Heal the World

Heal the World

I looked at the 5 year olds class blog last night, the newest piece on there is a celebration of ‘Black History Month.’ They had been talking about Martin Luther King and the teacher had put together their comments on dreams for a fairer world next to a picture of each child sat on a rug with a globe pattern with children holding hands around the edge of the world, to the sickly music of Michael Jackson instructing us all to Heal the world. Next to my speech and language impaired 5 year old she had written, ‘for everybody to be treated the same’

‘Mmm’ I thought, ‘just doesn’t sound like something he would say....’

So, I asked him what he’d said and he told me that he said,

‘It doesn’t matter if you are a boy or a girl because it’s the same’ he knew exactly what he had said, I asked him later and he said the same thing. Not very eloquent I grant you but heartfelt (if slightly ‘off message’ for black history week!)

I was then in a bit of a quandary – though delighted that my feminist teachings had got through the number of times I’ve told him pink is for everyone who likes it, boy’s can play with dolls and Daddy can take his turn changing his brothers nappy the same as me.

Do I point out the friends we have who are black or Asian to make him aware (remember he’s not the observant kid in the world!) or will that forever point them out as someone ‘different’? We live in a multi-racial city he has to notice doesn’t he?

It was only when I became a grown up that I realised the probable heritage of some of my friends,  Joseph Gallegan, Sara Begum, Osama Ahmed, Francesca Brunelli......

He obviously gets his observation skills from me.......

So we began this rather clumsy conversation – the five year old clearly told us that black and white people are goodies (I told him some are baddies too, but you can’t tell by looking at their skin...) He at least got Martha Jones and Amy Pond as  goodies and I could confirm indeed Martha Jones and Amy Pond are goodies.

He looked at me with puzzlement when I asked him which of our friends are black? O.k. brown I said? And despite the photos on the back of his bedroom door he didn’t really understand. I didn’t really push it. Should I? I don’t know what to say....

Later my partner told me they’d seen someone from cbeebies in the park again much to the two year olds delight!

‘Ooh’ I say, a little stage struck, ‘Who?’

‘The blonde one’ he said.

‘Do you mean the woman with one arm?’ I say

‘Yes’ he says.

Now I know she does not always want to be known as the woman with one arm but there are more blondes in the world than people with one arm and it’s just a physical description isn’t it?