Subnormal (2021) - full transcript

Hello.

Hi, is that Sarah?

Speaking.

Hey, Sarah, it's Lyttanya here.

In 1960s and '70s Britain,
hundreds of Black children

were caught up in an extraordinary scandal.

They were labeled
as educationally subnormal by the state

and wrongly sent to schools for children
deemed to have low intelligence,

a decision that would have
a devastating impact on their lives.

In Greater London in particular,

a very high proportion
of British-born Black kids



are in schools
for the educationally subnormal,

and nobody can fully explain why.

Yes, so can I ask, would you be
willing to talk about this on camera?

Very few former pupils have ever spoken
publicly about what happened to them.

I understand. Hi, this is Lyttanya...

I'm making a documentary about...

I... I don't know
if I can deal with people,

with me being on TV.

I mean, I haven't even told my wife that I,

you know, I went to a special school.

In one conversation
I was permitted to record,

I gained some insight
as to what might be holding people back.

Do you mind me asking you
why you don't think...?

Well, first, I mean,
you know, you don't want people to know



and, in those days, words were used,

like you're slow or you're backward,

and it was quite painful, you know.

But now, for the first time,

some of those who lived through it
are willing to speak out.

You do feel trapped
and you feel very small.

Yeah, it makes you feel inferior.

Having those labels put on you
year after year,

you become that person.

Those who first exposed what was happening

reveal how they fought the injustice.

The disproportionate number
of Black children

who were sent to those schools
was really quite scandalous.

I was shocked,

but the reaction of the establishment
was very interesting.

They said it's all rubbish, it's all lies.

This is a story that exposed assumptions

at the heart of the British school system

that has an enduring legacy today.

One of the places in which battles
over race and racism are fought out,

it's still schools.

We are building a time bomb for ourselves,

and one that's going to blow
the whole bloody place apart.

From 1945 in Britain,

children thought to have
limited intellectual ability

were to be described by a new term.

Stigmatizing, yet official, that term
was "educationally subnormal."

Noel is one of the few
who is willing to speak publicly

about his experience
of being categorized this way.

My name is Noel Gordon.

My parents were living in Jamaica,

but they came here for independence.

They came 1960 and I came '61.

So they were called over to work
and they came with British passports.

Fifty-four-year-old Noel
lives in North London.

During the 1970s,
he believes he was wrongly sent

to a school for the so-called
educationally subnormal.

My son says to me, "You've got a lot,
haven't you? How long you been?"

I said, "Well, I did a lot of studying
when I was younger."

I had to do it
because I needed to get a decent job.

Today, he has 13 separate qualifications,

including a post-graduate certificate
in education.

I suppose I'm proud of them
because I was told that I was stupid.

You see, I was told I was dunce.

So it was hard going to school
and all that.

They call them special schools now,
but it was...

We didn't have proper lessons,
that's why I can't spell today.

Leaving school without any qualifications
is one thing, right,

but leaving school
and thinking you're stupid,

it's a difficult ball game all together
because it knocks your confidence.

You haven't got no confidence.

Noel is a self-published author

who runs voluntary workshops
to inspire young children.

It turns out I actually like education.

I think there was a candle,
a little flame burning inside me,

saying that, you know,
stuff you lot, you know.

When I get out of college,
that's where I'm going to learn.

We developed this resilience because
we know how messed up the system is.

So why were children like Noel
being defined as educationally subnormal?

The story starts in the '60s,

when people from the West Indies
arrived in their greatest numbers.

What do you know about England?

I know England
is the mother of this country.

I feel that anytime we go to England,
we should be well treated,

like when they come here,
we treat them right.

My own grandparents
arrived from the Caribbean in the '50s.

With unemployment running high
in their native Jamaica,

they were glad to find work here
as factory workers.

There's been a big demand
for their labor in the industrial areas

of the Midlands and the North
and the South East.

Despite the difficulties
faced by this first wave of immigrants,

they were still optimistic
that their children,

being born and educated here,
would have a brighter future.

Generally speaking, Caribbean parents
saw education and schooling

as a route to social mobility.

We came here not to make loads of money,

but to ensure that our children
could get a better start in life.

But for immigrant children,

this promise of an equal chance
to a decent education was soon at risk.

Schools began to take in
more and more colored children.

White parents complained
their children were being held back.

It was actually white parents in Southall

who objected to too many immigrant children

in the schools that were interfering
with the education of their children,

which was not true of course.

Professor Sally Tomlinson
has spent her career

focusing on issues concerning race,
ethnicity and education.

The Department for Education
decided that schools

should have no more than 30%
of immigrant children.

To make sure that quota wasn't broken,

the government suggested
spreading the concentration

of Black and Asian children
around different schools.

We ought to disperse.

You see, the alternative to this
is a growing number of schools

with almost a hundred percent
immigrant children in them.

Now, I don't believe
that any one committee,

certainly not the teachers,
wants to see this happen.

Socially and educationally,
it's completely undesirable.

From 1965, 11 local authorities nationwide

adopted government recommendations
to disperse.

It became known as bussing, with many
traveling for miles to their new schools.

But bus children were often separated
at the schools they were taken to.

This makes everybody involved

in the educational world
very color conscious.

Because first of all, the parents
and the children themselves are aware

that they are being treated differently
on the basis of color.

It had an impact
in terms of self-image and self-esteem

because if you're being sent to a school
outside of your area

for no other reason than
that you are Black or Asian

and if you stayed where you should be,

you would impact
the learning of other children,

then it tells you something about yourself.

But bussing wasn't an
isolated attempt to remove Black children

from settings
where they were deemed to be a problem.

The story behind Noel's placement in
a school for the educationally subnormal

suggests there were many ways
in which this could happen.

I must have been about five, six, maybe.

And I went to hospital
because I had a problem with my teeth

and my mum took me there and they said,
"We're going to take them all out."

Because they were baby teeth.

Noel was given a general anesthetic.

On coming round,
he realized something was wrong.

I woke up in a bed

and there was four doctors holding me down.

I had a drip in my arm.

And I see this like a yellow film
covering my eyes.

It's like a shutter come down.

Noel had undiagnosed sickle cell anemia

and the anesthetic
had triggered a serious reaction.

He says his parents were advised

that he should be sent
to a state-funded boarding school,

where his newly found medical needs
could be taken care of.

They said they've got to take care
for me for the rest of my life,

whatever it cost.

So, somebody came to see my mum at home

and told her that they've got
a school for me to go to.

"We've got to send him
to a school with a matron

who will take care of him when he's sick
and take care of his education."

Noel noticed that
his classmates had other conditions

that fell outside
physical illnesses like his.

When I started that special school,
I was about six.

And I went down to my first class,
they showed me where the class was

and I went in there
and then all I hear is, "Oi, nigger!"

This is what this boy said and she goes,
"Sit down, sit down, sit down".

It turns out he had
some proper learning difficulties.

♪ The sun has gone to bed ♪

Noel says his father hadn't realized

that the school catered
specifically for children

with learning difficulties
and disabilities.

Using the accepted terminology of the time,

Noel's father sought clarification.

My dad says to the headmaster,

"This is a school
for handicapped children."

The headmaster said,
"Yeah, but we don't like to use that word.

We call them slow learners."

At that point, my dad realized that,
what sort of school it was,

because they never told him before.

But there was nothing, his hands were tied.

He couldn't do nothing.

He had to go by what the system says.

For six-year-old Noel,

what should have been
a routine dental procedure

had a devastating impact
on the rest of his life.

He says no evidence of him
having a learning disability

was ever presented to his parents.

The questionable reasons given
for his placement at a special school

mirror a far wider picture.

In inner London in 1967,
the proportion of immigrant children

in schools for the educationally subnormal

was almost double the proportion
of those in mainstream schools,

with the majority of these children
being West Indian.

The subject that provokes most controversy

and causes the most bitter
verbal exchanges between Black and white

is the education and thus the whole
future of the Black British.

Now, special schools
were a bit of a euphemism

which many Black parents didn't understand.

They thought, "If my child has had a test

and that test has resulted in them
going to a special school,

then it means they must be going to get
a higher level of education."

In the early 1960s,

Eric Huntley was a trade unionist
in the postal service

and had two young children.

Can I, can I have a glass of water?

He also remembers
that the truth about special schools

was often left unexplained.

We thought, "Wow, we've come to England
and they're sending our children

to special schools, we are very lucky."

Until such time as they realized

that they weren't special schools
in the sense of better schools,

they were schools
for the educationally subnormal,

and that was really a shock
to their system.

The term "educationally subnormal"

first appeared
as part of the 1944 Education Act.

It described children who were thought
to have innately low intelligence

and needed some form
of specialized education.

When you actually think about it,
the idea of labeling a child as subnormal

must be one of the biggest insults
that you could ever,

you know, deliver to a child.

But a lot of people really thought that
ESN schools were good places,

you know, where children could be taught
according to their levels of ability

and they had smaller classes,

they did have perhaps more suitable
learning resources, you know.

Yet the category
of educational subnormality

covered a wide range of needs.

Is it easy for you to define ESN,
educationally subnormal for us?

Not very easy at all, really.

Um, if I have 140 youngsters in school,

there are 140 different reasons
why they've needed special education,

and this may vary from very clear,
distinct brain damage

to environmental factors.

Some ESN schools
had examples of good teaching,

but they were also criticized
for failing to provide

for the specific needs and strengths
of their pupils.

For Noel, being taught in such
an environment had long-lasting effects.

People who live ESN schools, right,
we get bullied throughout life

because we don't know the norms,
we don't know how things work,

so how the hell am I going to cope
in a society like this?

Yeah, it makes you feel inferior.

Having those labels put on you
year after year,

you become that person.

With the term "special"

often used in place of the term
"educationally subnormal,"

many Caribbean parents
were initially unaware

of how their children
were being identified.

Noel wanted to hear from his mum

what she understood
to be happening at the time.

So, Mum, how are you feeling today?

- Hey?
- How are you feeling today?

Oh, not too bad.

I get confused, you're 93 or 94?

I will be 94 the 31st day of May coming.

Next year, yeah.

- Yeah.
- Yeah.

Can you remember
how I ended up in that school?

Yes.

Because I was too young to remember why.

I think I was six and a half.

He said that they're going to put you
in this special school

where teachers and doctors are.

If you take down ill,
they can see you go right.

- Okay, but he never...
- I remember that.

But he never told you
what type of school it was?

No.

What kind of education
did you think I would get?

Good education that you can do
what you want to do.

Yes, yes, I see.

- That's what we were looking for.
- Yes.

The education is the most essential thing

parents can give to children.

Yes, I see.

So, did you think they lied to you?
Did you feel disappointed?

Yes. They disappoint me and your dad.

Your dad died with that in his heart.

Like so many immigrant parents,

Noel's mum initially trusted
the British education system,

but others were starting
to ask more questions.

In the mid-1960s, Bernard Coard,
a 22-year-old master student,

arrived in the UK.

From before I left Grenada,
I had made up my mind

that I wanted
a British University education

and I knew in advance
I would have no money, which I didn't,

so I had to get a job in order to continue
my education and, in that regard,

I saw a newspaper advert
for a job as a youth leader.

- Oh, no.
- Oh, no.

Bernard worked in
a deprived area of South East London.

Some of those youths, a number of them,

but by no means a majority,

came from seven schools that were
described to me as ESN schools.

When I was told that there were schools
for the educationally subnormal,

called ESN schools,
my immediate reaction was,

"What? What are you talking about?"

I'd never heard about this thing before.

And it didn't take long
for Bernard to spot a distinct trend.

I noted ESN schools
had a higher percentage of Black kids

than I considered normal
given the demographics

of the boroughs from which they came,

and also I saw too many kids
that were clearly average intelligence

or even above average.

And Bernard's concerns weren't unusual.

Caribbean parents were encountering
strange attitudes across the system.

The concept that there were children
who could only learn very little

and there was no place for them in society
other than the most menial manual labor,

that horrified me.

Parents would share stories

about the kinds of difficulties
they were having with schools,

either in terms of the attitudes
of teachers to their children

and the children's ability to learn,

or that headteachers were saying to them
that they should abandon any notion

of their child being able to become
a doctor or a lawyer

or whatever else because there is no way

those children would actually be able
to achieve those sorts of things.

In 1968 in the North London
Borough of Haringey,

a leaked council report written by
Alderman Doulton, a local headteacher,

fell into the hands of Black parents.

It stated that there was
a general recognition

that the IQs of West Indian immigrants

worked out below
their English contemporaries.

It's shocking that a local authority

with statutory responsibility for making
education provision for Black children

could actually be saying those things.

It was where
there was absolute concrete proof

that something was going wrong.

They'd seen their children going to school

having poor experiences, not achieving

and this didn't sit well
with Black Caribbean parents.

For an increasing number of them,

an urgent question now presented itself.

Why were their children
so frequently being treated

as if they were less intelligent?

Gus John believed the answer
had far deeper roots

than just discrimination in the classroom.

Education and schooling
sat along a spectrum

with a whole number of other racisms
that we were subjected to.

The problem is that
there were many, many academics

who were equating race

with lack of intellectual ability.

The reason for Black underachievement

was that those children were Black.

Good evening, our main guest tonight
is Professor Eysenck,

who believes that far and away

the greatest influence
on our intelligence is heredity,

it's fixed at birth
and it's a great mistake

to think that by education, for instance,

you can do much to raise the intelligence
of those born stupid.

Hans Eysenck, a former professor

at the Institute of Psychiatry
at Kings College London,

was one of the key figures
in the controversies

over race and intelligence.

We give the same kind of education
using the same methods

with bright and dull children.

This is not fair to either.

Eysenck's belief that genetics
plays a role in influencing intelligence

was not hugely disputed.

More problematic, however, was his theory

that entire racial groups
might be genetically condemned

to lower intelligence.

It led to people
believing that Black children

were not as capable of academic success
as white children.

Eysenck cited an American
study that seemed to show that

the IQ of Black children fell on average
12 points below white children.

It was a theory that seemed to make
the disproportionate number

of Black children in schools for the
educationally subnormal not a scandal,

but a justifiable practice.

When people like Eysenck
wrote about race and intelligence,

what they were actually doing
was justifying

all those tropes
that had been floating around the place

throughout the period of enslavement
where people believed that, you know,

not only were Black people sub-human
and the rest of it,

but they can't be expected to perform

or to be as intelligent as white people.

But how did these ideas
about race and intelligence

find their way
into the British school system?

The answer lies in a post-war obsession
with intelligence testing.

Black children
entering British schools in the 1960s

entered a maelstrom of new ideas
about education

and one of the strong influences
of that time was the cult,

and I would call it a cult,
of IQ, of IQ-ism.

IQ tests were one of the key methods

used to determine which children
were sent to schools

for the so-called educationally subnormal.

The child had to be seen by a psychologist
who administered IQ tests,

you know, and if you were at the lower end,

you were supposed to be remedial, dull,

you were going to be stuck
into an ESN school.

The average IQ range
is considered to be between 90 and 110,

yet one survey from 1967
found that in one set of tests

newly arrived immigrants
scored an average of 76.

Black Caribbean children
were particularly caught up in the idea

that their failure in British schools

was somehow due
to this magical property called IQ.

On the surface,
this statistic appeared to confirm

the most controversial theory
about race and intelligence

advanced by figures like Eysenck.

But there were other professionals
who had started to suspect

that the results of these IQ tests

weren't always as clear-cut as they seemed.

- Oh, hello, Lyttanya.
- Hey, Waveney.

- Nice to see you.
- How are you?

I'm all right, thank you, and you?

- Can I come in?
- Yes, please do.

Waveney Bushell was one

of the UK's
first Black educational psychologists

and worked as one for 40 years.

She also administered IQ tests.

You know when these children
were taking the tests,

what were their reactions?

The children didn't know what this,
what the tests were,

particularly those
who came from the West Indies.

Well, the test was thought to represent

the true intelligence of the child,

but these tests were clearly made up

not to test children
from different cultures.

It meant that one was comparing,
I would say, apples with lemons.

Using both workbooks
and props like these little white dolls,

children were asked to fulfil tasks

that supposedly didn't require
special knowledge.

This question, for example,
asks the child to fill in details

on a deliberately incomplete drawing
of a person,

adding the missing leg, arm or eye.

Other parts of the test, however,

relied on
more culturally specific knowledge

favoring children who had grown up here.

When I used to test the children,

one found that children didn't understand

the words that were asked of them.

For example, when children
were asked, "What's a tap?"

they couldn't describe it,
they couldn't define it.

I felt he must be able to say this,
to say what this is.

It's something that is used
in the West Indies.

It must have a name.

In fact, there was no reason
why West Indian children

should have known
what the word "tap" means,

because in parts of the Caribbean,
a tap was known as a pipe.

Fortunately, there was a tap
in the very room in which I was testing,

and I walked across the room and I said,
"Well, what is this?"

And the child said, "A pipe."

They knew what a pipe was,
which was the same concept.

That meant that on tests,

they were made to feel inferior

when they realized

that many of the items
that were asked of them,

they could not clearly define.

The low results
scored by Black children in these tests

meant many were wrongly sent
to ESN schools.

I became appalled.

I asked myself this question,

is this service set up to help children?

I tried all sorts of ways
to look at the child's intellect.

With me, intelligence testing
was not merely giving a test.

It meant much more than that.

The tests often justified assumptions that

Caribbean children used deficient language
indicative of their low intelligence.

South Asian children
were treated differently.

When Asian children spoke Punjabi
or spoke Guajarati,

schools may have regarded that
as undesirable or problematic,

but they understood that Asian children

had English as a second language.

Very often, when Black Caribbean children

used patois or creole,

it wasn't regarded as a language.

It was an important distinction which meant

Asian children were given special help
to bring them up to speed,

but Caribbean children,
assumed to be speaking inferior English,

were initially given no extra assistance.

In the West Indian islands,
they speak a kind of English

and the English in the schools
is quite different.

This has not been recognized.

It wasn't at all to start with,
that they had a special learning problem.

They thought that their inability
to speak the Queen's English,

as they used to call it, was because
they were thick and unintelligent,

as distinct from the fact that they
were speaking a different language.

Cultural bias
and language misunderstandings

go a long way
to explaining why the IQ scores

of newly arrived immigrant children
seemed so low.

And in fact, one study showed that

after Black children had a chance
to become acclimatized to Britain,

their IQs fell within the same
average range as their white peers.

It also concluded that differences
in IQ results between populations

were primarily the result
of educational environment

and not brain potential
dictated by factors like race.

But it wasn't just language differences
that were leading to low test results

for children from Caribbean backgrounds.

Maisie Barratt was born in Birmingham.

She believes that she was wrongly placed

in a school for
the so-called educationally subnormal

a year after starting primary school.

When I started school,
I was five years old.

As we got older, I'd open the book

and it would just be black lines
on white paper just moving about,

when other children my age
could actually read the book.

So, I would get told off
for being fidgeting.

I would get my ears pulled
because I'm moving about.

Or I might just fall asleep,

literally because I was so bored
because I didn't understand.

It wasn't called dyslexia in those days.

It was called word blindness, blindness.

Maisie believes her dyslexia
made her stand out.

I was called to the headmistress' office

and she gave me some instructions.

She said to me, "Get up, open the door
and go downstairs and come back,"

and that is what I did,

and I remember her telling my mother

that I need special support
because I was backward.

All of a sudden,
I was in this other school.

And it was different.

It was different.

When Maisie was placed in a school

for the educationally subnormal
in the mid-'60s,

evidence suggests other dyslexic children
were also being labeled this way.

Although the condition
was not widely recognized at the time,

data published in the 1968 report
gave dyslexia as a reason

for the wrongful placement
of immigrant children in ESN schools.

So, I wasn't being taught
how to learn, how to use my brain.

I just thought it was normal

that the white children in the corner

would get more support
than us Black children.

Maisie also recalls
being asked to do things

that fell outside what was
normally expected of a pupil.

When I was about 12 1/2 years old,

I remember in one of the special
schools I went to,

I was asked to help
to give the children a wash.

I remember my teacher telling me
that would make a very good nurse.

How much is that?

- Forty-one bits.
- Right?

But Maisie recalls that, eventually,

her mother found a Black social worker
who was able to help.

She invited us to her office,

and she gave me an assessment.

I had to do a lot of puzzles,

and she asked me a lot of questions,

I had to do a lot of activities.

And she concluded that
I was an intelligent child.

After almost seven years in ESN schools,

an educational psychologist

agreed that Maisie should return
to mainstream education.

But she never truly caught up.

As an adult, education became a priority.

So, I would do anything. I did law.

I did Japanese.

I did "A" -level English,

even though I didn't have a GSE in English.

I just wanted to be there

'cause I just wanted
to take in the information.

Maisie eventually studied
for a degree in Caribbean studies

and creative writing,

and is currently writing her third book.

But being labeled educationally subnormal

has left her with low confidence,

and she's struggled to find
a lasting career.

I've spent most of my time at these courses

when I should have been with my children.

I could have been working and making money.

I did not have to be sent
to a special school.

I'm hoping that one day,
I will be successful.

I haven't given up on my dreams.

The ease with which Maisie
reports being written off by her teachers

wasn't unusual.

Professor Sally Tomlinson
undertook PhD studies

in schools for the educationally subnormal

and observed a culture
of low expectations towards Black pupils.

I've got some of the transcripts
that I wrote 46 years ago.

This is the head teacher of the ESN school.

"Hainsworth is a ghetto.
It's an enclosure of people

held together by fear, jealousy, and hate.

Oh, dear, but it's also got problems
of poverty, race and handicap.

Fifty percent of the children are Black.

It's sufficient to say that
the behavior they exhibited

made them uncontrollable in ordinary
schools irrespective of their IQ."

The-the comments made
particularly on Black children

are-are really disgraceful, you know.

They have learning process which is slower,

poor concentration,
dialect language problems,

not keen on education,

volatile, boisterous, extravert,

aggressive, troublesome, family problems."

This stereotype spoke
to one of the most prominent reasons

for pupils being sent to schools
for the educationally subnormal.

Alongside poor results in IQ tests,
it was cited again and again.

- Bad behavior.
- Poor behavior.

- Poorly disciplined.
- Bad behavior.

One of these stereotypes
that attached itself

and still attaches itself
to Black Caribbean children

was that they were aggressive
and had behavioral problems,

and that they challenged teachers.

Anne-Marie Simpson was
one of those labelled as a bad child.

I was born in Jamaica, in St. Elizabeth,

and was raised by my grandmother

up until the age of 9 years old.

In fact, I was 9 1/2
when I came to England.

When Anne-Marie was 9 months old,

her parents migrated to England,

leaving their daughter to live
in Jamaica with her grandmother...

a common scenario for many children.

The area
that I was raised in was very rural.

The best way for commuting was donkeys.

It was difficult getting to school.

At the age of 9,
Anne-Marie was flown to England

to join the rest of the family.

Can you just tell me
about the journey of getting here?

Compared to my dreaming
about how it was going to be,

meeting my mum, my dad, and my sisters,

the fairytale was shattered.

Uh, it was the total opposite.

It was cold, damp.

The person who I came to as my mother,

we just didn't...
we didn't have a relationship.

It broke my heart, to be honest.

I wanted to go back to my gran.

So, yes: Lost, lonely, disappointed.

With little formal education,

Anne-Marie soon found herself
struggling at school.

As I got older, I realized that
I couldn't keep up with my peers,

and it became difficult for me then.

Well, I was excluded from that school

because I used to get myself into fights

and subsequently ended up
in a special needs school.

As an adult, Anne-Marie has had

a successful career as a social worker,

helping people
with special educational needs.

She now recognizes that what was
perceived by her teachers

as simply bad behavior

had a far more complex cause.

The reason why I may be frustrated

or having problems

or troublesome...

I couldn't read and write.

But no one's never thought of,
"Well, hang on,

Anne-Marie has missed out
so many learning years,

she would be struggling."

But who was in my corner?

Things wasn't workin' out
between myself and my mum,

or my siblings, to be honest,

because I-I had no friends.

Can they stop the camera, please?
'Cause I'm gonna cry.

- Anne-Marie.
- Yes?

What made you just start to cry?

Um, it's bringing me back...

all the memories that I kind of
buried, really.

And, um...

I kind of buried those memories

when I left home...

and vowed that...

I would never let my kids
go through what I've gone through.

And I would help them to get the best...

that a parent could give their children.

A 1970s study of 850 teachers

confirmed that West Indian children
were perceived as being aggressive

and creating discipline problems.

These generalizations were severely
damaging the lives of Black children...

and for their parents,
staying quiet was no longer an option.

Increasing numbers of Black parents,
Black teachers,

community workers, activists,

began to think that something
is going wrong here.

Something is amiss.

Bernard Coard was by now
a teacher in an ESN school

and realized he wasn't the only person
to have spotted that Black children

were being routinely wrongly placed.

A few times a year--
two, maybe three times a year...

I would go to this party.

So, I was there with my wife,

and we were on the dancefloor, dancing,

and one guy comes over to me and he says,

"Hey, I hear you're a teacher
at one of these schools."

I-I say, "Yes."

He says, "Well, my kids
ain't learnin' anything,

and other people are complaining,
other parents, and so, so,

what's happening?"

And he started me in a conversation.

Well, once the others heard that,
them come over too.

Those that were dancing abandoned dancing

and come over and join the conversation.

And within 15 minutes, the party mash up.

And at the end of all of this discussion,

which must have gone on
for at least two hours or more,

several of them said,

"We have an organization
we formed just two months ago

called Caribbean..."

Caribbean Education and Community
Workers Association, CECWA,

and we decided
that we should have a conference.

I said whatever research you have
to do, but you have to do this paper,

so I did.

I went to London University Institute
of Education library,

and I would be there
until nine in the night,

and whatever the closing hour,
they kicked me out.

I knew I wanted to find everything
they had on teacher expectations,

everything they had on self-image.

I wanted everything
on a range of different topics

that I had experienced in the schools,

and in the youth clubs too,
that the children

had as deficits
imposed upon them by the system.

Bernard's research was given a major boost

when a chance conversation
led to a significant discovery.

People are now discussing the matter

with a cousin of mine.

She had this friend, Inner London
Education Authority, or ILEA...

who gave her an internal report,
and she said,

"This is a scandal.
It needs to be exposed."

The leaked report from the ILEA

contained a multitude
of damning admissions.

It revealed that the education authority

was well aware that Caribbean children

were being wrongly placed in ESN schools

at much higher rates
than their white peers.

The implied reason:
not a lack of intellectual ability,

but the fact that they were thought
to be culturally deprived

and emotionally disturbed.

Armed with this evidence,

Coard delivered his speech
at the CECWA Conference.

The response was electric.

I noticed the-the wide-open eyes.

Was-was really quite scandalous.

The body language was quite shocked.

Perplexed. Angry.

The silence.

There was an initial hush
when some of the data was revealed.

It was extremely revealing.

I mean, the statistics that they gave

of the rate at which Black children
were being sent to these schools

was-was pretty shocking.

He was able to
provide comprehensive details

that it was a systematic approach

towards the education of Black children.

And at the end of it,
just about everybody there said to me,

"You have to turn it into a book!

We don't have time to waste.
You have to start it now.

You have three months."

The title of Coard's book
boldly announced his argument.

How the West Indian Child
is Made Educationally Subnormal.

- "Educationally subnormal."
- "Educationally subnormal."

How the West Indian Child
is Made Educationally Subnormal

in the British School System.

And that really did have an effect.

That really woke people up.

In just 50 pages, Coard
forensically dismantled the entire system

that had led to the ESN scandal.

He exposed the institutional assumption

that West Indian children were innately
less intelligent than white children

and that teachers were mistaking
the trauma caused by immigration

for a lack of intelligence.

[Bernard Coard] Black kid is four times
more likely to be wrongly placed

in an ESN school than a white kid.

In other words, there were four times
as many Black children in ESN schools

who should not have been there

as there were white working-class kids
who also should not have been there.

The ratio was four to one.

Using this leaked report,
Coard had shown for the first time

that the education system
knew that Black Caribbean children

were being wrongly trapped in schools
for the educationally subnormal

yet continued to let it happen.

I was able to point out
to the Caribbean community

that those in authority were not just
doing something scandalously wrong.

More importantly, they knew it,

and even more importantly, having known it,

were gonna do nothing about it.

Caribbean parents were determined

that the story shouldn't stay buried.

Only two Black publishers
existed the in UK.

Coard's book was to be
printed by one of them.

John La Rose,
an outstanding Caribbean activist,

he saw the potential to galvanize
the West Indian community.

He saw it!

I was the long-term partner
of John La Rose,

and together we founded
New Beacon Books in 1966.

New Beacon itself was not only a book shop,

it also was a very activist organization.

They were ably supported
by another Caribbean publisher,

Jessica Huntley
and her husband Eric Huntley.

By now, Jessica and Eric
had launched Bogle L'Ouverture,

the UK's second Black
publishing house and bookshop.

They galvanized additional support

to make sure the book
could be widely circulated.

We wanted to raise money
from the Black community,

and this we did, and Jessica
was very determined about this.

Jessica was what I would call,

in the best sense of the word, a harasser.

She would ring me and say, "Hey!

This, this, this, you have to do this.

This is important. Put everything into it."

So, these two are lions,

heroes in my book.

They were the driving force,
and they mobilized,

there were 26 West Indian organizations

that came together because no publisher,

no established publisher, would publish it.

"The book will cost £750 to publish.

Numerous interested organizations

are each making a donation
towards publication."

Once printed,
it was down to individual activists

to make sure the book got out
and word was spread.

I've spoken to many, many educators
and activists from that time.

They would talk about actually,
you know, going door to door

in communities in London
or Birmingham or Manchester.

We did a lot of hard selling door to door.

I remember going around
Moss Side in Manchester

with supermarket carrier bags
full of the stuff

and knocking on doors
where we knew Black parents were living,

talking to them about the books.

Many people were buying books
on their doorsteps.

We got an awful lot
of orders. I mean, it was quite

unlike anything else
we had ever published before,

and we were terribly busy
sending them out all over the place.

So, in that sense,
it was the first best seller.

In households across the country,

the publication of Coard's book

now made the scandal over ESN schools
a subject of national debate.

Bernard remembers that at first

the British education system
remained in denial.

The reaction of the establishment
was very interesting.

Literally on the night it was published,

the leading educationalist in the ILEA

appeared on television with me

and the line was,
"It's all rubbish, it's all lies."

So, right there on the program,
I quoted the statistics

and said, "This is your own report.

I've quoted extensively from your data

and from your own conclusions.

Are you saying that everything
you all wrote

and kept hidden are lies?"

Bernard took every opportunity
to broadcast the message.

The school a child goes to,

whether the child goes
to a normal school or an ESN school,

is determined by these I.Q. tests
devised by educational science.

You then proceed to put children
in-in-in lower streams

and in-in ESN schools,

on-on the basis of this unscientific,

unvalidated test.

Then, obviously, five years from now
you can throw your hands up in the air

and say, "You see, we were right,
these kids are ESN,"

having made sure that they get
less facilities,

less teaching equipment--

having, in short, actually engineered
the environment for failure.

It took six months,
and at the end of six months,

they said, "It's all true. I think
we should use it in teachers' colleges,

as recommended reading,

and use it in schools of education.

While Coard himself took to the airwaves,

another aspect of his book would act
as a reminder to Caribbean parents

of the need to affirm their children's
Black identity when no one else would.

Chapter five of my book was written

in... with a-a-a high level
of anger and sadness,

if it's possible to see how
these two can be combined.

When I witnessed that white kids
and Black kids

drew themselves as white,
the Black kids, I was shocked by this.

And when I did that research,

again, on the orders
of the Caribbean community,

I read about the Black and white
doll experiments.

Two dolls,
identical except for their color.

Just watch how the children react.

Think very hard:
Which one would you like to be like?

That one.

Why would you like to be like that one?

It's white.

You tell me, which one
would you like to be like?

That one.

Why would you like to be like that one?

Because they keep calling you
names and that.

If every time you read every story,

everything you watch on TV,
in the newspapers,

in magazines, in books,

paints everything black

and everybody Black as evil,

as the devil, etcetera,

and everything white as angelic,

what do you expect--

not only for whites
to believe about Blacks,

but for Blacks to believe about themselves?

Through the belittling, ignoring,
or denial of a person's identity,

one can destroy
perhaps the most important aspect

of a person's personality,

his sense of identity and who he is.

Without this, he will get nowhere.

Coard's book
was addressed directly to Black parents,

a call to action for the community
to provide their own solution.

One of the recommendations was

was that Black parents should
encourage their children to read,

reading literature which was inspiring
to West Indian kids,

which recognized and saluted their history

and their culture
and their contribution to civilization.

The publishing
that Bogle L'Ouverture Publications did

and that New Beacon Books
and John La Rose and Sarah White,

they weren't just about bookselling,

they were about providing the tools
that communities could use

to build an education movement
in this country.

We were the first
ones to import books from the States

with Black images on it.

We printed. We did cards
with a Black Christ.

And, in those days, to have photographs

and pictures and posters of Black people

was very unusual.

Everything was white!

People now had access
to books affirming their culture.

But, with a deep mistrust of the State,

they took the education of
their children into their own hands.

Another recommendation

was the importance of building and having
many more supplementary schools

than already existed,

and expanding it to become
a nationwide phenomenon

on a large scale, and getting
West Indians themselves

to contribute as teachers in these schools.

Michael La Rose now runs the bookshop

started by his father John,
who hadn't been just a publisher.

He was also one of the key figures

in establishing the Black supplementary
school movement in the UK.

I was part of the George Padmore

and Albertina Sylvester
supplementary school

which was one of the first Black
supplementary schools in Britain.

It started with my father,

upstairs in his front room,

and we had Albertina Sylvester,
who strongly supported the school

and brought her children
to be part of the school.

This supplemental school

is one of several score
that have recently sprung up

in immigrant communities across Britain,

all of them running
on a voluntary system of self-help

taught by teachers who give
their time for nothing

and who still believe
in the basic three "R's."

These were fiercely independent schools,

were clear on the questions
of racism, identity, and culture.

These supplementary schools funded
themselves through their parents.

The importance of that was
these were financially independent.

We didn't get money from the Council
and these others.

They could not tell us what we could do
or what we could not do.

In the work that we did
in supplementary schools,

we knew that if we engaged with children

in a manner that gave them
some pride in themselves,

and they could see themselves represented
in the stuff they were using in schools--

books, pictures, stories, whatever--

then they would have a completely
different attitude towards learning.

Why do you think you learn more here?

Some things they teach you here,
you wouldn't be taught in school.

- Do you like coming here and learning?
- Yeah.

Me personally,
I was always having arguments

with the history teacher.

I remember once about Abraham Lincoln
freeing the slaves.

And we had this ding-dong argument
about that.

And then he said,
"Well, La Rose, you're right.

I accept what you're saying."

The point about it is, that confidence

and that ability to-to challenge
what's the given

came from information I had been given.

And I don't think I could have
made those arguments

if I didn't have that information
at the supplementary school.

Don't you get a bit bored
coming to school twice a day?

No.

- Do you like it?
- Yeah.

For the first 10, 15 years,

most of the West Indians

who were of academic material

and who went on to do degrees
and doctorates

and-and have important jobs
in the various fields,

have passed through the supplementary
school movement as students.

I think we rescued
quite a number of children

from education failure
and underachievement.

The parents needed that support,
and they needed...

to know that we,
as members of the Black community,

were taking some responsibility

to correct the damage that was being done.

The grassroots nature
of Black supplementary schools

means there are no official figures

on how many existed
at the peak of their popularity.

Yet, for this generation,
they were symbolic of how Black families

could rise up to help themselves.

However, it took longer
for the government to respond

to the specific concerns over
the education of West Indian children.

It wasn't until the late '70s

that the government commissioned
businessman Anthony Rampton

to head a committee
on the education of children

from ethnic minority groups.

I was co-opted

to be a member of the Rampton Committee.

I was in charge of special education.

Waveney Bushell
reviewed comments from head teachers

regarding their opinions on Black pupils.

All of the replies which I looked at

had racist comments.

They couldn't be described
as anything else but racist.

It took five years
for the inquiry to be completed,

and its conclusions were damning.

It found that the low average IQ scores
of West Indian children

were not a significant factor
in their low academic performance.

Instead, racial prejudice
in society at large

was found to play a crucial role
in their academic underachievement.

The Swann Report suggests
that the education system should change

so that harmony, understanding,
and fairness

run through every aspect
of a school's work.

It meant that-that schools did have
some kind of basis,

some kind of space, to allow in
a certain degree of multicultural

and even anti-racist work.

Attitudes towards children
with special educational needs

and disabilities also changed.

A wide-ranging report recommended
that, wherever possible,

these children should be taught
in mainstream schools.

There was a growing
movement for integration.

By this I mean, getting rid of ESN schools

and ensuring that children are schooled

in the mainstream
with different provisions made

depending upon their level of need.

The 1981 Education Act

enshrined inclusivity in law,

and the term "educationally subnormal"

was abolished as an official category.

There's no doubt that,
over the last 30 years,

Britain's schools have become
more diverse and accepting places,

and the supplementary school movement

also encouraged more Black pupils

to reach their true potential.

But for all the progress that's been made,

many Black people are still concerned.

Good! Well done!

A recent survey by the YMCA

show that nine out of ten pupils

had witnessed racist language at school.

...now moving into the module
called "Identity."

And almost half cited racism

as the biggest barrier
to their academic success.

They mainly focus on,
like, the Black girls at my school

and, like, always, like, tell them off,

and I always see them being,
like, unfairly treated,

and it just really frustrates me.

When you learn about people in history,

you start to realize
that most of the people

you are supposed to look up to
don't look like you.

And what does that tell you?

Um, I think it just tells you

that the education system
doesn't want you to

aspire to be what you are.

Coard's book remains as resonant now

as it was in 1971,

with Black Caribbean children

still being disproportionately removed
from mainstream education.

In one sense,

the whole thing has moved full circle

and the concerns we used to have about ESN

are still very much with us now

in terms of the number of Black children

being put into Pupil Referral Units.

Around 16,000 pupils

are currently educated
in Pupil Referral Units.

They were set up in 1993

to teach children deemed unable
to attend mainstream school,

many of whom have been excluded.

Black Caribbean children in particular

are almost three times as likely

to be permanently excluded from school

as white British children.

The most common reason given
is for persistent disruptive behavior.

Nobody could convince me

that that continuous level of
poor attainment

or underachievement or whatever

has got to do

with the intellectual capabilities
of those young people.

It's got nothing at all to do with that.

It would be unnatural if it did.

So, therefore, the question is,

what is it about
the structural arrangements

to do with schooling

that continues to lead to the situation
that we have right now?

And that is the fundamental question.

In 2019, some research
in a government-commissioned review

seemed to confirm the long-held
suspicions of many Black parents.

It concluded that institutional racism,

albeit unintentional,

resulted in differential treatment

and discriminatory practices.

Until these problems are solved,

the shadow of injustice
exposed by the ESN scandal

still looms large.