[Intro Music]
00:00:08:27 – 00:01:01:05
Hannah
Welcome to the Diverse Ed podcast. Diverse Educators is an intersectional community of educators who are passionate about diversity, equity and inclusion. Our vision: everyone is celebrated in every classroom in every school. Our mission: a collaborative community that celebrates its successes and amplifies the stories of diverse people. Our values: promoting acceptance, increasing visibility, encouraging celebration, creating belonging and enabling learning. In series two of the Diverse Educators podcast, we have ten episodes. In each episode, our co-hosts, Mahlon Evans-Sinclair and Jess Boyd, will interview one contributor from each of the ten chapters of Diverse Educators: A Manifesto. Each conversation will reflect on how they have found and used their voice, discuss how identity shapes them as an educator, share the challenges they’ve had to navigate on their journey, and identify the changes they would like to see in the school system.

00:01:09:04 – 00:01:21:15
Mahlon
So hello and welcome to series two of #DiverseEd podcast. My name is Mahlon Evans-Sinclair, and I’m the founder of Educating While Black podcast and the director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at St Clements school in Toronto.

00:01:22:20 – 00:01:39:26
Jess
And I’m Jess Boyd. I’m a former head of music. I’m currently writing my PhD in culturally relevant pedagogy. I work in initial teacher training and I also run an open access community music project. In this episode, we are joined by Abena Akuffo Kelly and we will be talking about the Intersectionality chapter.

00:01:40:05 – 00:01:57:22
Mahlon
So, Abena, as an introduction, please tell us a bit about yourself. Go for one sentence, but go for more if you need more, I’d love for people to get a sense of who you are and you know, let’s be real, this is an essay in the chapter about intersectionality. There’s probably going to be a lot to cover so feel free.

00:01:58:15 – 00:02:28:07
Abena
There is indeed. So I generally sort of describe myself as a general busybody that likes to inject myself into absolutely everything. I believe in intersectionality. The point that I’m constantly telling people, it is my middle name and I just want to inject intersectionality into every single aspect of my life and my existence and things that I’m involved in, and I’m unapologetically, I tell people that every single way, everywhere I go.

00:02:28:28 – 00:02:30:22
Mahlon
Love this, love this, love this.

00:02:31:07 – 00:02:42:03
Jess
I love that you put that as your middle name. It’s quite funny, and especially as it’s a term that many people don’t always understand. It gives you an opportunity to talk about it a bit more.

00:02:42:04 – 00:05:04:17
Abena
In fact, yesterday I was at a members event that I set up for my CLP, so my constituency Labour Party, and I started talking about that because I was talking to somebody who said that they’re neurodiverse, I said I’m neurodiverse as well. And then I started talking to them about intersectionality and they said, oh I’ve never heard that before. And so one of the things that I do is one of the many things, I’ll go through some of them in a minute, but is actually as part of the NEU, National Education Union, I do lots of workshops on intersectionality, unconscious bias and so on. And I really don’t want people, because you know, people have this thing about wokeness and whatever, and they think that it’s an opportunity for oppressed groups to beat them over the head. And, you know, we in education, we talk about the carrot and the stick. And I think it’s really important to, for people to understand that when we talk about intersectionality, we’re not talking about an opportunity where we’re going to beat people and say look at all the privileges that you have, I don’t have privileges. We need to beat you down so that we can feel up. No. What I talk about is the fact that intersectionality is not just about these protected characteristics. It’s not just about race. It’s not just about gender or LGBT, but it’s things like, for example, age, and age is on a continuum, it’s on a spectrum. So, you know, when I was talking to those two people yesterday, we were talking about how actually age does sort of it’s sort of like a code, isn’t it? Because you start off when you’re quite young, when you’re a baby, you’re quite dependent on other people. When you’re, before you become of age again, you’re quite dependent. You have to wait for people to give you permission to do all sorts of things. But then it gets to a certain age where you are the epitome of the level of privilege in regards to age, because, you know, everybody wants to stay looking like you, you know, twenties. I think that’s that’s the epitome. And then it starts sliding. And so you get to a certain age and actually age as a characteristic becomes something which is a sense of oppression, rather than something which is a sense of dominance. So it’s not something which is, it’s not completely linear either. It does change. But that’s why I talk about intersectionality and I talk about height as well, and about weight. So somebody like me is somebody who’s slightly bigger boned. No, I say fat and there’s nothing wrong with that. I’m calling myself.

00:05:04:18 – 00:05:06:03
Mahlon
Absolutely nothing wrong with that. Yeah.

00:05:07:19 – 00:05:30:15
Abena
If you, you know, one of the examples I gave is if you go to an interview and you’ll see your, you know, against somebody who’s slim and you both have the same skills, you both have the same competencies and qualifications, you perform just as well as them. The person who’s slim is more likely to get the job because there’s that assumption that fat people are lazy and that they’re fat because they’re lazy, they can’t be bothered and slovenly.

00:05:31:08 – 00:05:49:14
Jess
I love that, yeah, illustration. If you then, so let’s not assume our listeners know what intersectionality is. Could you give us a definition of intersectionality and share with us the intersections of your identity that have inspired you to contribute to Diverse Educators?

00:05:49:17 – 00:08:04:06
Abena
Yes, definitely. So the way I like to explain intersectionality is it’s basically you are a sum of all of your different identities, of your different parts, and you can not separate yourself from those parts. The way that it’s described is that it’s sort of that balance between dominance and oppression. So, for example, I’m a woman, as you might have assumed from the sound of my voice, but you could have been wrong. So I identify and I’m a cis woman, I identify as a cis woman. And so there are certain levels of oppression that affect me as a cis woman, but I’m also a black cis woman. So when we talk about misogynoir and that sort of culmination of the double threat of being black and also being a woman. So you’re subject to misogyny, but you’re also subject to anti-blackness, you’re also subject to racism. But I’m also a mother, so as a mother, obviously I love being a mother and I’m very proud to be a mother, and I think it’s a wonderful thing. But in society as a mother, if, for example, I want to get ahead in my career, I’m oppressed in that sense because women are less likely to make money. And if we’re talking about teaching in general until the age of 32, there’s parity between the wages of men and women and then 32 is round about the time that women start having children and might start going part time. Might start to go on maternity. They lose out on that pay progression. And then they start actually they on average they start earning less than men. Because I’m fat people have certain ideas about who I am as well. Because I’m short also people have different ideas about who I am. So intersectionality is about the fact that we are not one dimensional. All of us are multidimensional, and all of those different aspects of our identities play together in one in making any decision, having any interaction, in having any experience. I can’t divorce the fact that I’m black from the fact that I’m a woman. I can’t divorce the fact that I’m a woman for the fact that I’m LGBT. All of them play a part in how I interact and I navigate this world.

00:08:05:01 – 00:10:47:24
Mahlon
Everything that you’ve said, like I’m really hoping that people go back and just play that part, just that segment again and again and again a few times. Because I think one of the things that typically happens with intersectionality is that it gets conflated with identity. And the idea that my identity, the shopping list of, as you just said, the sum of who I am, it equals the same thing. And actually what we’re trying to say is it is relative to the space and the place that you’re in determines how those intersections that you have, those identity markers that you have are either advantaged or disadvantaged, sometimes situationally, sometimes structurally, sometimes globally. So the idea that, for example, all three of us on this call or in this episode, I guess we’re all people of the global majority, but even that term global majority only means something, right, when we’re in the space of majority of similar skin tone or similar understanding, similar culture. So in another term you know, the term BAME or Bipoc or whatever you want to use that intersectionality itself, those identity markers of being nonwhite means that our experiences would be similar to each other or being in spaces where that white majority exists. And, you know, the whole global aspect of it is you can both be in the UK, which is where you both are right now. And I could be in Canada where I am right now, and the experiences of how our skin tone shows up in the workplace in society would be very similar, even though we’re thousands of miles apart. Because when we talk about intersectionality and structural advantage or disadvantage based on identity markers, that’s what we’re trying to get a hold on and in that, in saying all of that, what I really, really like is your chapter as a comprisement, kind of was asked to do something slightly different than what the rest of our chapters did. So our chapters looked at one aspect of the protected characteristics. Yours were asked to look at, you know, multiple and having an understanding of what does that mean when we are not of single identities, don’t live single identity or single struggle lives we live multiple lives. And, you know, you did a great job of pulling quotes from Audre Lorde and other great scholars in this field. And I guess my question is kind of thinking about what did you want specifically to add to that conversation? I know that it’s about the quiet revolution, which I think sometimes also gets overlooked. What did you want? Like the I guess maybe put it this way, who was your intended reader for your essay? Who did you really want to feel galvanised by reading your words and feeling some kind of way as a result of their insight?

00:10:48:07 – 00:14:27:06
Abena
You know, I wanted anybody to feel empowered. And, you know, when I do my sessions on unconscious bias, people, one thing that people always say to me, and it’s really funny because, you know, when you, you know, if you have the experience of going to university or just being at school and a teacher gives you a really good lecture or a really good lesson, at the end of the lesson, everybody wants to say, thank you so much. That was really good. I would have people lining up to say thank you so much. That actually empowered me and I wasn’t expecting a session of unconscious bias to inspire me and, you know, empower me because what I focused on is that we all have privileges. We all are oppressed in some way. But there was, you know, because of the our different identities, in certain circumstances, you can have more privilege than somebody else. Please make sure as an ally that you use that privilege when you can. So I did my unconscious bias training and spoke about intersectionality at a black educators conference. And at the end people are saying, yes, I understand, I do actually have privilege as a black educator it’s not the case because I’m a black educator I have no privilege. The privilege I have is that I can impart knowledge onto these students. I can be a role model to show them that black people are, you know, just a diverse group of people. They are not a monolith, you know, which is what so many people think. And, you know, one of the things that is so important to understand about intersectionality is that, as you said, in different spaces, something which would be something which oppresses you actually will be something which makes you somebody who has more power. So, for example, we all have accents which are, you know, seen as being more affluent. The assumption that’s made by quite a lot of people when they hear my voice is that I’m rather intelligent, I’m eloquent, I’m, you know, I’m quite accomplished. I hope I am. I think I am. But the assumption is because of this voice, people actually sit up. So I’ve actually had a situation, and this explains intersectionality so well, and that’s why I want to include this. I’ve had a situation where I was doing some supply. I went into a school and I did my normal thing because, you know, when it comes to behaviour management, I’m very good. And I just told the students, be silent and they were silent because they knew we don’t, we just don’t mess with this woman. Just look at her. You don’t mess with her. And so every single lesson, they worked silently. They got on with it. And then I went into a break room and I was sitting with some technicians. I’m not going to give too much detail, so you can see who it is. But I was sitting with technicians and they were saying, oh, we really like you. You’re not like the other people that we’ve had because we couldn’t understand their accents. We can understand you. We’d love to have you back. That is intersectionality. I’m black. You can see it. Obviously you can’t, you can’t see it. But the people who I’m sitting with right now can see it, you know, sometimes you can hear it in my voice. Some people say they can’t hear it my voice, but you can hear it in my voice. I am black. But because of this accent, because of this privileged accent, there are certain spaces where before I speak, people see me as, oh, some black person and I literally see people, their faces changing when I start speaking. That is intersectionality.

00:14:27:26 – 00:15:14:17
Jess
It’s wild. I think I play it, well I, I’m mixed race and I play on my intersectionality all the time. And I think the more confident I’ve got, we’ll get to this because you talk to a lot about the confidence and the power that intersectionality brings us. The confidence that I now being able to be comfortable and happy with my identity as I often when I’m giving training, my thick East London accent comes out strong and I’m like, yes it’s Jess I’m writing a PhD and what, like and I love playing with people’s minds. I think accents is such a funny one, isn’t it? And so, so in your chapter then, can you try and summarise what you wanted anybody to take away from diving into your way of life?

00:15:14:28 – 00:18:24:21
Abena
What I want to take away, and that’s me answering your question properly Mahlon as well. So I notice Jess you’re bringing me back to the question. So thank you for that. So basically I wanted people to take away the fact that we’re all intersectional. It’s not just about oppressed groups, it’s not just about black people or gay people, LGBTQI+* people, but everyone is intersectional. And if you can actually take people at face value, allow them to be that multi dimensional person, you will actually get so much more out of people if you stop seeing people as identikit. All right, So that’s that’s a black person. So my shortcut for black people is not very intelligent and, you know, ghetto, you know, instead of seeing that and actually seeing the person or allowing yourself to see the person by actually asking them about themselves, you’re going to just have such a better experience with people and with students as well. Because, you know, that’s one of the things that I point to about how students sometimes, especially if you’re a black boy, one of the examples I think I use in the chapter, but I can’t remember is, you know, you’re being told off by a teacher and may be traditionally what you’re supposed to do when you’re being told off by an elder is you’re supposed to look down. You’re not supposed to look them straight in the face because that’s rude, that’s confrontational. So you look down out of respect. The teacher thinks that you are actually being rude because you’re not looking them in the eye and then you actually suffer a detrimental effect because you’re, culturally you are actually being respectful, but you are seen as being disrespectful. But the other thing that I wanted to bring out of that chapter is that because we’re intersectional, that is actually a USP. That’s our unique selling point. That is powerful and you have, you are actually a specialist already. You know, when you go to a space and they’re talking about women or they’re talking about black people or they’re talking about LGBT people, or they’re talking about all sorts of different intersects, and you have lived experience and that lived experience means that you are an expert. So when you go into a space and maybe you’re you know, most of the demographics are not the same as you, you realise that you are adding value. You know, I don’t want this deficit model that, you know, oh, thank you so much for allowing me into the space. No, you’re lucky I’m in this space because by me being in this space I’m adding value to this conversation. If I wasn’t here you would compute all sorts of different nuances because you have no lived experience. Your lived experience is powerful and you should use that. And you shouldn’t stay quiet and say, oh, well, I don’t know some of the technical language. No. It’s not technical language. It’s your life and your understanding of your life and how things have affected you that actually makes you a powerful person in these spaces. So enjoy and see your power and use it. That’s what that was about.

00:18:25:05 – 00:19:30:16
Jess
Oh, just. Just that. That’s what it was about. Mahlon, I’m going to jump in with just a follow up question. I like, um, like you talk about power and brightness and that intrinsic like knowing your identity so articulately, but what’s the journey? What was the journey to that for folks, right? Because I’m looking at the parts of your chapter that I’ve highlighted. You know, our intersectionality can be an instrument of power. And then you talk about it really once you realise the internalised manifestation of colonialism, come on. And then you said you just stressing the power in our intersectional identities and how once we know our intersectional identities, we then become specialists in that area. But tell me about the the journey to realising that or knowing that and being able to bring that to the surface of our work, because I think we know our identities at varying degrees of consciousness, right? And whether we bring that to our workspaces or not is a journey for all of us. I’m just curious how you’re so boldly intersectional in everything you do and how you got there.

00:19:31:00 – 00:22:15:08
Abena
Yes. So yeah, I wasn’t always like this. And you know, we’ve spoken about age as an intersect, but I think I’m glad that I am here, but I think I could have got there a little bit earlier. But I, I did stop myself for a very long time. I did sit on my power and I remember it was because I did experience some really horrific sort of racism in some of my schools. And there was one particular school. I was in a meeting. This was when I was a younger teacher. I was in in a meeting the previous meeting, I said to a teacher that perhaps she didn’t follow the standards that she was supposed to follow and, you know, could she just make sure that she did something a certain way? The next meeting, it seemed like a group of people had decided that they were going to attack me in retaliation for how I treated her. I’ve got inverted commas. You can’t see it. But inverted commas how I treated her by saying something. So I had a group of about five teachers in my department who basically attacked me and told me that I was an awful teacher and, you know, I deserved to have the worst behaved children in my department because I’m that sort of person. And I actually remember I kept it together, but I ran to the bathroom after the meeting and I cried and I cried because I literally had been attacked on all corners. It wasn’t just one person. It was five different people attacking me. And I knew that they’d done that on purpose because when we had inset days, they would purposely have this thing where they’ll bring food in and they will all sit in a room. And I knew I wasn’t invited because they didn’t invite me and they would sit in the room and eat together and I was not invited and I would actually walk past the room, see them laughing and talking together. I was not allowed into that room. And I think back to that and I want to cry for myself because if I am, I was the person who I am now. I would have given them so much fire. They would have been too scared to even dare do that to me. But I was scared. I thought, you know, I don’t want to ruin my career by being, you know, somebody who’s constantly moaning about bad treatment. Because then when I go to my next school, you know, or they won’t let me into my next school because they’ll say that I’m a troublemaker and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I didn’t respect myself enough. I didn’t know my power enough to be able to say, no, this is out and out racism and I’m not going to take it. So, I mean, there was another incident in that school where they actually asked me to bring my passport in because I had a foreign sounding name and they hadn’t done their checks.

00:22:15:08 – 00:22:15:28
Jess
They what?

00:22:15:28 – 00:22:34:07
Abena
Yes, this is true. And again, if it had been me now, I mean, I did actually do something about it. So they said, oh, we realised that we hadn’t done our checks when we were recruiting. We hadn’t done them properly. So we are just going through and finding all the people that have foreign sounding names and asking them to bring their passports.

00:22:34:07 – 00:22:44:20
Mahlon
They are brazen, to actually even say it as that. Are you bringing in Siobhan? Are you bringing in Aoife? Are you bringing in Peter like are you bringing in the locals?

00:22:46:00 – 00:25:08:11
Abena
I actually said to them, I said, right, okay, so you’re, right, I said, until you send an email out asking everybody, not just me, everybody to bring in their paperwork, I will not be bringing it in. She left. The next thing I saw was an email asking everybody. I was like, no. So because I have a foreign sounding name. How dare you. That assumption that I am other because of my name, but that was the same school and yeah that’s what my experience and then I think it’s, I started on a journey when I divorced my ex husband and then I came out and then I then started to go into politics. So in the lead up to my 40th birthday as a present to myself, this is a sort of the person I am, as a present to myself, I said, I’m going to actually get more involved in activism. I’m talking, I want to do, and I remember one of my friends saying to me, one person can’t make a difference. I said, If everybody said that nothing would happen. And I remember. So I joined my daughter was about six or seven at that time. I was like, my daughter is a privilege to have. My daughter is somebody who has brought so much joy and so much abundance in my life. She is not somebody who is taking away from my power. I will be going to meetings and I’ll go with her. So we went to meetings together. People knew it was me and my daughter. We were always together. It’s got to the point now where she’s our mini councillor. She takes pictures and everybody knows her. And so I went to meetings and within a couple of months an election came up. Everyone said, Abena do you want to go for selection? I said, Yeah, okay. I went and I became a councillor. It was just like that. It was like the universe was like, you are ready go and do it. And I remember one of my friends, acquaintances actually, acquaintances, said to me, oh, it’s not. It’s a white area. Nobody’s going to vote for you because you’re black. I said, okay. And she said, well, if you are voted in I’ll eat my hat. I was like, okay, cool. When I was voted in, she was like, I was wrong. I said, oh, sorry, I don’t have a hat for you to eat, but never mind.

00:25:08:18 – 00:25:09:24
Mahlon
I would have brought one.

00:25:10:05 – 00:25:11:11
Jess
I would have Amazoned her one.

00:25:11:13 – 00:25:14:15
Mahlon
I would have brought a hat.

00:25:14:18 – 00:25:16:04
Jess
I would have just left it on their desk.

00:25:16:19 – 00:25:18:14
Mahlon
Honestly, I would have brought a hat.

00:25:18:16 – 00:27:01:20
Abena
The main thing that happened to me was that Labour does this thing called Jo Cox Women in Leadership Program. So I. Do you all know about Jo Cox, the woman who was murdered by an extremist. And so in memory of her, we have the leadership program. And it’s, I didn’t realise how amazing it was because when I first joined Labour, there was somebody who came to one of our meetings and she said, oh, you can apply to the Jo Cox program, but it’s really competitive. I’ve applied several times, I haven’t got on. So I was like, oh my God, I can’t do that. I can’t try that. But then, you know, last year I was like I will try that. I applied. I got on first time and I remember when we had our first meeting, but now I’m going to actually say it publicly. Maybe some of them won’t listen anyway. So when we had our first meeting, it was like, oh my God, I applied three times before I got into this program. I applied, this is my, this is my third time. And I was, I kept my mouth shut. I didn’t tell anyone that it was my first time. There were 2000 women who applied and I was one of 60 who got onto that program. And when I got into that program and through the sisters and we called each other sisters in the political arena. So my, my sisters, my fellow sisters that I met and just the things that I learned, I realised actually, do you know what Abena, you have a lot of power. People listen to you. You inspire people. I would just get up to say something, to me I’m just talking. And people are like, but I was just talking. And then I realised it got more and more and more. I would just literally I would just stand up and say, blah, blah, blah. And I think I’m saying something mundane and people are like, wow.

00:27:02:16 – 00:27:37:21
Mahlon
That’s like, there’s power in, just to jump in, I feel like there’s a couple of connections that I want to make. I want to start at that end one just real quick. I think this is where a lot of people sleep on teachers. If we can engage a room of kids on a subject, you know, the start of the morning, they’re not even knowing what they’re about to learn. And, you know, we’ve got an hour with them to get them from point A to point B. It’s no wonder that a roomful of adults are like, oh, I’m making connections, pennies are dropping, like everything that you’re saying is coming out with conviction. Too many people sleep on teachers. So I’m just going to start there.

00:27:37:23 – 00:27:45:28
Abena
You are so right. Because people go like, oh, how come you’re so good at public speaking? I’ve been doing this honestly, like, for 16 years.

00:27:46:01 – 00:27:50:06
Mahlon
I’ve had worse hecklers than this. These kids are worse hecklers than some of you.

00:27:50:06 – 00:27:52:25
Jess
Have you had a chair thrown at you?

00:27:54:01 – 00:31:58:22
Mahlon
But then there’s another thing that I want to also speak about, like you mentioned earlier, around the idea of walking in your identity, because that the idea that, like an organisation will sometimes overlook that which you bring. And so knowing in yourself that that is something that you bring to the table. Someone once said it to me, and I’ve never not seen it, it’s like the sort of yellow car situation. They were talking about HSBC Bank as an example, and it was banks was the main thing but HSBC, the great example of this. HSBC’s whole purpose for being, yeah it’s a bank, you know, it’s a bank that you can store your money in and whatever else. But part of it is investments. Part of it is, is getting into markets. Part of it is getting into markets where it can make money for being in that market. So HSBC is going to find the locals of said markets that it currently doesn’t have a foothold in to find a way to find itself in said market because it knows that the only way to continue adding value to its business is to keep expanding the markets that is in. So if there’s a if there’s a market that takes place at night time in Saharan Africa or North Africa, Saharan Africa, North Africa area, HSBC is going to find a way to connect with the local community there to find itself in that market, so that market’s finance can be part of HSBC’s market and finances if that analogy and all that makes sense. So when people suggest that you know it’s too difficult or it’s too hard or, you know, you should align or conform to what already exists within the ecosystem, why should I? If the aim of the game is to make more profit. And in education, the profit is students. Students are profit, right? Students’ well-being, students’ output. All of that stuff is our profit. Why am I being asked to conform to what already exists versus the school considering you know, what is the benefit of us encapsulating these other identities into our own space that we can benefit and have a greater bounty of profit. So that just one thing that kind of came out of my mind when you were saying the idea about, you know, organisations and spaces, often giving people that binary dichotomy of you’re either with us by shaving parts of yourself off or you constantly just kind of sit on the edge of where the power play takes place, which I guess to come to your part of your, your essay there is a question I’m coming to, but these are great observations, and Jess and I were really looking forward to speaking to you in this episode. One of the things that you mentioned was the idea of knowing. So it’s the idea of like our lack of membership in a dominant culture means that we’re often at the boundaries of the most important conversations about things in education, but every single one of these conversations affects us. And I feel like that is something that is so salient that needs to really just be read out and understood so that people can sit with that. So to recognise that, you know, as you just mentioned in another setting, that team that decided to ostracise you from their, you know, their party, they sit down and have their conversations or whatever else in that room knowing that in some spaces that is senior leadership. In another space, that it’s the senior leadership team that is ostracising certain identities from the school space that it doesn’t want in senior leadership. So the idea of knowing that and as you said, the you who is now, so having reckoned with your identity, you probably would have knocked on that door. And been like, oh, we’re having a meeting. I didn’t get the invite and just sit down because now you’re going to have to speak about whatever you going to speak about with me in the room because it concerns me. But I do agree that there’s, there are times where perhaps we have been browbeaten into believing that we shouldn’t go into spaces that, you know, our intersectionality or identities will cause hostility to the rest of the people in that space. So we should sit on the sidelines or continue to sit on the sidelines with the identities versus walk in the space with all of the identities, because there’s something about your identity that adds value to what’s already taking space in there. So it’s, I don’t know if that was the question in there [laughs]

00:31:58:24 – 00:32:24:24
Jess
I can do it. With all of that said as a last kind of response in this conversation. One, if you could change, it’s a two part question. One, if you could change the education system to see intersectionality better, what would that look like? And what would you say to us all to bring our identities to those spaces fully?

00:32:25:12 – 00:34:31:14
Abena
Yeah, you know, I’ve spoken a little bit about the fact that if you don’t bring your identity to that space, then they’re actually missing out on a lot. They’re missing out on your expertise as this intersectional person. And, you know, I, the reason why I go into those spaces is because if I don’t, who will? And think of it that way. Yes, I completely understand. And I put this in my essay. I completely understand black trauma. I understand the trauma of being in spaces where you are the only black person or you are the only person of a particular demographic. And having to explain yourself. Because you do have to explain yourself and people expect you to justify why you deserve to be in that space. Sometimes after a while they stop doing that. But actually you are, as I’ve said before, you are doing them a service. I have you know, I have in my career at the moment, I am doing so many different things. I’m part of Fabian Women’s Network, which actually is a group of women who is a left leaning think tank that works with the Labour Party writing policies and so on. So we are specifically working on women’s policies and trying to make sure that they’re thinking about that intersectionality. But within that space, our new chair is a black woman, so we’re making sure that we are actually including people from, you know, black women. And we’re talking about health, black health, and we’re talking about neurodiversity because I’m neurodiverse. We’ve got people who are LGBT, myself and another lady who’s LGBT. So because we have those intersectional identities, we are making sure that we include that. When we come to panels where, you know, what do they call it? When it’s just a group of white men, it’s a particular term that we’ve given that when it’s just a group of white men on a panel with talking about politics.

00:34:31:15 – 00:34:32:22
Mahlon
Manel?

00:34:32:24 – 00:36:13:03
Abena
Yeah, a manel or something like that. Yeah, a manel. And we are purposely scrutinizing the panels before they’re released for the public and say, why don’t you have a black person, why don’t you have a woman, why don’t you have an LGBT person, why is it just white men. There are other people who have the opportunity to speak about this. So when you have that intersectionality, you make sure that you’re in that central space, which is what I was talking about in the chapter. It’s all well and good being in different groups, a groups of black people, a group for women, a group for LGBT people, a group neurodiverse people. It’s wonderful actually being in those groups because you feel safe. Yeah. You know that you’re home, you know people understand you, but we can’t live in an echo chamber because that echo chamber is not going to make any change. So. Okay. Yeah. In our echo chamber we feel safe and then we have to go out into the real world, because the real world is the one that we have to actually live in most of the time. And because we spend all our time in the echo chamber, the real world hasn’t changed. The real world is still oppressing us. We need to be in the real world making that change. So when I join groups, I go to groups knowing that, yes, I might experience some trauma, I might bring some ostracisation, I might experience, you know, people trying to undermine me. But I know that if I’m not in those groups, there won’t be anybody else speaking for us. There won’t be. And that’s what you need to remember. You are, what you have to say is so important and so needed. You need to make yourself available to be in those spaces so that people can hear what you’ve got to say.

00:36:14:04 – 00:36:29:16
Jess
Oh, what an ending. Make yourself available. All right, deal, I’ll try my best. Thank you so much Abena for sharing and giving us all of your wisdom and energy. Not just in this conversation, but also in the chapter, it’s a brilliant chapter. So thank you so much for everything you’re giving out to the world.

00:36:30:04 – 00:36:33:07
Abena
Okay, excellent. Thank you so much for inviting me.

00:36:33:10 – 00:36:54:03
Mahlon
No, thank you again. And I, you know, I implore everyone to go and read your essay. I really, really do. As Jess said there gems upon gems upon gems. And with that, just want to say we’ve been Mahlon Evans-Sinclair, Jess Boyd and Abena Akuffo Kelly and we are the co-hosts and the guest of season two of Diverse Ed podcast. See you soon.

00:36:54:03 – 00:36:54:08
Jess
Bye.

00:36:54:11 – 00:37:12:14
Hannah
[Intro Music] Thank you for joining us for this episode of Diverse Ed podcast. Check out the show notes for the recommendations of today’s guest. We’d love to hear what you think, so do leave us a review. We’ll be back soon with another author from our book Diverse Educators: A Manifesto.

[Intro Music]

00:00:08:27 – 00:01:01:05
Hannah
Welcome to the Diverse Ed podcast. Diverse Educators is an intersectional community of educators who are passionate about diversity, equity and inclusion. Our vision: everyone is celebrated in every classroom in every school. Our mission: a collaborative community that celebrates the successes and amplifies the stories of diverse people. Our values: promoting acceptance, increasing visibility, encouraging celebration, creating belonging and enabling learning. In series two of the Diverse Educators podcast, we have ten episodes. In each episode, our co-hosts, Mahlon Evans-Sinclair and Jess Boyd, will interview one contributor from each of the ten chapters of Diverse Educators: A Manifesto. Each conversation will reflect on how they have found and used their voice, discuss how identity shapes them as an educator, share the challenges they’ve had to navigate on their journey, and identify the changes they would like to see in the school system.

00:01:05:01 – 00:01:19:07
Jess
Hello and welcome to series two of Diverse Ed podcast. I’m Jess Boyd and I’m a former head of music and currently writing my PhD in culturally relevant pedagogy. I work in initial teacher training and I also run an open access community music project.

00:01:20:11 – 00:01:42:08
Mahlon
My name is Mahlon Evans-Sinclair and I’m the founder of Educating While Black podcast and I’m currently the director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at a girl-focused school in Toronto, Canada. In this episode, we’ll be speaking to Beckie West from the Disability chapter. So, nice to meet you, Becky. Nice to be on this call with you. Could you introduce yourself to listeners in a couple of sentences?

00:01:43:01 – 00:02:02:07
Beckie
So hi, I’m Becky West. I am the head of school at a specialist autistic provision in West London, where we cater for children on the autism spectrum from really complex needs to moderate needs. And I wrote the chapter on making sex education inclusive.

00:02:03:06 – 00:02:03:23
Mahlon
Love that.

00:02:03:26 – 00:02:04:10
Beckie
Is that what I’m supposed to say?

00:02:04:10 – 00:02:06:29
Mahlon
That’s exactly it. That’s exactly it. Thank you so much.

00:02:08:00 – 00:02:20:05
Jess
We absolutely adored your chapter and really want to dive into it now. And I’d love to start by you describing a bit more about the intersections of your own identity and how that contributed to you writing this chapter.

00:02:20:18 – 00:03:49:10
Beckie
Yeah. Okay. So, yeah, I suppose it’s a late diagnosis thing, as most girls will talk to you about, which is really bad. So I was diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 34, and that was because of a string of really confusing times where I always felt a bit like I didn’t, nothing really matched up all the time. And I think my whole life I thought that was because from 14 years old coming out at secondary school, I had identified as a, yes, lots of people would identify me as a lesbian, but actually I identify as, I call myself a gay woman, which I think you know, is important to know everyone’s individual identification. So yeah, and I thought my difference was that I was gay. So that’s always othered me. But actually it was really amazing to see what I discovered about myself when I was diagnosed with ADHD because that was like the final piece of the puzzle. And it’s really helped to develop my understanding of how I sometimes have found things confusing through my life. And as an educator, my focus is to try and eliminate some of those barriers for the young people that I work with.

00:03:49:22 – 00:04:35:09
Jess
I love that [Mahlon: Same]. And yeah, it gives me chills because I was diagnosed with dyslexia while I was training as a teacher. My tutor noticed it because I was handwriting lesson plan because I was rushing. She was like, whoa. And I was like, what? And she’s like I think you’re dyslexic, I was like, no way. She was like, come on, let’s go for a diagnosis seeing as you’re a student at the moment. And it was like, you are very dyslexic. It’s fascinating that, yeah, it blows my mind hearing how many people navigate throughout the system without the support of the system that you’re now specifically working in. Yeah, it’s amazing.

00:04:35:15 – 00:05:18:03
Beckie
I think what’s really funny about it is I think it really highlights that I suppose ten years ago lots of the things that we’re talking about would be called learning difficulties. The fact that people would associate them with something to do with IQ. And it’s really not about IQ. And I think that actually because it’s not about IQ, there are so many people who navigate the system because they are able to and are very intelligent and bright young people. So they navigate round it and then they get to a certain point where life does become very complicated and then they explode because they haven’t got the coping strategies, because no one’s ever actually supported their needs appropriately. I think that’s hard.

00:05:19:00 – 00:05:32:13
Jess
And that description of, I just wish life quote unquote the system just needs to not be the way it is. And then nobody would need to quote unquote adapt. Like it’s, ahhh, sorry, frustrated.

00:05:32:15 – 00:05:34:28
Beckie
It is frustrating.

00:05:35:13 – 00:07:36:11
Mahlon
And it’s a great conversation starter to be fair, because there’s also the idea of like as you just said, like ten years ago, even when we were training, when we were in school, the whole conversation around you have a learning difficulty or you have a need, like even just those words always start from like a position of lack, like you lack something that apparently the norm has, and it’s a really frustrating place to even know that I might be different, but my difference doesn’t sit next to someone else’s difference. My difference sits below an assumed standardised norm. And so that even shifting the mindset of say in that difference of next to not above or below is a big cognitive shift that I’m glad we’re moving towards and that we’re having those conversations about. But as you said, like it’s taken so many people to have to learn that for themselves in adulthood and having to go throughout life like constantly, perhaps feeling as though I need to peg level in a place or starting from lack or deficit to a position of normalcy. Versus actually no, it just needs to widen. Learning needs to widen itself to fit me. And I don’t need to do anything more to be counted as a learner in the space. It’s just, I don’t want to just say it’s wordplay, but I guess I’m remarking on that with relationship to you identifying as a gay woman versus a lesbian. I call myself a queer man, and I know that queer is a term that historically has not been great for many people in the UK, but words matter, meanings matter. And so being able to nuance it for yourself and explain why this is why I call myself what I call myself or explain why there is a difference saying that a learning differential is different to a learning need or a learning lack. So all of those things matter in understanding what actually we’re talking about.

00:07:36:20 – 00:10:05:28
Beckie
Yeah, and I think it can be so hard can’t it because I think that we are, I don’t think we should get hung up on labels about stuff because I think that and the key term, we’re an autistic specialist school. So one of the key terms that we always talk about is if you’ve met an autistic person, you’ve met one autistic person. And I think that’s really important to remember with all labels, because I think, yes, there are positions of more otherness and there is lack because the system is not wide enough for everyone at the moment, but at the same time, every single person has something that they need to be seen for. And yes, those things may not be really making their life intensely difficult, like it could be for an autistic person or a person of colour or a gay person or all of those things. But everyone’s got something that actually they need to be seen for. And I think actually inclusion in my head is it’s seeing the authentic person every time and actually listening to them for themselves because it includes everyone, it includes white, straight males, neurotypical. It’s listening to that person for who they are. It’s not about saying people who are of otherness are more important now, because I think that’s the narrative that seems to be out there. It’s about the fact that we are all equal and we are all, should be heard for our voice, because I think that’s something I really am finding hard at the moment in school with lots of the narratives about Andrew Tate and masculinity. And again, sort of it comes back to relationships, education and stuff like that because I think that’s because those boys need themselves to be heard too. And I do hear that. Yes, I know. Straight white men is the key thing and always have been heard, but they also need to be heard equally. And I need, particularly for my school where I have a lot of boys because the diagnosis is still so skewed that those boys need to have their place too. So I suppose in my head inclusion is everybody having their voice equally heard because everyone has a unique place.

00:10:06:23 – 00:12:23:02
Mahlon
You’ve come out swinging, you’ve come on swinging. There’s, just on what you’ve just said, there’s a notion that says, for example, to your point about identity and labels, right, and where the problem lies. Me being black is not a problem. Racism is the problem, right? So similarly to the straight white boys, as it were, you being straight or white is not the problem. It’s patriarchy as currently is is the problem. And I think that like, again, you know, not getting hung up on words and labels and such, but reframing that like your identity is not the problem. You come as you are. Like the inclusion piece says that you are included and invited here. Yeah, that’s not the issue. The issue is the framing of how that assumption about who you are entering into the space is predicated. That’s the problem. So I think like that is, yeah, just to kind of help to flesh out what you’re saying and relating it to myself. Yeah, I’ve never had an issue being black. Black is not the issue. Racism as a preventative measure for me enjoying my blackness is the issue. And similar to what you said at the start, the idea that you probably never had an issue with who you are and how you are and how you show up, but a lack of helpful diagnoses and then support structures after the fact probably has been more of the problem, not how you appear to show up, see the world, view the world. So those things are really important to put in there. I do want to touch on something and moving the conversation along to what you said because you know your chapter, the title is Sex Sex Sex Making Sex and Relationship Education Inclusive. I love it. Exactly as you come out swinging in this conversation. You come out swinging with the title. And I guess my question is, why was that something that perhaps was felt to be missing in the narrative with regards to disabilities and how it shows up in school? I feel like it’s such a unique chapter that could often be overlooked. But what you’re basically speaking to is the idea of like, if everybody is everybody, then what’s good for a is as good for b to z, right? So having that conversation is one that could obviously be missed. And I just wondered what you felt about adding it to the chapter that you wrote

00:12:23:04 – 00:16:08:08
Beckie
Okay. So I think that, um, notoriously kids with special needs sometimes get overlooked in sex education, sometimes to the point of historically at times removed from sex education lessons because it was thought that they would not understand. And I think that’s a really dangerous thing. And it’s dangerous for two reasons. I think it is dangerous because our children with complex needs are some of the most vulnerable children and so could be at risk of harm. And I think that’s why they have to know even more so. But I also think that there is a lesson to think about the, who are we to say that somebody is not entitled to have the skills given to them to have belonging, and relationships are belonging. And that is one of the key parts of, you know, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and belonging is relationships and the idea that they should be allowed to and sex not as and I suppose as that comes from being a gay person, sex is something that is an intimate act between two people as opposed to something for always procreation. And that it’s really important that someone can navigate that because particularly working in the autistic specialism it’s social communication. So relationships are the most nuanced thing and loads of what relationships are are so subtle. And I deal in the literal everyday. So it is a very, incredibly literal the world I deal with. And so you can’t have the subtleties of relationships at times. And I’m not saying that for all autistic people. I was having a conversation today about some of our autistic young people are some of the best readers of people, and it’s often overlooked that they are so advanced in their theory of mind as opposed to being so limited by it that they can actually see too far ahead. But actually, we, they still need that relationship education because it, we shouldn’t deny them. It’s like not giving them the tools to fix their car. I don’t think that’s fair, especially when it is the key to keeping people alive. Like belonging always makes me think of the Rat Park research where you’ve got the rats that will take, there’s cocaine laced water and they’ll take cocaine and cocaine and cocaine in a box by themselves until they die. But if you put them in Rat Park where there’s things to do and there’s the opportunities to have sex, and there’s the opportunity to socialise, those rats never touch cocaine again. And I think that’s really important because you’ve got to think about how many, and particularly ADHD and the search for dopamine, addiction, risk taking behaviour, all of those things. And what if it could be solved by really good relationship education so that person feels like they are enough. And I think that’s where you come back to the lacking that you talked about at the beginning, because no child in my school should feel like they’re lacking something. They’re all enough and sometimes more than enough. So yeah.

00:16:08:09 – 00:16:25:04
Jess
That was so beautifully put. Thanks so much Beckie. Zooming out a little bit, the team that you were on, the chapter team, that your essay sits in, what were some of the conversations around the kind of frustrations around this protected characteristic that you all wanted to get across.

00:16:26:22 – 00:18:20:01
Beckie
Oh, it feels like ages ago that we had those conversations, but I think it was, it’s about being heard isn’t it and I think it’s hard even with the word disability. I think there’s so many controversial terms. I think there is for very diverse section. But I think disability, it’s sort of already the word is there’s a lesser ability. And I think there was controversial conversations about different ability and the, you know, politics, going through different titles that we should call people. And we were all coming from a different point of view because obviously there’s also the mental health element of it as well. And discussing we had a few conversations about adverse childhood experiences as well and how those cater to the presentation of things that happened in later life. We did have a conversation about girls because I talk quite often about girls and autism and how difficult that is because lots of girls then come to their diagnosis in terms of autism and ADHD with more mental health issues because they haven’t had the right support for their the neurological disorder. So it’s yeah, we talked about, yeah, lots of different things and I suppose there’s lots of different voices because disability is one umbrella term for a lot of different things because I mean a physical disability and the whole concept of not all disabilities are visible is another whole conversation that can be very difficult because there’s lots of difference between otherness that you can see and otherness that you can’t see. So yeah, it was really good to connect with more people that had very different points of view.

00:18:21:05 – 00:18:54:12
Jess
I love that. And for the dear listeners who are at the beginning of their DEI journey and this is where as much as these chapters as protected characteristics are a helpful start – intersectionality – there’s so much more to us that these chapters, right. And even the more we dig into these nuances, the more the umbrella of these protected characteristics don’t fit, because there’s way much more nuance to us than this. But it is a brilliant start. It sounds like a powerful team.

00:18:55:04 – 00:20:28:06
Beckie
I think the intersectionality thing, it ties back in to that phrase about you’ve met one autistic person because there is research that I’d read when I was investigating around this and around my own interests just generally in school. And this is taking each label separately, but then it’s also taking each label together because it makes, and the research was about, the woman, I’m not going to remember her name, so I apologise for not quoting your research correctly, but she was a black disabled lesbian and it was all of those things on their own have their own nuances, but together they’re a unique thing because they’re also something that sort of distances you from each group because you’ve come from it from a different angle. So it’s, I mean, I see that in school all the time. I see that because the way I approach one of our boys will be completely different. And I think, again, our black autistic children, have very different situations to our white autistic children, but also our Polish autistic children. So there’s all of these things. And then there’s you add in the part of it that means that someone’s a bilingual autistic person where English is not their first language, and it’s a whole new section of social emotional, well, social communication. So, yeah, you’ve met one person.

00:20:28:22 – 00:21:35:12
Jess
You’ve met one person, and you’ve just pulled out such a point. I bang my head against the wall when I talk about this stuff with other people. Is it, yeah, there’s all these like, nuances to our characteristics, and somebody again who is nervous about diving into this world better but trying to would stop me in here and say, oh, it’s too, it’s too many, too complicated, like how, I don’t want to get anything wrong. I don’t, you know, I don’t want to get something wrong for my Polish autistic students and then my black autistic students and then this and that. And you just alluded to something that I think trumps everything else, which is the relationship with each child. And that relationship allows you to understand them as a person before the labels, before the nuance of the labels, before, you know, and that is how you build and weave together community and belonging is by looking at a person and knowing them. And then building from context from that, you know, I just wanted to stress that because it does my head in. Go on, Mahlon.

00:21:35:14 – 00:26:08:22
Mahlon
I was going to in the same vein, there’s two things that came to mind when you’re speaking, it’s who gets to own a label, right? So everything that you’re speaking about. So I am, I guess I don’t have a designation that would say anything other than neurotypical. Right. But if I were to take the BAME label or the POC label, what you were alluding to in the conversation that you as a contributor to the chapter of disabilities were saying, it’s like it’s funny when you hold the label as this is an aspect of difference, what does that look like with regards to, so we’re all in the same room because someone has said we all are different, but then when we start speaking to each other, my difference ain’t your difference and your difference ain’t my difference and some of my differences are visible, some of them are less visible, some of them are more pronounced, some of them show up on occasions. And I can, it really makes me think about how BAME as a label, the reason why it’s been trashed so much is because if, in essence, what you’re saying is anyone that’s not white, just say that. Because there’s no, the BAME label doesn’t work when you’ve got quote unquote all BAME people together talking about their BAMEness And so similar to what you’re speaking about, the disabilities chapter could have been its own book because there are so many voices and so many different nuanced aspects to what a difference in ability is, that even to use, as you said, some might call it that, some might say it’s a disability, some might say it’s an added ability, some might say, whatever the labels are. It’s interesting when we the group are able to own our narrative versus someone saying, here’s a label that you have to wear. You just get a different appreciation of what the whole label is. And I guess what it’s making me think about is even in this episode and perhaps the whole chapter in addition to your essay within it, what it’s like to regard a conversation that’s happening between people that you don’t have access to intervene in, so almost like just watch the conversation for what it is and pick up on what you can learn from the conversation being a non-verbal, listener to the conversation versus interrupting folk and saying you should be, and I didn’t think, and this is how I, like, it’s just a very different thing to just regard passively a conversation about how identities regard themselves when you are not the person saying this is an identity that’s different to my own. And that’s just one thing that really came to mind when you’re speaking there. And then to Jess’s point, I think, like the, who, now your essay a bit more. I think that struck me and it’s not even that struck me, it’s a good reminder. And I think it’s a very obvious point for everyone. How you wrote your essay. I’m just going to give the headings of the parts of your essay so you’ve got: know the students, adapting the curriculum to meet needs, the need for high quality professional learning for educators, learning through life experience, making a change. It’s funny because, like, that could be a course of teacher training irrespective of any differential aspects of identity. And I think what is often forgotten about, and this is what Jess was alluding to, the panic that sometimes comes up by people saying, oh, this is what I’d have to do for non-diagnosed kids or kids without a label or for my regular, I don’t know, white working class or the boys or this is what I do for this group. And then you throw in another label and now I don’t know what to do now, I don’t know how I’m supposed to meet their needs. And what your essay really speaks to is what’s good for one is good for all, because difference comes from the point of how do I build good relationships and how am I meaningful towards what I’m teaching and the education of young people. I’m pretty much doing 90% of what I need to do for everybody’s benefit, save for the 10% where I might need to do something slightly different. But I just wonder if there’s anything that you want to speak to in regards to why those labels, or not labels, hear me now, why the headings were almost a reminder that you wanted to get educators to think about with regards to how they do their job.

00:26:09:29 – 00:28:52:08
Beckie
Yeah, I think and I’m also aware I need to sit here and recognise that I’m very privileged in the fact that I work in the provision I work in. So the maximum class size I work with is eight. So I do know that knowing the students is something that, well, I know every child in the school and I sit in an office a lot of the day and I know all of those children very well to ask them things about their lives. And there’s 148. So it’s very different to being in a large scale secondary school. But I do know that we provide better education by just knowing them. And I think that had to be first, because if you don’t know where that person comes from, you can’t actually adapt to their needs. And I suppose thinking about it, would I adapt those titles now? Because yeah, it’s not actually adapting to the needs, it’s adapting, it’s adapting to the needs of the people. But everybody in your class has needs and they all have different needs because I think this is where relationships education is essential and difficult, absolutely difficult. And that’s why it’s involves a lot of education that we don’t, you know, PSHE is that thing that happens and that people say, well, put it in, you know, registration time, the form tutor will do it. And then also, you know, the head of history. And then it’s this person, and it’s, you can’t, you can’t do it all. You need people who really are passionate about PSHE because you have to know them. And you have to know every bit about where they come from, because everyone has a different household, everyone has a different approach, everyone has seen different relationships in their lives. So I mean, if we just talk about adapting to different families, like I know that obviously the news has had loads of stuff about, oh my gosh, we’re teaching about LGBTQ relationships with kids. We’re not just teaching about that. We’re teaching about, well, about our kids that are adopted. What about our kids that live with their grandparents? There are single parent families. There are parents that are mixed race parents. There are kids that are mixed race kids who are with parents that are white. And all of those, all of those things are completely different experiences they come from. So you have to know those things before you delve into a really personal part of the curriculum, which is intimate relationships. So I suppose that’s yeah, sort of where those titles came from.

00:28:52:22 – 00:31:28:11
Mahlon
Agreed and it’s what you said at the end. I think it’s like, it’s a really crass analogy and it’s not going to make sense across the way. But like before you can drive a truck, you just need to know how the car works, right? So it doesn’t matter what kind of car you drive, whether it’s a jeep or a small one or whatever. There are certain understandings of like this is how the road more or less works. This is how a car more or less works. This is how like, I don’t know, people interacting with the road, the car, but this is how it more or less works. And me even using that term of like more or less, it’s like within the parameter, I don’t want to say typicality because that is not where we’re going with it. But like the idea of even if this is what I have experienced, this is more or less what I know the world to be. But I also know that on the same road there are people who do drive trucks. So I may not drive a truck, but I know that a truck on this road would pretty much operate in a similar way. I may not ride a motorbike, but I can get, so in essence, what it sounds like is you’re speaking to the idea that it helps when people have a healthy regard of who they are to be able to relate to who other people are. It’s funny. Like this whole conversation that keeps coming up. So I work in girl-focused private school as well. The conversation that is assumed that we talk about with regards to sex ed, sex ed is like but one part of the education piece and furthermore for a kid at their world view at their age, this is not a part that we need to focus on, so much as it is assumed that we focus on, may be using the same analogy of road safety. Maybe it’s about crossing the road. That’s the level of conversation we are having with them about how to regard yourself with regards to the road at large of how to press the button, wait for the green man to come on and then cross. We are not having conversations about changing gear in the truck. Because it is so far beyond them right now, but they need to know other aspects of how the road works and the fixation on, you are teaching them this part aren’t you. It’s like, no, we are teaching them whole road safety. As again, an analogy for relationships, that’s what we are doing and so to kind of assume that well those people can’t drive a car and those people can’t ride a bike and, and those people shouldn’t be able to drive trucks. It doesn’t make the whole road work safely. It actually just biases again to some of us who are able to flex more so on the road than others, I think that analogy worked.

00:31:28:13 – 00:33:18:06
Beckie
Well, I think it’s, I think at the root of it, it’s about knowing that everybody, every car has some sort of steering wheel. That steering wheel will look different, but at the same time you will have one. So at the root of everything, every conversation you have about relationships, the more you have those conversations, and are willing to hear both sides because I think that sometimes, again, some of our conversation starters are a problem at the moment and what happens where we get these people who are going to shout and on both sides and we do have it on both sides that people are shouting their voice and they’re not prepared to listen to the other side. And both sides have a voice. And it’s about knowing that actually the more you listen to each other’s voice, the more you’ll find similarities because we are all humans. So and yeah, I try to talk to the boys about that all the time because when we have, so we quite often have a week in June, which is very rainbow colours in our school and we very much enjoy. For the past three years now, we’ve had pride and we have events to do with pride and it’s just, it’s really nice to explain that ‘a’ in terms of not asexual but ally, because often lots of our kids think, well, this isn’t for me, this is for a select few kids saying that they’ve come out and I’m like no, the a is everyone because the a is about the fact that we’re all just accepting each other for who we are and we’re going to fight to let everybody have their part in society and that we’ve all got things that are similar. Ultimately, everyone just wants to be loved.

00:33:18:09 – 00:33:58:01
Jess
Beckie, you’re very good at the way you articulate. Like it’s very, like you said, Mahlon, she just comes out with these bars all the time. But it’s very yeah, it’s just, I love the way you phrase things. And on that, one of my favourite parts of your chapter, building on what we’re talking about. You talked about the hidden curriculum and you said here the hidden curriculum is the unwritten rules and social behaviours learned from being in school. Makes my heart break hearing that. But can you elaborate a bit more for our listeners? What would you describe in day to day schools as the hidden curriculum?

00:33:58:04 – 00:36:54:08
Beckie
Well, there’s the routine of everything that happens and the things that I suppose, it’s again, it ends up being very different in educational settings like mine, because mine could look very different, all the time, but it’s, the expectations are set inside, well I suppose within the school system, so that people move in the same way as the, the levels of respect that I mean, I’m very much, so all of our kids call us by our first names. And that’s something I feel really passionate about at our school. And it’s always been that way before me as well. But it’s something I’m passionate about because I think there’s a hierarchy system in schools and often teachers come with a power that is just a power and a label. And I think that’s very confusing that a label on someone would then make them more important than someone else. And I, I feel that my label as head of school is because respect is earned and respect comes from you giving it first. So I wouldn’t expect a child to respect me at times if I have done something that is disrespectful to them. And yeah, I mean, we don’t often shout in the school despite the things that go on because it’s not going to work with our kids. But also you wouldn’t do that with another adult. So, and I do know there are situations in a mainstream school, you’d always do that because you would, it’s safety. And I think I’m always clear with the class I work with, if you’re doing something extremely unsafe, I will shout and I am telling you that I will shout because I am frightened. And actually when I think you’re unsafe and I have to shout, I know that I’m not in control of that situation because I am, I care more for your safety than I do about the level of respect I’m giving you. But I think that any teacher who walks into a room and expects respect because they’re the teacher, I struggle with now and I’m not saying you shouldn’t have it, but we don’t get respect just because we’re adults. And I know that now as an adult who still feels very much at times like a lost 18 year old and thinks it’s mad I sit in this room as a head of school. So like, you know, all us adults are secretly lost inside in so many ways. So why do we think that kids should think that we’ve got all the answers? Because I think that’s also doing them a disservice, because they think that suddenly one day something will snap and they’ll become an adult and then they’ll have all the answers, and then they get there and they still haven’t got the answers, but they’re just older.

00:36:54:10 – 00:37:15:13
Jess
Honestly, I feel like you just spoke to my soul, Beckie, I feel like I walk around as my year nine self. I don’t think I’ve developed since year nine, that insecurity of thinking you’re older but not quite and then you just like turn into an adult and carry on pretending you’re an adult. But actually I’m still year nine and I don’t know what I’m doing.

00:37:15:15 – 00:38:15:12
Beckie
Yeah, yeah. And it’s a, I never say her name right and it’s such anxiety I get over it. So it’s not, it’s either Brene or Brienne [Jess: Brene Brown], she says about leaning into the vulnerability. And it is that it’s leaning into what do I gain, and the amount of respect I gain when I get it wrong and I go back to a kid and they think I’m about to tell them off again, and I go, Do you know what? I got that really wrong. I’m so sorry I did that to you. And at that point, it’s like I’ve had some of my most wonderful breakthrough moments with kids in the school. Yeah, absolutely. It’s difficult. But the breakthrough moment is then seeing that yeah, sometimes an adult gets it wrong and they can say sorry, too. And it meant something to me. And that’s real role modelling. If you want a kid to say sorry, best thing you can do is say sorry to them.

00:38:15:14 – 00:40:53:25
Mahlon
Okay, let’s start there. Right. I think Jess just said it like, you’re speaking, I feel like you’re speaking to and through so many people and I note that, perhaps it’s wrapped in a question, but I think the thing that I really took from what you’re saying before is the idea of when you’re speaking with regards to telling students that I might shout at you, this is the reason why in this moment is because of you’re giving so much context framing about in the emergency or in the eventuality that this has to come to pass. This is why, this is how, this is when, and then repairing that relationship after the fact. Because I guess what you’re also signalling is like, this is not nice for either of us. I don’t want to have to raise my voice as much as I know that you don’t want to have to have a voice raised at you. But when we do come back together at the other end of that, it’s like, are you okay? And it’s almost like they’re asking you the same thing and then are you okay? And I think what I, what is fitting with me is how rare that is in air quotes mainstream. The idea that we can rupture so many relationships and it’s just assumed they’ll bounce back. I will like hairdryer a kid today or like a whole grade or year group of kids today because I’m upset and I’m disregulated and I’ve got things on and then tomorrow’s just Friday and we’re good. There are as, not obviously as many but, when we talk about visible and less visible identity markers, there will be some kids in mainstream who will still benefit from having the same conversation that you’re saying that you have in your school because they are good for everybody. Like they, it’s good for everybody to know that in this moment it’s not our relationship because of you as the person that’s the issue. It might be situationally speaking, this thing becomes an overriding factor to how we regard each other in this moment. And I think anyone can get that, anybody can understand that circumstance, situation. But it’s also what you said, the power piece comes into play where it’s assumed that I am this, you are that, you just have to get on with how I speak to you. And that isn’t good for anybody. So I guess in all of that, what I’m thinking about is if there could be one thing that you could change in our education system to make it more inclusive and make relationships something that is regarded better by all, what might that be?

00:40:53:27 – 00:41:23:07
Beckie
I think this is so cheesy. If I say this. So before I was a teacher, I worked for a well-known supermarket chain and I was a senior leader in one of those that might rhyme with I can’t think of words like press go. Yeah. So they have a tagline I think it should be the tagline of any school that really wants to get it right for kids. And it’s that you should treat everyone as you wish to be treated.

00:41:24:05 – 00:41:26:12
Jess
Which is an oldie but goodie right.

00:41:26:16 – 00:41:33:18
Beckie
It is. Well, it’s yeah, I think that if you wouldn’t do it to yourself, don’t do it someone else and I. Yeah.

00:41:33:20 – 00:41:51:00
Jess
And to think about how teachers swan into a room and carry on and take that power, we say that ,we say that to kids all the time. I’m thinking about me and my own parenting now. You say that to kids all the time. Don’t, you know, treat everyone how you want to be treated and then you don’t treat them with the respect that you expect to come back to you.

00:41:51:07 – 00:42:27:23
Beckie
Yeah. And I think it’s funny cause that’s an age characteristic of the Equality Act that we don’t think about as much is children because there is this unwritten thing that we have a power over them. And yes, I know there’s, you know, being 18, being all of those ages, but actually there’s no age to give respect. Respect is entitled at any age. And actually, if you want to, as all good writers and English teachers do, if you want to get good writing out your kids, you role model it, so why don’t we do it with everything else?

00:42:27:25 – 00:42:33:12
Mahlon
Becky stop it now. You’re going to have people…

00:42:33:14 – 00:42:41:13
Jess
I just thought the same thing. I was like, oh my goodness, we’re going have to write another book because all of these revisions already.

00:42:41:15 – 00:43:33:03
Mahlon
I love it. And do you know what, it’s an oldie but goodie. It’s simple and it’s effective. It just gets the point. Nothing more needs to be added or said to it. To that point about power, maybe this is like a final reflection that you’ve given me from this is oftentimes power and responsibility are conflated and this is because you are responsible for the young people in your space, you’re not power over them in your space. So if I therefore need to step into this role, it’s because of the responsibility that I have for you or with you in that moment that is causing me to go into this mode. But it’s not because I’m powerful in this moment that I’m leaning on that. And I think that we often conflate responsibility and power as being the same things.

00:43:33:05 – 00:43:34:29
Beckie
Yeah. Very true.

00:43:35:02 – 00:43:42:07
Jess
Right. This is a lot for me to reflect on this evening. Okay, I’m going to wrap up. But Becky, thank you so much.

00:43:42:13 – 00:43:43:18
Beckie
Yeah, thank you.

00:43:43:29 – 00:43:58:19
Jess
Your work and this chapter and what you’re doing in your career is really like that high quality role modeling for us. And this is going to be a brilliant listen for everybody. So thank you so much for sharing.

00:43:58:22 – 00:44:00:15
Beckie
Yeah, well, thank you.

00:44:00:17 – 00:44:10:00
Mahlon
We’ve been Mahlon Evans-Sinclair, Jess Boyd and Beckie West, co-hosts and guest of season two of Diverse Ed podcast. See you next time.

00:44:10:02 – 00:44:13:10
Jess
Bye.

00:44:13:12 – 00:44:28:01
Hannah
[Outro Music] Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Diverse Ed podcast. Check out the show notes for the recommendations of today’s guest. We’d love to hear what you think, so do leave us a review We’ll be back soon with another author from our book Diverse Educators: A Manifesto.