Some 60 per cent of black and ethnic minority teachers are thinking about leaving the profession, according to a recent report from the Runnymede Trust. Why?

Personally, it doesn’t matter how confident I feel about being black, it doesn’t matter how often I repeat “Say it loud, ‘I’m black and I’m proud’” in the car; as soon as I’m in the overwhelmingly white surroundings of most staffrooms, my bravado melts away.

I am constantly aware of my difference. My husband and I often jokingly question why we frequent so many places where we’re the “only ones” - the only blacks in sight. This is fine in the outside world, but such a situation creates an abundance of stress in school.

One black or minority ethnic (BME) teacher told the Runnymede Trust: “Some staff are disappointingly ignorant and do not realise that they carry implicitly racist views that are usually ill-thought-through.”

This teacher is right: hidden assumptions about my political persuasion, musical taste and financial standing often reveal themselves in my white colleagues.

For example, when I talk about the music that I write, they assume that I’m a singer and are surprised that I’m a violinist; or they raise an eyebrow at the fact that I live in a relatively affluent area.

Correspondingly, I also feel that I have to tone down my “blackness”, soften my loud ghetto voice, mellow my political views and make my hair as eurocentric as possible so no one thinks I’m a black panther.

I remember the outright fear on a colleague’s face when I (jokingly) talked about brainwashing my children to be militant, and the disdain from a senior leader when I turned up with plaits and beads in honour of Stevie Wonder. Making my blackness invisible is painful, particularly in schools where a large proportion of the cohort is black.

What the Runnymede Trust calls the “microaggressions” in the staffroom is illustrated by an anecdote from a friend of mine - a black mentor in a predominately white middle-class neighbourhood, with a vast majority of white teachers and pupils.

She described how colleagues had roasted a black pupil’s family because her mother had not agreed on the spot to the sharing of confidential information with other agencies. My friend was dismissed out of hand when she suggested that they approach wider family members, not just her mum.

Why was this an issue? The white staff were judging the cultural value of a child belonging to a community; not just the parent. Rather than being aware of their racial bias, these teachers were applying their constructs of family life and pressurising the parent to conform.

Racial stereotypes

Observing cultural misunderstandings can move black staff to try to translate the perspective of African-Caribbean families to white staff. Too often, such gentle explanations fall on deaf ears - and the prospect of retreating back to invisibility becomes an appealing one.

Similarly, black teachers will often talk about how we are given the tough situations to handle. A black African male teacher interviewed by Runnymede explained: “I’ve been given additional responsibilities for behaviour management in key stage 4 and for Year 11s resitting their GCSEs. Both are difficult groups, but I was given these responsibilities despite telling my boss that I didn’t want them.

“I think it stems from stereotypes [that the school] have of black men as more intimidating - KS4 is the toughest year group. But it is subtly reinforcing stereotypes.

“We tend to be given the tough behavioural jobs, rather than the intellectual challenges and responsibilities.”

Given that most black teachers believe that they must work that much harder if they are to succeed, it’s very difficult to say no when senior leaders claim to need “expertise”.

Is it any wonder, then, that black teachers also feel there are low expectations and support from senior staff?

Let’s be clear: most black people have a different way of expressing ourselves. This cultural diversity needs to be celebrated and not suppressed.

I have recently become aware of an example of a black head of year being told by senior leaders to decrease the decibels and speak more genteelly in the corridors.

This pressure to conform to an Anglocentric mould did not surprise me. What a mistake: black pupils need to see teachers who look like them and have succeeded academically. They need to feel free to share common racial experiences (even this can feel like something I need to do in secret so as not to alienate white colleagues).

This isn’t happening.

Brushed under the carpet

Recently I asked a class, in which half of the children were black, to comment on what “black” means to them. Only the white pupils answered, while the black pupils looked awkward or showed blank expressions.

I had to beg the black pupils to share their perspective - and even when they did they were extremely cautious. Black youths are inheriting the facade of survival: a passivity that their black elders often adopt.

But a “brush it under the carpet” approach from a white senior leadership team makes it virtually impossible to raise the issue.

As one respondent to the Runnymede survey explained: “I’m not sure if it’s ethnicity, but if a BME teacher challenges anything, and is assertive and confident, they are seen as maverick, aggressive and threatening.”

“Maverick” is definitely the word that white staff throw at me, and it makes me feel even more alien. Too often, senior leaders seem scared when I express an opinion and their reaction has made me into someone who just wants to keep their opinions to themself.

That is why black staff in many schools do not sit in the main staffroom or join in with the mainstream social activities.

Somehow we have taken on board the idea that we are threatening.

Of course, any racism is unintentional, but it wears me down nonetheless.

I start separating myself on racial terms. I do this either by lecturing people about what life is really like living with institutional racism, or by wearing clothes that associate me more with the pupils than the staff - be it massive hooped earrings, African tops, Erykah Badu head wraps, massive Afros - so that my cultural and political leanings are evident without opening my mouth.

This monotonous merry-go-round of emotions makes me long to teach in a school where there are more teachers who look like me. But there aren’t many of those.

So I battle on, conflicted. Too many schools have a large proportion of black children and hardly any black teachers. The militant within me feels I have to sacrifice my personal comfort to be a champion of black children and to represent their perspective. And yet I also want to vanish into the background, unseen.

This is my exhausting professional - and personal - battle.

Jabu Freeman is a pseudonym for a teacher who felt they may be judged by potential employers as a troublemaker and so has chosen anonymity