Hi! I am a member of a race education group in my school (11 to 18). We were discussing instances of racism and came to the conclusion that the school - teachers, especially - were not giving proper or effective repercussions for racist incidents. Racism in the school is quite normalised, especially against Black and Asian students, including:
CW: list of racist incidents
- Calling black people “monkeys”, unnecessarily calling them “fast” and that they “should be at the back of the bus”
- Playing stereotypical Indian music and linking brown people to “curry” and tech-support scammers
- The Chinese, Japanese, dirty knees chant and mocking the Chinese language
Most teachers report the incident, triggering an investigation into what happened; the student(s) are usually suspended - possibly being temporarily transferred to another school - the offending student(s) are talked to by senior staff members and attend anti-racism sessions. This approach feels appropriate, although I want to hear your thoughts on it as racism is still a significant issue in the school.
In addition, quite a few teachers instead push to “settle the matter” in-class (say sorry, shake hands) or give lesser punishments that are intended for things like swearing or talking over the teacher. These are not appropriate punishments and shouldn’t be tolerated. Bigotry is never equivalent to just rude behaviour or minor arguments (that includes bullying).
The school administration has been made aware of our thoughts and fortunately they are very open to the idea of writing a clearer and more effective policy on racism in the school.
Do teachers need to be trained better on their tolerance of racism? Is the policy not corrective enough? How would you write a racism policy for a school for 11 to 18 year olds?
Thanks again!
The problem is that teachers don’t really have many tools in the toolbox when it comes to classroom management. Like, they really only have a couple small tools that they can use, and then there’s a couple large tools that have serious consequences (suspension, sending them to the disciplinarian, etc)
Like, teachers can only manage the classroom for as long as the students perceive that the teacher is in control, and that perception is a fragile thing.
I would like to think that all teachers are not tolerant of racist behavior by students against other students and will try and stop it when they see it.
I think the main thing that your group needs to do, is train your fellow students to not tolerate this kind of behavior and call it out when they see it.
Peer pressure is FAR MORE powerful than what a teacher can do by themselves. I think that, ideally, if there was a racist incident that happened, and the teacher AS WELL as a group of students called it out as being unacceptable, that would be far more powerful and effective. Social shaming is a powerful thing and having students call out other students for racist behavior is far more powerful than a teacher or authority figure saying it’s bad by themselves.
Find some teachers that you think would be receptive, and ask them to join your group.
(Full disclosure I had some formal education in being an educator but never taught, so I could be naive)
Yes; our primary aim is to educate people on racism as a means to prevent people from being racist in the first place. We’re also aiming to motivate students to report racist incidents as there is a culture of not snitching on other students, even with racism.
Our group is composed of students only, and we believe that makes it more appealing and approachable to new members as there are usually no teachers there. We have had new members join the group because they wanted to report a racist incident, but they felt that a teacher wouldn’t do enough against it - or too intimidated - and that allowed us to collectively report a few students already!
We plan to meet with the school leadership every month to discuss any concerns or plans we have. It would be nice for other teachers to come every once in a while, though maybe not in every session.