'black book' as punishment book :( in primary school.

[noonar]

my dd1 is 9. her friend stayed for a sleepover last night as she has moved to a new school in a nearby town.

dd's friend dislikes her new school and it seems very authoritarian from what she has said. she then when on to tell me how children who misbehaved went in the 'black book'.

i was totally shocked that the school thinks it's ok to have such a negative connotation attached to the word 'black'. this was esp noticeable to me, as dd's friend is black.

she was telling us about some racism that she had experienced at the new school, then told us about the 'black book'. my knee jerk, gut reaction was to be appalled that the book has been given this name. i am not saying that i had time to reflect and then decide to be shocked in a politically correct way. i was instantly taken aback.

to those of you who may say i'm overthinking this...we have a golden book at out school for good behaviour. things golden are considered good, no? what then, does the black book suggest?

i have many years teaching experience and have years of experience studying multi-culturalism, so may be a bit 'biased'.

what do you think? just genuinely interested in your personal reaction to this.

Go and talk to the school instead of MN.

But we don't actually know if the school call it the 'black' book. The friend may call it that because the colour is black and the reason it is black is because that was the only colour left in the stock cupboard after the yellow book was full. Did the friend think it was racist? Do her parents? I bet they haven't given it a second thought.

The only connotation I can take from black book is as in "little black book"

you dont GET black books generally in school stationery supplies. they all seem to be red

I would think on the whole kids won't notice there just accept is colour of the book

Oh and moot point someone said to Ds once are you black he looked at them and said go get your eyes checked last time I looked a black person was. Not black in fact tend to be a different shade of brown

racism isnt just an issue for BLACK people fgs
its crappy of the school to be so casual

mummytime, thankyou. you put it very well indeed.

the people who are saying that 'black is just a colour not a person' are missing the point quite spectacularly.

In our school we have a yellow one (because guess what? its cover happens to be yellow!) and following your train of thought, it could possibly hint to racist connotation too. I think you are seing things that are not there TBH.

Agree with you entirely, OP. A friend choose red as the "naughty behaviour" colour for exactly this reason when teaching in Africa.

And it sounds like the 9 year old has already made the connection, or had it forced upon her by other children playing round with language, as they do, "Oh, Louise is in the black book, because she's black. Hahahahaha aren't I so very very funny."

If this were the only use of black=negative in the whole wide world, it might be just something to suck up. But that's not the case. We still have soooo many black=negative statements in the language (in the black book, black mark against you, a black day, blacken your name), there's a constant drip drip drip.

By the time they grow up, the children will have learned that "black" isn't just a literal colour word, it's also a word you can put in front of something to make it a bad thing.

thats a nonsense. Am realyl surprised that people are being so flippant. you dont have a whole racial group referred to formally as "yellow people" do you?

tianc. well said.

So I am in the black in the bank not in the red. So black = good now?? ( plus my little black book in my youth certainly was fun !)
FGS you are all being OTT about this the problem is writing of the name in the book not the colour of the book.

peopel dont say "In the black" these days do they?
i mever hear it

arf

so if it irrelevant WHAT colour it is and maybe the book IS red and is called " the black book"

WHY would a teacher call it that - as black is traditionally the colour of bad behaviour

I'm not missing the point, you are making a point where there really, really isn't one.

People and books are different things having a black book to write down deeds, even calling it a black book (or a yellow, white, green or purple book) is factual, and I know that now, or as a child I would never link it to the colour of a person, or think that black is bad.

Should they stop chess sets in school too? How about house colours competing for points or at sportsday?

Rather than be tiptoeing around colours on the imagined idea that children will link them to people, why not just treat them as colours.

CHESS SETS AND WHITEBOARDS DONT HAVE LINKS TO BAD BEHAVIOUR FOR GODS SAKE

lemonpeel a whiteboard has no negative connotations. A punishment book does. If you call a punishment book a 'black' book that does imply that there is something bad about blackness. Not great, esp in a school imo.

THANK god FOR LILU BELLE

AND most positive reinforcement based behaviour policies would not have such an archaic book

I think that if the OP brings her concerns to the school's attention, writes a letter setting out her opinions and follows it up, then the school will realise how out of step with established practice it is by using the word black in circumstances that have negative implications.
It wouldn't have been OK in the 90s, but that was when racism awareness training in schools was a priority. There must be some teachers at the school who remember the reasons behind the training.

but glad great minds think alike eyelasher:)

what about the little black dress?

Bad?

"In the black" is the only example I've ever been able to think of where "black" is used positively. (Tho you may be able to come up with more.)

There are a couple of neutral-ish ones, like "black ski run", but even that means dangerous.

But negative? To add to the list above:
Black look
Black Monday

It's not arising from racism, just an unfortunate coincidence that this word happens to be used for both negative things and for a whole bunch of people (even when they're brown).

But it can cause elements of racism with all its negative connotations. So unless racism's something we want, maybe we should watch our language a little?

It really, really doesn't - being in the black book implies that being in the black book is bad - it doesn't imply that being black is bad, or being in a book is bad, or that books are bad.

If you think it does, then you are the one putting racist connotations there, you are the one making the link, and you are the one who needs to think about how your head is hearing black describing a thing and making that somehow about a person, because I really, really don't make that link at all.

And no, chess sets and housepoints don't have links to bad behaviour, just war and fighting. Much better that these kids who link colour of things to people think that whites and blacks are on different sides and should be in conflict.