Lesson video

Hi there.

My name is Mrs. Cooper.

Today's lesson is going to be a little bit different to some of my previous lessons, because we are talking about equality.

Now, you may have your own beliefs about whether we do or we don't have equality in this country.

What I'd like you to do is go through the lesson with an open mind, and then perhaps at the end, reflect on what you have learnt.

So in this lesson, we're going to define equality and what it actually means if we want to have equality.

We're going to identify arguments for and against whether there is equality in Britain today.

We're going to critically analyse the phrase All Lives Matter, and we're going to apply non-religious views to equality.

You will need two different coloured pens or pencils and some paper.

Remember, if you have different colours, then you can make your alterations.

What I'd also like to add here, is you really need an open mind for today's lesson.

So, first thing we're going to do is go through the key words.

So, equality means that you are equal in rights and opportunities.

And the opposite of equality is something we call discrimination.

It's being treated differently because of gender, ethnicity, religion, or disability.

Discrimination usually comes from prejudice.

Now, I haven't written prejudice on here, but it's when you prejudge somebody.

You decide something about someone before you really know them.

And the final one is human rights.

These are the basic rights and freedoms that belong to everyone.

So, first of all, true or false? Discrimination is about treating everyone equally.

That is false.

Discrimination is about treating people differently or unfairly, I guess.

True or false? Human rights are about being equal in rights and opportunities.

That's wrong again.

Although part of human rights might be about treating people equally and giving people rights and opportunities, that's not the definition.

Equality is about being equal in rights and opportunities.

Discrimination is about treating people differently.

That's correct.

And we talked about that one already.

Haven't we? Discrimination is about treating people differently.

And human rights are a series of basic rights and freedoms. Absolutely well done.

So human rights are a series of basic rights and freedoms. So equality is therefore being equal in rights and opportunities.

That is true, well done.

Now, I would like you to pause the video and copy down the keywords with the definitions.

Resume when you are finished.

What I would like you to do now is pause the video, to complete this task.

Please use a whole sheet of A4 to copy out the column table and complete it.

I am going to go through some of the evidence of either equality or discrimination for women's rights, religion, and ethnicity.

When you are ready to resume the video, we will continue.

So you make sure that you have completed the table first, or you've completed the outline of the table.

You're going to complete it while I talk through the three different parts.

So we're going to try and unpick this question.

Is there equality in Britain today? The first thing we're going to look at is women's rights.

So, I've used for my picture, a picture of Millicent Fawcett, who was a new member of the Suffragettes.

Some of you remember, if you ever watched Mary Poppins, the Suffragettes were people that went and they fought to get some basic freedoms for women.

Most particularly it was to get women the vote.

And actually in 1928, women did get the vote.

So, they were allowed to, from the age of 21, everyone from the age of 21 was allowed to vote.

This was huge for women because before they were not allowed to choose to vote or make decisions themselves.

But just think about when you're voting in politics, the people in politics are making big decisions.

So they also made the decisions about women's rights.

How women ever going to get better rights if they weren't allowed to vote in the people that were going to give them better rights? So this was a really big, important thing.

And this is something I'd love you to remember when you are older, when you're you old enough to vote.

That people really fought for you to be able to have rights.

And going back further in time, it would have only been noble people, the nobility, rich people that would have been able to vote.

So we're all very lucky to have the right to vote and that we can make a difference.

So do it.

The next thing is the Equal Pay Act.

In 1970, women who had now been doing many of the same jobs as men, were still not getting paid the same amount for doing the same jobs.

In 1970, the Equal Pay Act made sure that this wouldn't happen.

There is however, an issue with this.

There is still a gender pay gap of 15.

5%.

What I mean by that, is on average, the average woman who has been working for the same amount as the average man, the same amount of time, will earn 15.

5% less than men.

Now, one of the reasons for this is often because women have time out of work for maternity, to stop and look after children, which also suggests that it's traditionally, still women who tend to be the main caregivers.

Even women who work full time, tend to be the one that will take the time off work.

When the children are poorly, you tend to still do a lot of the domestic jobs.

So while we've come a very far away, one could argue that we're not quite there yet.

How about religion then? How have we got equality in religion today? So once again, you could argue, Britain is a Christian country.

The laws of our country are based on Christian teachings.

Schools still have to have, worship assemblies where they're supposed to be praise and hymns.

So there are sides to religion in Britain where there's definitely an emphasis on Christianity.

However, there is far more understanding, that used to be of lots of different religions.

So for example, if you're a Muslim and you wish to have that time off to celebrate Eid, you are absolutely entitled to have that time.

So the country has got better at recognising other religions.

We do, however, have still experienced Islamophobia.

When there have been certain terrorist attacks, people straight away assume that it's something to do with Islam.

People have always been showing that we will treat Muslims differently.

One of the ways that the government tries to counteract the Islamophobia and discrimination towards people of different religions is to have religious education in school.

Believe it or not R.

E is not there to teach you that you should believe anything is to help you understand what different people of different beliefs have and help you to not prejudge those people or discriminate against them for being different.

So once again, there are reasons why there is more equality and there are reasons why we're still not quite there yet.

Is there equality in Britain today in terms of ethnicity.

Now I have taken a picture of a Black Lives Matter protest.

And we're going to talk about this in a little bit more detail in a minute.

First of all, though, let's consider some of the evidence.

In 2010, the Equality Act meant that if people were discriminating against others on base or on the base of their ethnicity, then they would get punished.

We also have positive discrimination.

Now on the face of it, this doesn't sound like a very positive phrase, but positive discrimination is used in companies where they before have discriminated against others on the grounds of ethnicity, disability, or religion.

So it's a policy that firms will take to ensure that they are recruiting enough people of different ethnicities.

You may well find that when you are older or when your parents are being interviewed for a job, they are sent an equal opportunities form, that they are asked to fill in to show that that employer is trying to employ people from different ethnicities.

Now, the final example that I'm going to talk about is a man called Ryan Colaço.

So quite recently, or certainly during lockdown, there was a man named Ryan Colaço, he is actually a journalist.

And he was doing, going around with a camera, a video camera in his car.

And he was actually looking to see people's reactions of a black man driving a car.

And it was a particular car.

I think it was Mercedes.

So it was quite an expensive car.

And what he found was while doing this, the police drove past him and decided that he looked dodgy, no better word for it.

For whatever reason, they decided that he needed to be arrested.

He wasn't speeding.

He wasn't doing anything that was illegal, but they stopped him.

He was arrested and he was taken into prison.

Now, after this happened, he actually went on national live TV.

So you can look it up on the internet to talk about his story of how he was treated differently because of the colour of his skin and where he was driving around.

What was incredible was the fact that on his drive back from the interview, exactly the same thing happened again.

And he was recording the incident as it happened.

He sat in the car and said, I'm not aggressive.

I'm not resisting arrest, but I'd like you to tell me why you're arresting me.

And he actually got pulled out of the car.

So the police said that he was resisting arrest.

Broke the window of his car and dragged him out through the window of his car.

This certainly suggests that there is not equality in Britain today, on the grounds of some people's ethnicity.

Now we need to go and unpick this a little bit more.

So how did you do? In women you could have had something about the equal pay act, being evidence of equality that evidence of discrimination was the gender pay gap.

For religion, you could say that religious education in school shows as evidence that the government are trying to have equality.

But the evidence of discrimination is that there is a lot of Islamophobia in the country and antisemitism, which is anti Jewishness.

For ethnicities, there's evidence of equality in the Equality Act, but the evidence of discrimination is Ryan Colaço.

I think one thing that could be summarised by all of these, is that the government and the laws are actively trying to enforce equality in the country.

But society as a whole is still not there yet.

Now we're going to look at the phrase Black Lives Matter.

And particularly we're going to look at the phrase, but don't all lives matter.

This has been an issue that has been in the media and social media particularly, for the past year.

Now we're going to unpick why is slightly illogical to say don't all lives matter when someone says black lives matter.

In order to do this, we need to explain and understand what a deductive argument is.

So a deductive argument is an argument where the conclusion must follow from the points made.

You may have watched detective dramas where the detective like to detective Colombo, I have deduced that.

they've used the evidence they've found whether it's fingerprints, or talking to witnesses.

They've used that evidence.

They've put it all together and they have come up with a conclusion.

And that essentially is what a deductive argument is.

So an example of a deductive argument would be one plus one equals two.

There is no other answer that could be derived from one plus one.

This is exactly the same in any other kind of deductive argument.

So let's have a look at some more examples.

Point one, all men are mortal, which means they can die.

Immortal means that you're alive forever.

Point two, Harold is a man conclusion therefore, Harold is mortal? That makes sense.

Okay, let's try another one.

Next example, point one, all birds have feathers.

Point two, all robins are birds.

Conclusion, robins have feathers.

Let's look at some more examples.

Point one, all bears have fur.

Conclusion, therefore only bears have fur.

No, this is actually illogical argument.

What might've worked out would be point one all bears have fur point two Burnet is a bear, point C therefore Burnett has fur, That would make sense.

But jumping from all bears have fur too therefore only bears have fur isn't a logical argument.

Because that one point doesn't necessarily follow to that conclusion.

Let's look at another example then.

Point one black lives matter.

conclusion, therefore only black lives matter.

Once again, it would be illogical to derive that only black lives matter, from the statement black lives matter.

Now let's try and unpick this idea in better detail.

If you look at the two houses, they're almost exactly the same, both houses matter, but only one of them has a fire that needs to be put out.

And the other doesn't.

In the same way, all lives matter.

But currently there is a daily injustice towards black lives, which means that their issues need more attention at this moment in time.

Now, what I would like you to do is pause the video and complete these tasks.

When you're ready to resume the video gets different coloured pen, and we'll go through the answers.

So how did you do.

Take a different coloured pen and read through my answers.

Pause the video if you wish, and when you're ready to resume to the other questions or the other answers and pause the video.

I'm going to quickly read through this one with you.

Question number four.

Black lives matter, means that there is an urgent need for society to value black lives in the same way as all lives and to eradicate prejudice.

It does not mean that only black lives matter.

So finally, let's have a look at what some philosophers remember, people that are searching for truth, teach about equality.

Jane Elliot, is a professor of diversity at a university in America and has been for the last 40 years.

She says that there is only one race, which is the human race.

What she means by this is that our skin colour, does not define who we are.

What defines, who we all are, is that we are all human.

We're all Homo sapians.

And therefore we are all the same.

And therefore we should be treated equally, with the same human rights and freedom.

Kwame Anthony Appiah, says that the challenge is to take hearts and minds and equip them with the ability to work together as one global tribe.

So Kwame is really saying that actually in order to get us to work together, and again, he's essentially saying the same as Jane Elliott, that there is only one race or one global tribe.

We're all the same.

But the only way to get people to understand that is to challenge people's hearts, what they believe in their heart and to challenge what they believe in their mind.

Some people have prejudice that they don't even realise or know that they have.

The only way to get rid of that is to challenge people's prejudice.

To challenge people when they judge others based on the colour of their skin.

Angela Davies is another philosopher who is incredibly anti-racist.

She says that in a racist society is not enough to be non-racist.

We have to be anti-racist.

It's no good just to say, well, I'm not racist.

"If you see other people being racist," says Angela, "Then you confront them." Don't be a bystander, go and help, educate people.

Educate that global tribe and explain to them why racism is wrong.

So our final true or false.

Angela Davis said that there is only one race.

It was false.

It wasn't Angela Davis, it was Jane Elliott.

Kwame Anthony Appiah said that we need to be a world tribe.

That is true.

Angela Davis said that the only way to stop racism is to be anti racist.

That is true, well done you.

And Jane Elliott said that there is only one race And that was right again.

And that one race is the human race.

Now please pause the video, to complete your task.

So how did you do? I have filled in the correct answers in a different colour I'll take a different colour pen and make any alterations.

Now please pause the video to complete your task.

Please use the sentence starters that I have given you to help.

Finally, I'm going to read through my answer with you.

So please take a different colour pen to make any alterations.

Remember my answer isn't necessarily the right answer.

What's really important is that you're justifying and explaining your reasons for your answers.

So I have written, I think that there isn't quite total equality in Britain.

My first reason for this is the fact that women don't get paid the same as men.

For example, there is still a 15.

5 pay gap between men and women.

My second reason is that black people still not being treated equally within society or by the police an example of this is Ryan Colaço, He was arrested twice by police on suspicion of selling drugs, purely because of the colour of his skin.

Angela Davis suggests that we should fight racism head on and not just be non-racist, but anti-racist, and that is how we will find equality.

On the other hand, the law actively promotes equality and punishes discrimination.

For example, the Equal Pay Act of 1970 and the Equality Act of 2010.

Once again, it has been a real pleasure teaching you today.

I hope that you've taken some time to really think about some of the issues that we've unpicked today.

Today's lesson really is only the tip of the iceberg.

There's no clear cut answer to how we find equality or when we will have a equality in this country, let alone the rest of the world, but it would be nice to think that we could all work together as one, as a human race, as a global tribe, to be anti racist, to fight inequality and discrimination.