Excluded from his school in Birmingham, Benjamin Zephaniah share his Hunger to Learn story

When I was excluded from school, I was actually excluded for expressing myself in a graffitti way - writing poetry over the school walls - but it wasn't just that.  It was an accumulation of many things. 

I wasn't behaving very well.  I was playing truant.  I could be very aggressive.  I didn't do what I was told.

"I've been awake all night listening to violence in my house"

I just wish one single teacher would have called me aside and said, "Have you got a problem at home?"

Because then I could have said, "Yes, this is it, I've been awake all night listening to violence in my home, before I came to school this morning I was slapped across my head and the next thing I want to do is slap someone else across the head." 

All this stuff didn't come out and in those days teachers weren't really encouraged to talk to their pupils in that kind of a way, so I'm not angry about it but I just wish that somebody would have spoken to me. 

It's very sad because it was the only place where I was going regularly seeing other people that could have helped me.  And could have helped my poor mother in some ways.  But it didn't happen.

"One teacher said I was going to end up dead"

After I was excluded from school I went on to a young person's prison, so in a way I was taking a route which some people said was my destiny.

One teacher said when I was excluded from school that I was going to end up dead or doing a life sentence. That was it. That's my path now.

I remember once coming out of one of these institutions and thinking I want to prove that teacher wrong.

But I got involved in what we called thug life, and gangsterism and I saw some of my friends dying and I saw some getting a life sentence and that's when I went back to my dreams I had when I was 8 years old..

I thought I want to go into poetry. I don't want to be robbing banks. I don't want to be robbing cars. I want to be that poet I wanted to be when I was 8 years old, and so I turned my life around.

"I can't write; I can't read and write properly"

I was living in Birmingham in the midlands and I moved to London and I was really lucky that I managed to find singers and poets and some well known people who took care of me.

And then I wrote a book, called Pen Rhythm, more like a pamphlet actually.

I was watching television one day and they said "this great new book by Britain's new young black writer" and  when they said that word 'writer' I said, I can't write, I can't read and write properly, and I went to night school.

They used to have adult education classes. You pay a pound or so for a lesson and you have adult education.  That's where I learnt how to read and write properly, and that's where I learnt I was dyslexic. I hadn't heard of the word until then.

"They just looked at me and laughed"

I remember being in India once and talking to a gathering of quite privileged kids, maybe two or three thousand kids in a big massive hall and they were talking about truancy.

I asked what truancy is like here. They just looked at me and laughed and said we really don't have that problem. 

If a kid wants to play truant they can get kicked out of school and someone will very quickly come and replace them. 

That touched me because I thought in my country England so many kids take school for granted and they can say I'm going to play truant or I'm going to get excluded and it really doesn't matter.   It's interesting to see a place where kids really cherish education.

How did they do this?

Read more stories at the BBC News Hunger to Learn website

Benjamin Zephaniah would like the school he attended in Birmingham to twin with a school in central China in a village where everyone does Tai Chi all the time - even when they are waiting for the bus! 

Benjamin Zephaniah is reading poems for BBC 7's Big Toe Radio Show.

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