To mark Black History Month, two black FE staff members below give an insight into some of the joys - and challenges - of working in one of the most diverse and welcoming employment sectors in England.
Ellisha Soanes: Equality and diversity coordinator/health and social care lecturer, West Suffolk College
Earlier this year, thanks to Ellisha and her team, West Suffolk College became the first FE college in the UK to adopt an all-year-round Black History Curriculum.
The initiative began after George Floyd’s murder in the US and the Black Lives Matter campaign that followed. “Our college is based in a very white, middle-class area but it didn’t mean we should not highlight diversity in all areas,” says Ellisha. “So I asked my students how they would like to raise awareness of the issues.
‘We did some research on George Floyd and found similar incidents happened in the UK too. We had more conversations and got some amazing support from our principal, management team and governors when the students said they wanted to make a video on why black history was important to them. We were looking at the issue from a student perspective - not something we’d done before.”
The project was picked up by the BBC and got wide radio and press coverage. The video focuses on black icons, Windrush and other contemporary stories - the students did not want to talk about slavery but about the positive achievements of black people in the UK. In one exercise they strung a role of paper across a large room and covered it with the names of 300 black inventors. They also took some of Ellisha’s Black History classes.
“What I love about it is while schools generally don’t reach out to their communities for help, that was the first thing we did,” says Ellisha. “There is so much local knowledge and expertise - we even invited the UK’s first ever black airline pilot - Derek Thomas - to talk about his experiences. There were some very uplifting stories and some teary-eyed students.”
Elisha’s FE journey began around six years ago. With a British mum, British dad and Caribbean grandmother, she had worked in the health and social care sector where she had always loved the training side. “But I always remember the unconscious bias some teachers maybe had with those of different backgrounds, so I said to myself one day I want to be a better teacher than them! I wanted to ensure I didn’t do the sort of things I’d faced at school.”
My college has just been very encouraging in all that we do. I think most people can go into this field of teaching if you have experience in areas where you are passionate. Throughout my FE career I have not had a bad experience!
The future of the project looks sound. “Many UK schools and colleges have reached out to ask me how have you done it? I’m now going into consultancy too and supporting people with strategies on how to embed black history in their curriculums. Lots of people do struggle [to make connections] so I advise taking baby steps.
“Just have brief conversations with people. Do it bit by bit - you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Work with people in your community, lecturers outside college and the many black local businesses that have so much experience and can come in to work with students.
So how does Ellisha make the links between the normal curriculum and black history? It’s quite easy in health and social care - we have modules - there’s a massive one about diversity so I can talk about black history. In all our schemes of work we can, for instance, talk about different cultural things and embed them. When we start looking at Africa we can integrate it into the food we eat today... create a Caribbean menu, for example. There are loads of books by black writers and ask your students why it is important to read books by authors from different backgrounds.
“What’s important, though, is making sure you bring Black History into your lessons where you feel most comfortable.”
Lynette Leith, vice principal, Hull College
Lynette started as an FE trainer/assessor in hairdressing some 14 years ago. One of her roles as a salon manager was training junior assistants, work she really enjoyed and which led her into a college teaching career.
“My first FE job was in a really diverse London college across religion, gender, race and class. It was a fantastic place to work, everyone was treated exactly the same in a rich, creative and passionate environment. I thought all colleges would be like that.”
Her next job (a managerial role) took her to an equally receptive and supportive college in the home counties; but she quickly realised how student demographics influenced certain attitudes.
Lynette was based at the college’s Hertfordshire campus, whose demographic presented completely different class and social challenges. “I really enjoyed working there and have - throughout my FE career - had no negative experiences, but it felt more hom*ogenised and thus less inclusive. Again, I had wonderful, open-minded colleagues and as a result was able to have really positive conversations when I heard comments close to the line. Generally, I found staff were not so aware of less inclusive behaviour. They’d then realise after discussion they might well admit to unconsciously using stereotypes that might perpetuate popular beliefs about young people from poor backgrounds and would rephrase in future.”
“There is definitely something about working in largely hom*ogenised environments where there is less diversity that naturally those individuals, who are not intending to express themselves in any sort of menacing way, become less inclusive."
Lynette says she realised class and social challenges - not race - were generally the main reasons behind student behaviour and it was this thought that eventually attracted her to work at Hull College and aim for a master's degree in Educational Leadership focusing on social inclusion in education.
“I’ve encountered rare cases of negative treatment in FE usually in environment where there has been less diversity in race, class and gender. Being a member of a minority group, it’s then quite easy for those around me not to hear my voice.”
The solution to this, she says, is wider representation. “Imagine a black person who is considering applying to the sector as teacher and is about to walk into a room where nobody in that room looks like you, that can be scary. It comes down to a lack of representation rather than prejudice, and representation is about diversity in perspective more than anything else. It’s not just being asked to sit at the table but being asked to participate in planning the party, it's about creating challenging environments where everyone can bring their different perspectives, and that those perspectives are heard.”
Just two months into her new role at Hull, Lynette and colleagues have developed a dashboard that tells them about the college’s student demographic. “We’re now just starting to talk about it more. I want to understand in detail our student demographic - class, race, gender, achievement - as disadvantage is a really big thing - to then use that to help develop a student’s journey.”
A college manager in one particular area worked with students who were having a particularly tough time with maths and English. “When we broke the demographics down, we found the explanation lay in the area’s local schools producing one of the lowest GCSE scores,” says Lynette. “But we are finding that many colleges rarely look at the data in order to ask what it actually means for their students - instead, a focus is placed on narrowing the gap by doing more of the same thing rather than looking at it differently.”
As for advice for would-be black lecturers, teaching is partly about being used to working in a diverse environment, so they should ensure they have experience in such an environment before they enter FE, says Lynette
“Think about the sort of place you want to work in, do they have available opportunities for your own professional development and whether a college can support you in that. And of course keep up to date with the post-16 sector . . .
“In the end though colleges themselves have a responsibility in the sector in how to induct, train and support new young teachers who find college very difficult at the start of their careers. We need to do far more to support them.”
