Diane Abbott MP has set a challenging agenda with her warning of the “silent catastrophe” which is engulfing black boys in British schools. Although they start school level-pegging with white children, they fall behind by the end of primary school, are less likely to stay on after 16, and are four times as likely to be thrown out of school.
Unfortunately, the teaching profession’s initial reactions have been defensive. Yet surely the complex reality of what is going wrong is rooted in the interaction between the culture inhabited by the black boys in question and that of the teaching profession.
One of the most illuminating analyses in recent years has been carried out by Spenser Holland, a black American psychologist who founded Project 2000 in Washington DC. His view is that problems can start very early - sometimes as young as seven or eight, especially among black boys who are fatherless.
In the United States, as here, the vast majority of primary teachers are white and female - and so far as some boys go, they simply do not carry credibility. In particular, Holland concluded, the sons of single mothers need caring men to mentor them, and prevent them making heroes out of local teenage tearaways. He found that simply having mature black men in class, working with the teacher and reinforcing her instructions, helped young boys focus on their work and see it as important instead of irrelevant and uncool.
When Holland visited London and talked to parents and teachers, he found that young black mothers were delighted with his plans - as they are in the States. But female teachers were hostile and defensive, apparently unwilling to contemplate such mentors in their classrooms, and accused him of saying that women were incapable of teaching boys effectively.
But surely it is obvious that white women - however hard-working and well-intentioned - are not always perceived by black boys as being appropriate role models. By denying this, we fail to devise successful strategies to enable these boys to learn effectively. Teachers and parents need to unite to solve this serious problem.
Diane Abbott points out that there are highly successful examples of black schools which raise the achievements of black boys. It’s a pity she does not give more credit to mainstream schools - many featured in the pages of The TES - which also have notable successes.
She rightly emphasises the importance of clear discipline and boundaries. A crucial source of misunderstanding, I believe, is the pedagogical style of many primary classrooms - where children are steered towards learning rather than having things spelled out. It’s the equivalent of the parent who inquires “Don’t you think it’s bedtime?” rather than instructing her offspring to get up those stairs at once.
I am not advocating that teachers should be barking instructions, but that they should realise that children accustomed to a more directive form of upbringing can find this form of “soft control” bewildering. I well remember visiting a London nursery school and chatting to a lively, articulate, black four-year-old. After a while, his teacher came to collect him, saying brightly “Would you like to do some painting now?” “No,” he replied, but was whisked off to the easels nevertheless.
He clearly thought he was being offered a choice of activities - but his teacher’s apparently open question had been a concealed command. Did she privately think “bolshy little so-and-so”? Was the stage set for a multitude of awkward interactions? I hope not. This encounter was 15 years ago. I wonder what he’s up to now.
