Who cares what they look like? Are they any good is all that matters.
Statistics show that teaching as a profession is overwhelmingly white and female. After winning the BBC Young Reporter competition, I worked with BBC News to look at why there’s such a lack of diversity in teaching, and what it means for pupils like me.
In other words, the usual identity politics bullshit that we can expect from our state broadcaster.
I can answer why there are so few men in the profession. It became all too easy to accuse them of sexual assault. Given that the pupil will be automatically believed and the teacher suspended and assumed guilty – even in some cases getting as far as court where the story then falls apart – that no sane man would enter the classroom. I’ve spent much of my adult life in education and nothing would persuade me to set foot into a classroom. I will stick with adult education thanks very much. There are plenty of men in adult education, so maybe I’m not alone and with good cause.
As for more black people, what are you going to do? Drag them in off the streets?
I’m 14, and have moved around a bit – I was born in London but now I live in Manchester, two very diverse cities. This means I’ve been to a few different schools already.
Oh, 14, well, that’s lots of life experience. FFS!
Despite this, I went through all of primary school without ever having a non-white teacher.
So? This is a predominantly white country. Get over it.
I’m black – my parents are both originally from Ghana – but I don’t really see myself represented in the people who teach me.
So what? The question – and the only relevant one – is did those teachers provide an adequate education? If not, there is cause for complaint. If yes, then piss off, you obnoxious little racist.
I already know all too well what the impact is on pupils. When you’re my age, you’re starting to think about what you want to do when you leave school. You look at different jobs and careers and try to picture yourself doing them.
If you don’t see people in those jobs who look like you, who have similar backgrounds and experiences to you, then it’s really hard to imagine yourself doing that job.
Fuck off. Seriously, fuck off. At no time when considering a career did it even enter my head to think about what others in that profession looked like. If I was growing up in Ghana, I’d expect them to be black. It would never occur to me to write a racist article whining that none of them looked like me and that Ghana needed to make sure there were more white people employed in the professions.
I have friends who are from ethnic minority backgrounds who’d like to be teachers – but the lack of representation is putting them off.
That’s their problem, no one else’s.
It’s not just about inspiring young people to become teachers, either. As pupils, it’s really important for us to have someone we can talk to that understands our experiences, who we can confide in.
There’s always your parents. Frankly, when at school I never confided in teachers, preferring to keep my personal business personal. I was at school to learn and that was the extent of our interaction.
There can be even more serious consequences of not having diversity in teaching. During the Covid pandemic, when pupils’ GCSE and A-level results were based on teacher assessment, I was worried to read that minority ethnic pupils’ grades could have been affected by bias.
Racist bullshit.
I was also disturbed to hear about what happened to Child Q – a young black pupil who was strip-searched in a school in east London earlier this year – and later to find out that this apparently isn’t an isolated occurrence.
Non sequitur. This is a policing matter, not a teaching one. She was suspected of carrying cannabis, hence the search. However, the search was carried out without following the correct procedure. As usual, the usual suspects (the Abbopotomaus, for example) cried racism. This case has nothing to do with ethnic representation amongst the teaching profession. It’s just mud slinging.
All of this just goes to show how important it is for black children in particular to have that representation.
Bollocks on stilts. It shows nothing of the sort.
We know that teaching is predominantly white – according to one study from UCL, released in 2020, almost half of schools in England and Wales have no ethnic minority teachers at all, even in diverse areas with a lot of black and Asian pupils. But what I wanted to find out is why, and what can be done to change this.
The answer being, absolutely nothing. If suitable candidates who demonstrate the necessary competence apply, then they should be hired, regardless of their ethnicity. Nothing else is relevant.
If this article is what we can expect to come out of our education system and this character is deemed to be a ‘reporter,’ then we are in deep trouble. It is racist to the core, logically flawed and downright stupid.
Well said!
I’m a fourth generation teacher (as is my sister) married to a third generation one; it’s in the blood. However, none of our sons went into it and I’d strongly advise them not to for the reasons you describe.
When a colleague was falsely accused, the the case fell apart at court level but even a full acquittal from the judge – ‘you are an excellent teacher and can return to the classroom without a stain on your character’ – could not prevent him from being forced into early retirement ‘for the good of the school’ after a vindictive social media campaign,
I recall a teacher recounting a similar experience on the radio a few years back. The accusation simply didn’t hold up to scrutiny, but instead of dismissing it promptly at the school level, it got to court.
I’m naturally didactic and teaching is something I enjoy. My father took to it later in his life as did one of my sisters. All of us in adult education though.
Fuck off. Seriously, fuck off. At no time when considering a career did it even enter my head to think about what others in that profession looked like.
I did what I had a natural aptitude for and would pay ok.
Nowadays I would also look at the gender split… And end up exactly where I am anyway.
No women in maintenance. (Long hours, anti-social hours, dirty, noisy, frequently too cold or hot, dangerous).
None in machine operation, who I work closely with, for similar reasons.
Thankfully the closest I come to dealing with a woman is the occasional office worker who I email about a spare part or similar admin task.
I don’t want to get #MeToo’d into penury.
“I have friends who are from ethnic minority backgrounds who’d like to be teachers – but the lack of representation is putting them off.”
Wait… what? They think that more people from their background should be teachers so they’ve decided not to become teachers themselves? How does that work?
This is why kids go to school. Kids are stupid. (In totally unrelated news, the “Scottish Government” is currently taking the names of 14-year-olds for the Electoral Roll.)
If you don’t see people in those jobs who look like you, who have similar backgrounds and experiences to you, then it’s really hard to imagine yourself doing that job.
FFS whatever happened to trailblazers? If everyone is waiting for someone else, or that perfect specimen of representation, to be first, there’s gonna be a whole lot of waiting.
“This is a predominantly white country”
But for how much longer?
None of my teachers looked like me. They were ugly. Why WOULD I want to look like them?