To black people - what are you doing to ensure your black children GET PAID

[samosamo]

Dear Black Women,

I am thinking about things I can be doing now to prepare my children who are black, who look black, and who have names which suggest they are black, for life in this world as an adult needing to make money despite all of that.

Yes yes, maybe in 20 years the world will be a different place and their cvs won't be rejected because the name doesn't fit, but just in case?

What are your thoughts on ways to make money where they can be anonymous? I'm thinking about the stock market at the moment. They can go in and become traders very simply and they simply interface with some graphs on a screen. Being black, female, young, old, none of this matters it is truly a level playing field. But finance is my bias.

Can you think of anything else where background truly doesn't influence how well you can do?

@samosamo, yes, ditto to going on holiday / staying with friends and relatives to help imbed the language. My Polish friend takes her DC to Poland three times a year, pre covid.

Learning an instrument is so enriching on so many levels. @JayDot500, did you say you were based in North London? The Colourstrings method is very good, also Barnet, Camden and Haringey have fantastic music hubs. Music hubs are very affordable, teaching is of a high standard, and the range of instruments is vast. Here's Haringey's - www.haringey.gov.uk/children-and-families/schools-and-education/services-pupils/haringey-music-service/haringey-young-musicians-hym

One of my DC was very active with ex-curricular and asked to cut back at the end of year 8. Another is a music scholar and we have a very nice non means tested scholarship worth ££££.

Yeah I had that conversation with my brother about noticing black people seem to excel at sports where they don't need a ton of resources like football and basketball. All you need is a ball and space but imagine if they had access to resources. We would murder every sport.

And thank you, yes my butt looks amazing. (Funny to see people who made fun of it, trying to emulate it now- life is weird)

My DH is responsible for hiring black software engineers for Facebook. Obviously white as well but his passion is helping black graduates. He would say absolutely number 1 is education and number 2 would be finding role models and mentors willing to give advice and support. We are going to get our son into coding when he's a bit older. Lots of high earning opportunities and more diverse than other industries.

@JayDot500 , I forgot to say rewards charts are your friend when it comes to instruments. When DC is younger, a picture of the reward on the chart helps. Money is a big incentive for a teen - hehe. I learnt that tip from friends who are professional musicians, their parents regualrly rewarded , bribed them to practice.

@Soma okay then! I can get with the bribe reward system for extracurriculars! No problem. I live outside of London but I am from North London. I actually work in two of those boroughs you've listed. I'm always struck by the variety that is available to kids in these areas.Our extracurricular options are sprawled across the wider area. Music options aren't plentiful, but some exist. Certainly no 'baby opera' within the vicinity! I really would like my DC to at least try an instrument, and then I'll see how they take to the lessons/instrument. This is uncharted territory for me

I do remember seeing a generic 'introduction to instruments' type session listed somewhere. I think it was the Hoop app, but that discontinued. Something like that might be useful because I have no idea how a parent/child chooses an instrument to focus on. This lockdown affords much time for strategic planning, I have no excuse!

@JayDot500 , if you can find somewhere that uses the Kodaly, or Colourstrings method, your DC will learn musicality first, things like singing, rhythm, tone etc, this will then guide them towards an instrument they may want to play.

The violin is a good all round instrument to learn at a young age, St Margaret's in Bushey used to start everyone on a violin in their prep school (not sure if they still do). In France many children learn the recorder very seriously and to a high level before moving onto another woodwind instrument. It's possible to make a nice sound on a mini cello or double bass relatively quickly.

Another middle class gem i believe is the barbican guildhall junior guildhall music school. Its one of those where you put your child's name down at birth. There us another site north of London that is less sought after, but still popular.

I put my child's name down at 1, was contacted fir the peripheral classes about 2 tears later, by then she was doing other activities inc kodaly music classes elsewhere so I passed on it. But supposed to be excellent.

www.gsmd.ac.uk/youth_adult_learning/junior_guildhall/

Sorry for typos, am on phone.

@samosamo, another one is the Royal Academy.
www.ram.ac.uk/study/departments/junior-academy/beginners-courses/first-string-experience

@soma, thank you so much for recommending Kodaly and Colourstrings. I have just done a search using each word and it's evident that I was searching poorly before now. There are a few places I can consider for each DC. DS2 seems to have a natural affinity for all things music related. There are generic beginner options available to him at some of the more established institutions, so I will be getting his name on all the lists! Thank you for the advice re instruments too

@samosamo yay! The other Guildhall site is actually close to us. One of the towns we knew we would have to travel to for extracurriculars. Thank you for this thread!

Not private education if you have to rely on a scholarship/bursary

On paper these schools LOVE to look like they are giving back to certain groups
Oh yes my dd was a poster girl and in their promo stuff but was the token one And then, bullied by white teachers and ended up leaving.

I'm sorry your daughter had such an unpleasant experience, sadandstressedout, and - while I would absolutely not want people to be put off taking advantage of financial awards that make the best education accessible - I acknowledge that there is a potential 'dark side' that needs to be navigated.

Both at school and in extra-curricular activities we have never given permission for the children in the family to be exploited for tokenistic publicity purposes.

You were unfortunate in your school if your DD stood out. At the prep and public schools I know best there are a fairly proportionate number of (both U.K. and foreign) not-white children - and they've had varied experiences.

It was awful she wasn’t anonymous and the scholarship/bursary was referred to all the time . She was expected to be grateful o think.
Yet there she was on their website and promo video and it actually made me feel ill towards the end of it. The way we were treated. It’s not right. I think I felt it as much as her.
Bad experience all round 😞

Sadandstressed Sorry to hear about your experience but please know that this is not the case at all independent/public schools. The dc I know who obtained scholarships/bursaries have not been used in this way including my own DD and the awards were targeted purely at dc who passed the entry tests but who would otherwise not be able to afford it. This includes white/black and every other colour. No racism from any teachers in our experience, infact it was the least thing anybody at the school was interested in.

@sadandstressedout That's a terrible breach of confidentiality. Only the relevant staff should know if someone is on a bursary, not all the teachers. When I was at school the only way we knew if a girl was on an assisted place (as it was called back then) was if she told us herself. And we really didn't care. We had no understanding of privilege.

Perhaps it would be useful to build up a picture of schools where people have had good experiences (in this particular context) and (treading very carefully) some measure of comparison. Almost impossible on an open forum, I know ...

[quote WildBactrian]@sadandstressedout That's a terrible breach of confidentiality. Only the relevant staff should know if someone is on a bursary, not all the teachers. When I was at school the only way we knew if a girl was on an assisted place (as it was called back then) was if she told us herself. And we really didn't care. We had no understanding of privilege.[/quote]
They all knew and it was mentioned so much. Dd was told she should ‘work harder’ as had been given this wonderful opportunity
When she was off Ill I was told if she was off too long it could affect the (already awarded for the year) award.
Constantly reminded of it and told we had to be monitored to make sure it was benefitting her it was just intrusive. It felt over the top. She worked hard but was pushed on the basis of the award was not just for her but to be good value for the school and she was told if she didn’t do well it had deprived someone else of the opportunity

We removed her in the end. I know I sound ungrateful but I thought it would give her an advantage and by the end of it I was bitter

I know I sound ungrateful

There should never be any question of the recipients of bursary/scholarship awards being 'grateful'. Schools offer these things because it benefits the school. Any environment needs replenishing in order to thrive.

We have years of experience of bursaries and scholarships - and have never once had reference made to them by the school in relation to day to day school life.

I feel sad that I didn't know you, sadandstressedout - perhaps I'd have recognised the red flags before you applied. But I would definitely have urged you to find a different school as soon as the problems revealed themselves. (Though I know how hard that can be outside normal transition years.)

It sounds like this is a very small school, where they had very little experience supporting students who couldn't afford it and probably had very little funds. Was your DD the only scholar in the year?

Was it a scholarship of bursary because expectations are very different for both?

20% scholarship and the rest was bursary. Yes it was a small school (which was what i thought was a huge positive initially) it actually was ok the first couple of terms then a new member of the senior staff team joined and she was just horrific. She tried to intimidate me at a meeting (a meeting called purely to discuss targets as we had a scholarship and bursary and also so she could tell me that if my daughter needed extra time in her exam due to dyslexia they needed to check every item pens etc in case I was going to write on them things she could use to cheat) it was absolutely horrible. It’s a lesson learnt for us but a hard one

Lesson learned that such awards are best sought from large, (probably) ancient institutions with well established, outward facing scholarship/bursary policies and practices?

I've never encountered one in person but my impression is that small independent schools can be the very devil. Far too much scope for one person to dominate, far too financially insecure, far too easy for an unhealthy ethos to permeate the entire fabric.

I do think, as regards getting paid - one has to guard against people who want to keep you in a position of eternal, abject gratitude ...

Avoid small private schools like the plague. Approach schools like:

Rugby school - Arnold foundation
Eton
Downe House
CLC
Saint Albans high school for girls
Harrow
Queens wood
I'm sure there are many more.