UK
The most recent novel by the Nobel laureate JM Coetzee, The
Schooldays of Jesus, begins with a couple fleeing the law after
taking their child out of school because he hates the lessons and
community so much. It’s an extreme example, but one millions will find
it easy to empathise with. Fewer people than you might think seem to
have truly enjoyed their formative education and, for those who did not,
one theme in particular recurs: the breathtaking cruelty of children.
Bullying leaves permanent psychological scarring and young people become
adept at learning what hurts, verbally and psychologically. Looks,
personality and status are all easy targets, and particularly difficult
to change.
It’s this knowledge that makes a recent initiative to
“poverty-proof” schools in the north-east of England so brilliant. The
toolkit proposes small changes in schools, such as banning designer
pencil cases, and encourages teachers to think about how seemingly small
things, such as asking children to report to their class what they did
at the weekend, can mark out those living in poverty and further
stigmatise youngsters.
Jeremy Cripps, the chief executive of
Children North East – the organisation behind the initiative – told BBC
radio how the toolkit was formed. In each visited school they asked each
child: “Is anyone poor in your school?” Each child knew precisely who
was poor, and reported how they knew: differences in behaviour, clothing
and social life were all very obvious indicators. Schools can do many
things to mask this, but can also exacerbate the issue. Cripps told of
one example, where a poor child who couldn’t afford ingredients for home
economics lied and said they’d forgotten. The school supplied the
ingredients, but the teacher tossed the finished dish into the bin as a
punishment, while other children took theirs home.
I almost wept
at the injustice and the notion of a teacher, perhaps unwittingly,
reinforcing to that child their worthlessness in a society obsessed with
eliding social and financial capital and worth. These aren’t the lessons
one would hope to see imparted.
Growing up poor is precisely as
demeaning as you’d expect, and while forgiving bullies is easy, reliving
those experiences emotionally is deeply upsetting. Teachers couldn’t do
anything about the fact I couldn’t invite friends to my house for dinner
or host birthday parties. But they might have refrained from asking me
every Monday to reply “free dinners” after my name on calling the
register. All the while, my friends were marked out as different to me.
And as they replied that they had brought in sandwiches or would be
paying for their lunches, everyone could see that difference. They
weren’t to blame, neither were the teachers. It was the system; a system
designed by clever people for practicality without a shred of emotional
intelligence. We even had a separate canteen till for children taking
free school meals. We know better now. We should do better.
Memories endure. In one of my secondary schools, the single kindest
thing I remember was a teacher who quietly offered to wash the uniform
of a friend who was being hounded by children saying he “stank”: his
mother was unemployed and couldn’t always afford to take his clothes to
the launderette. That single act stays with me in a way that textbook
learning and blackboard teaching never could.
Children brought up
in poverty may never escape it. Some estimates say seven out of eight
children stay trapped, and some of those shackles are psychological.
According to Children North East, 28% of the region’s children live in
poverty. The problem can feel insurmountable, but stopping children from
feeling singled out for the crime of being poor is essential to
combating this cycle. And everyone benefits. Cripps says they know that
poverty-proofing schools works because, where the practice has been
applied, attendance has increased. That makes perfect sense to me. I was
a horrendous truant, but I would have attended more regularly if I
hadn’t felt so marked out, or had been able to afford school trips and
the various expenses that enrich the school experience.
The
suggestions now being discussed are all incredibly straightforward. They
need almost no money to implement; but still there are detractors. Why
try to shield children from the reality of poverty when they will have
to face the real world soon anyway, they say. But that’s to accept that
trajectory as a given. We shouldn’t; we should be seeking the big
solutions to change it. And while we are doing so, a little dignity for
those involved can’t be too much to ask.
By Dawn Foster
14
May 2018
