to think that out of four houses in a school, two could carry the names of women and they needn't all be white?

[DrSeuss]

The secondary school I teach in is in one of the least diverse areas of Britain. Folk here can be very insular. Nice but insular. The area has one of the lowest take ups of Languages in the country. For some, a trip to the city five miles away is a big adventure. You get the idea.

Our school needed four new names for its four new houses. We now have three dead white males and one dead white female as names. None of them is in themselves objectionable and they have to be dead so as to avoid a situation where a house winds up carrying the name of someone we would rather it did not.

However, three men, one woman? All white? Surely we can split the genders two and two and surely we can have someone who wasn't a WASP?

Is it not racist to make decisions on the basis of skin colour?

Would you insist that rural areas in non-British countries considered naming houses after 'white' people to be diverse?

We would have laughed you off the school grounds at my Carribean school.

Or called you a patronising racist nobber.

Must be a NE thing, my son's primary school also has 3 males and 1 female. All are white though one is local at least! My son's in reception and hasn't a clue who any of them are, even the footballer

Tokenism is patronising

Mary seacole, amazing woman.

The school I went to had Paton, Gonner, Wallis and Stewart IIRC. No idea where those names came from, but maybe they were famous men? It was an all girls grammar

The school my DC go to has birds names for houses No idea why as it is hardly countrified round here!

OP your obsession with defining people by their skin colour and gender is very worrying. You need to learn to judge peoples worth by their actions not the colour of their skin and contents of their underwear.

We used to have Hastings, Blake, Delaval and Seaton. Now Hastings and Blake are pubs. But I suspect it's not their original usage...

Anyone else read the title and op as four dead horses at least five times and then be flumoxed at both the question and the responses?

No?

Just me then...

DD's houses at her new secondary are all females, they are probably all white tbh too. But they are the founders of the school, so with reason.

Her current school have houses names after 4 of the valleys in the city.

allegralilac I'm struggling to think of any famous mancunian landowners!

www.manchester-celebrities.co.uk/celebrities/commerce6.html
www.manchester-celebrities.co.uk/celebrities/celebs-list.html#science

My old school had (Robert Louis) Stevenson, (RJ) Mitchell, (of Spitfire design fame) Müller (of Müller homes) and (Gladys) Aylward (China missionary?) Never crossed my mind that only one was female. Probably quite right on for the 70s.

I went to primary school in Norfolk in the 80s. We had:

(Florence) Nightingale
(Winston) Churchill
(Edith) Cavell
(Horatio) Nelson

So 50/50, which is not bad for 20 odd years ago...

My children (Gloucestershire) have famous authors - 3 male, one female - so could do better.
The school I teach in has houses named after bits of the local area (think Notting Hill, Holland Park, Shepherd's Bush, Hammersmith if it were London)

I love how people think it's racist to worry about racism.

my secondary were dales... swale, wensley, tees, can't remember the rest, all had associated colours swale was blue, wensley green and tees yellow. the other house i can't remember was red. the house heads were so competitive.

I find the title of this thread offensive tbh. I could just imagine how MN would swollow a title that read:

to think that out of four houses in a school, two could carry the names of women and they needn't all be black?

I mean there would be people shouting racist at every angle, but when it's the white person being critasized it doesn't matter. Why would it be a bad thing for 4 white people to be named for houses in a country that has a history of white historic figures?

As someone said up thread, in a non british country where 4 black historic figures are named for houses, would there be outrage if a white person wasn't named for a house? Or would everyone accept that countries heritage is black so accept black people be named for the houses?

Erm, perhaps the op simply wants to celebrate and recognise the importance and relevance of diversity in our country/recent history?

DrSeuss - I'm sure you're at my old school - anything to do with USA and USSR?

what does it feel like, to be a girl and never see people like you represented as heroes?

what does it feel like to belong to an ethnic minority and never see people like yourself represented in the history you learn at school?

what is it like when all the role models you are presented with as a child look nothing like you, or the people in your community?

We end up being the women this woman is talking about

chibi
probably pretty crap, but revisionist history over house names in a school won't make it better.

so the answer to making whole swathes of people feel invisible is to...continue making them invisible?

i am not sure i understand this logic

chibi

what does it feel like, to be a girl and never see people like you represented as heroes?

what does it feel like to belong to an ethnic minority and never see people like yourself represented in the history you learn at school?

what is it like when all the role models you are presented with as a child look nothing like you, or the people in your community?

Perhaps you then learn to look beyond appearance or gender and value people for themselves. This marxist tokenism makes me want to puke.

So would you prefer it if we re-wrote history so you can feel included Chibi? You live in a country where the people in it's history were white, the majority in this country are still white and these days just having a white face makes people feel like they are being racist.

There are plenty of non white role models for kids to look up to, we are more diverse than ever. It is like a white person going to a country which is majority black with black heritage and complaining white people aren't in it.

talkinpeace I'm very aware of famous Mancunians, thank you, but seriously, famous Mancunian landowners? Neither of your links had them listed.