Some things just really should be taught in schools. I don’t know if I was specifically let down by going to a private catholic girls school in a white area, but I was kept so in the dark about so much societal things that were important to our history and our social beliefs. I was (for a little bit) doing Blood Brothers as a GCSE text, and it was taught so poorly without the societal context that someone thought it was set in Edinburgh. Willy Russell (notable Scouser) wrote a play set in Liverpool about Liverpudlians which was, maybe not intentionally, a direct fuck you to Margaret Thatcher (who my school also skirted around mentioning) and her masses of classism with a racial aspect and blatant vitriol towards Liverpudlians.
Why do some accents and areas make you think that person is ‘thick’ or ‘rough’, or ‘common’? Why do we call the specific posh, southern accent, the ‘British’ accent, despite only a small portion of the population carrying it, and the vast majority carrying a different accent? Why does one thing sound educated, and another sound rough? It is called classism, and again, I don’t know whether or not this is me going to a private catholic girls school, but it is fucking everywhere. By accident, on purpose, fucking everywhere. There was one teacher, who we’ll call Mrs Lyons, after the Blood Brothers character, as she had the same accent, and the same classism. Mrs Lyons was perfectly nice to me, but I was a student at a catholic private school who didn’t have my mothers accent, my fathers skin tone, or a visible disability, and one time I heard her, in a matter of sentences, casually drop the most rancid classism and ableism with a side of sexism, and Mrs Lyons turned back to the board and continued on with her lesson. And no one blinked an eye, it seemed. This woman was teaching us An Inspector Calls, which is focused on bringing down the upper class and how classism and privilege (or lack thereof) can kill. Do I think learning about more historical context and more real-world occurrences of classism would’ve made for a better understanding? Yes. Do I think I should’ve been able to discuss classism more? Yes, considering it’s fucking everywhere, within the play and outside it. Do I think I have peers for whom the implications and social context of both An Inspector Calls and Blood Brothers did not register? I know full well I do.
Did they teach us about Hillsborough, which would be really important given the Hillsborough Laws being passed soon? No. Did they teach us about Grenfel? Windrush? The miner’s strikes? Unions? Did they mention politics? If you don’t know or don’t understand what happened, please look it up. Hillsborough shows the violence of classism and the importance of truthful mass media. Grenfel, the importance of building regulations. And on, and on, and on, and we didn’t get taught this where we should’ve.