I Heard What You Said

Jeffrey Boakye's I Heard What You Said is a powerful exploration of being a black teacher in the British education system, revealing the habits, presumptions, silences, and distortions that black students and teachers experience. It is a timely exploration of how to dismantle racism in the classroom and do better by all students.

Format: Hardback
Length: 384 pages
Publication date: 09 June 2022
Publisher: Pan Macmillan

An Amazon Best Non-Fiction Book of 2022


Essential reading


The Guardian


Sharp and witty with moments of startling candour


The i


Makes a powerful case


Rt Hon Lady Hale


Revealing and beautifully written


David Harewood

Before Jeffrey Boakye was a black teacher, he was a black student. Which means he has spent a lifetime navigating places of learning that are white by default.


Since training to teach, he has often been the only black teacher at school.


At times seen as a role model, at others a source of curiosity, Boakye's is a journey of exploration – from the outside looking in.

In the groundbreaking I Heard What You Said, he recounts how it feels to be on the margins of the British education system.


As a black, male teacher – an English teacher who has had to teach problematic texts – his very existence is a provocation to the status quo, giving him a unique perspective on the UK's classrooms.

Through a series of eye-opening encounters based on the often challenging and sometimes outrageous things people have said to him or about him, Boakye reflects on what he has found out about the habits, presumptions, silences, and distortions that black students and teachers experience, and which underpin British education.

Thought-provoking, witty, and completely unafraid, I Heard What You Said is a timely exploration of how we can dismantle racism in the classroom and do better by all our students.

Hugely important


- Baroness Lawrence


Deeply compelling, intellectually rigorous, and essential


- Nels Abbey


Personal and political, profound and playful


- Darren Chetty


Written with passion, fury, knowledge, and, in spite of the painful subject, wit


- Patrice Lawrence

Weight: 488g
Dimension: 146 x 223 x 38 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781529063745