Reflections and musings from a 3rd generation Windrush descendant

Windrush day is always a time for reflection for me. As someone whose grandparents came over from Jamaica as part of the Windrush generation, whose mother was born here and was then born here myself - my backstory is not too uncommon within the Black British Caribbean community here in England.  Born in Croydon, London but having moved around a lot during my childhood to places lacking a Black Caribbean community, I often sought to explore more of my heritage beyond the (best!) food and the music. For me, I found this in books (fiction and non-fiction) and poetry - and I still do today, but what about the next generation?

Can we rely on teachers and the education system? It has been 54 years since Bernard Coard’s 1971 book: ‘How the West Indian Child Is Made Educationally Sub-normal in the British School System: The Scandal of the Black Child in Schools in Britain’ called out some of the major flaws in the system. Yet, just as Patrick mentioned in his blog, I also was not taught about the Windrush generation in school during the 90’s and early 00’s. 

As an ex-teacher and current PhD candidate, my professional experience and current research makes it clear that teachers in schools today still lack the skills to speak about race, ethnicity and culture effectively with their students and more work needs to be done within teacher training to prepare teachers to do so. Furthermore, the recruitment of Black teachers in the teacher workforce and the retention of these teachers is - and has always been - low. The national curriculum has also been under scrutiny for many years and although some more recent work has been done, for example within the English and History curricula (my 7 year old niece recently told me all about what she had learnt in her class about Mary Seacole!), will the curriculum ever be able to pass on the rich, diverse Windrush legacies effectively to our children in the school setting?

Or does this responsibility lie with us? The 2nd and 3rd generations? I would say it does and have spoken to many who feel the same. Over the last few months I have been at events and in conversations where the same questions come up

‘Should we bring back Saturday schools and how do we get funding for that?’ 

‘How do we get young people more interested in learning about and celebrating their heritage?’ 

‘Do the teenagers and children care about preserving and passing on their legacies anymore?’

Depending on who you ask, the answers are always different. One thing for sure is certain: we are running out of time to capture the oral histories of the Windrush generation. We also need to share this with the next generation as much as we can and not just keep these locked up in the archives. The brilliant Deanna Lyncook’s History Hotline podcast is one of many examples of how this can be done. 

Whilst we may not all be wanting or able to start podcasts; just doing our part everyday in our careers, activism, research and general existence to continue to be unapologetically Caribbean and share the stories of celebration, resilience, and brilliance of the Windrush generation all add up in the fight to maintain and pass on our legacy.

Saffron Powell is a Black British Caribbean educator and researcher at British Future.  

Currently a PhD candidate at King’s College London, Saffron’s research explores how PGCE programmes across England prepare student teachers to teach in an ethnically diverse society at a time where the teacher workforce is predominantly White British, yet our children are the most ethnically diverse they have ever been.