypsy children were legally entitled to a third of the year off school for "cultural reasons", but were unclear whether or not this level of absence would lead to the school being penalised for the effect this would have on the league tables. All in all, asking this much from people unused to anyone remotely different from them was, I could sense, engendering resentment and indeed jealousy, rather than being constructive.
But I may have been biased, for these people dealt me a humiliation that still stings today, two years on.
They set us an activity and sat us all down at tables of ten or so people. They kept us in strict silence, and then they went around with one of those sheets of star stickers. (I loved those when I was tiny.) Reminding us to keep absolutely silent, they put one onto each of our foreheads, not showing us what colour it would be. One guy whispered to his partner, "What colour am I?" and was told. Once they'd finished doing this, they cried out, "Now, still without talking, sort yourselves!"
"Into what?" somebody asked.
"No further instructions, just sort yourselves!"
Yes, it did dawn on me that these stars were supposed to represent skin colours. But I immediately dismissed the idea as too childish for a professional postgraduate course. For one thing, everyone knows their skin colour, but we didn't know what colours our stars were - presumably, we were supposed to find out. And they'd just done that wonderful demonstration about the poor lady unable to ask any questions. So I concluded this must be about non-verbal communication.
I waved my hands at two girls who both had green stickers on their foreheads and mimed them coming closer together. Immediately their eyes lit up, everybody else caught on and that was how most people did the experiment. I promptly found out this way I had a green sticker.
Yeah, you can guess what happened. Because I agreed to be sorted by colour, and because I had started it, I was shown up to be the racist, the enemy of everything they were trying to do. All right, not in so many words. "You started it, and that was good," they said in that uniquely ironic tone . . . and went on to ask two people how they'd felt - one had been the only silver sticker, and one hadn't got one at all. They played their parts beautifully, mourning how left out they'd felt.
The other science teachers to be (most of whom I didn't feel liked me very much, and who I generally avoided) had been at the back, and had seen exactly what was coming and simply all sat together. They claimed they'd sorted themselves "according to our subject" and were publicly praised and held up as an example to us all.
Ranting about this to a friend that evening, she nodded wisely and said, "Oh yes, there have been psychology experiments about that."
Can you imagine how I felt? Duped. Stupid. Mortified. Hopelessly, hopelessly guilty, as if I'd committed a crime against a sector of my fellow human beings who were already being victimised. I'd always hung around with the international students at university. I'd chatted with my Ghanian housemate in Brighton about Steve Biko and how unbelievably stupid some people could be; he'd always cheerfully told me what it was like to be black - no big deal except when people made it so. I'd lived in Spain for a year, and experienced not understanding a word of lectures, failing most of the exams through my bad Spanish, having chalk thrown at me presumably because I looked different, and having to correct hilarious assumptions about England such as that we all live like spoiled lords and have breakfast in bed (yes, really!) . . . and, on the other hand, much more importantly, I'd experienced people genuinely taking me under their wing, slowing down their talk, not minding my mistakes, lending me their notes and not expecting any major gratitude. How could I defend myself? Anyone who says "I'm not a racist" is usually about to add "but I wouldn't want my daughter to marry one."
And the main thing I learnt was: never believe what other people say. If they tell you to do something, they probably mean you to do something else.
And, even if the possible trap should be far too childish and basic to be the focus, that doesn't mean it isn't.
Hardly healthy.
Also, I learnt that theory and models that bear no relation to reality are still very prevalent. What has a suddenly and arbitrarily placed star sticker, whose colour you don't know, have to do with permanent skin colour? Nothing that I could see. What was the big deal with sorting ourselves into groups, when groups are how both pupils and trainee teachers did most work and how people congregate socially anyway? It would have made a lot more sense to say "Don't you dare talk to anyone with curly hair/blue eyes/who wears glasses" and then afterwards, if they must, "How did that make you FEEL?" Would I have wanted my fellow Spanish students to feel guilty that I didn't understand the lectures, that I was very pale in comparison to them? Don't be so ridiculous! Did I want a full-time interpreter? Splutter! What sort of person could possibly want that sort of thing?
Not at any point during the day did we ever get near discussing the classroom or realistic situations. Not once was the issue raised, for example, of "What do you do if some kid makes a racist remark?" or "How do you go about getting such-and-such some help with something you can't deal with alone?", let alone "What if someone's being bullied for the colour of their skin?" No, the day was about legalities, and an in-depth examination of ourselves, after which I felt unable to face the others - and which I'm still embarrassed to write about. I can hardly tell if I'm more embarrassed at being so publicly conned, or in case anyone really thinks that I would seriously split children into skin colour groups or something.
To be honest, while I've learnt to be very skeptical of claims, I'm a very straightforward and trusting person. That makes it easy to set traps for me. But it also makes other people feel safe when I'm there. They don't have to dig for extra meanings, or worry that I want something different from what I say. In the context of the classroom, I suppose that would mean it would be easy to lie to me about why you haven't done your homework - but it would also be setting a good example. As in: don't be slick, don't be devious, don't show off, there's no need. Just be curious and nice to others. That's how I try to run the Galaxy Zoo Forum, and that was how I tried to run the classroom, and it seemed to work all right. There are plenty of things I don't like about myself, but my trusting nature is not one of them. I like myself that way. Why should I become distrustful and suspicious and see tricks everywhere in order to avoid being labelled a racist? How does that make sense?
The more people start setting traps for each other, the less honest we can become with each other - and, frankly, the less we'll then be able to talk about real problems and what to do about them, for all energy will go to defence. And how can you enlist a group of people to help you deal with something when you're frightened of what they're going to publicly call you? That's how to get everyone to keep their head down and not draw attention to themselves - and when something needs sorting out, it wouldn't get done.
And is worrying and worrying about whether or not you're a racist really productive? Does guilt, self-consciousness and an avoidance of certain words really improve the situation for other people? (Update, May 2013: if said language is oppressive, of course yes.) Or does it just make you feel scared and them feel awkward? Here's an extreme example. For another, I've heard of people being condemned for saying "black coffee". That, dear friends, implies that there is something wrong with being black, but that you as a white or whatever else colour person are too sanctimoniously polite to say so. I cannot think of anything more isolating and humiliating than to be thought inferior, but for those around you to smugly think the better of themselves for using elaborate language to avoid saying so - and probably wanting a receipt, too. Get lost.
Myself, I like Allan Sandage's quote: "All humans are brothers. We came from the same supernova."
(From Hubblesite.)Oh, and as a parting shot, that group of trainee teachers who were publicly praised for spotting the trap and therefore being non-racist? One of them, the very next morning, referred to one of the demonstrators in disgusted tones as "That Paki".
Whether you're black, white or bloody rainbow coloured - what do you think?
12 comments:
Alice, I agree with your point entirely. The harder thing is to suggest an alternative. It seems to me that this is a symptom of the understandable desire to ensure consistency in a very important area (avoidance of racism) across the entire school system. Clearly this requires rules and standards to measure compliance against. Unfortunately it seems that a frequent, if not inevitable, consequence of such things is that people cease thinking and start 'teaching to the test'.
Once that happens it's easy to see how people can start to make connections that seem ridiculous to objective consideration, such as your black coffee example or thinking that placing similarly coloured stars together is equivalent to racism.
I feel lucky that I attended a school in which at least a few of the teachers did not teach to the test. These were everyone's favourite teachers - the ones that actually made you think, not the ones that tried to embed facts in your head. I think it's due to their influence, which was far greater and longer lasting on me (I'm long past school!) than the 'teach the test' teachers, that I learnt to think.
I think this is similar to the drive to skepticism - either you think independently or you don't. When something does not immediately strike people as clearly wrong then they tend not to think too much about it - there is, after all, so much going on all the time that to seriously think about everything is practically impossible.
It's much easier to simply say 'racism is wrong' than it is to think about the historical, cultural, social, economic, political, religious and even psychological reasons that cause it. These all need to be addressed before racism can ever be truly overcome, even though many of them may take a very long time. Living in a highly homogeneous society just makes this less likely to be addressed, of course.
What I'm trying to say is that careful consideration of consequences is a rarity in every aspect of life. I think the only solution is to help people develop not only the ability but also the desire to think for themselves. Blogs such as yours must be part of this, so keep up the good work!
Thyrisis, that was a fantastic comment, thank you! You are totally right that the answer is not to whinge about this experience, but to advocate a more sensible approach. I'm as fallible as anyone else, and all my energy went to feeling humiliated and defensive rather than to thinking up a better way to go about this important issue.
I've had some more great comments from Twitter that I'd like to share with you all:
"awww Alice that was quite a blog. In there you say "I like myself that way." well we all like you that way too. Don't change"
"You shouldn't waste time worrying about such an unpleasant group of people. It's obvious who was racist in that group."
"Interesting blog http://tinyurl.com/34zzfdu Management box ticked, problem remains! I am definitely scienceist on Twitter ;-)"
"Great thought-provoking post. Don't feel humiliated - you were misled by the sensiviity-challenged."
"I think it's just human nature to be defensive when picked on. Unlike most, you thought it through though. My point is that figuring out how to make people think differently about this stuff is very hard but needs to be everyone's priority"
I'd love everybody's further comments and ideas. This is to do with policy in teaching so it's an important topic - and it's also to say the least an important topic for this (thank goodness) multicultural country anyway.
Hmm, it is my belief that trying to avoid racism exacerbates the problem of racism. The whole idea of "diversity in the work place", such as hiring at least one black person, at least one Chinese person, at least one woman and so on simply makes the situation worse. In a perfect world, we wouldn't even have to think about these things and the word "stereotype" would not exist.
I agree that you don't really have need to feel humiliated. You sorted something by colour. It's a logical thing to do in that context. It doesn't mean you're a racist, that's just pseudo-scientific nonsense. The idea of proof by substitution is ridiculous: "You sort things by colour, people have a skin colour, therefore you are a racist." is similar to saying "You use the Internet, it's possible to download films illegally over the Internet, therefore you download films illegally.".
Fabulous quote from Allan Sandage, beautiful :)
As for my thoughts on the education system, I agree with Thyrisis hat I preferred the teachers who genuinely taught you great things instead of preparing you for tests. I think the UK education system was designed for the average person and nothing more. There isn't a great deal in place for the truly talented individuals who want to really push themselves intellectually. I will reference this speech from a 16 year old valedictorian: http://www.sott.net/articles/show/212383-V...aduation-Speech I think it more or less sums up my stance :)
As a parting note, the white text on black background style of your blog was really quite unkind on my eyes. Not sure if it was just me... Would there be any chance of you maybe considering a kinder combination of colours for reading, pretty please? :)
Truly great post,
Sam Rose
Thanks Sam! It's supposed to be light grey text and I love my space colours - but you and other readers matter too - did anyone else find this with the text? :-)
If no one else has this problem, I will write my own script to change it, no worries ^_^
I'll read more of your blog tomorrow after I get back from University.
Regards,
Sam
OMG Anne, did this really happen? How bizzare. Really there's no need to feel embarressed - they stuck coloured stars on your heads (which are transient and about as far removed from skin colour as you can get) and told you to sort yourselves. What did they think was going to happen?! That is devious - and also - how does it help in any way whatsoever? What connection does it have to reality?
Your deconstruction of the whole event is spot on.
It reminds me of an episode of South Park where Christmas was trashed and burned and banned by the townspeople, led by the mayor, to avoid offending non-Christians. I thought it was hilarious and typical of the OTT juvenile humour you get on that show. I never thought these things would become reality.
"One of them, the very next morning, referred to one of the demonstrators in disgusted tones as "That Paki"."
- Well this is disturbing; a trainee teacher as well?! I've been on the receiving end of language like this many times. I hope to god she's not teaching now. And if she is we should start a mission to mess her mind with irony until her head collapses - because she clearly has no understanding of it.
Anyone who says, "I'm not a racist" is usually about to add "but I wouldn't want my daughter to marry one."
- well that's fair enough isn't it? Why would anyone want their daughter to marry a racist?(!) ;-)
Sorry Alice,
dont know why I called you Anne (I do have a friend called Anne who I was talking to earlier - maybe that was it).
Anyway - sorry about that - I'm an idiot(!)
Hey Alice!
This is the first time I'm actually on your blog. A link was provided to us by our lecturers and what an awesome blog it is too! ;D.
Okay back to your post. Ummm. It's a great, thought provoking post! I think you're right; everyone makes mistakes or misjudges what is being required. But then making mistakes is a good thing, as long as you can then see you've made a mistake and do something about it. Being overcome by "worrying and worrying" doesn't lead to advancement in anyway.
Racsim. I totally agree with your paragraph before the supernova picture. Some people are so caught up in political correctness / avoiding saying anything which could remotely be associated with racism that they sound so stupid (to put it simply).
&& you have highlighted some excellent points about these 'lets get together and discuss about sessions...' in which the actual point being discussed is brushed to the side or healthy productive learning is replaced by more of a 'lets see if you can spot these naughty qualities in the people present here'.
I agree with a lot of the points made in the above comments, regarding the fact that a lot of teaching today is not to pass on knowledge to students but to get them through the exams. My physics teacher used to say exactly that. And that I think that is one of the reasons people don't enjoy school because they're being force fed information they couldn't give two hoots about.
Lovely read!
Thank you for sharing!
Nas
=]
Good post.
Just commenting to agree with Sam Rose that white on black is awful to read (for me). I sometimes disable styles to avoid this, but then I lose other nice things, like the background, pics etc.
Grey background would be easier if you don't want to go all traditional.
-J
You folks are wonderful! Kuly - ROFL, you can call me Anne :-D (but if I ever see anyone address you as "Paki" I will be bunching up my fists and ranting quite a lot for quite a long time to say the very least!)
Nas, I'm thrilled to hear that lecturers recommended my blog. That is pretty well as high as compliments go. Was that my "homeopathy proofs" by any chance? Anyway, thanks ever so much for coming along.
I'm really enjoying this discussion; it is a very good point how the actual focus of the discussion gets lost in "testing people" one way or another.
As for the colour scheme. I've darkened the text, but now my whole blog is looking pretty dark. I think having pale grey text on a dark grey background would be better. This will take a while to fix though as a friend did the code for this background for me (it's a JPEG hosted on her photobucket - mine refused to be expanded enough!!). In the meantime, does this help? And thank you for bringing this to my attention!
Alice,
The exercise you encountered in no way demonstrates racism. Rather it is an experiment that demonstrates how we can easily be led to conclusions based on little evidence. And sometimes that's a good thing; otherwise we would constantly be having to explain everything to each other in minute detail. In this case the coloured stars were used to deliberately invoke a course of action. I don't think it was fair for them to have drawn the conclusions they did.
Here's an example from my own experience. In an experiment from a psychology course I took at Uni, we were asked to take a number of tests. In one a draughts board was set out with the draughts pieces in place and we were asked to remove all the white pieces. An experimenter sat watching us with a stop-watch. So, I worked out the fastest strategy and removed the required pieces as fast as I could. I felt I had performed well. Of course, that wasn't the purpose of the test at all. As was pointed out to me later, the experimenter never asked me to perform the task quickly. But the presence of the stop-watch implied that. In fact the test was to determine competitiveness, and was designed to invoke that response with visual clues. It was a trick and I fell for it. It was, of course, in no was as humiliating as your experience, but a valuable lesson all the same.
PS. I, too, dropped out of my PGCE course; after two weeks.
PPS. The colour-scheme hurts my eyes, too :-).
I feel sorry, that you weren't capable of even becoming a teacher.
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