Bonjour pals
I went to a Christian school.
This school was not a bad school. In fact, it was one of the better ones in my catchment. I had a choice of three, and the two others were closer to my house but lower in the league tables. And if I’d have gone either of the other two, I would have been stabbed on the first day, no question. I was just extremely naïve, and I’d’ve got myself into trouble. So, for me, it was probably the best place to go. It was a little – LITTLE – more welcoming than my other two alternatives.
I am a Christian.
And there were a LOT of problems with that school.
I only started realising probably aged about 18 and older, and even now new things come to light, flash up in my memory.
I just read an Indy100 on Christian schools – based on a Twitter thread (I’m not on Twitter) – and how they screw people up. Most, if not all, came from America, and I am extremely relieved to say my school was not quite on a par with their levels of depravity. But it did make my brain cough up a few interesting incidents.
Perhaps the earliest I remember was our horrible old deputy head, who looked like the sort of bloke who missed they days of hitting kids with board rubbers and rulers. He was standing at the lectern in assembly one day when he suddenly leaned right forward over it and yelled, “I am SICK of the girls at this school SHOWING OFF THEIR ASSETS – ” I don’t remember how that tirade continued, but that sentence is etched on my memory, probably because I was scared he’d be showing his off, leaning that far forward. At the time I was eleven and I thought it was inappropriate. Now I’m 25 and I’m like, Holy crap Mr Foster, what were you on?!
Shortly afterwards, I’m guessing I was still in Year Seven, I was in the canteen. Our Dearly Beloved Head was in there too. He really was generally beloved (he left a year later, never really got to know much about him, but he did funny assemblies) and he was standing with a group of Year 11 girls. It was fashion in my school to wear your top button or two undone with a tie usually worn very loosely, with the knot massive and a tiny fat end hanging down about navel height. It looked truly terrible, and I got in five years’ worth of trouble with the Queen of the Chavs on my first day of school when she asked why I was wearing my tie like that (i.e. properly) and I replied “Because I don’t want to look like a slut like you,” but that’s another story (in my defence, I honestly did not know what ‘slut’ meant, only that it was bad and you didn’t want to be one… That’s a whole other kettle of fish and we won’t go there today). ANYWAY, I passed this group of girls fawning round the Head, and he knew them all by name. And he reached out and flicked one of their tiny ties. And he said THIS:
“Wearing your shirt and tie like that is an invitation to a rapist, you know that.”
Little Me was like What. The. Fuck. And I didn’t even know what feminism was, at the time, but even I, an extremely sheltered, naïve and ignorant child, was like – Well, that ain’t right. But the older girls all just giggled.
A major failing of the Christian school is also that they can get away (or they could ten, fifteen years ago) with teaching ONLY different forms of Christianity in RE!! What an absolute joke, and a recipe for fostering mistrust, misunderstanding and ignorance of a substantially larger part of the population that we are. This should be banned.
Another incident I remember is our monthly communion with a very shouty vicar, who used to spit all over the communion wafers. We had one Hindu and one Sikh in our year, and the rest were ‘Christian’, a term I used very, very lightly. Mostly, they had been in a church about four times before they started secondary school, so they could ask a vicar for a reference and get a place here which had slightly better grades than the secular school up the road. The Hindu girl, who was my friend, went to get communion; she never minded, and took it as an experience. However, the Sikh boy always remained seated. On one occasion a teacher asked him why he wasn’t getting communion and he said, “I don’t want to, it’s not my religion.” And they forced him to stand up and take it. I think if this had happened in 2019 instead of about 2007, that teacher would have faced disciplinary action. I think this is an absolutely terrible act of disrespect, removal of agency, an affront to his rights and dignity. How on earth can someone think that is in any way acceptable, let alone a teacher?
Another incident which I feel is one of the most serious to happen around me at that school, alongside the one above, and I will never forget the teacher involved. Although it isn’t very Christian of me, I’m not sure I’ve forgiven him even now.
I was in Year Eight for this one. We were in PE. There was one black teacher in the entire school (1200 kids, although I don’t know how many staff there were). She was really nice, stern but fair, and I had a lot of respect for her. She was supply, but most frequently found in PE for some reason. And do you remember the aforementioned Queen of the Chavs? Well, this teacher reprimanded her over something, and as the teacher turned away, the girl – Chloe – said under her breath, “That black bitch.”
Full disclosure: I didn’t hear what she said. I heard her say something and whispering and giggling with her friends. My friend (my only friend at that time, and she was extremely fairweather… again, another story) said, “Did you hear what she said? She just called Miss a black bitch.”
“You have to report that! She can’t say that!” I whispered back. My friend refused. She didn’t want to say those words to the teacher, didn’t want her to have to hear them, didn’t want to get in trouble either with the teachers or with the chavs. Well, I was already in trouble with the chavs, had been since day one, literally, and I have never been one to shut up if I think something is wrong. One of my lecturers once said to me, “You’re very quiet… unless you’ve got something to say,” which is extremely accurate (aside from the obvious). Funnily enough, I’d been tackling him on something mildly racist at the time, that was why he said it. Lol. Anyway.
So I went up to this teacher and I told her that I had heard this. She looked solemn, but didn’t really react. She just said “Thank you for telling me this.”
We all went in, got changed, and moved on to our next lessons. I was sitting bored out of my skull in Geography (funny what you remember, isn’t it) when the Head of Year, ‘Mr Lace’, knocked on the door, stuck his head in, and said “Can I have a word with Georgie please?”
I was immediately shitting myself like What have I done?!!?! I was never in trouble. I had also never had cause for any dealings with the Head of Year before, you were generally only sent to him for punishment, but again in assemblies etc. he seemed kind, fair, funny.
Everyone stared as I got up and followed him into the corridor. My face was glowing bright red. Mr Lace turned and said, “I hear you’ve made a very serious accusation.”
I don’t remember exactly how the conversation went, but I affirmed, and he asked me who was involved and exactly what was said. He pressed me on, “Did you hear this yourself?” I explained that my friend had heard it but was too afraid to say anything. He stuck his head back in the room and called for my friend, Louise, and Chloe, the guilty party, to join us outside.
He first turned to Chloe. “Did you say that?” he asked.
“NO! She’s lying!” Chloe said, really angrily. She was one of the worst behaved kids in the school.
He turned to Louise. “Did she say that?” Louise nodded silently.
“I did NOT.”
“Right, you two, go back into the classroom please,” he told them. That was it. Interrogation over.
They went back in, Chloe railing against me and Louise.
And he believed her over us. We were the good kids who sat silently and never made any trouble. Chloe was the kid who was always in detention and always doing stupid stuff in the classroom. But she got the benefit of the doubt.
Whereas Mr Lace turned back to me, and said the words which forever lost him any respect I previously had for him.
“I think you ought to go back inside too. But don’t EVER let me catch you repeating anything on someone else’s hearsay ever again. Get back to class.”
I stood for a second while fury absolutely filled my body.
I was told off? And nothing – NOTHING – happened to Chloe?! Are you fucking joking? By doing that, I feel like he gave her an absolute free pass for racism. He did not ask her any questions. There was no punishment. He did not even say ‘Tell the truth’ or any of those lines that often work on children but mean nothing. He did NOTHING. He was happy for a member of staff to feel absolutely spat on – a colleague had reported this to him, entrusted him, and he did not believe or credit her. He didn’t feel my teacher and her whole lifetime of dealing with this crap (and I can only imagine her dismay at realising even kids came out with this bullshit, so she’d be dealing with yet another generation of ignorance) was worth so much as a ‘blue slip’ (a mild punishment back in the day). Nothing at all. The white ‘Christian’ kid got away with it.
Further than that, he punished the girl who stood up and tried to report a wrongdoing. I didn’t do it because I was a tattletale or a teacher’s pet. I could’ve tattled on a hell of a lot more they were doing to me every time I was alone. But I didn’t do it for that. I did it for someone else, because I saw an ingrained, ignorant BAD THING. And I was punished.
One more? I found out after I left that the Head who replaced Mr ‘Invitation to a rapist’ used to go out to anti-abortion rallies and hold up ‘Pray to end abortion’ placards outside termination clinics. I have photographic evidence. To slightly improve it, though, there is a girl right behind him giving him the middle finger holding one that says ‘Keep your rosaries off my ovaries’. Still, what a twat.
So yeah, basically, a lot of bad stuff is done in the name of Christian education, and also a lot of stuff is let slide – like, condoned, if not outrightly supported – because of it. It kills me that the name of a religion so open, welcoming, supportive, encouraging, loving and accepting of EVERYONE has been so corrupted by people on earth who think they have the right to interpret God’s message to hurt people?! I meant wtf. Is Jesus out there bashing gay people and stoning girls who want abortions? Er, no, he’s literally born from a woman who was going to be stoned to death, taking the cultural risk of death before he was even born, and born to an unmarried woman. Like, right back to basics, Bible-bashers. Jesus loves everyone and respected everyone regardless of where they came from or what they believed, WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT.
As a short disclaimer, it wasn’t all bad; we had a good healthy cell group on Friday lunch times, although that wasn’t run by school staff but a lady from outside, who I still know and love and her daughter is one of my best friends still, fourteen years later, and I go to her house and she got me baptised. And I never heard anything bad about being gay except from other kids (away from the ears of adults who may or may not have intervened). In my final year, it even got an ‘eco block’ with solar panels and three unisex toilets, which is an advance. You can argue whether being faith-based had any impact on its better Ofsted rating than non-faith schools (I’m inclined to think otherwise). It did have positive aspects, like a brand new science block, and focus on science and maths and technology. There were good teachers as well as bad.
But in some areas, some Christian schools have a hell of a way to go before they can be called Christian, in my opinion.
Yours faithfully
Georgie
In Other News, Guinea Pigs
Do not ask me why in hell this popped into my head.
When I was a kid, my friends who lived in the next street always had 2-4 guinea pigs and when they went on holiday we’d look after them, bringing them to our house, they had a sort of chicken shed to live in.
Anyway, the family all went to America one summer, and left Rosie and Jasmine in our doting care, sunning themselves cheerfully in our garden.
My mum was out there cheerfully sunning herself too, in just a bright green bikini, as you do. My brother and I were playing.
My mum likes fluffy little animals, especially rabbits, but guineas will do. Hearing them squeaking, she went to scoop up Jasmine, who was an absolute UNIT, honestly, she was nearer Gloucestershire Old Spot than Guinea. She plonked the oversized furball on her knee and went back to sunbathing in a deckchair
Jasmine decided that that moment was the PERFECT time to let go the bladder she must have been holding for a week. The guinea pig pissed ALL OVER my mum who was wearing nothing but a bikini. But you would not believe the volume of the stuff. Mum shrieked and held up the guinea but the piss just kept coming. And she didn’t know what to do, because the surprise of being pissed on by a guinea pig whilst nearly naked made her brain go on holiday, so she just stood there holding it until it had exhausted its internal ocean. And then she was just stood there, dripping, while a pool had formed on the deckchair. Classic summers eh.
thoughtsunqualified 