46 | STUDENT GHETTOS | INTERNATIONAL More from Ted click here
Integrating overseas students into UK school life can be a challenge. Ted Underwood has some solutions
“I
’m not shocked. I’m not angry. I’m just disappointed in you.” This
was a catchphrase of mine when I was a Head of Sixth Form. Students were brought before me – as often as not having been caught doing something they shouldn’t, where they shouldn’t, with someone they shouldn’t – and I would fix them with a baleful gaze and shake my head gently, before utering the tried and tested line. Today, I am deploying that same expression, shake of the head and baleful gaze at The Times newspaper which
BELOW: you any ethnic or cultural ghettos at Taunton School
recently – and rather selfishly, I might add – ruined my holiday. Let me explain. I was in Britany
at the end of May. I like Britany: the weather is like Britain but a bit beter, the people are nice without being overly interested in you, and it is very difficult to find anything bad to eat there. I was happy. That is, until one balmy evening when I received an email from a school Head asking whether I had seen the latest article on international students in The Times. As is the case with Britany,
I like The Times’ reporting on education. It’s stimulating without being wearying, and the writing style carries an air of detachment which lends it credibility. However, what I read on this
ABROAD APPROACH
occasion was, quite frankly, a lazy piece of journalism which reported that British boarding schools are being overrun by apathetic international brats who won’t mix, take part or even breathe unaided. “Foreign students are blamed for public school ‘ghetos’,” screamed the headline. Gheto is, in my opinion, a
nasty word to use in connection with foreign students – and entirely inappropriate when discussing the cosy environment of an independent school. It is bathos in its most ridiculous sense, and uterly beneath a publication such as The Times. Atop this piece sat a still from an old St Trinian’s film, with a tag line reporting that foreign
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