Why Black Lives Matter in education, and beyond

As my stomach turns at the loss of yet another life due to skin colour, I can’t help but feel the injustice seep beyond the media headlines and flow straight into the classroom. Coronavirus aside, our pupils will be making their way back to our classrooms: the rooms we deem safe, inclusive and a home away from home for many. But what use is a home, if the bodies inviting you in aren’t digging away beneath the surface to truly understand who you are? As I speak, I speak from a primary school perspective: though I have no doubt that the message I try to convey will be echoed by practitioners across all phases of a student’s educational journey. “I can’t breathe.” If you don’t see yourself in the learning you are acquiring; if you don’t ever get your name pronounced properly, and if you are treated as though you are no different to anyone else, then hereby lies a problem. Let us give pupils, even as young as age 8 or 9, more than the benefit of the doubt, and el