While visiting her father’s side of the family, in Kingston, Jamaica, Miss Snuffleupagus, a London school teacher, decided to visit a school in the wrong part of town. Here’s how bad it was:
Round about the classrooms I go, chatting to children. Everyone is black, children, teachers, workmen. The classrooms have broken blackboards, broken tables and broken chairs. Nothing on the scale of African poverty, but certainly much worse than the girls boarding school in the Jamaican countryside. There is some noise coming from the classrooms, and every now and then, I see a child run around the corner into a door, clearly rushing, because he doesn’t want to get into trouble.
The children aren’t bright like they were at the girls’ boarding school. Jamaica has a stringent testing system which streams the children from school to school. These children are at the bottom of the ladder. So I cannot have conversations about freedom with them. We chat about their favourite subjects, and they smile awkwardly with embarrassment.
When I walk into classrooms, the boys and girls rise immediately. ‘Good morning visitor!’ they chant, some of them waving with delight. I remember my own children in London, who often laugh at visitors, mocking them as soon as they turn to leave.
I chat to one of the teachers who is in charge of the SEN (special needs) children. These children are always the most difficult in any school. And they are always the children that every school (in England) tries to palm off to another, to make their chances of raising standards into a possibility. I ask her what it is like to work at the school. She explains that she has been there for over 10 years, but that at first, it took her a while to get used to the difficulties of the inner city. I ask her what she means.
Well, 80% of their children come from single parent homes. About 50% rarely see their fathers. Some 50 children have no parents at all, and as the state doesn’t look after them as we do here, well… The stats are far worse than any school I have ever worked in, or indeed even exists in England. She explains how this has a negative effect on the children’s behaviour and that sometimes they can be very rude.
So I ask her to tell me about a time when a child did something really bad. She takes a deep breath, and I pull my chair closer to her desk, waiting to hear the delectable details. ‘Well,’ she starts, pausing as if to catch her breath, ‘once I told a boy to sit down, and…’ I lean in closer. ‘And what…? I ask, as if in a Roman coliseum, waiting for the gore. She whispers… ‘He said he didn’t want to sit down.’ Her eyes open wide as she sits back, satisfied that she has shocked me to the core.
‘What’s it like at your school in inner city London?’ She asks.
I smile. ‘Much the same.’ I lie. What else can I say? I’m simply astonished.
Having spent the morning with them, I thank the Principal for having me. She shakes my hand vigorously, smiling from ear to ear. ‘Thank you, thank you,’ she squeals, ‘thank you for not being too intimidated to come.’