Slang, Gangs And Disaffection

Why do we continue to peddle the myth that inner-city schools are teeming with future criminals when boroughs such as Tower Hamlets demonstrate how far this is from the truth, asks Jonny Walker...

When I informed some people in my Yorkshire home town that I was moving to East London to become a teacher, you’d think I’d told them I was joining a cage-fighting league or the SAS. It was perceived as a strange, dangerous and confusing decision. Why would anyone want to move to such a cold, faceless city, where nobody chats to the person next to them on the bus? More than that, why would anybody want to risk educating the ‘yoof’ of London, what with the gangs, knives and riots?

Eastenders and films such as Kidulthood paint a bleak picture of the inner city – a site of social decay where schools are holding pens for prisons. But, for me, this perception evaporated just 10 seconds into my teaching career as I watched my future class of eight year olds debate the absolution of monarchy.

As it turned out, the children of this inner-city primary were among the hardest working, funniest and most respectful students I’ve ever encountered. Parents, too, placed an exceptionally high value on learning – their enthusiasm matched only by the school and its aspiration for pupils. All of which makes the persistent myths surrounding urban children and inner-city education problematic.

I am under no illusions about the inhibiting role poverty can play in a pupil’s educational trajectory, but disadvantaged inner-city kids receive far more than their fair share of negative labelling. To counter this, I have a modest proposal: we ensure the symbolic violence pinned onto poor kids is doled out more equitably. In other words, the character defects of more affluent children should also be recognised to highlight the damage that stereotyping can cause.

The scene before me illustrates this well. I am writing this article in an upmarket coffee shop (I came here to mark literacy books…) and over at the next table a mother is trying to evade the received-pronunciation squawks of her five-year-old daughter, who is imploring “Mama, I WANT A BABYCCINO!” The father sits beside them, engrossed in the Sunday Telegraph, and silently slides Mama a £20 note to placate their child. The scene progresses and as I watch the girl weep aggressively about her father’s refusal to purchase Fettuccine Alfredo I’m forced to think: something is wrong here. Are these the well-off kids who will go on to monopolise the top universities? Are these the young people who are presumed to be more well mannered and civilised than my 21st century children of the Jago? Are these the kids that teachers in underfunded urban state schools are supposed to dream of teaching?

I’m not calling for a class war based on one petulant, affluent kid in a coffee shop with a penchant for Italian cuisine, but still, nothing could make me want to get back into my ‘disadvantaged catchment area’ more quickly.

The distribution of negative expectations is unfair. Stereotypes and myths all matter – directed at rich or poor – and their significance must not be underestimated.

The story of Tower Hamlets serves as a telling parable. According to research by Tim Leunig and Gill Wyness, this London borough is “the best-performing local authority”. The percentage of children achieving expected levels by the end of primary school moved from 16 per cent below national average in 1997 to 1 per cent above in 2006. And this despite Tower Hamlets having among the highest levels of child poverty in the country.

Underpinning the incredible progress in attainment, which continues today, is a collective vision of high aspiration and expectation shared by teachers, school leaders, LEA, parents and the local community. Stories like this illuminate why myths about urban school children really ought to be challenged more vehemently: not only are they factually inaccurate, expectations have a remarkable bearing on outcomes.

Some of the London myths I have heard are not completely unfounded – striking up a conversation with strangers on a bus really does mark one out as an oddball, rather than ‘just being friendly’. But other myths, that paint our schools as graffiti-adorned bastions of slang, gangs and disaffection, need to be busted.

About the author

Jonny Walker teaches Year 4 and is geography coordinator at Elmhurst Primary School in Forest Gate. Follow him on Twitter at @jonnywalker_edu and see his blog at jonnywalkerteaching.wordpress.com