The View from the Classroom – Britishness
Can you do your best impression of the Queen?
All right.
Hello there.
Hello.
I could do a queen impression, but I wouldn't want to offend anyone.
Cheerio.
And she does her wave as well.
God save the Queen.
If we're talking about the stereotype of British people,
they speak in a really weird, like, posh accent.
What is in Sherlock Holmes, in Suits
They live in London.
Fish and chips, scones, a nice Sunday roast. Drinks, tea, the England football team and how rubbish it is.
Cricket and tennis, and like rugby.
Those stereotypes do annoy me. Only a minority of British people are actually like that.
Yeah, I'm British.
Yeah, I'm British.
I'm British because I was born here.
I was born British, but come from an Indian background.
My blood makes me British.
I am half Maltese, but I've lived in Britain all my life, so pretty British.
I think what makes me British is that I've been here all my life.
I think I'm Welsh because, I don't know, I look at the British flag and I don't see a Welsh dragon.
My dad was British and he is fully British his entire life. My mum, on the other hand, comes from Thailand, so I do not consider my mum a British citizen. However, I still consider her my mum and that's almost just as good.
I've been to a lot of places and they all think British people are just English.
If someone asked me, I'd say I'm Welsh rather than I'm British.
If you're British, you are also English, I think, aren't you?
I'm not too sure what it actually means to be British. That's a difficult question.
I feel as if it's just something on a passport.
To be British, it means to belong.
Britishness is just someone who holds some basic British values, such as tolerance, stoicism and freedom.
Liberty, democracy and diversity, because there's people from all different backgrounds and all different races that are here.
Peacefully living together and, like, being kind and just respecting each other.
I think just living in Britain and following the laws, going to school, being friends with everyone else here, that's just what about being British is to me. You could say, oh yeah, British people, like, are forgiving and all of this and but then that's saying that, uh, people from other countries aren't.
I'm Romanian. I've lived in the UK for ten years now. I'm a British citizen. I have a British passport, but I think it comes down to genes, like, I wasn't born here. My parents aren't British, so I don't think I am.
I don't think that you are born British, because there's people coming from other countries and they are legally British.
They can apply for citizenship if they've lived here for five or more years, if they've come from abroad, but to me, they they won't be British.
I don't think you do have to be born here to be British. I think, for example, refugees and that, that are forced over here through war and stuff like that, if they come over here and it's a better life for them, then why not allow them to be British?
I think that someone can come here and be made British because if they are abiding by the rules, then that means that they are British.
I 100% think it's really healthy for society to have all of these different religions and ethnicities and all like, mingling together.
I think multiculturalism has only increased over time, and like there's Indian shops. It's only shaped us for the better with having a load of different food, instead of just having to eat fish and chips every day, we can have curry once or twice as well now.
I think Britain should be a democracy because many people need to decide their fate.
Democracy is a country in which the people can vote for who they want to be the leader.
It'd be unfair if only one person could decide what everyone's doing. I feel like a vote should count for something because one vote can change a lot.
I think democracy is something that's required to be human. Everyone's different and so all people's opinions should be put together and really decided on to make one decision.
I think the voting age should be brought down to 16. I will do the research on who I vote in, because the same could be said for 18 year olds. Some 18 year olds are stupid, doesn't mean they're not allowed to vote.
I'm not really very into politics, but then I feel if the voting age was lowered, people my age would probably get more involved.
I think it should stay at 18, I think. 16 year olds are too caught up with school and things. They're probably not thinking about politics too much.
Being able to choose your leader is a very important thing, because that makes you feel like you have a choice in the matter of what's happening to your country.
The British has definitely changed over the years, as the Windrush, when the Jamaicans came, they bring a lot of their cultures, their foods, their fashion.
You can't expect Britain to stay as it was 100 years ago.
People with different cultures can get on. You can all share opinions without having to discriminate.
Well, the British Empire comes from many places around the world. The countries that they did invade and take over, of course, have many people of different ethnicities. And all those people I believe are equally British, so race and ethnicity does not matter.
I think people don't like change because it's been the same for so many years. So, when somebody else from a different country is in the same class as them, or in the same room as them, they're going to be like, well, you weren't here before, why are you here now?
I think in like a politician's point of view, that they're not, kind of, over the fact that Britain once was a very white country. And I don't think that, because at the end of the day, Britain is not defined by its past, it's defined by what it is at the moment. And if it's that we've got loads of different faiths, we should, like, really be grateful for that, because at the end of the day, it's trying to say that we encourage this stuff and that we're not racist.
Britain is probably one of the biggest places where you see loads of different colours. I love being British.
