1. The Backdrop
a. The issues facing black children 30 to 40 years ago
Written over three decades ago, my small book was an attempt to explore with black parents and the black community generally, some of the reasons for the abysmal failure of their children within the British school system. These included:
· The racist policies and practices of the education authorities of that period;
· Racism within the curriculum itself; the actual reading materials which the children were obliged to use. · The poor self-image, self-esteem, self-belief which the vast majority of the black children experienced; some of the reasons for this, and its consequences for their school (and later life) performance.
· Low teacher expectations, and how destructive a force this could be.
· Inadequate black parental knowledge of and involvement in what was happening to their children at school in that period.
· The lack of black parental organisation to tackle the situation faced by their children; including especially the need for more black teachers in the schools, and the need to set up black supplementary schools in the black community.
The focus, then, was quite naturally on the so-called schools for the educationally subnormal (ESN); schools which, incidentally, were previously officially called schools for the mentally subnormal (MSN). These schools were being utilized by the education authorities as a dumping ground for black children. This was especially so for those who had recently come from the Caribbean to join their parents; often after a separation of several years.
These children were therefore encountering various degrees of emotional disturbance; on top of the normal cultural and other adjustment problems associated with a sudden move to an entirely new environment. The response of the authorities was not one of addressing their difficulties and needs, but of branding many of them as "educationally subnormal", and then dispatching them to ESN schools.
The issues raised in the book, however, applied to the plight of black children throughout the British school system, and not just to those sent to ESN schools. Racist policies, racist curricula, problems of low self-esteem and low teacher expectations, and so on, infected the entire school system. This had devastating consequences for the overall performance of black children throughout Britain. Yes, many black children "made it" academically in that period of the late 1960's and 70's despite all the odds. Those children are, by and large, today's highly successful adult blacks. However, the vast majority were not so lucky.
b. The children the book spoke of are the parents and grandparents of today's children
What is particularly important to note is that the children of the 1960's and 1970's whom the British education system failed are the parents and grand parents of today's children -- large numbers of whom are being suspended and "excluded" from schools, or placed in "special units" or streams. For many reasons true then as now, black boys were affected far more than black girls. The lesson to be learned for today's problems in the school system is that they were "hatched" decades ago, in the previous two generations. When society fails one generation of children, it lays the foundations for similar, even worse failures in the generations to follow. We human beings "inherit" not only through our genes, but often also from our social circumstances.
Those in charge of the education system have chosen not to seriously address and solve the problems. Instead, they have shifted around the problem; even sought to hide it from view. Yes, they (eventually) closed down the ESN schools. But they found other ways to shunt black children with educational difficulties (emotional, cultural, medical, and so on) into a corner and essentially ignore their needs - and potential - rather than put the resources needed into addressing them.
Disguised (and not so disguised) forms of streaming have emerged to specially deal with these "difficult" black children. As the kids' frustration levels have risen and the number becoming disruptive, even violent, have grown, the tactic of "exclusion" (even for the non-violent in many cases) has become a regular tool for getting rid of, rather than tackling the children's problems.
The growing numbers of children and young people resorting to violence in schools has created a serious problem for many teachers. This reflects on the system as a whole, rather than on the teachers, who are experiencing the results of the neglect of past decades as well as the reality of today's racism in so many areas of the children and their parents' lives. It must never be forgotten, however, that no child was born violent. To merely throw these children out of school not only solves nothing; it ensures worse violence in the future. The suspension and expulsion of kids - disproportionately black kids - from school because of misbehaviour (of various sorts and gravity) does not solve society's - or these youths' - problems, but postpones, while making worse, the day of society's reckoning for having failed to educate and cherish these youths when they were younger. And let us not forget that these "excluded" youths will be the parents, one day, of children themselves. This reality tells us that if we are to make a real difference to future generations of black children, we must start now, with the present generation, to turn things around.
Perhaps this accounts for the long-lasting impact which many have told me my book has had - although I suspect that most simply wished to be kind.
c. The objective reasons for the timing of the book
This book, however, could only have been written when it was (during the summer of 1970; published in May 1971) because of the presence, for the first time in British history, of large and growing numbers of black children in British schools in the 1960's and early 1970's. This, in turn, was a product of the presence, also for the first time in British history, of large and growing numbers of black immigrants from Britain's colonies and former colonies.
Black people, of course, had lived in Britain for centuries, most of them living in port cities linked to the slave trade. Their numbers, however, were minuscule, and they therefore had little sociological, economic or political impact within British society. In contrast, the black immigrants of the post- second world war era had greater impact, as they were both more sizable in number and tended to be concentrated in many of Britain's major cities.
This was because they had been aggressively recruited by both Conservative and Labour governments to fill the massive labour shortages for the lower paid jobs within the British economy, most especially in the transportation, health care, and older, less efficient, relatively labour intensive factories throughout Britain.
Although the vast majority of the immigrants arrived during the 1950s and the early 1960s, their children became a significant presence in the school system only in the 1960s and beyond. This is because those who already had children at home prior to their migrating to Britain, took a few years to settle - get a job, build up savings, purchase a house - before sending for their children.
Others started families after arriving in Britain, and this also meant a gap of several years before such children would reach school age. This is probably why the book was written when it was and not before or later. But why me? I was not a migrant to Britain, and economics, not education, was my field. Despite this, a combination of factors led me to this book.
2. The Book
a. How I came to write the book
I came to Britain in September of 1966 to do a masters degree at Sussex University. When I completed it in the summer of 1967, I started working full-time while signing up for a PhD in development economics at Sussex part-time. My focus was on completing my PhD and returning to the Caribbean to serve my people there.
For the three and a half years between the summer of 1967, when I first started working, and December 1970, I first ran evening clubs for children from seven schools for the "educationally subnormal" (ESN), and then taught full time at two other ESN schools. This gave me first-hand experience of what was happening not just in these schools, but in the education system as a whole, as I discovered that the system was using the ESN schools as a convenient dumping ground for black children who were anything but "educationally subnormal".
I was outraged by what I was witnessing, but I had no overall data, and therefore no proof, that what I was witnessing in the nine ESN schools to which I was exposed was true throughout the system, or that those in authority knew exactly what was happening and took a conscious decision to do nothing about it.
One day, around the spring of 1970, out of the blue, a cousin of mine contacted me and placed an "internal" Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) report on all the ESN schools under its jurisdiction into my hands. A friend of hers who worked within the system had clearly decided that enough was enough, and was seeking to get someone, anyone, to take this report with all the tables of statistics and expose and explain its scandalous contents to the public at large. I now had the personal experience, and the hard evidence, of the scandal affecting black children in the school system.
But I was not a journalist, I had no contacts in the British media; neither was I a member of any organisation - West Indian or otherwise - in Britain. Indeed, I was in Britain for only about 40 months when my cousin placed that "internal" ILEA report in my lap in the spring of 1970. The questions I asked myself were: "How do I go about doing something about this scandalous situation? What can I do, concretely, to get people's attention in a really big way, so as to have the situation addressed?"
Just as I was stumped for an answer, I went to a party one Saturday night thrown by six Grenadian friends of mine who shared a house in Tulse Hill. At this party there where West Indians from all the islands. They had been living in Britain for many years, had children in the school system, and had been "hearing rumours", as they put it to me, of what was happening in the schools, most especially the ESN ones. More than one came up to me and said, something like, "We hear you are a teacher [there were precious few black teachers in those days] in the ESN schools. We are hearing all kinds of things. What's really happening there?"
I explained as best as I could what was "happening". By the end of the evening, I was asked by several of those present to prepare and present a paper on the situation to a conference which was to be held a few weeks later. Samuel Selvon, Andrew Salkey, and other West Indian literary greats were also due to be presenting papers, I was told. By sheer "accident" - or divine will - I had found a vehicle to get the message into the black community. But would a few dozen parent-activists from the community be enough? Time alone would tell.
After I presented my paper to the many dozens of West Indian community activists who were present, a lively question and answer and then general discussion followed. At the end of it all I was virtually ordered by all present to turn that paper into a book. I was given, in practice, a deadline of three months to write the book, as everyone was anxious to have the scandal exposed in the shortest possible time.
I set to work on the book, using the three summer months of 1970 when there was no school, and no classes at Sussex for me to attend. I spent each day in London University's school of education library, and each night collating my voluminous notes and drafting chapters. By the time the summer was over I had written 210 typewritten pages, outlining the many problems black children were facing, why, and what I felt should be done about them.
I then took a critical decision. I would address the book explicitly to black parents. Not to teachers, not to the education and political authorities, not to the public at large; exclusively to black parents. I wanted to get them conscious of the problems, and organised to deal with them. I wanted them to feel personally spoken to; to recognize that this was a problem that they had to get up and tackle; not rely on any others to do on their behalf.
I wanted a book written for them, and addressed directly to them. This decision meant that I could not take the approach of writing an academic treatise on the education of black children in Britain. Black parents were (still are!) very hardworking and busy people. They didn't have the time to read 210 pages. I would have to concentrate on the most important issues.
Having completed a scaled-down version, I brought the completed manuscript to the leaders of various West Indian organisations for them to have a look at it. They were all satisfied with its contents. Everyone's concern now turned to having it published. We approached all the leading publishers. None would have it. There were two major problems with it from a business standpoint: having never published anything before, my name had no recognition in the educational books market; and I was choosing to write a book for a highly restricted target market - West Indian parents. A tiny fraction of the British population, and one, moreover, which hardly ever bought books.
This response from the established publishing industry, combined with the sense of desperate urgency on the part of the West Indian community leaders, led to them organising a meeting of the leaders of 26 different West Indian community groups and organisations. At this meeting they took a decision to raise the up-front money to pay a printer and publish the book. A one-man West Indian publishing company, New Beacon Books, headed by the visionary and activist, John LaRose, undertook to have it published; ably supported by another one-person West Indian publishing concern, Bogle L'Ouverture Publications, headed by the indefatigable and visionary Jessica Huntley. The leading West Indian community activist of Hackney at the time, Jeff Crawford, and the late, great Jamaican novelist, Andrew Salkey, lent their support and encouragement throughout, as did many others.
It is one thing to have the necessary facts and evidence to write a book, another to write it, and yet another to raise all the funds to have it published when none of the established publishers would touch it. But there was still one vital piece missing: how were we to distribute, ie sell, our 10,000 copies? Every single established distribution chain refused to carry even one copy of the book. We approached them all, and all refused. Their reasoning was essentially the same as that of the big publishers: no author name-recognition, and close to zero market potential. Significantly, when the first print-run was sold out (with the same 26 West Indian organisations pitching in to sell the book door to door in the black community) in short order, 10 different publishers, nine British and one American, approached me to write books on education for them. (I now had name-recognition) And suddenly, the leading book distribution chain of that era got in touch with me, offering to now sell the book. I had the satisfaction of informing them that we needed them no more, as all the copies had been sold out, and a reprint was under serious consideration.
There are two more interesting aspects of the history of how this book came to be. One had to do with how we managed to get the enormous amount of publicity that we did get from the day of publication, and the other to do with how "the establishment" reacted to the book's publication, and its attendant publicity.
b. How do we publicize the book and its contents?
We owe three Americans all the credit for the extraordinary publicity we were able to generate with respect to the book's contents. The first two, Jim and Carol Bergman, made their invaluable contribution by not just giving me maximum encouragement, but by putting me in touch with the third American, the one who made her living, fulltime, as a media consultant. Through their close friendship with her, they got her to agree to advise me fully on how to proceed, free of charge. The "trade secrets" which she taught me then, for the purposes of launching the book with a blaze of positive publicity, I have taught to all my small business course students in the Caribbean ever since.
This lady let me have her list of 1400 newspapers and radio and TV programmes, and the names and addresses and phone numbers of all the key news journalists, and columnists, on each of them. She taught me the right colours of paper to print press releases, the size of print, and the size of the margins; and what information to put in the very first sentence, and first paragraph, of the press release. And so on and so forth. It was the most extraordinary free lesson I ever received in my life.
I put her advice to work, and we had every single paper cover the story positively and accurately in its news and in many of its columns. Every talk show on all the radio and TV stations covered it; usually inviting me to come and be interviewed at some length. The first six minutes of prime time television news on the first day of publication had me debate the facts outlined in the book with the then chief education officer of the ILEA.
That turned out to be a stunning PR coup, as a very sizeable percentage of the British population watched that news programme each day. BBC then did a series of documentaries relevant to the issue of the education of black children in British schools, and The Guardian sought permission and published the whole of Chapter Five of the book on its editorial page. We could not have asked for greater publicity, not to mention highly favourable and generally very accurate publicity, regarding the scandalous data we were seeking to highlight.
c. The 'establishment' responds
The reaction of the "establishment" took two forms. The first was to rush out their spokespersons to deny everything. At first, they said on radio and TV that the book was "a pack of lies". Within days, based on the feedback they were getting, and the fact that I would read directly from their "internal" report on the electronic media, they amended their position to: "There is some truth in it, but most of it consists of lies". By the third week of sustained publicity following the book's publication, they had moved to say "most of it contains some truth, but there are many untruths too". By the end of six months following publication, they had surrendered. It was now acknowledged to be "accurate", and was now "recommended reading" at Teachers Colleges and Schools of Education in many parts of the country!
The other aspect of "the establishment's" reaction was Big Brother-like. My phone was tapped by the first night of publication. My wife and I were sometimes followed by (presumably) security personnel. Finally, our 11-year-old nephew, who was spending his holidays with us, was harassed by police in a police car close to where we lived and in our presence (deliberately so). My nephew was even threatened with a trumped up charge, with the sergeant in charge all the time looking pointedly into my eyes, seeking to gauge my reaction and clearly trying to send me a message: if you think you are a tough guy, we can always pick on your 11-year-old nephew to whip you into line.
Significantly, around the same time (approximately six months after publication) that the educational establishment backed down on its campaign of vilification of the book, my telephone ceased being tapped, my wife, nephew, and I stopped being followed, and there were no further threats from the police.
d. The book's impact
The black community's response to the book was incredible. Thousands of black parents in small groups throughout the country began meeting, and several parents' groups were formed. Black supplementary schools were formed up and down the country. Some estimates put the number of these schools at as many as 150. Black youth groups were formed, and existing ones held regular discussions on the scandal and what their members could do to help. I found myself invited to come and address many of these groups and other organisations all over Britain. From May to September of 1971, I was addressing between three and five such groups each weekday afternoon and evening, and on weekends. The level of concern, and the sheer energy of the participants, was something to behold. Amazingly, several of these groups, and even supplementary schools, survive to this day, 33 years later.
In addition to the extraordinary galvanizing effect that the book had within the black community, it is my belief that the turn-around in the establishment's response also owed a great deal to the support which the contents of the book, its main thrust and objectives, received from thousands of teachers - white teachers, including several head teachers - up and down the country. Significant sections of mainstream British public opinion embraced the fact that what was happening was unfair; indeed scandalous, and should be acknowledged by those in charge and brought to an end. Dozens of journalists went out of their way, too, to get this message across. A book which was written for and intended, by the author, only for black parents and the black community, had taken on a life of its own; mobilizing, as never before, the black community, but also reaching, touching, and influencing white teachers, student teachers, university students, journalists, trade union leaders, and other broadly progressive sections of the majority population.
All the above developments forced a rethink and a radical adjustment in tactics on the part of the establishment. They would have to concede, to surrender, on "this ESN thing", but find new ways of still denying black children equal and high quality education. We won that battle. Hands down. And we enlisted many persons in the wider society. But, truth be told, black parents and their children - and white working class ones as well - are yet to win the war. Indeed, they are as far away from winning it as ever before, except for a minority of black people, who have been fortunate to "make it" educationally and otherwise.
· for the final part of this article, click the link below
© Bernard Coard 2004