How do we deal with racism in the classroom?

So, what do you do, as a teacher, when a student uses a racial slur against you in the online classroom?

This week I had a disclosure in a NQT training session I was hosting from a trainee teacher. The trainee was a woman of colour. She was distressed as she shared an incident from her week at school and asked for advice. She shared that in a lesson with her Year 10s last week, whilst using the platform Kahoot, one of her students referred to her using the N word. She broke down as she finished her story and turned her camera off to gather herself. The zoom room went quiet. Everyone looked deeply uncomfortable. I watched everyone take a breath and pause to see who would speak first.

One of the facilitators, a woman of colour,  unmuted herself and said: “I am sorry. I am really sorry that happened to you”. She went on to share her advice on what the NQT could do. Her co-facilitator, a man of colour, added his advice on how he would handle it if it happened to him. Both gave sound advice, but it struck me that it was centred around what the individual, the victim, should do. It is also struck me that both were talking from a position of lived experience.

As a former teacher trainer, I was aggrieved on her behalf that she had experienced this. As a human being, I was outraged that anyone would think that using a word was acceptable. As a teacher, and a former Headteacher, I was disappointed to hear how the school had handled it. As a white person I was embarrassed and felt sick. Having reported it to her mentor, who had rung her that night to check in, she had been told that they (the school) could not identify the student responsible and she had been advised to send an email (herself!) to the class about the incident.

I was horrified at this response from the school. Why are schools asking the victims of racism to deal with it themselves? Moreover, an early career teacher at that? Why were the SLT not dealing with this racial abuse to show the severity of the situation?

I chipped in and advised that she should escalate it to the SLT responsible for behaviour. That if she did not get a satisfactory response, that she should be escalating it to the Headteacher directly and to consider contacting her union. I DMed her my email address and offered to support in her challenging this failure of the school to protect her. The next day I received an email from her professional tutor assuring me that it had been dealt with internally and that the NQT was being supported the next lesson and that the DHT would be calling each student in the class to identify the culprit.

But the incident has been bothering me ever since… How many other people of colour who have entered  our profession are navigating how to deal with prejudice themselves? Who else is being failed by their school and by the system? Who else is feeling isolated, vulnerable and unsupported?

I tweeted out the scenario to see what others thought and how common place this is. You can see the thread with a myriad of responses here.

Below is a summary of the different perspectives on the situation of a teacher being racially abused by a student:

1. The teacher should be offered support.
2. The student should be offered support.
3. The incident needs a full investigation.
4. The class should all be asked to write a witness statement.
5. The student should receive a Fixed Term Exclusion.
6. The student should have a Permanent Exclusion.
7. The whole class should be sanctioned.
8. The incident should be recorded as a racist incident in the school’s racist log.
9. The governing body should be informed.
10. The incident should be reported to the LA.
11. The next lesson should be replaced with an Anti-Racism workshop for the class.
12. The class should be issued with an Anti-Racism contract.
13. The parent/ carer should be brought in for a meeting.
14. The student should write the teacher a letter of apology.
15. The student/ teacher should have a restorative conversation before the next lesson.
16. The student should be removed from the class.
17. The community police officer should be involved.
18. The student should receive an intervention prior to returning to the next lesson.
19. The student should sign a behaviour contract on re-entry.
20. The online teaching/ behaviour expectations should be reinforced to the class.
21. The behaviour policy should be reviewed for how it tackles racism.
22. The trainee teacher’s mentor should intervene.
23. The SLT should attend the next lesson to speak to the class and re-establish boundaries.
24. The year group should have an assembly on prejudice and discrimination.
25. The next citizenship / PSHE lesson for the year group should deal with racism.

25 possible and probable actions that should take place to ensure that this member of staff feels safe and is supported, moreover, that another member of staff is not subjected to racial abuse in this school.

But other questions were also raised around the context of the incident:

• Where do we draw the line at explicit and deliberate racism in our school?
• How are ITTE providers preparing trainee teachers to deal with prejudice?
• How are schools supporting NQTs with dealing with discrimination?
• Should schools be using platforms where you cannot identify students?
• Should all lessons be recorded so that incidents can be reviewed?
• Should early career teachers be delivering solo lessons?
• If the N word is in an extract should the teacher say it out loud? Is it ever okay to use the N word if it is in a teaching resource? Does it make a difference if the teacher saying it is a person of colour?
• How is the curriculum being reviewed to tackle prejudice?
• How is the culture of the school being reviewed to educate the students about expectations?
• How has the mentor been trained to support a NQT from a diverse background?
• How have the SLT been trained to deal with racism?
• What is the school’s behaviour policy for prejudice?

There were a lot of comments about attacks based on characteristics being on the increase in our schools, and also in our society. In fact, I have seen several posts on LinkedIn and Twitter this weekend from educators sharing that they have been racially abused at work, but also about people of colour being racially abused in the street.

There were several concerns about the anonymity of online platforms meaning that teaching staff are not protected. Moreover, that there is more room for students to push boundaries. We need to remember that diversity, equity and inclusion work is part of our safeguarding responsibility. Every member of our school community needs to feel physically and psychologically safe.

There is clearly a lot of work for us to do across the system, across the curriculum with both children and staff, around addressing discomfort and intolerance. This incident is indicative of a wider, deeper piece of work that needs to be done. We can sanction the incident in the short term, but how do we prevent it from happening again in the long term?

We all need to be angry at this behaviour no matter what our skin colour. We all need to be part of the solution and take collective responsibility for creating change. We all need to challenge the institutions, the policies and the practices that do not protect people. We all need to speak out, stand up and not only state that this is not okay, but also do something about it by holding others to account.

So, the question should have been: what do you do, as a school, when a student uses a racial slur against a teacher in the online classroom?