Times Interview with Kate Clanchy - shared article in post

'all her students' who of course were in no way swayed by fashion or peer pressure. Schools are horrible places.

Interesting article. God I hope companies are better at handling things like this now. You can see mostly that their main focus is to get whatever the situation is off social media, and you can see why.

Makes me want to listen to the R4 series. And read the book.

I did read the book, and she wasn't throwing her prejudices at fellow adults, but at children, who she encountered in a school environment, that they attended by compulsion, not because they chose to interact with her.

An extra level of respect is required in that setting. Schools are dodgy enough anyway.

'Mohit Bakaya ... asked her whether any of her students had stood up for her. “And I said they all did, publicly and privately. He was shocked and struck, I think, that he had only heard one side of the story. He was a well-informed person, immersed in the news, but he still hadn’t heard that all my students wrote an open letter.”'

I've not read the book. I've read another book by her, 'Antigona and me', which is about her relationship with a neighbour and fellow school mum who is an Albanian refugee. She's very precise about how her position as a secure, middleclass Brit plays into the situation and she doesn't spare her assumptions or prejudices. It's uncomfortable and illuminating to read. As I say, I've not read the book that caused the fracas so I don't know whether she was not careful enough in her language in that book, but I will say that if you write about this subject honestly, you will have to use the language from the playbook.

I suppose my reaction was coloured by having been an outsider child, never part of the prevailing culture my schools were set in, very aware of how that status and the stereotypes that went with them influenced the way staff interacted with me. Horrible and triggering. Clanchy's language was all from that playbook.

But as I said. she's still getting articles and sympathy from it four years on, so very good at self-publicity, even if not so good at respecting other people.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckg19p6kej1o

BBC article.

This is so sad. It was a horrible, horrible episode.

Utterly insane. I'm sorry she was put through that. I'd love to have seen consequences for the instigators and the 'friends' but I suppose it's better if a line is drawn. I hope they at least keep glancing over their shoulders.

Lovely picture of Kate at the start of the article. She looks amazing, fierce and strong.

Is that about the time she wrote about children she taught using horrible racist stereotypes? If so my heart never did bleed for her, and every time she demonstrates her sense of entitlement and lack of understanding of how offensive she was I feel less sympathy.

I read the book. Parts of it turned my stomach. The class-based entitlement rolls off the pages.

But how she's milked it since.

Thank you for sharing this well written clear article.