With reference to your article (Black people who were labelled ‘backward’ as children seek justice for lifelong trauma, 21 February), I once worked as a not-yet-trained social worker for the London borough of Haringey’s mental health department with children labelled “educationally subnormal” (ESN). I had a file of families with ESN children, mostly from the West Indies.
I am not sure who diagnosed them as such. I knew nothing of their background and accepted that they were “slow learners”, as a result of which they were assigned to junior training centres for children with learning difficulties – or “mentally subnormal” – as was the language then. My guilt stays with me.
Jenny Lumley
London
• I worked in an ESN school in the 1970s and found this story so familiar. I struggled with the local authority to get Black children reassessed and did manage it just once. Bernard Coard’s 1971 book, How the West Indian Child Is Made Educationally Sub-normal in the British School System, should be compulsory reading for all trainee teachers, psychologists, social workers, politicians and others in our education system. My research for my MSc, “My teachers treat me as if I’m not a human being” (the title was taken from a child’s quote), was inspired by this book. Sadly, I doubt much has changed.
Kate Brown
Bradford
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