“Look at me when I’m talking to you”
You’ve probably heard it. You might have said it.
“Look at me when I’m talking to you.”
In the #WomenEd research report on women in school leadership, a Black senior leader describes walking the corridors watching big Black boys being shouted at by bigger white men. Teachers are right up in their faces, repeating: “Look at me when I’m talking to you… look at me when I’m talking to you.”
Then she says something very plain: in the Black culture she grew up in, you drop your eyes to show respect to authority – and what she is watching is a complete lack of cultural awareness about something that has been ingrained since childhood.
That same message shows up in endless clips and posts on social media. Often, it is held up as a classic example of “cultural misunderstanding”: white teacher expects eye contact as respect; Black child avoids eye contact as respect. The fix, we’re told, is better cultural training.
There is truth in that cultural explanation. After all, in many Western societies, someone who does not maintain “good eye contact” is seen as slightly suspicious or a “shifty” character. People who avoid eye contact get read as unfriendly, insecure, untrustworthy, inattentive, impersonal.
So yes: there are real, patterned differences in how eye contact works.
However, if we stop there, all we have done is cloak domination in “anti-racism”.
The cultural awareness script
The script goes something like this.
First, a predominantly white staff team works with Black and global majority young people. Some teachers interpret a lack of eye contact as defiance or disrespect. Exclusion data and behaviour points tell a familiar story.
So trainers step in to “bridge the gap”
They explain that in some Black families and communities, children are taught not to look directly at an adult when they are in trouble. Looking away is framed as humility. Looking an adult in the eye is framed as a challenge.
So the advice to the teacher is simple:
“Do not get angry. Do not demand eye contact. Try to understand the culture. The child is actually showing you respect.”
On the surface, this feels like progress. We move from “that child is rude” to “I need to understand where this child is coming from”.
But let’s look closely at what has not changed.
The adult still decides what respect looks like.
The adult still controls what the child’s body should do.
The adult still holds the power to name the behaviour and its meaning.
Cultural awareness has shifted the rule book. It has not changed the extent to which this child can be dominated.
Two versions of the same domination
In the first version, the teacher dominates by insisting on eye contact.
“Look at me when I’m talking to you.”
You will face me. You will not look away. The message is clear: I am the authority. Your body is mine to arrange.
In the second version, the community dominates by forbidding eye contact.
“Do not look at me when you are in trouble.”
You will not meet my eyes. You will lower your gaze. The message is still clear: I am still the authority. Your body is still mine to arrange.
Both practices are defended as “respect”.
Both practices teach young people their place in the world – and what to do when it is their turn to hold power: you dominate those with less.
It is one of the reasons Year 11s dominate Year 7s.
Why, some adults in support roles dominate children in the same ways they have been dominated.
And why, in a primary playground, a child can calmly say, “It’s not my game, you have to ask X if you can play” and everyone else accepts that one small person gets to decide who is in and who is out.
Whether it is fear of a raised voice, a slammed hand on the desk, or silent disappointment, all of it treats the young person’s body and belonging as a surface that others write their authority on.
When anti-racist work swaps one rule for another, it does not protect children. It just asks schools to dominate young people in the culturally appropriate way.
The analogy that should make us uncomfortable
When I started thinking about this blog, I reached for an analogy I do not entirely like, precisely because it is dehumanising.
Imagine someone training a dog.
With one dog, they raise the lead as if they are going to hit it. The dog flinches, sits, stays. It has learned to respond to the threat.
With another dog, they never touch the lead. They change their tone instead. A sharp, booming “sit” is enough to make the dog freeze. It has learned to respond to the voice.
The method is different. Yet, the relationship is the same. Both dogs are being controlled through fear.
This is the risk with the cultural sensitivity script. We congratulate ourselves for putting down the lead, while still relying on the booming voice. We tell ourselves it is kinder, more informed, even anti-racist.
The problem is not which trick we use.
The problem is that we are still training children like they are ours to control.
If this analogy lands, it is because our systems already treat children in ways that are dehumanising – closer to animal training than to human relationship.
And that should bother you.
What if we stopped arguing over how to dominate children?
What would it mean to step away from the question “Which version of domination is more culturally appropriate?”
And ask instead:
- Who taught me that eye contact is the proof of respect or remorse?
- What other ways could we communicate care, accountability and repair?
An anti-racist response cannot only be “learn the correct cultural rule”.
If power stays exactly where it was, we have not moved. We have just layered new language over old hierarchies.
Respect without control
Building a relationship with a child does not mean letting them do whatever they like. It means refusing to sacrifice the relationship just to get the performance of respect we have been trained to expect. Boundaries, safety, and teachers all matter.
Indeed, as Paulo Freire said, the democratic educator is someone whose “authority is affirmed without disrespect of freedom. It is affirmed for this very reason. Because they respect freedom, they are respected.”
The question is not “Should adults have any authority?”. The question is “What is that authority for?”.
If authority exists simply to secure obedience and comfort for adults, then eye contact becomes a weapon. So do silent gazes at the floor. Children spend their school lives scanning for which rule applies to which adult, in which corridor, on which day.
If authority exists to protect everyone’s dignity, it sounds more like:
“You don’t have to look at me, but I do need to know you’ve heard me. How do you want us to do this?”
“I notice you always stare at the floor when things are hard. I’m not going to shout. What feels safest for you right now?”
In this classroom, respect is something we build together, not something I simply demand.
It is slower and less tidy than a rule about where a child should place their gaze. But that is the point. Shared humanity is rarely efficient.
From cultural competence to shared humanity
Cultural awareness is not useless. Histories, norms and language matter. But they cannot be the finish line.
If our anti-racist practice only teaches white staff how to avoid offending Black families, we have missed the point.
We still have to ask:
- Who gets to decide what respect looks like here?.
- Who pays the price for adult comfort?.
- How often are children asked to twist themselves into shapes that fit our rules about “good behaviour”?
At Class 13, we are not asking schools to swap one obedience script for another. We are asking something slightly more transformative. For the classroom to really live our four principles.
Sitting with the discomfort
If you are a teacher or youth worker, none of this is abstract. It is the moment a child avoids your eyes and something rises in your chest: annoyance, embarrassment, a hit of “disrespect”, fear of losing control.
This blog is not here to give you a perfect script for that split second. It is here to ask you to notice what is happening underneath.
Next time you find yourself in a moment of discipline, what are you teaching this young person about their place in the world – and about how power should be used when it’s theirs?
The question is not, “How do I get this child to perform respect correctly?”
The question is, “Do I recognise this child as someone I have zero right to dominate?”
