Many communities in the UK are very dependent on voluntary schools for educational support, the teaching of their mother tongue and also as a place to meet, share information and get support. The schools are not well known outside of their communities. Most teachers in mainstream schools have never heard of them and the vital role they play. The main purpose of this project is to make supplementary and mother tongue schools and the services they offer better known to the wider public.
18 teachers took part in a preliminary study in May and wrote their stories after a training session at the Resource Unit. They originated from India, Bangladesh, Somalia, the Yemen, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, Kenya, China and Poland. Almost all of them worked as volunteers, between 2 and 5 hours a week, mostly on Saturdays. They have written about why they became teachers, their role in the community, what and how they teach, their relationships with children and families, their conditions of work, the challenges they face and the rewards of their chosen profession.
The teachers’ story
The most striking feature of the teachers’ stories is their total commitment to their communities. While they are modest about their contribution, they know how important their role is as transmitters of language and culture. None of them teach in the mainstream, but a few have taught in their country of origin. Some have always wanted to be teachers and working in Saturday schools has helped them to fulfil this ambition.
Some of the teachers were involved in starting the schools they work in. As parents of children born or educated in the U.K., they became aware that their children were growing up with little knowledge of their home language or their community’s culture and traditions.
While all the teachers have in common their commitment to language and culture, their stories are all different. The focus of their work varies according to the characteristics of the particular community that they serve.
In established minority communities, the teacher focuses on the community language and the transmission of cultural knowledge. The latter is achieved in different ways: through the formal teaching of history and geography, or through the arts: music and dance in particular, but also through traditional skills such as calligraphy.
Where communities have maintained a strong link with the country of origin (this is the case with the Chinese Mandarin school for example) or have a hope to return within the near future (the Iraqui community), there is a focus on teaching language to a high academic standard, “passing on the national treasure”, as one teacher expressed it. There is an expectation that children will become fully competent bilinguals and biliterates. They are entered for English examinations where these are available, for example for Chinese and Arabic.
For the teachers in a community of more recent migration such as the Somali one, originating in war torn zones, there is a sense of desperate urgency. As one Somali teacher said, “I have helped my community for twelve years to get their rights and benefits. Now they are settled, the challenge is education for the children.” The children come face to face with education in English, having had no previous experience of schooling at all and having led very dislocated lives. They are placed in age appropriate classes where they feel inadequate. The cycle of failure and lowered self-esteem can lead some children to leave school and join gangs. The mission, for their teachers, is very much a rescue operation, and time is short. They need to support the children to achieve in the mainstream and rebuild their shattered self-esteem. While they are concerned to instil in the children pride and confidence in their identity, the first priority is to help children survive in their mainstream classrooms.
Somewhere in between, there are teachers who work with the African Caribbean community and children whose self-esteem has been damaged by failure. Rebuilding pride in personal identity goes hand in hand with support for National Curriculum subjects and working with parents to help them to help their children. As one such teacher said, “I would like to see the young children of my community have as much of a chance as those of the host community. I want them to achieve their potential, to become teachers, lawyers or doctors. They can achieve this; but first, they must accept themselves, believe they can achieve, and have the confidence to go for it. The opportunities are there. I feel they sometimes feel inferior and lack confidence.”
Relationships with pupils and their families
All of the teachers reported that they had good relationships with the parents of the children they taught. They understood why parents brought their children to the Saturday schools. All of them commented on parents’ desire for their children to learn the language and culture of the community and to be “well educated in a safe environment”.
Most teachers feel that the relationship they have with their pupils is much closer than in mainstream school: “children respect us, much more than their mainstream teachers”. Some feel a great closeness: “but they are my children!!” Whether it is friendly and informal or more respectful, teachers feel very positive about this relationship.
The relationship between mainstream and supplementary schools
Teachers express a number of reservations about mainstream schooling. They are very aware of fulfilling needs that are not met in the mainstream. While all feel that their input with respect to language and culture is the main difference between them and the mainstream, they also comment that they are able to give children more individual attention. They have a much closer relationship with families, based on a shared understanding. One commented, “I can teach the children of my community easily and sort out their problems in a way that their parents appreciate”. They mention individually tailored explanations and homework tasks.
Teachers talk about their contribution to the education of the whole child, the cultural and linguistic enrichment, the broadening of children’s minds, and “encouraging students to study and achieve.” Mainstream schools, in the opinion of these teachers, fail to meet the children’s needs through ignoring the home language and culture. Schools may stereotype children, have low expectations, fail to address institutional racism and lack cultural knowledge. Several feel schools would benefit from a closer relationship with supplementary and mother tongue schools and could do more to incorporate a culturally diverse dimension into their programmes, particularly in the field of the arts. One teacher commented, “I believe that without the mother tongue and supplementary schools, most of the ethnic minorities will be left behind.”
A majority of teachers would like to see community languages taught in the mainstream schools, although they note that, given the great diversity of languages, this may not be realistic. If schools became more responsive to the needs of minority ethnic children and if, in particular, they taught community languages, teachers feel that there would still be a role for their organisations: “the community school could then become a cultural leisure centre.” They could focus more on the cultural aspects of their work and on traditional arts and crafts, such as Chinese cuisine and calligraphy, for example. However, those who provide mainly academic support, feel that there will always be a need for this for children in academic difficulty whose families cannot afford the private tuition that is common in middle class families.
Mainstream schools could improve their response to the needs of all children, the teachers suggest, by supporting supplementary schools and working together, by teaching community languages on the curriculum, by inviting community teachers to have a role in school as volunteers, by sending trainee teachers to observe and practise in supplementary schools.
The teachers’ role in the wider society
Alongside their role in their own community, a number of teachers feel that they have a distinctive role in British society as a whole. Many are conscious that they play a part in bridging cultural divides and affirming dual identities. The teachers welcomed the cultural diversity of urban British society and felt they had a role in building understanding and in providing for their pupils “freedom to develop a talent and live in peace and harmony with others.” Another stated, “I am a British citizen and a Muslim and I would like cultural diversity in British society”. A teacher working with the African Caribbean community felt strongly that the children from her community were misunderstood: “my role in British society is essential and effective. To promote the way in which children from my ethnic background need to be treated to ensure their personal, social and educational development.”
The teachers were asked:
If the Department for Education and Skills granted you three wishes, what would those be?
Funding, funding and funding:
for teaching resources, for better classrooms, for developing a better syllabus, for training
but also:
the teaching of community languages in mainstream schools and
“ to acknowledge children from minorities as future citizens of this country and support their self identity and self esteem”
Is anybody listening?
I am very grateful to the group of teachers who stayed behind to share their stories and their views. I would very much like to hear more stories, from all communities. Please contact me if you have a story to tell (or if you want a copy of the full interim report).
Raymonde Sneddon
Care of the Resource Unit