CLAUDIA CONNELL reviews last night’s TV: How do we put an end to racism?

The School That Tried to End Racism

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Britain’s Best Parent

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Filming for The School That Tried to End Racism (Ch4) took place more than a year ago.

Since then the death of George Floyd and the protests that followed have brought racism to the fore. Glenthorne High School in South London was chosen because it has an even split of white and ethnic minority pupils. All 24 of the 11-year-olds who took part believed they were not racist.

The aim of the experiment, run by race experts Dr Nicola Rollock and Professor Rhiannon Turner, was to weed out ‘unconscious’ racial bias — where a person states they are not racist but their words and actions suggest otherwise.

For the first test, developed by researchers at Harvard, each child was given a tablet computer to see how quickly they could associate positive words with white faces and negative words with black faces. A word flashed on the screen that they had to swipe to the right (underneath the picture of a black child) or left (underneath a picture of a white child).

The test was then reversed. The results showed that people were far quicker to associate positivity with white faces and negativity with black

The white pupils seemed horrified, the black ones less so.

‘It’s not going to go, I’ll always be treated differently,’ said Mahkai. Later, he wept as he recalled the time he’d gone to buy sweets with friends after school and, when some of the other children misbehaved, he was the only one asked to leave because, he believed, he was black. ‘That wasn’t the nicest time I’ve ever had,’ he added.

Schools in America have already taken part in the experiment that also includes a controversial exercise in which black and ethnic minority pupils are segregated into ‘affinity’ groups — the idea being they can talk without fear of judgment.

Henry, who described himself as ‘a ginger European boy’, became very upset when he heard the ethnic minority affinity group laughing in the room next door.

Were they laughing at the white pupils? Did it mean they had more fun when they weren’t around?

The division stirred deep emotions for all pupils. Lucy, in the white group, felt that people were often unfairly accused of racism. Black pupil Amalie just wished white people weren’t so uptight and that ‘not ever asking anything about my race is weird’.

When the classes came together they talked about their differences. White pupils wanted to know what was and wasn’t appropriate to ask about race and black pupils spoke with pride about their heritage.

It ended with what Mahkai called ‘the most racist sports day ever’. The children ran a race from different starting points. Pupils whose parents had English as a first language took a step forward, those who’d ever been in a room where nobody else looked like them took a step backwards and so on.

It was a brave and thought-provoking initiative but what shone through was how bright, kind and open to discussion the children were.

Not so open to change were the parents in the final of Britain’s Best Parent (Ch4). Each had a different approach to raising children and each was convinced theirs was the right way.

Would it be Becky and Ben, who home educated, didn’t believe in timetables and whose children are surely in for a rude awakening when they start work?

Strict Nicky and David fought a good fight — as did Jen and Tom, who wanted children to make fires and get dirty outdoors.

The title went to Rin and Robin, who believed in making children partake in ‘scholarly and warrior pursuits’, which appeared to be playing chess and doing Karate.

Best parents? Debatable. Smuggest? Undoubtedly.