Black Teacher by Beryl Gilroy
This 1976 memoir by Beryl Gilroy, one of the country’s first female, black headteachers, has been championed recently by Bernadine Evaristo and has been republished with some fanfare after being neglected for several years. Rightly so, I say, because it is a fascinating social history as well as a personal account of an exceptional woman’s struggle at a time when this country was a very different place.
Whether it is a well written book is another matter – my book group were really divided about that question and, even for someone like me who enjoyed the book immensely, I have to admit that the writing and structure of the book are uneven. There is no denying, though, the power of this memoir.
Gilroy wrote it when she was twenty four years old after arriving in England from Guyana full of hope and ambition. She was an experienced teacher, with a background of academic research into, and successful implementation of, modern teaching methods to develop the whole child. She expected her formidable cv to be welcomed by the mother country; but this was a place where black people and the Irish were seen as unruly and dirty as dogs by innumerable landlords and landladies. For years she struggled to get a job in education despite being eminently qualified to do so; and she was forced to take low level clerical and cleaning jobs to make ends meet. And, of course, as soon as she woke up each day she was subjected to the most intense racism where people felt entitled to openly abuse her, believing her to be a primitive savage more akin to an animal than themselves.
It was an interesting experience reading this book because in the early chapters for all her energy and resilience it was not easy for me to fully warm to Gilroy. Almost straightaway, she proclaims herself a natural teacher and that always gets my goat. It’s as if you’re either born a teacher or you’re not and no amount of hard work and continual efforts to develop your craft matter at all – that statement always seems to me the antithesis of what education is about. Anyway, I calmed down after that but Gilroy’s confidence in her in opinions about 1950s England in those early chapters only hardened my view that there was an edge of arrogance to her character that I have encountered in other teachers in my career who seem cocksure of their methods. However, as the book progressed and she described the never-ending battle she faced to have her professional self and her personal self accepted, I began to empathise and eventually understand her situation more. As a young woman in a hostile land, she must have had to develop this shield of self-esteem just to keep going. In fact, what struck me most as she described the parents who did not want their children taught by a black woman, or the children who tried to rub the colour from her cheeks, or, most shocking of all, the distressed colleague who flinched in horror when she was offering a kindly touch, was the strength of her optimism, generosity of spirit and human kindness.
None of her experiences in the classroom surprised me but the blatant nature of the racist behaviour and language used towards her was still shocking. I know it is not a fashionable thing to say, and it is no excuse for the continuing racism in this country, but it makes you realise how different the country is in its attitudes to people from different backgrounds than we were half a century ago. That is a consequence of a more diverse population but I also think that there are probably warmer feelings amongst this diverse population than the media opinion writers and those in the Brexit strongholds, both groups that live in untypically non-diverse communities, would have us believe. As Bregman noted in his excellent book ‘Humankind’, when people from different backgrounds live and work together, in most cases, they get on.
What I liked about this book was the social history, the descriptions of primary school lessons that rang true and the way that Gilroy found a connection with the children and eventually their parents. The other thing I liked was the complexity and nuance of Gilroy’s reflections on race; she eschewed any bitterness or assumption of a virtuous mantle, and was willing to acknowledge the instinct all types of people have to cling to their own and be suspicious of difference. I found this refreshing, particularly in the present climate where consciousness raising too often becomes an excuse for giving one group or another a good kicking from a position of lofty moral superiority.
Anyway, I digress, but I would recommend that you read this book. It can lack coherence and is repetitive at times. Also, she does not even try to be precisely accurate in her recollections – too often an incident when Gilroy suffers racist abuse is immediately followed by a moment of kindness from one of her class. So what, I say, we all craft the story of her life, and Gilroy’s is a fascinating and triumphant life. And if the narrative often seems too convenient, it reveals important truths about people and is objective about her own character. In the same passage, for example, you can read how Gilroy emanates love for the children she encounters whilst being true to her own upbringing by giving a naughty boy a clip around the ear. She must have been a remarkable woman.