213
dences so far as I can gather, I have seen
exchanges going on in the school that indicate
to
e that there needs to be a rethink about
what exactly it ought to be about.
CSSl Strangely there’s very little graffitti on
walls or desks.
BMl Very little.
CSSl 'es
CSS4 I don’t know whether it’s because teachers
keep their eyes open for it.
CSSl Visiting tutor said he goes round looking
in toilets and on walls and he didn’t have
to scribble anything out - he's surprised
himself that there is so little.
The National Front candidate
last election got over 1,000
there
votes
ιnj the
and
down a
market
near the school they
Front literature - there’s a
sell National
lot of verbal
abuse but I work mainly in the upper school
but it hasn’t really turned into any racial
attacks. It’s still very verbal - we’ve
talked a lot about the racism there because
it’s often very difficult to know how to
handle
it as teachers because one
minute
these kids are sort of being very kind of
jovial about that racist communication and
the next minute they’re being very kind of
friendly because the racist communication
is always in a very friendly jovial manner
and it’s very difficult to know how to clamp
down and say ’Look, you can sort of take
the piss out of each other in a different
way - don’t do it like that.’
CSS2
It’s as though they're sort of probing some
characteristics of each other, you know,
it so happens if
on
some
features
feature. There’s
he's a black kid they pick
of his colour, some racial
an Irish kid - well, he’s
got an Irish name although he was born in
East
London
and
they
make
comments
he was born in a bog and he’s making bricks
under the table and this sort of thing and
that class in particular - it's a consistent
banter between them that they've always got
to get at each other the whole time .....
As this extract suggests students' knowledge and expectations may
be different fro;
that of experienced and established staff
17
This