I Heard What You Said: A Black Teacher, A White System
English
By (author): Jeffrey Boakye
Shortlisted for the Bread & Roses Award
An Amazon Best Non-Fiction Book of The Year
Essential reading The Guardian
Sharp and witty with moments of startling candour The i
Revealing and beautifully written David Harewood
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A thought-provoking and fearless exploration of how we can dismantle racism in the classroom and do better by all our students.
Before Jeffrey Boakye was a black teacher, he was a black student. Which means he has spent a lifetime navigating places of learning that are white by default. Since training to teach, he has often been the only black teacher at school. At times seen as a role model, at others a source of curiosity, Boakyes is a journey of exploration from the outside looking in.
In the groundbreaking I Heard What You Said, he recounts how it feels to be on the margins of the British education system. As a black, male teacher an English teacher who has had to teach problematic texts his very existence is a provocation to the status quo, giving him a unique perspective on the UKs classrooms.
Told through a series of eye-opening encounters based on the often challenging and sometimes outrageous things people have said to him or about him from Can you rap? and Have you been in prison? to Stephen who? Boakye reflects with passion and wit on what he has found out about the presumptions, silences and distortions that underpin the experience of black students and teachers.
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Hugely important Baroness Lawrence
Deeply compelling, intellectually rigorous and essential Nels Abbey
Makes a powerful case Rt Hon Lady Hale