[Intro Music]

00:00:08:27 – 00:01:04:26
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.

00:01:04:28 – 00:01:17:14
Mahlon
Hello and welcome to series two of the Diverse Ed podcast. My name is Mahlon Evans-Sinclair and I am the founder of Educating While Black podcast and the director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at St Clements school in Toronto.

00:01:17:17 – 00:01:34:00
Jess
And I’m Jess Boyd. 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. In this episode, we are going to be talking to Amy Ferguson from the Sexual Orientation chapter.

00:01:34:28 – 00:01:37:05
Amy
Hello. Thank you for having me today.

00:01:37:13 – 00:02:00:15
Mahlon
Nice to have you here as well, Amy. Your chapter is really, really, really important and really interesting. And as a coauthor in the Sexual Orientation chapter, I really enjoyed reading your essay. So I guess why don’t we start there by saying, could you introduce yourself and your chapter in couple of sentences so that the audience gets a feel of who you are?

00:02:00:17 – 00:03:04:04
Amy
Okay, so I’m Amy Ferguson and I am, you’ll very quickly be able to tell that I am from mighty, mighty Birmingham. I live in Oxfordshire with my wife who is in the RAF. I am an assistant principal at a large mainstream secondary school. It’s a Catholic school and I’ve been teaching for 14 years, I know I don’t look it, not that the listeners can see me, but I don’t look I’ve been teaching for 14 years I’d like to say. My chapter is all about aligning your own personal identity, how you see yourself and how you would like to be perceived potentially, with the, how it aligns with the vision and the kind of intention at school and how you want to portray that identity at school and whether or not you choose to share everything or you choose to be more private and what the reasons potentially could be and advantages of sharing as much of yourself with the children and your colleagues at school.

00:03:04:06 – 00:03:18:01
Jess
So interesting. Okay. So we’re going to dive into our first question and can you tell us a bit more about how the different intersections of your identity and how that inspired you to write your contribution to Diverse Educators: A Manifesto?

00:03:18:03 – 00:05:51:18
Amy
Yeah, so for me, I always talk about the fact that I’m mixed race. My dad is from the Caribbean. My mum is British but has got an Irish family and you know, that’s something that, you know, I look mixed race. You can tell that I’m mixed race, but you know, my skin is brown, but I feel like it’s sometimes a shock to people when I reveal I’m married to a woman or, you know, they become very flustered because they’ve said husband and, you know, blah, blah, blah. And it’s kind of like it feels like all of these different intersections of my, of me and what I identify with, being a woman. Some things it feels like you can’t pick up and put down one thing, but one thing is more obvious, maybe then another. If you think stereotypically the assumptions that people make, that’s really what inspired me. And I think teaching for so long and children, I’m always a teacher whether they know that I’m gay or not, and I’m always a teacher that children tell that they’re questioning their sexuality or questioning their gender or I’m always the teacher that gets that kind of, I think I am gay, I think I’m queer. I think I fancy my best friend, what should I do, kind of thing. And I think by me talking about how I identify and my relationship and the fact, you know, you might just say my wife said, and I think it just kind of gives the children, whether they’re gay or anything else, a little bit of, oh, it is normal. You just said it in just a normal, usual, I’m doing air bunny quotes, normal, usual way that it’s not something that needs to be a big parade. Of course you can have a big parade. How lovely would that be? But you don’t need to. It could just be, yeah, that’s what my life is like. And it’s okay. And it’s normal. Usual. And there are people in the world just out there living their life as this identity of person. And because they might not have met a black teacher before and they might not have met a gay teacher before, a gay person before. So it’s giving the face of the identity or protected characteristic in a way, I’m showing people that people are just out in the world living and it’s okay.

00:05:52:18 – 00:06:52:03
Mahlon
You know, it’s interesting because how you’ve articulated everything, there’s a lot of stuff that already comes to mind with regards to ideas around which identities are more visible or which identities are more what’s the word I’m even looking for, I guess much more… [Jess: seen?] seen, but then also more assumed, right? So the idea that even a person who is attached to black identity when blackness and homophobia come together, this for some people it’s a party, right? So there’s an assumption that anyone that is associated with black would obviously be homophobic. And so therefore, it might be even more of a shock for some folks to have a biracial teacher or mixed race teacher to also say I’m also gay, like I’m a lesbian, I have a wife, I have kids. And so I guess with thinking about that, was there a particular voice that you wanted to bring to the chapter on sexual orientation that intersected with anything else, so any of the other identities that you may have.

00:06:52:05 – 00:08:07:12
Amy
I think certainly around being a woman and thinking about stereotype threat and being able to perform within that stereotype and whether it is a performance, I feel like I’m going to go off on about 10 million tangents here, but thinking also around aligning who you are with where you work, and also not being afraid that if you, you don’t have to stay in that school, if you are not, if you don’t, your identity or how you choose to present in whatever way, whether it even is your teaching style or you know, your values aren’t the same, don‘t be afraid to say actually this isn’t the right school for me, I’ll go somewhere else. So it’s about the alignment of your identity and how much you show, how much you feel safe to show. If you don’t feel safe to show yourself at the school in what way, whatever way, big way, small way, private or not. If you don’t feel safe, then you’re not in the right school. So yeah. How much you share is different to your kind of level of safety, how much you feel safe to share. I don’t know if I’m making any sense?

00:08:07:23 – 00:08:51:07
Jess
You’re making so much sense and do you know what, I feel, you just said that and I just thought how I wish someone would have told me that when I was training. I broke my neck to look professional when I started teaching. My hair was never curly. My outfit, I was wearing the stupidest pencil skirts and heels and trying to look, you know. And I just, I think I fell into my, you know, as you grow, I fell into my confidence in who I was at home that I can bring to school. But just, you just, you saying what you just said there. I wanted to like, massively highlight it somehow and put it on a billboard. Like, if only you knew you could just rock up as yourself from day one and you don’t have to do the whole dance, you know.

00:08:51:07 – 00:09:26:07
Amy
You don’t have to. And if you are doing it is so exhausting, so exhausting trying to, you know, especially like being a black woman, don’t talk over somebody else in a meeting because God forbid what they’ll start saying, you know, or thinking. You are so threatened by being able to even talk, aren’t you? Sometimes I don’t want to, I don’t want to argue a point, even though it’s the hill that I would die on because I’m worried that somebody is going to go, oh, God, she’s a bit angry isn’t she.

00:09:26:09 – 00:09:26:19
Jess
Oh, yeah.

00:09:26:22 – 00:10:10:16
Amy
That’s not, you know, you need to be very, very mindful of that. But the more I’ve become comfortable in sharing my identity and all of those kind of things, I’ve cared less about whether or not people are going to think that I am an angry black woman or I’m a loud you know, I’m a loud gay or whatever people might say. Because I think yeah, because some of the things that I’ll go on the hill and die for are important to me. So I don’t care about that stereotype threat. I will, I’m confident, comfortable enough secure, safe enough, to be able to argue those points now without fear of that threat.

00:10:11:26 – 00:12:17:26
Mahlon
You’ve said so much that it’s just, I’m percolating. There’s so much there in what you said. I mean one of the things that’s like was really important and I don’t know how you feel about, you know, your contribution to the chapter, but as a, you know, as a fellow BAME, bipoc, I’m not a fan of these terms anyway, but as a person who wrote also in the sexual orientation chapter, there was no way that I couldn’t bring my racial identity into the conversation around sexual orientation. And I think for everything that you’re saying, it’s something that’s really clear to me that I think I want to like just spotlight for a minute. Is, there’s the thing about knowing who you are, being comfortable in who you are, so that when you are told something that you’re not, you confront it to be like, that’s actually not me or it’s incidental that I’m also that thing or, you know, it’s in some ways it is a main driver of how I turn up or show up in the place because I’m that thing. But at the same time as being able to say it’s more relevant here. And so therefore, I’m going to make it clearer that this is something that I am or I stand for or that’s important and in another way it’s less important here. So this is just an added layer of who I am. And I think, you know, co-writer to co-writer in that sexual orientation chapter. It was something I also wanted to make clear from a different perspective. You’re identity when added to, if we’re talking about intersectionality, the way how sexual orientation is seen by structures that be, it’s already hard. And then as you just said, you tack on gender, and being a woman. And then what’s expected of how women show up in certain spaces and you tack on race and then again, how certain races are expected to show up in certain spaces it’s very complicated. I feel like, you know, I said your chapter was really clear from the get go about having a good sense of self means that whatever circumstance you are in, you can say I’m here and I belong here. Or, you know, it’s not for me but I’m not changing.

00:12:17:28 – 00:13:51:28
Amy
Yeah, absolutely. Because you will just exhaust yourself if you, like we were just saying, trying to do the whole square peg round whole thing. It’s not going to work, think about the British education system really as a whole, trying to fit all these people into the same shaped whole when we are all so different, isn’t going to work. If you’re trying to do that all the time, you’re quieting yourself, you will start listening to that voice that is telling you to be quiet and then you will spend years trying to unpick that and to uncover yourself and to find yourself where, you know, you could be responsible for dimming your light. To diminish you shine. Just find somewhere. There are places, you know, I worked in loads of schools, very different schools, some schools that are very welcoming, open and everything else. And worked a lots of schools where everybody is, you know, out there and great and having a lovely time And then you go to some schools where people are still very quiet about how they identify, and they can be and that’s fine. And it’s private and it’s cool but it’s different if you don’t feel safe. So that is where the difference is. If you don’t feel safe in school, why? Why? What are you doing? There are other jobs. Go somewhere else, you know? I mean, if you’re not comfortable, are you, you’re not safe. But yeah, I definitely resonate with a few of those things that you’re saying.

00:13:52:00 – 00:14:30:18
Jess
Again, I think it’s huge that you’re saying what sounds like really obvious things to us, but saying to a new trainee, if you don’t feel safe somewhere, move, that’s okay because you know, when you’re in a school and school community then you feel like that is it. That is the world and that is the right and wrong. You don’t know there’s options, you know. And so reflecting back on your chapter, then, when you were trying to challenge your readers, I really enjoyed how you drew on talking about history in Section 28. But how did you, what were the challenges that you really wanted your readers to understand when you were writing this chapter?

00:14:31:03 – 00:15:28:17
Amy
I want, so talking specifically about the Section 28 thing, I think that people don’t, people don’t realise that it was even there, like I’ve done assemblies about it at school, and people who are my age didn’t even realise it was there. And I think the challenge for me is unpicking the hangover of that section 28 and getting people to think, you know, this is why we didn’t, when we were at school, talk about gay people and people didn’t even realise it existed. And that’s a challenge, really. I think I really wanted people to think about the fact that they were, their learning was constricted about people, not constricted is that the right word, or a whole section of people, group of people were basically wiped from our education to even acknowledge that they exist.

00:15:29:14 – 00:15:33:20
Jess
But it was strategic, it was on purpose.

00:15:33:20 – 00:16:59:18
Amy
Exactly, and it was on purpose, and to get people to realise that their thoughts and feelings may be that they attached to LGBT+, that group of people are very much coloured by the lack of education that they received in school and then being able to raise a question and ask about any LGBT+, anything, you wouldn’t do that. And you weren’t able to for years and conversations were shut down. And I wanted people to to reflect on that and how much it impacts. Also the, you know, not only do people not know that gay people exist in the world because of Section 28, but how gay people live with the hangover of it. And, you know, you get ECTs saying, you know, am I allowed to talk about being gay, am I allowed to mention, and I work in a Catholic school as well, a very open, very great Catholic school, very diverse community. But genuine questions around am I allowed to talk about it at school whether or not they’re gay or not. And it’s just, it’s still a challenge. It still feels taboo. And it’s 2023, you know, this piece of legislation is, we’re not that long gone, but it is long gone. So we’re still living with the hangover of the thing and that’s important to think about.

00:16:59:20 – 00:19:10:28
Mahlon
It is important to think about. I kind of want to stay on the same topic, if that’s okay, because your takeaways in your chapter, they’re really insightful for the individual, right? So you’ve written – authenticity is key in our profession, when we bring our whole selves, students connect better with us and we are role models. And I want to stay on that. But I also really want to spotlight, because your chapter was amazing and I’m gushing about it. The idea of like what you’ve just said then and what you were just speaking about. The idea that, put it this way, the energy given to banning or while implementing Section 28, let’s go that way. The energy given to implementing it was not the same energy given to repealing it. And it’s almost as though when you’re talking about the hangovers of everyone involved, that it kind of makes sense as to why those questions around am I okay to be gay? Because I know that, like the law sounded heavier about I can’t say this, but it sounds a bit tepid with regards to, oh, you can be this. So I know the law says that like, you know, or has said in my day, you shouldn’t be this and you can’t promote this. And you know all of the negatives. You can’t, you shouldn’t, you mustn’t, etc., etc., etc.. And it doesn’t feel equally in the same way that you must, you should, imperative, go about doing it. It’s almost written in a way that says, if you want, we’re not going to persecute you for doing it, but we’re not going to necessarily promote you for doing it. And I think that in your takeaway is the idea of, you know, being yourself, promoting yourself, advocating for yourself, pushing for yourself. It ends up being, unfortunately at this stage in the game, more on the individual because institutionally we’re still dealing with the hangover of is it okay, can I like? And I just wonder how that perhaps connection from how your takeaways were written to thinking about how Section 28 how the hangover for everybody involved might work with some of our listeners thinking about what they should be doing or could be doing with regards to their own identities.

00:19:11:04 – 00:20:39:09
Amy
Yeah, I’ll go back to the idea of safety. If you feel safe enough and you want to share your identity, your sexual identity, orientation. If you want to share that, you feel safe enough to do that. It holds so much weight with the children because they will feel seen whether or not they are LGBT. If you feel safe, do it. If you don’t, don’t. That’s not me saying definitely move. I mean, if you feel safe, it holds so much weight with the children. It really, really does. If you can show up and be your authentic self it doesn’t have to be like, I say this all the time, it doesn’t have to be wearing a rainbow suit and come to school waving a flag and throwing confetti in the air with ten drag queens behind you. You could do that if you wanted to and it would be brilliant. And I’m thinking about that for later on in the term. You know, just being being you and even having a rainbow badge or a trans bad. Something as simple as that or having a rainbow sticker and saying that it’s a safe place. Not shutting conversations down around sexuality. If you feel safe enough to, if you feel that you have got, you know, some people might feel like they haven’t got the skills to have the conversation about it. Well then, don’t talk, just listen. Have your ears open. It’s all you’ve got to do, to me it’s about safety to be authentic. Authentic at school, and it’s up to you how much you share.

00:20:39:11 – 00:21:57:20
Mahlon
And that listening part is super important, right? Like you will hear things in the margins if you listen. And it’s as you said, it’s probably no surprise that so many kids have come out to you in one way, shape or form because they probably notice you listening or like they see that, you know, your body language about when something comes up isn’t bristling or trying to close the silence or trying to move the conversation along. There’s things that just kind of demonstrate that you’re a safe place to be. Demonstrating that you’re a safe place to be, then they’re more likely to come to you with stuff about, I’m thinking about this or I’m questioning about that. In a random way, I remember a kid kind of asked me if I was gay in a, his words were: Sir, you don’t really like football do you? No. I said no and his response was I thought not. Now to me the classiest way. But it stuck with me, right? [All laughing] Because it was, I feel that you don’t align in the same way as some of the other male identified teachers in our school. And so something about you is slightly different. And I wonder if it’s this thing. Let me ask in a way that’s not head on. Very savvy. So, like you were saying, by being your authentic self, allows for space for kids to do the same thing.

00:21:57:22 – 00:22:22:06
Amy
Absolutely. Absolutely, don’t, and again, it’s about how much you shared. You don’t have to do everything. And it can be like you saying those little nuggets of information. My wife does, or you know, my boyfriend or however you talk about it or, you know, just saying partner, partner can be enough, can’t it. You can see the kids, what do you mean partner, you see their eyebrows going up.

00:22:22:06 – 00:22:24:17
Mahlon
100%

00:22:24:19 – 00:22:56:16
Amy
And even that’s enough. Whatever you are comfortable with. Whatever you are confident with. However you feel that your truth needs to be shared in a safe way. If you are safe to do so, please do it. It can tell you, I can impress enough how much the children, they need it. They need people who who are confident in who they are and whatever that confidence or identity needs to be, they need to see safe, secure, adults.

00:22:57:29 – 00:23:27:20
Jess
I love how you, you’re already really singing like key messages in every way, which I love. And so when you were writing this and you were writing to an audience, what would you hope would like galvanise the action from the reader? Because it sounds like you’re speaking to other teachers and about their identity. But I’m just curious, like how you, what actions do you want your readers to take away from reading your chapter and listening to you now?

00:23:28:08 – 00:25:20:17
Amy
I want them to appreciate, but don’t think we do as teachers, we get so bogged down in the day to day, the marking, the duty, the 25 different lessons, however many lessons you are teaching, I think that you forget how much impact you can have on a child’s life. And I’d like, if there’s nothing else, just to think you might be a person that a child, just from being you in the classroom, from being yourself in the classroom, that child who’s probably never said anything to you, it means a lot to them. And it’s recognising that how much power that has for good and change in a young person, you just showing up and being authentically yourself in whatever way that is. Like, you know, we were saying about the curly hair thing, how much, how lovely that would be for black girls who are going home and have their hair straightened within an inch of their life. Actually coming in with my hair out, Miss is doing it, I could do it or, you know, wearing your rainbow badge. These things are so significant. The children are signposted that you are a safe person for them and you might be the only safe person that they know, they have or that you might be the person that they come to. It’s really I think for me, don’t underestimate, if I was to galvanise anything would be, don’t underestimate the power that your identity in you showing up authentically would have. Don’t dismiss it. Being you is more valuable than ticking, flicking books to the kids. It really is.

00:25:21:03 – 00:25:26:28
Jess
It’s just me. I’m getting real goosebumps. I’m like, can we just have Amy on a billboard?

00:25:27:01 – 00:25:30:07
Amy
No, I don’t need any more platforming.

00:25:33:12 – 00:26:05:08
Jess
How am I signposting that I’m a safe person? It’s a good one. Yeah, your phrasing. You’ve got so many nuggets. And my favourite line in the book that you said, no pressure, was the real magic you talked about. But the real magic happens in schools where your values and things that are important to you fit with the vision, ethos and values of the school. And I love that you frame that as magic because I get it. And can you elaborate on that point a bit more like the marriage of your identity and the school’s values?

00:26:05:29 – 00:27:05:09
Amy
Yeah, I think, I remember doing some senior leadership training course about 365 thing and then it shows you what your, pulls your values out. And then I’ve just used that really as you know, when you are looking at schools, look at their values, what their values statements are and what their, some schools have like and list of words and my school is like nurturing, inclusion, accountability, responsibility, growth, all those kinds of things. Those are the things that, how I would like, how I would have liked my senior school I went to, my secondary school as a teenager to have nurtured me and to enable me to grow. And it’s those kind of things, you know, doing that and I don’t even know what that test is called. It’s like a values based test and then your values come together and then you…

00:27:05:09 – 00:27:08:00
Jess
We’ve all done them.

00:27:08:03 – 00:29:45:04
Amy
Yeah. And then when you are in the school, can you feel those values when you go for your interview, can you feel them. That quote about lived not laminated. The values are in everything that they do in that school. It should be obvious from the moment you meet the receptionist to greet you in, to the children that you have the interactions with, to talking to the headteacher, head of governors, all of those kinds of things. And it is magic when it aligns because you get that sense of safety, you get that sense of belonging, you get that they are about community and they want the same things for the children that you do. And it’s not all and I’m not poo pooing the system about achievement and qualification and all of that. But it’s all very well having ten great A*, you know, nine GCSEs but your mental health has taken a pounding and you don’t know, all you know is by rote learning. Better to feel included isn’t it, and being somewhere you belong and you’ve had enriching experiences, you’ve made connections with others. Those things are all really, really important. It’s definitely, I’ve taught a schools where I thought, I knew on the interview day, this wasn’t the right place, but I accepted the job anyway. And then came a cropper later on. You know, oh, my values don’t align or, you know. I’m the only one of these people here. So that’s why I think it’s important, that’s why you think that thing is important because you are one of those people. Okay, then here’s my notice. So. So yeah, it does feel magical. And then that feeds into the sense of safety. And then you can just go in and be yourself every single day. You don’t have to try, to put a, you do have to try, obviously, I don’t mean not try at all, like mark your books of course. You don’t have to put on a front every day. You can just go in and be you and the sense of enjoyment, the relationships with the kids, it’s just great. Makes it worth it. You see those, I always see those cheddar cheese get into teaching advert, but so much of it is what it is about. It is about that connection with the children and that is that’s magic. And it comes from the sense of safety that you being able to do that you’re not going to be able to give yourself to the job or to the children if you haven’t got that sense of alignment.

00:29:45:06 – 00:31:48:09
Mahlon
I think a reason why we’re not stopping to say anything is because what you say is profound and I genuinely mean that, I genuinely mean that. I feel like this is probably an episode I want people to listen back to a few times because the things will hit differently the more you hear it. And in your chapter, like there’s a part where, you know, I’m just going to read it out real quick. You talk about the relationships we have with the young people in our classrooms, impacts not only the engagement in the subjects and perhaps results, also more importantly, these relationships have a lasting impact on how the young people see themselves and how they see themselves in the world. And everything that you’re speaking to engagement, relationships, it comes up time and time and time again in both what you are speaking to here. But I think Jess and I would be on the same page. I know Jess will be on the same page with regards to the idea about relationships matter more in terms of what your experience at school does for your ability to be a lifelong learner, to enjoy being curious, right? Like the idea of, you know, you could pass history in a pub quiz, like maybe that’s where you remember some facts and figures and some dates and a pub quiz, and that’s great but the level of curiosity about, you know what, like I actually want to know more about that thing also bleeds into wanting to learn more about, as you said, those people. So you are one of those people. What makes you one of those people and why do I put myself as different to one of you? So we no longer have this them and us? It’s actually, you know what, like we all are people in this school. So if you talk about the idea of community and inclusion. Those people, then you’re saying that I don’t belong here because I’m one of our people, it‘s our people, it’s our school. So I can’t be one of those if I’m one of our space. And so, yeah, in all of that, my question is, I keep getting profound reflections on what you’re saying, in an ideal world, and I think perhaps maybe from how your chapter has been written, it sounds like you’re speaking to a post something world.

00:31:48:11 – 00:32:13:04
Mahlon
So maybe if I were to rephrase the question in so far as in a post Section 28 world, what changes would you like to see continue to happen in the school system regarding the protective characteristic that you write about? So sexual orientation, but beyond that, like because what helps one helps all so I just wonder what else you would think the school system could do with regards to keep on the keeping on.

00:32:13:04 – 00:33:59:15
Amy
For me it’s don’t be afraid to, if a child starts talking about something that is, you know, is particularly around an LGBT issue, don’t shut the conversation down. I know it might not be appropriate to talk about it right there in maths, you know what I mean, but don’t shut it down too quickly, or giving it the space appropriately with it, you know, within the context of maths, let’s say, don’t shut it down and move on. Keep those conversations going. Because if you shut it down, it might have been that child’s only chance to say that, they felt comfortable in that moment to say it. And whether you gave it 90 seconds might just be enough for them to feel seen, to feel heard, even though it may feel like a short, that might be a short amount of time. But it’s a big moment for them. For me it’s keep having the conversations, especially around things that are uncomfortable because, you know, there’s that old thing about the only way of getting comfortable is being uncomfortable for a bit and you don’t have to be, you know, a guru or a scholar in LGBT+ history to have a conversation with a child about about being LGBT+. So I think you don’t have to be an expert in it to talk about it. Don’t shut the conversation down too soon, give the child the space, give the class the space. You can always come back to what you were doing, you can always come back to it, don’t rush off, give them the space. I feel like I’m repeating myself. I don’t even know if that was answering the question.

00:33:59:18 – 00:34:29:23
Jess
Totally, you really have, I’ve said this already. You really seem to have honed your message of that, your authentic message to you as a person and as you articulate. So, yes, I just want to say thank you for articulating safety and authenticity so well, it’s really powerful. And like Marlon said, I’d really recommend that people listen back there’s a few headlines I think could really change people’s thinking. So thank you.

00:34:30:17 – 00:34:58:26
Amy
It doesn’t have to be a huge change. You don’t have to do a huge coming out assembly. You don’t have to do those things. I know people do. It is great. And you know, we don’t have to, it could be a small thing so that the kids feel safe around you, that they can trust you. And that comes from listening and small things like badges and those kinds of things having not been afraid to have those conversations, don’t shy away from it.

00:34:58:28 – 00:34:59:27
Jess
Love it.

00:34:59:29 – 00:35:26:10
Mahlon
I have nothing more to add because we will start a whole new conversation. I love it. I’m here for it. It could be a recurring event. So with all that said, we’ve been Mahlon Evans-Sinclair and Jess Boyd, the co-hosts of season two of Diverse Ed podcast and massive massive massive thanks to Amy our guest today. See you all soon.

00:35:26:13 – 00:35:28:02
Amy
Thanks for having me. Thank you.

00:35:28:05 – 00:35:32:09
Jess
No worries. Bye.

00:35:32:12 – 00:35:47:00
Hannah
[Outro 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 – 00:01:05:02
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.

00:01:05:04 – 00:01:20:13
Jess
Hello and welcome to series two of the Diverse Ed podcast. I am Jess Boyd and I’m a former head of music and currently writing my Ph.D. in culturally relevant pedagogy. I work in initial teacher training and I also run an open access community music project.

00:01:20:16 – 00:01:40:10
Mahlon
And 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’re talking to Jeremy Davies from the sex chapter. So welcome, Jeremy. It’d be great if you could introduce yourself to the audience in a sentence or so.

00:01:40:13 – 00:01:59:10
Jeremy
Hi. Well, it’s good to be here. Yeah. I’m Jeremy. I am the head of impact and communications at the Fatherhood Institute and the founder of the MITIE campaign, which stands for men in the early years.

00:01:59:24 – 00:02:11:29
Jess
I already have a zillion questions just based on that introduction. But to kick us off can you tell us a bit more about the intersections of your identity and how that contributed towards your chapter in the book?

00:02:12:01 – 00:03:36:13
Jeremy
Okay. So gosh, yes. So I guess I come at this from several different perspectives. One is that I’m a dad and it’s through my fatherhood that I became involved in the Fatherhood Institute, which is a small charity that does research, policy and practice work to improve the support available for fathers to be involved, hands-on parents. I came to the fatherhood work through being a father myself and also doing some research on gay fathers. The men in the early years work, which is part of what I cover in the chapter, arose from a project that I got involved with where we tried to improve the number of men who were signing up for early years courses at a college in London, and we completely failed at it. And it’s a long story, but out of that eventually emerged the MITIE campaign.

00:03:36:15 – 00:04:17:10
Mahlon
I feel like even in its name of being mighty, it’s a great play on words. But then at the same time, it is indicative of what you’re trying to achieve and what you’re trying to do. And then I wonder even with regards to, you know, your contribution in the chapter, full disclaimer, Jeremy’s already said that he’s not a teacher, which is absolutely fine because as this podcast is titled, Diverse Educators, so everyone’s voice is valid in this space. I guess what I want to know from what you’ve just intimated is what was your specific narrative? What was the thread to the bow that you wanted to add to this conversation within the chapter itself?

00:04:17:13 – 00:06:44:03
Jeremy
So I think there’s, I think there is a big, I think we have a big challenge in the UK around, I’m going to, I’m going to use the word sex equality, which is that we we think we’ve made a lot of progress for women and for female empowerment. But I see a huge, huge obstacle in female empowerment, which is the extent to which we load pretty much all the responsibility for caregiving and for childcare onto women’s shoulders, and that the assumption of that kind of underpins pretty much everything we do in the workplace, in education, politics, everything. So I suppose all of my work is about challenging that and trying to come up with ways of being inclusive of fathers and other men in the parenting space, in the space of paid education and childcare and so on. So yeah, so I guess that’s where I come from with this is trying to sort of redress that balance. So the MITIE campaign, for example, I created that because it seems absolutely crazy to me that in 2023, in fact the latest numbers have just come out and we’re actually back down to 2%. The early years workforce is 2% male, which is exactly where it was in 1998. So that’s a quarter of a century of zero progress on that. That seems crazy to me [Mahlon: It is] and it seems to me that if, you know, if we want, if we really take female empowerment seriously, we need to, we need to start addressing this stuff.

00:06:44:05 – 00:09:06:20
Mahlon
I feel like and I know that we’re going to get further into it and I don’t want to necessarily dominate. But even the way how you’ve so carefully worded what you said is actually a really good indication as to your understanding of the sort of the wider systems that men in early years as a microcosm find themselves in. But then also perhaps the wider systemic piece of gender discrimination versus sexism. So yes, it’s true outside of female heavy industry of which there are few men are at the top of every other industry, and sometimes even within education and other perhaps female heavy industries, men still will find themselves at the top of the tree. So it’s not to say that what you’re necessarily trying to do is to redress the balance within these spaces alone. But it sounds like you’re saying is by just saying that women’s empowerment equals giving women more opportunity to do more. It actually is a bit of a fallacy because it doesn’t actually support women’s ability to choose to do less if they’re being asked to do more and part of them being asked to do more is the, sort of, and this is where perhaps the gender based discrimination or the gender inequity that you’re speaking to or the inequality that you’re speaking to comes in, where it says that, well, younger years can never be, they can’t be given into the hands of men. Men can’t do that work. That’s not a space for men to be in. So then if it’s not men, then who? Oh, go back to being women. And so then at the same time, we’re saying women should be able to do everything and anything. But then at the same time, we’re removing the very people that could support the equality, the sharing of space, sharing the load, and at least that one strand. And then, of course, you know, the other piece of my representation, what do young people want to be from what they can see? How do they even find themselves in the world? That other part is not there because it’s physically not there. So it feels like even from what you’re speaking to, it sounds small and it sounds, it could be, let me say that again. It could sound like it is a very small or specific project that you’re working on. But actually the ricochets and the ripple effects of it is actually societal and is far greater than just one specific place. I don’t know if that resonates to what you’re doing.

00:09:06:20 – 00:11:24:13
Jeremy
That’s the way I see it. And it’s very interesting when you start to talk to early years organisations about this they’ll, often well, it’s rare that they won’t have noticed it, you know, that of course they’ll see that there aren’t many men. But they position, they will quickly position the problem within men themselves. They’ll tell you that men aren’t interested. They’ll start coming up with all sorts of reasons why that might be, which are normally to do with, you know, the pay’s too low. To which my answer is, well, you know, there are plenty of men working in low paid jobs, so why wouldn’t they work in this one rather than stacking shelves in a supermarket or whatever? And on top, maybe it’s a little bit problematic that early educators are paid so poorly. No coincidence that, you know, their wages are so crap when you look at how female dominated it is as a workforce. So yeah, to me, all of this kind of, there’s a lot of moving parts to it, but yeah, to me this is, this is absolutely crucial stuff. And to me it has become one of my ways in which I judge the people who govern us and the people who run our education system and so on. And, you know, the lack of energy, effort and investment on this makes me question how serious all of those people really are about gender equality. Because if you don’t get what it is we’re talking about here, then to me you’re just walking around blind, you know.

00:11:24:15 – 00:12:34:29
Jess
What I love about how you articulate that and just what you said about the work that you do, is it, like Mahlon said, it speaks to a very specific drop in the ocean that has a huge ripple effect, but that drop in the ocean is very practical, very clear, very like solution orientated. It’s not this big oh, why, why do we still have this gender imbalance? Like it’s not this big philosophical debate happening. It’s very practical. And you’ve alluded to some of those frustrations. And, you know, I mean, your whole chapter’s around this question why so few men work in early years education, but can you try and share with us kind of with those frustrations, what did you want to galvanate [sic] from the readers? What did you want them to take away from having read this? What I found about reading this chapter in particular is that it was very, it was very in-your-face here are the stats. Here’s how bleak it was. It wasn’t here’s some solutions to change it. It’s like this is a picture in two pages on what it looks like. And it was quite hard hitting and I love that. So yeah, tell me more about your intentions and what you wanted people to take away from what you wrote.

00:12:35:02 – 00:16:13:25
Jeremy
Good. Well, yes, I mean, I guess I did want it to be quite provocative because to me, when you hear that figure, you know, this is a workforce that’s 2% male. I get cross about that. I just think this is not good enough. And people need to change whatever it is they’re doing, they need to do differently and better, right? So I would never say that this is an easy nut to crack, but I do think it’s a nut that we need to systematically have a go at cracking. So I think, you know, subconsciously, probably the reason that I didn’t fill that chapter with, you know, do this, do that, do the other thing is that, you know, I know that it’s not easy to solve this because we are talking about stuff that is very systemic. But at the same time, I know, especially from the work I’ve done around fatherhood, that it can be very easy to slip into actually not doing anything because, you know, you sort of reach a sophisticated understanding of the challenges and whatever. And by, you know, however many minutes or hours later you’ve convinced yourself out of doing anything, and most of the time you’ve positioned the problem within them, within the men. So I think for me, it’s very important to move away from that, as one would if one was trying to change a system to support women. We need to start making this system more open and inclusive. And I think, so I think there are lots of very simple ways that one can do that. It should be, it could and should be a community led thing as much as anything, you know. So just go out and do it. Ask them if they’re, instead of assuming that they’re not interested in this work, go in, ask them, invite them into the space and then see what they think. For example. So I think there are lots of sort of practical things that anybody could come up with. It’s about sowing the seed, I suppose, of helping people to see that this is problematic, it’s problematic for the men, is problematic for the women in the workforce. And crucially, it’s very problematic for the children because how do we end up with children who see boys who can see that caring and educating is a valid male pursuit? Girls who can see that about boys and men as well, you know. So it’s not, you know, it’s not just, I don’t know, how many women work on the, in a factory making cars. Do you know I mean? This is absolutely stuff that is deeply important for children and our future.

00:16:15:05 – 00:18:11:14
Jess
I love that. I love that. And you’ve really spoken to the systemic issues, but also as well, those listening who are parents, myself, one of my, I have two sons and also ironically I was raised by my dad as well. So I feel very passionate about this topic. One of the frustrations I have for my son, for my oldest at school, he’s in year two is that the men in his school are fantastic. The men in his school are only on the senior leadership team or the black men in his school are TAs, right, which is both fine. And I love his interactions with all of those men. But I would love him to have a male teacher at some point in his primary school education. He knows that our house is slightly different in the way that I was raised, my husband is very hands on and whatnot, but he still sometimes assumes that mommy just works in the kitchen. Doesn’t have a job working from home. And there is this guilt, despite my upbringing and seeing my dad be extremely hands on in that I still apologise for my career and I still don’t, I’m going to a meeting tonight and I’ve already made dinner so that it’s easier at home. I did not need to do that. But there’s something about, what would your advice be for those muddling through the system as educators with privilege to say something? But even I feel as an educator, I haven’t even told the school that I work in education, that my son goes to. And if I did it, how do I start to have these kind of systemic conversations with them in a practical way, if I’m not, because I feel like much of your work is speaking to the hiring of men in early years, I’m curious what we can do on the ground as people with conscience that want to help towards this, naming this imbalance daily. What can that look like?

00:18:11:16 – 00:21:50:08
Jeremy
I think it would be great if we had, you know, a kind of an army of parents who were calling for this, you know. And I do, I know lots of parents who have had fantastic male educators in their children’s lives and have kind of never looked back from that. But they remain such a rarity that I think it’s almost so remote a dream for us that most of us just kind of muddle on without demanding it. And maybe we should be, you know, maybe when we go round nurseries and schools this should be part of how we assess them, you know, and if there aren’t any men, we should be asking the question why? Why are there no men? I also think in terms of the everyday teacher rather than the person who’s in the sort of hiring role. I do think part of what needs to change is the sort of wider cultural expectations that we have of men in these spaces. So some of the research we’ve done, for example, we did a study called Gender Eye that was a partnership between us and the University of Lancaster, and we did lots of interviews with early years settings and so on. And one of the things we discovered was that the actual kind of lived experience of men working in early years was quite circumscribed, I would say, by the cultural expectations of everybody in that organisation. So the men would, you know, just like even stupid things, like, you know, the men being expected to change light bulbs or move furniture around because they’re a man in just the same way as a female educator might be expected subconsciously to be the one to go and make tea or whatever. I think we all need to get better at kind of checking ourselves about this stuff and being quite rigorous in the workplace. These are professional spaces and it’s important that people get to do and are expected to do their job, you know, So it’s not good enough, I’m afraid, for men to be told, oh, you know, you’re off nappy duty because the parents don’t like it or because it’s easier for us as an organisation because we’re less likely to get a complaint or an allegation. You know, these things do come up. They come up often when you have male employees. As organisations, we need to find our way through that, and that’s part of being a professional service, I would say. So, and I think we are all part of that, you know, all the teachers on the staff, the receptionists, everybody needs to be kind of nudged, I think, to get on board.

00:21:50:22 – 00:27:57:24
Mahlon
It’s so ironic as well, like that the example that you literally just gave is kind of still percolating in my head. The idea that like as a male identified member of staff, there are certain gender specific extra additional expectations that you have and then we also rally against the idea that when kids reach primary school, for example, or secondary school, and that the question might be, oh, I need some strong boys to help move the tables around and then people push back on that and say, well, anyone could move the tables around like, you don’t need strong boys to do that. For example, in a girls school, a girl-focused school like I work in, there are no strong boys. The tables need to be moved. Come on, let’s move them. So it is funny how even in as you’re saying, it’s so easy that slips in and people don’t catch themselves when it slips in. And it’s almost like I feel like sometimes catching yourself is more embarrassing to admit that I caught myself in a discriminatory or at least a biased it’s not always discrimination at the end point. But and at least in a biased or a biased action, I think that that culture of admitting, admitting that I made a mistake actually harms us. And I think it’s interesting that it happens in the school environment. I think to what you’re speaking about, it happens outside of school or wider in education. But then I also think it happens culturally as Brits. I think we definitely here are very aggrieved to accept culpability when culpability has happened. And we kind of we have to look at, and I know this is going to be a timely thing, but I guess the BBC, Gary Lineker, who needs to apologise and what the situation happens, we are so reticent to just say, you know what, I made a hasty remark, comment, decision. I take that back, we have new information or we have a different way of thinking. I actually understand and recognise the impacts of what I’m doing. And I think that two things that you said in your essay that I really want to pull out about the takeaways and these might not be the same takeaways that everyone took from it, but I think where you’ve just gone, you know, percolated one of those for me, one is the idea of you mentioned that programs have been initiated and there’s like specific names and you can look to an advert and understand that when we talk about STEM for women or women in STEM, stemettes. All these kind of things are specifically funded, ringfenced, neon lit up like programs that are intended, as said before, perhaps to get women to understand that they can do anything and be anything. But when you think about the same being true for men, that you can do anything and be anything, including these things, the neon light is flickery. It’s not as bright as it could be. So the idea of like, hey men, did you know that you could do all of the same things like the emotional intelligence that we ask of male leaders, male politicians, anyone that’s in leadership. That emotional intelligence comes when you work in early years or when you work in education, for that matter, because you have to really be responsive to what’s going on around you. The same level of working in community, working as a community working group work. It’s not a me project, it’s a we project. How do I, you know, do all of these things? It’s the same sort of I’m thinking about the TA adverts that they used to put out. Right. The Territorial Army. Join the TA, do these kind of things. And they made a very smart calculation to try and say that joining the army isn’t just joining the army, it’s getting all of these life skills through joining the Army. Why can’t the same be true for early years or education for that matter, that you gain all of these life skills beyond the aspects of just what it’s reduced to, which is just the teaching aspects of it. So that’s one thing that kind of came to my mind of one of the key takeaways and then the other one was talking about good old Andrea Leadsom and her doubling down on that foolishness of what her statistical interpretation suggested about men in education spaces and what the propensity would be and what the risk and the scare factors. And again, it really just does a disservice to be thinking about, as you just said, like if the nappy needs changing, change the nappy, if like the kid needs to like go to the washroom, take them to the washroom. The sort of calculation of like, well, I shouldn’t, I mustn’t, I can’t, I shouldn’t. And I see that even play out now in the school that I’m in is all the way through. So earliest to latest, and I see that even some of the men identified folks and again, in the role that I have as EDI, one of the conversations I want to have with them is how do you regard yourself in this space? Like, there are some expectations that we have of you. Like, you know, the uniform needs to be well maintained. So you saying, oh, I don’t want to look at the kid for too long. Look at the kid, look at the uniform. Like if the uniform is not correct, call out the uniform because I’m going to have to do it. And I’m the only male identified person on leadership. So if I’m in, it’s going to fall to me and I’m going to have to do it. So I’m no less of a man or you’re no less of a man for doing it. It’s just we are male identified people in this space. But as you’ve already intimated, the job description says when you see something, respond to the thing that you’re seeing. It doesn’t say but if you’re a man or if you’re uncomfortable or whatever, just do it. So I also feel like there’s, as you said, the environment wraps around to reduce men’s involvement and perhaps give some men, not all, an easy excuse to not want to participate in the work that’s necessary. And at the same time it gives the space the same excuse to say we’ve course corrected, over course corrected for the men in our space to reduce the sight of harm or threat or violence or fear. And in actual fact, what that over course correction does is take it to a whole different path that has nothing to do with what we’re all here to do. So I wonder if, those were my takeaways, but I wonder from those takeaways, what kind of perhaps came out for you, what you wanted to intend other folks to get from writing your essay?

00:27:58:15 – 00:33:09:00
Jeremy
It’s about being systematic and being rigorous in all sorts of ways. So starting from, you know, an analysis at organisational level, where are we at with this? How many, you know, like how many men have we got? Maybe you’ve got no men at all, or maybe you do have some men. But when you sit down and think carefully and talk to them and analyse, not just talk to the men, but talk to the women, too, about what’s going on around gender, which I would say you should be doing, you know, regularly. You know, have a look at what’s coming back and address it, you know, set a program up to get better at it because chances are you’re probably not doing everything you could do to support everybody in the team. This is not just about the men in the team, you know, it’s about the women in the team as well. If you’ve got women on the team who are, I don’t know, they’ve been on the team for ages, the way they present themselves in the workplace is, you know, they kind of, they’ve essentialised this kind of idea of themselves as the natural care giver and therefore, you know, some bloke comes in, how does she react, how is she responding to that, what implications does that have for how those two individuals work together? Do you know what I mean, because she may well be kind of feeling like she wants to step in and correct him because he’s a bloke and blokes are just not naturally as good at this stuff, you know, for example. She may also be justifiably resentful if he turns up and there’s like this big song and dance made of the fact there’s like a guy on the team, like, woo hoo, amazing and you know, and it will probably be the case because, you know, the research suggests that accepting that we’re talking about a tiny proportion of men are in the workforce, but within that proportion, it does look like they tend to move onwards and upwards faster. So suddenly this guy, you know, is like has become your boss, you know, and you’re supposed to be all excited about having more men in the workplace. All of that needs unpicking, you know, and it’s not just about him and what he’s doing or what’s in his head. It’s also about the women, too. And so I feel like there’s a lot of work to do to create the kind of spaces where this stuff can get talked about. And so, yeah, I don’t know. I guess my takeaway, my main takeaway would be that, you know, there are things that you can do as an individual teacher or educator to improve your own kind of practice with this. But you know, a lot of it, I would say, does sit with organisations, with the commissioning authorities, with the government and so on and so on. But I guess we can all push for a change and participate in thoughtful discussions about it all because I feel like that stuff is, is very important. You know the best early years, the organisations that are doing the best on this, and there aren’t that many, but the ones that are they have leaders who take this stuff seriously. They have scheduled space for conversations about gender. They think about the, you know, things like what are these staff called? You know, if you call it a nursery nurse, that’s not going to help you get men into the space. Yeah. So early years educator is better. Some places they even just call them teachers because, you know, it’s like, well, yeah, on some level that’s what they are. Think then about, how you kind of advertise your roles. You can see organisations that have kind of got it, you know, and so a lot of it is about leadership, but it’s also about the whole team moving, moving with the times, you know.

00:33:09:28 – 00:35:03:15
Mahlon
That was one of the things I was going to say is true. It’s just the idea of like it brings it to the function of the job versus the person in the job. So what is the function of this person being in the space, you name it that, it reduces perhaps the gender bias split or the sort of idea that only some could do this particular thing. Because whoever is here that is titled with this job description, anyone, everyone, you’re all supposed to be doing it. So I think that’s a really helpful thing. I know Jess is going to come in in one moment with a question, but I think I just wanted to emphasise one thing. It’s not a question. But just to emphasise it. If there are people listening who have a, you know, where do I start? What can I do? I think, Jeremy, you just gave a really great case study scenario and a really good setup up of how to use it. So that case study scenario perhaps of a male identified teacher moving to the school, comes in is, I don’t know, disciplining, interacting, supporting whatever with a student, a female identified staff member who has been there for a while feels some kind of way about this. You know, what are the sort of historical biases that both people might have? What are that contextual biases that both people might have? What is the situation of school. So like really trying to break down what might be going on in her head, his head, and in the spaces sort of head, as it were, to kind of get a sense of what might cause them to come at it in a sort of acrimonious way. And then how can we course correct for it to be more harmonious or helpful? And in what you just said about really ringfencing time, maybe this is a PD thing for June, July. A conversation that says this is what we’re specifically speaking to. Biased moments in the classroom or our school. Here is one that we’re going to focus on. Here’s the case study, here’s the set up. We go away, we discuss it, we come back and we talk about it. I think you’ve just given a really good example for those who are listening of something that they can do and I’ll pass over to Jess now.

00:35:03:18 – 00:35:37:14
Jess
No, not at all, again, it just gives no excuses. It’s what I love about your work, Jeremy, is you’re giving less excuse to the, oh, I didn’t know how it got like this to the like this is what you can do and I love that. So thank you for that contribution. If we then looked 20 years time down the road, we’ve all acknowledged our biases even more and rolled our sleeves up and done stuff. What would the system look like? And if we leaned into to being less biased and less, yeah, just less biased?

00:35:37:16 – 00:35:45:26
Jeremy
Well, yeah, that’s a very good question. I suppose from a, I could tell you my ideal world and…

00:35:45:26 – 00:35:46:25
Jess
Tell us.

00:35:46:28 – 00:35:53:07
Jeremy
But maybe I should give you a sort of ideal world tempered by the evidence.

00:35:53:09 – 00:35:56:16
Jess
Oh, no, no. Come on. Optimistic.

00:35:56:18 – 00:40:08:08
Jeremy
Which is that it takes ages to really get to where we would want to be. So Norway is the country that has made the most progress on this, and they’ve kind of been at it since the 1970s, and they are still only at 10% male. So that’s the bad news. Although what’s interesting is that if you talk to people in the Norwegian system, they’ll tell you that behind that 10% figure lies quite a lot of variation. So that would still be quite a lot of settings in Norway with like almost no men. And there would be some that are more like 30% or even 50% men. And once you start to look at those settings, you see how different things can be and so, I mean, you know, I suppose my ideal world would be if we could jump up to like a third to half the workforce in every setting being men. And I think it could be really interesting. And I think there’s a lot that we don’t know because one of the problems is, and going back to like the origins of the MITIE campaign, when we went to the DfE to pitch, you know, for a bit of funding to do some work on this, their first question inevitably is, well, what you know, what’s the evidence that having men in the workforce, what’s the evidence about the impact of that on children? It’s like, well, there isn’t any because we’ve got pretty much zero men. So all we can say is if you fund us and continue to fund things like us for a while, then in the end we might get to the point where we could look sensibly and say, okay, so there are enough of these now to say, okay, if you look at, I don’t know, 20 settings with 100% male staff and 20 with 100% female and a mixture of, you know, different levels of men and women in different ones, we might be able to find some differences, but we’ll, what we’ll probably find is an awful lot of similarities too and you know, my other response to that is well what evidence have you got that it’s great to have women running these places, too, right? You don’t have any. So, yeah, I think from the Norwegian experience and what they say is that once you get up to like beyond a quarter or 30% male, you get to the point where it just feels natural and normal. I’m going to use the word normal, sorry, to have a bunch of men in the space. It’s normal for, you know, and so it kind of works in the same way as it does when you think about like, who are the parents in the playground that you know, you will find places in the UK already where there’s a decent percentage of the parents in the playground are men and they’ve got to a point where, you know, whether he’s a man or woman is kind of not really, you know, I mean it’s not, it’s no longer of that much relevance because what all of those people collectively are is a bunch of individuals who are interesting, skilful, insightful and so on.

00:40:08:13 – 00:40:09:19
Jess
Not a novelty.

00:40:09:22 – 00:41:39:13
Jeremy
Yeah, not a novelty. And so I think what, you know, where we need to get to with this is to have the, is to really focus on the systems. I keep going back to the systems and the rigour of counting numbers. You know, how many men applied for that job. If it’s zero, then your recruitment effort wasn’t good enough. So next time you need to do something else. So try that. Maybe then you’ll still get zero, in which case, try something else. And so on and so on and so on. So you have to be systematic about what you’re doing things, because that’s part of how as organisations we change our collective behaviours. And so I think that’s where we should be focusing our efforts. And hopefully over the years, then what you’ll get is a steady kind of increase because you’ve put the effort in and it’s like a rolling stone gathering moss. The more men you’ve got in the space, the more they will snowball and you’ll get more men saying that that’s something they could do too. It just becomes a normal experience. So I feel like that’s the only way you can make progress.

00:41:39:21 – 00:41:41:19
Jess
And that’s what we call representation.

00:41:42:08 – 00:41:43:05
Jeremy
Absolutely.

00:41:43:08 – 00:42:14:23
Jess
Goodness me, it sounds so simple. And yet the minefield of the like biases and the subconscious work that we all have to do is thick. But thank you for your contribution and the work that you do because you’re chipping away at something that’s very important. And I’m hopeful I’m going to stay hopeful for the entire education system on behalf of my sons. That representation is happening across the board for everybody. So thank you again for your contribution and your contribution to this chapter and to the field. And it’s been great chatting with you.

00:42:15:27 – 00:42:19:00
Jeremy
It’s been a pleasure. Thank you very much for having me.

00:42:19:03 – 00:42:36:14
Mahlon
No problem. So that is another great episode and we just really hope that you take a lot from it. Please relisten and there’s so many gems in there and we’ve been Mahlon Evans-Sinclair, Jess Boyd and Jeremy Davies. And this is another episode of season two of Diverse Ed podcast.

00:42:36:17 – 00:42:40:05
Jess
Bye.

00:42:40:07 – 00:42:54:26
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 would 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 – 00:01:04:26
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.

00:01:04:28 – 00:01:20:13
Jess
Hello and welcome to series two of the 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.

00:01:20:16 – 00:01:39:25
Mahlon
My name is Mahlon Evans-Sinclair and I’m the founder of Educating While Black podcast. I’m currently the director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at a girl-focused school in Toronto, Canada. In this episode, we will be talking to Anjum Peerbacos from the Religion chapter. Morning, Anjum. Can you introduce yourself in one sentence to our audience?

00:01:39:27 – 00:02:13:26
Anjum
One sentence. My name is Anjum and I’ve been teaching in London schools for over 25 years now in a variety of capacities, and I’m currently a radio presenter for Teacher Hug Radio on a show called Teacher Soundbites. I’m also a writer and write regularly for the Times Education Supplement, the Daily Mirror, the Metro, Huffington Post, and currently I’m a freelance assistant producer at Times Radio.

00:02:13:29 – 00:02:28:12
Jess
Amazing. You do so much I’ve got so many questions, but I’m going to start by asking more about the intersections of your own identity. So can you tell us a bit more about how that has contributed or inspired you to write the chapter that you did in the book?

00:02:28:14 – 00:04:58:24
Anjum
So the chapter came about because I felt like I’d suddenly arrived in a school, an education setting that I had never predicted, envisaged myself in being. I’d always worked in inner city London schools, where the demographic has always been very varied and had a large proportion of Muslim students, something like 70 to 80% would generally be Muslim students, and that had been my teaching background. And then suddenly I’ve arrived in this north London leafy suburban boys Catholic school, and it was a real shock to the system, but not in a negative way. And what I very quickly realised that even though it was in London, so one of the most diverse cities in the world, it became really apparent that students and staff had very little understanding of Islam or Muslims other than what they would have read or heard in mainstream media. And to me, that posed quite a big problem, because what you see in mainstream media and the narrative around Muslims and Islam following what really changed the landscape was 9/11. It was predominantly negative and negative stories, negative representation and misconceptions around the faith. And, you know, there are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world, we’re not all carrying a bomb in our backpack. So I just wanted to be able to use that platform within that school setting to challenge those narratives and those misconceptions. And it kind of mushroomed. It grew and grew into various things that have then since come up in terms of the media narrative and how you go about changing that. And I think it is about educating people, but being able to challenge people’s perceptions and misconceptions and that work is ongoing and I think there’s a lot of work still to be done. Despite living in London, lots of people might not have actually experienced or understood that, you know, Muslims or Muslim women in particular can articulate themselves, can have opinions, are educated, can hold various professional jobs, are entrepreneurs, and do amazing things because the perception is such and so far removed from that.

00:04:58:26 – 00:06:31:23
Mahlon
First of all, that’s a lot and it’s a lot, but it’s a lot insofar as that ask and this is what we’re coming to in this podcast the ask is different, right? That if you’re thinking about the chapter that you contributed to on the idea of religion, I can imagine that there are some for perhaps for whom it’s more of a flavour of, you know, that the state’s institutionalised Christianity hegemony, if you like, where we’re pulling out strands of that and kind of shading in the grey verses being asked to talk about religion, which has got so much in terms of assumptions, negative assumptions, but not a lot of knowledge, not a lot of content knowledge with regards to how Islam works, how people practice Islam as Muslims. And so I wonder for yourself within that chapter that you are contributing to what was the strand that you wanted to pull out from the noise, as it were, within the Religion chapter? What were the things that you wanted to make sure that readers understood the idea of perhaps, you know, where Muslims find themselves, which is everywhere. One given the number of Muslims globally, but and also to the diversity of human nature, is that I happen to be Muslim and I go about my life like this. So I wonder, you know, for yourself, what is it that you wanted to really spotlight with regards to how the intersection of religion and particularly religion that doesn’t always get air time before it’s misunderstood? I wonder what you wanted to add to that conversation.

00:06:31:26 – 00:08:45:06
Anjum
I think I really wanted to highlight the commonality between human beings and human nature. And the reality is all world faiths will have so many shared values and principles by which they will lead their lives. And for me, it’s understanding and focusing and spotlighting the commonality and the shared humanity. And going to teach in a faith school actually really resonated with me in a way that I didn’t know very much about Catholic faith other than what I had studied at A-level in A-level history. And going see to faith in practice. There were so many moments. I was like, oh my God, it’s just like us, oh my God. It was, even going to my first mass. And when they all turn to each other at the end and say, peace be with you, I nearly fell off my chair. I was like, oh my God, that’s just, oh my God, this can’t be real. I suddenly just thought, there’s so much focus on the difference. But the volume of what is the same, in essence, is so much more vast. And it’s a particular group of people that like to highlight the difference and use that as a means of driving discord, but also the othering and I think that’s what we need to be able to get past. And I think that the reason I wrote the chapter was hopefully so people could understand and empathise with actually, I’m just a normal human being going about my day, doing my job. And yes, I practice my faith, but actually my faith is very similar to probably what you hold dear to you and what you believe are your values of humanity, of compassion, of acceptance, of kindness. So I hope for anybody that has read the chapter that comes out for them. And if they haven’t, there’s load of other stuff I’ve written.

00:08:45:06 – 00:09:30:06
Jess
No, it really did come through. Like I put a love heart next to two anecdotes that you shared in your chapter. One was that one when you went to mass because they’re all saying the same thing, but also the cute one, another cute one, I love the way you trickled the stories in rather than like we are similar because of this. There was no list. There was these stories. But the story, where you said, one of the teachers said that you like a nun. Yeah. I thought that was funny. Yeah. Yeah. Another great similarity. But can you tell us a little bit about the key frustrations and challenges that anyone with this protected characteristic often faces and how you wanted to acknowledge that in your chapter too?

00:09:31:05 – 00:13:06:22
Anjum
I think it’s, in my school, I feel like I’m in a bit of a bubble. Firstly, because you’re in a situation where everybody knows you, it’s like going, it’s like being a celebrity isn’t it, going to school where you walk in, 1500 people know you and they’re all able to say hello and ask you about how you’re doing. It’s lovely, but the moment you step out of that kind of comfort zone and I remember a time when I was just going up the road to pick up a friend of mine who’d passed their driving test and I’m just going to pick them up a card from the local Tescos that was up the road from school. And I remember being, er, just taking a moment to read some of the stuff on the side and a woman pushed passed me, she used the f word and then proceeded by saying I’ll f-ing dog. And then I started getting really panicked. I’m actually really scared of dogs. So I was worried that there was a dog in the store and I was a bit worried and I was looking around and there’s no dog. I couldn’t see a dog. And I was, then it sort of dawned on me that she was talking to me. And to be really honest, I was just absolutely stunned and shocked and silent because I mean, all right, I’m not like a Miss Universe or anything, but I’m not like, I mean, I wouldn’t say I was like an animal, a kind of a creature that you would describe as an animal. I just thought, wow, you think it’s okay to go and hurl abuse at somebody that you don’t have any contact with in a public space and refer to them in that manner? And I was absolutely taken aback. And this is literally up the road from my school, and I just suddenly realised how much of a bubble I am in when I’m at school and in my workspace and where people know me. And the minute you step out of that, there’s something else happening. There’s somebody writing my story for me somewhere else. And determining the outcome and the impact of that story is then very lived and very real and raw for me. So I think the work I’m trying to constantly do is dispel that story that somebody else is writing and try to write my own so that doesn’t happen to Muslim women. And we’ve heard of numerous situations where Muslim women have been abused, attacked. There was a few years ago a man pushed a Muslim woman on a platform into an oncoming train. And I just think it doesn’t necessarily get the air time that you probably would if it was like a white blonde woman who had been pushed into the, you know, oncoming train and the manner in which certain stories gain much more traction than others is because the media decide to make those choices. And so I think what, it makes me realise that there’s a lot of work still to be done. And for me and for my daughter, who has chosen to wear a hijab, a headscarf, I can’t ever be complacent because even if I’m not having the desired impact, if I’m making an iota of difference, then it’s moving in the right direction. So that’s the kind of premise, I think, in which I’m operating and working.

00:13:06:24 – 00:16:30:13
Mahlon
I just wanted to say, first of all, thank you for sharing that. Because anyone who experiences an occurrence like that, like it, it hijacks wherever you currently are back to that moment where you’ve had a similar experience and all the emotions come through, right? And as you called it, the only signifying factor when you break it down, because like, that’s not normal. It’s not that it’s not normal human behaviour, it’s not what a cognisant person would do as normal human behaviour. So when you break it down, you have to do the mental gymnastics to be like, no, I wonder why that, is it because. And then when you break it down and then you get that realisation to say, oh, it’s because of this, it strips you, like it strips you apart because I’m like, what am I supposed to do with this now, after the occurrence? So thank you for sharing that. And it’s, I don’t always like saying I’m really sorry that it happened to you because that to me is a wasted phraseology of an emotion. I’m annoyed that it happened to you. I’m vexed that it happened to you. I’m po’d for you that it happened to you. I wanted to, like you alluded to it more so on the podcast so far, and perhaps that’s where I want to take the conversation afterwards. It’s the idea of, you know, that what was it that you wanted the readers to take away from the essay that you wrote? And I also think that perhaps this is coming alive in what you’re speaking about to the idea of, and I’ll give you an example, I used to listen to a gospel song called, from Kirk Franklin, and the song was called The Last Jesus, and it was basically talking about for some people, you are the last Jesus that they might see, right? So you are the last embodiment of all the faith that Jesus is supposed to be coming through you to other people. And what would they say about you and what they say about Jesus if you are seen as being, you know, the last embodiment or the last version of that? And sometimes I do walk into spaces where I think to myself, if I call myself a Christian, I don’t. But if I was to be more into that faith and I call myself a Christian, what would it look like for me to embody what the message is supposed to be for people to be able to see Jesus in me carrying myself about? And I think from what you’ve just described, the schools that you’re in, the experiences that you’ve had and I think the part that really speaks to me is the juxtaposition of being a celebrity who’s well known, well valued. And of course, you have to build that trust of the celebrity status within the school. And then when you leave the school, you’re just anybody. That kind of intersection perhaps, is where religious identity that’s visible is a different game than religious identity that’s more internal kind of perhaps reflected everywhere around. And so I just wonder, like in terms of your takeaways with regards to being a person who is visible with their faith and understanding that that intersection can give you a headwind when sometimes where you are pushed back, it can give you a tailwind sometimes where the curiosity of the difference might invite conversation. I just wonder what your key takeaways might be with regards to those who practice their religion in a more visible way and also perhaps the allyship of those who don’t practice it in a more visible way. What they can also do to support those who choose to practice their religion in a more visible way.

00:16:30:15 – 00:20:32:03
Anjum
So I think that obviously for me, my faith is very personal to me. But I do choose to wear a headscarf, which is, the hijab is part of my faith and my religion. So although it’s externally visible, it’s still a very personal choice. It’s something that is personal to me. And therefore I understand that there is a curiosity around, a genuine curiosity that doesn’t have any malice. It doesn’t have any intended ill will. I appreciate that completely. And there have been times where I’m more than happy to have those conversations and share that. And one of the things I’ve done, pre-COVID I did this annually. We used to have a massive, we’d have a whole year group in the hall, and this is where I was able to use my platform in my school setting to be able to educate young people. And I do a session where we just do a quick intro and I talk about the commonality of the Abrahamic faiths, which they would be able to understand being in a Catholic school and having been raised Catholic, and then I would discuss with them the similarities with Judaism and Islam, and then I’ll just open up to the floor. And they would all have post-it notes, the students. And if they didn’t want to ask the question themselves, they felt shy or whatever, They could just pass the post it along and it would filter through and I would be happy to take those questions. And in that forum, absolutely. And I did. I’m able to put myself in a situation, and I’m very appreciative that not everybody, every Muslim wants to do this, but I’m in a situation where I am an educator and I am in that particular setting. So I wanted to be able to dispel misconceptions where possible. So students would ask questions and some of them would be funny. And yeah, you get a giggle and a laugh. But some of them were genuine questions and that was absolutely fine. And in that role, in that moment, I’m happy to share. But if you are in a situation where you are an adult and you are in a situation where you feel like it’s okay to go up to a Muslim woman and just ask why she wears headscarf, that’s not okay. That is not okay. And we live in an age where information is so readily available and knowledge is so readily available. It’s not my responsibility to educate you as an adult in a non education setting where I’m not being recompensed for my expertise, skills, experience. So there are times where I’m happy to share and I’ve written about that and I’ve talked about that. But actually it’s exhausting because if you’re constantly being asked to fill in these gaps of knowledge in other people’s knowledge when they’ve just been either wilfully ignorant or lazy or apathetic up until that point that, oh, I’ve seen that woman, I’m going to just ask her, no, that’s not okay. And it’s not my responsibility to educate you as an adult. So I think there is a kind of a, there’s a spectrum there of where it’s appropriate, where it’s inappropriate. And if you have a genuine curiosity, then we have a wealth of information at our disposal, you know. And I think that if you’re looking for direction, yes, absolutely. There is information out there, enough people out there who can guide you and use those avenues. But just going up to somebody because they happen to wear a headscarf, actually, that’s personal to them. And for me, it’s really personal. My spiritual journey, my religiosity and the way I feel about my faith is really personal to me. And I will share it with you if I want to. It’s not because I’m publicly Muslim, it doesn’t mean that you can just, you can expect that I will share that with you. I hope that makes sense.

00:20:32:05 – 00:22:47:27
Mahlon
It really does. And I guess my follow up then, or just thinking about from what you said, it’s not that the onus is on anybody else, but it just seems to me because I feel similar with regards to race. Right. And as, I was going to say an openly black person, that’s dumb, I’m black, you see, it is what it is. But I feel like there are times where in those school settings that you’re speaking to in those open forums, those town halls, there are other adults in the room who are hearing the same answer as the kids are hearing in real time. And so sometimes it feels to me as though the next time that that question comes up intercept as the adult like, you know what the answer is or what it could be because you’ve just heard it. So there’s an opportunity for you as the adult in the space to do me a favour instead of waiting for it to come all the way downstream, where you’ve got a very personal question being asked to me in my visible identity, where you’ve heard the same answer to the question and you could say, well, I don’t know for everybody, but from one answer that I’ve had has been X, and that might do enough to stem the conversation or to, you know, to kind of take the curiosity somewhere else. And perhaps even as a person who doesn’t visibly identify as that, the centre of that, the curiosity, it also shows that, oh, we can be interested in things that are around us, versus the sole responsibility being on the person who is nominally different to explain their difference, we can be more inclusive of difference in our space and have answers to questions that people can have. And I think that that’s probably, from what you’ve just said, does come to my mind the idea that adults in the space take the responsibility too. That when you hear an answer being given by a person who is the quote unquote hotseat note it so that the next time it comes up, you use it. And just as you might say in that space, I am but one representative of Islam or I’m but one Muslim, it’s the same thing as like I’m hearing one answer that might help this conversation, knowing that there are multiple different answers that might contradict something different but here’s one at least that I know versus I’m just going to step back and let the person who has that identity do all the heavy lifting of explaining every single time.

00:22:47:29 – 00:23:41:03
Anjum
So the other thing that happened as the, that kind of forum became more of a reoccurrence, adults started coming. And that was interesting because it became really apparent that there was a void in the knowledge. So they wanted to equip themselves with answers. And I think that’s a really positive, huge step forward. If people understand that I’ve got a gap in my knowledge and here’s an opportunity for me to be able to fill that gap, then why not? You know, and I was in that situation. I was happy to have students and adults in the room. And it was really interesting to see an increasing number of adults joining that conversation because they want to learn. And I never think that can be a bad thing.

00:23:41:06 – 00:23:41:24
Mahlon
Not at all. Thank you

00:23:42:02 – 00:24:56:18
Jess
So, on that, then. Right, to the genuine person listening to our conversation and reading this book and I’m hearing some great feedback from different schools and communities really kind of taking their time through this book, where do they start in being more inclusive, which is obviously a very basic, genuine question. I don’t want to assume that people know where to start. Right? So what I love about your chapter as well is that you gave us snippets of relationships and your relationship with your head teacher and the journey that they went on to be more inclusive of your faith. And my number one baseline for people to be more inclusive of everybody is relationships. You are only, the teachers that came to your forums, it’s because they know you as a colleague right, it’s not that you’re a cold stranger of the street coming into randomly give them some facts so what other than that relational or as well as that relational intention, what would your advice be for a school community who regardless of the make up and the diversity of their community, want to be more inclusive of different faiths? Where would someone start?

00:24:56:18 – 00:25:26:17
Anjum
I think there’s a real multifaceted answer to that question. Because there are different, schools are made up of such and so many factors and so many layers, and I think in each section of each layer, there is work that can be done. So you could look at your curriculum. So one of the things that we did at our school just really basic stuff was looking at the maths department. They looked at the history of maths. White old men do not own maths. Just for the record.

00:25:26:20 – 00:25:29:25
Jess
[laughs] Can you just repeat that just in case someone missed it.

00:25:29:26 – 00:25:39:20
Anjum
White old men do not own maths. They also don’t own English literature. Just saying.

00:25:39:23 – 00:25:47:06
Jess
I mean can we get into the sciences and the arts and language.

00:25:47:08 – 00:31:00:05
Anjum
Exactly. You get the point. But one thing our maths department did was they looked at mathematics over centuries and how pioneering mathematicians came from Arabia and being able to celebrate them, know their names and know what they contributed to mathematics as a science. And then other departments followed suit. And that was something that was really simple to do. It was a really quick win and a quick fix, if you like. And in the curriculum, there are so many things you can do. We in the history department where you’ve got capacity to do this, and the other thing is the exam boards are clearly all white men but if you look at the history curriculum in key stage 3 where you have got some capacity, they did a whole project on whether Muhammad Ali was a politician, activist or an athlete. And I think something as simple as that, start that discussion, acknowledge that there is recent history which you can unpick to make people understand history is not about, it’s not all Eurocentric, you know, and I think that’s really important. So there’s things you can do in the curriculum and the other thing you can do is the critical thinking skills that I mean, in the English curriculum, they kind of did away with that, but we need to kind of bring that back in swathes in order to ask students to critique and question everything they consume in their media diet. So from TikTok to Snapchat to YouTube to whatever platform they’re on next, I can’t keep up. But actually being able to question and critique and criticise the person that is spewing whatever they are spewing, because if you are just absorbing it, then you’re accepting of it. And that’s the worry because there are people out there who would very happily be divisive and sow discord and disunity because it furthers their agenda. Stop the boats. I’m sorry, I can’t, I mean, I don’t know when this podcast will be aired, but the immigration bill that has just recently passed in Parliament, it’s not a coincidence that it has come alongside this media narrative that’s been spinning for several years now. And if our young people are just consuming that without question, then there is a real danger there that society is going to continue becoming increasingly polarised. So people like me in the street are going to be abused and attacked and are not safe. So the critical thinking skills are huge. I think that wherever we can embed those, it’s really important. And you can always have me into your school, relaunch and reignite that conversation, because a lot of students, even though they might live in really diverse areas, they might not have access to someone who’s willing to talk about their faith. They may not have the ability to be able to ask questions, to have a conversation, to even listen. They might think that if she’s wearing a headscarf she’s not allowed to talk to me. There’s all sorts of misconceptions there. Yeah, and I think, yeah, I mean, if that’s something that you’re interested in and doing and reach out. But I just think that even though in London there are a million Muslims, a perfect example is when I worked in Forest Gate, the neighbouring borough, so I was in Newham, the neighbouring boroughs were tower hamlets, and there’s the other one the Isle of Dogs. I can’t remember the borough. Jess you might be able to help me out. [Jess: That’s Newham as well] so that’s within Newham, but you never went to the Isle of Dogs. [Jess: Oh, no, no] Oh, my God, I was like, where is the Isle of Dogs? When I first moved to east London I was so green. [Jess: I think it’s Tower Hamlets] It might just be within one of those boroughs. Yeah, but were literally. Oh, Anjum you can’t go there. Why? Are there lots of dogs there? [Jess: No, no, they are going to call you dogs again] Exactly. Yeah. It’s also listen, it’s not safe for you to go. I just felt like, were literally neighbours with, you know, the huge Bengali community in east London. How can you say to me that, it just didn’t make sense. So but it might be that the children in that particular part of London are never going to have access to speak to a Muslim woman or Muslim person and ask them questions like, why do you go to the mosque five times a day? Why is it that you fast for Ramadan? Why do you wear a headscarf? Any of those questions, perfectly legitimate questions. These children are children, they are learning. They have curiosity. Yeah, it’s that availability of being able to have those conversations and then listen and understand that there’s so much more in common than there is that sets us apart.

00:31:00:07 – 00:32:02:10
Jess
I love that. And also, I think I mean, I’m only talking about London now, but any diverse city, don’t assume, we said this off the recording didn’t we, don’t assume that people know what they’re doing. Well, they should have less excuse because of the nature of the diversity of our community. But that to me, like you said, several London schools don’t directly learn about each other’s lifestyles and still segregate by choice subconsciously. Right. And so I love that advice and wisdom. Thank you. Thanks so much for sharing, Anjum. We could be, we could be going for ages. Yeah, I’m going to pause us there and say thank you. Just maybe in a nutshell, if you could hope and not even wish. But all of this grassroots work that we are all differently a part of and Diverse Ed is a huge lever for that. What is going to look different in our education system in the next five, ten, 20 years for us to be more inclusive because of all of this work, these open conversations we’re having.

00:32:02:13 – 00:33:20:00
Anjum
I’ll be really realistic. I think if real change is to take place, then policy and legislation needs to change at government level. So it’s not optional. At the moment everything is optional and until that statutory change about the curriculum that’s being delivered and the style of education system we have in this country, it will be very inconsistent. You have school leaders that are brilliant and are open to change and are open to these conversations and dialog. But there are also people who will be happy doing what they’re doing, where they’re doing it, and they don’t see a need for change. So yes, we carry on moving forward. Absolutely. We keep making those steps, however big, however small. But the real change will come when you have government led change that makes it statutory for schools to sit up and listen and to make sure every young person, regardless of colour, race, religion, heritage, background, is acknowledged and has a sense of belonging wherever they are in this country.

00:33:20:03 – 00:35:01:19
Mahlon
I think that’s really important. And where my mind is going in closing is you made the point just before around critical thinking and stop the boats. And if you wanted to just anagram those letters and change those letters to build the wall, it’s the same thing. And so if we were to think about policy, criticality, where are the narratives the same, how are they dressed up in slightly different variations of the same thing, And I guess we kind of end where we started, which is that the idea around there is still more that is common, even when that commonality is not great than there is different. And I think one of the things that we could get fooled into thinking in Britain is that we are so uniquely different in our experience about how we treat difference. But we do have an opportunity to actually be different in how we treat difference and how we treat similarity. But we have to get over the fact that we don’t critically think enough about how things are similar or similarly dressed up in that way. And on that, definitely, I think we’ve had a great episode where lots of people can take a lot from, and I hope that they listen back to different segments over and over again because there are gems in there to take away. And for that, I definitely want to thank you so much for your contributions, Anjum. It’s been great. It’s been great conversation. We’ve learned a lot from you and I hope the listeners also learn a lot too. So with that, we’ve been Mahlon Evans-Sinclair, Jess Boyd and Anjum Peerbacos, the co-hosts and the guest of another episode of season two of the Diverse Ed podcast. See you next time.

00:35:01:21 – 00:35:05:02
Jess
Bye.

00:35:05:04 – 00:35:19:23
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.