294
іV School А 7.5.82 P10∕12 kɪ
Res
Tutor
If you look at working class writers' groups,
school is seen as peripheral, as an interven-
tion and whether
or not school
can
them. You are getting similar set ups to
those you talked about, both working class
and in other groups, as you, SS2, were saying
with black groups.
Oh yes I was thinking that
ing about education and
- when I was teach-
class
to
mainly
class of black girls and some of the literature
and this was for CSE - part of this involves
explaining why it is that working class pupils
don’t do so well in school despite equal
opportunity and it relates back a lot to their
family life as you know which in their case
might be large families,
and
poor families
used to talk to theι
about
it and the
black girls there felt that very much, like
school is attacking their family, their way
of life, that that's not a sign of poverty
and culture, that's what our families are
like and you know we’ve been happy in them
and they felt that and some of them said that
they felt their manner of speaking and way
of behaving towards each other was disapproved
of by the school - they were thought of as
bad mannered and it was just that they were
different and the
teachers were bad mannered
for objecting to their manners. And that
actual real explcit clash between the school
culture and the family culture is more explcit
in relation to black children. I mean school
has become so institutionalised in the lives
of the white working class that it's not so
explicit -
there’s the
they’re not so
resentment
.. inaudible . . .
there's the same
clash, the same imposition and denial of the
white kids' culture but it's more articulated
for the black kids - they're aware they're
able to say it, and to think it. The white
kids are more reacting to it - not thinking
about it with that sort of clarity.
I was listening to a tape last night that
I made with some IV years and we were talking
generally about what we were doing and I hap-
pened to leave the tape on and I was listening
to it last night.
The
incredible
aggression against
some particular white
teachers in that school and I ..... just sort
of, you know, the hatred 'We'11 go
her
you know for
somebody
wouldn’t think would command the
and kick
who you
depth of
that. And you know they’re very clear about