A nasty incident

Last week a boy in my class of Nutters took a penny out of his pocket and, in a quiet lull, rolled it across the floor of the room and said aloud: "Let's see if there's any Jews in the room."

The mutterers among the Nutters shut up. Those doing their work looked up and fell silent. I couldn't help but hear him. "That's not acceptable," I said, "Get up, go and stand outside, you cannot stay in my classroom and I need to speak to you." 

The boy stood up and walked out, face flushing red as he realised that he was in trouble. 

But then, as he walked out he pointed at the penny and said to me, "Don't worry, Sir, it's for you. The penny is for you."

His racism is horrible, but unfortunately it is something that he has picked up from his peers. He is an immature boy who does not have many boundaries. I get on well with him outside of lessons, although he can prove a handful at times. In this instance, giving him the benefit of the doubt, I'm not sure that he was aware of how insulting his behaviour was. He was probably just trying to be disruptive and funny. But that in itself is a damning indictment of the casual racism, and especially antisemitism, bandied about the school.

He's being made an example of now, but something else needs to be done, something more systemic, to address what is a creeping malaise among the children.