Citizens of nowhere – bring them on!

When I was a little girl I used to recite my name and address:

Gillian Childs

42 Shaftsbury Street

West Bromwich

Staffs

Great Britain

Europe

The Earth

The Universe

Knowing this address so well had two great advantages.  If I should be lost, it was easy for someone to return me to my home.  It also constantly reminded me of who I was i.e. that I was at once a citizen of the Black Country, of the universe and of various places in between.

   

My parents were keen on the inclusion of Europe. My maternal grandfather was gassed in the Great War, survived, had PTSD, though that condition wasn’t recognised then, and died at the age of 61 of lung cancer.  Then World War II came along. I wouldn’t be here and neither would my husband or children if mistakes hadn’t been made in that war but I’d still rather we avoided them in the future. My mother was married before she met my father but her first husband was blown up by a land-mine in Italy. My father was involved in helping to clear up Bergen-Belsen and was still traumatised by it when he met my mother. My mother-in-law, who had no idea until a few weeks before she left Germany that she was racially Jewish, came to England on the Kindertransport in January 1939. 

Although my parents disagreed politically most of the time – Mum (daughter of a greengrocer and great fan of Mrs T) always voted Conservative, Dad always voted Labour and there were some amusing arguments at election times – they always agreed that a united Europe would be a good thing. They’d seen at close hand how devastating war with your immediate neighbours can be. Hence, Europe in my expanded address. 

It’s slightly ironic that the post Eton-mess May-hem includes a possibility of bringing back the grammar schools. What I learnt at grammar school set me further on my way to becoming a global citizen. I’ll say straight away that the alternative didn’t bear thinking about and that I believe therefore that the comprehensive system properly administered is fairer for all. I’ve seen some brilliant education in comprehensive schools since. However, it was at West Bromwich Grammar School that a brilliant teacher of French kept me on my toes and another very engaging teacher of German taught me, helped by a devoted German assistant,  not just what was needed to get a good A-level but so much more besides.  I also learnt there to love literature in any language and developed a passion for writing.  History too was fascinating. We studied a social and economic curriculum which really helped us to understand why we had become the people we were and which mistakes needed to be avoided in the future.  Alas, it seems that many have not learnt those lessons. I went on, along with several of my cousins, to form the first generation in our family, to get a university education. 

Russell group Sheffield and Birmingham, rest of the south-east Winchester, University of Wales, Bangor and Salford, which you cannot put into a box but which also encourages first generation university students and where I have worked as a lecturer for the last nine years, further urged me to look outwards and engage with the other, the exotic, the uncanny and that which is not in my comfort zone. 

Everything we meet changes us. So, if you get to read Goethe and Schiller as well as Shakespeare, and preferably in its original language, if you get to read Sartre and Böll as well as Hemingway and Dickens, you start to think beyond the confines of your nationality. We learn empathy by reading and if we read beyond our own language and culture we are well on the way to becoming a global citizen.     

                                

If you then as well, live and work in another culture and learn that culture’s language you can never be just one nationality or race anymore. Some of the other rubs off on you and you are changed forever. Remember the bows and arrows instead of spears in my previous post? 

Recently Madam May said “[I]f you believe you’re a citizen of the world you’re a citizen of nowhere. You don’t understand what the very word ‘citizenship’ means.” Read more here.   

In some ways she’s right but not in the way she means. If you’re a global citizen you’re above being limited to one place. However, I’m sure that global citizens do understand the word ‘citizenship’. All the ones I’ve met have a clear picture of the abundance the world offers and become responsible stewards of that world.   

She’s right in another sense, too. There are some people who are genuinely citizens of nowhere. They become stateless because of conflicting nationality rules – ones that become more complex the more divisions we have. 

Next time I’m going to surprise you all and present you with a pro-Brexit argument. But there is a twist in that tale….  Watch this space.                 

The true meaning of exchange

When I was a language teacher I really believed in the exchange visit. Though not all students could or wanted to participate I’d argue that all students benefitted from some taking part. In another post I’ll explain this in more detail and show how all of my teaching related to the exchange idea.

The word itself is important: exchange. Swapping ideas and commodities. What is a default position or an everyday normality in one place might be considered by others as innovative and a great idea elsewhere. I’m currently reading a book set in primitive times. One tribe hunting just with spears sees another using bows and arrows and learns something.  In exchange the spear-only tribe are able to show the bow-and-arrow tribe some extra medicinal herbs. 

I’ve just come back from a visit to the mainland and I’m frustrated by not having the effective slider-mixer tap in my bathroom. Getting the right mixture of hot and cold involves getting your head wet as you fiddle with the taps. I also miss the double-hinged windows – so that you can leave window open safely whilst out and even when inside you can be assured that baby won’t be able to fall out of it.  Both of these items are becoming a little more common in the UK. We’ve seen and thought “What a good idea!” We are able to trade freely with our colleagues on the mainland. Travel is easy. Various EU initiatives around language-learning have also helped this.   

I used to teach a business-man German. Okay, so he worked for a Swiss firm and Switzerland’s not in the EU. However, it has a special relationship with the EU that we’ll never be allowed to have post-Brexit. He used to say that all UK rail workers should be sent to Switzerland for a couple of weeks to watch how the railways work  there. He reckoned they are so much cleaner and more punctual than ours. There may be all sorts of reasons why this is so but at least our workers should take a look and see if there is anything they can learn. 

Naturally we don’t need an EU for this sort of exchange of ideas to work. Goodness knows how my two primitive tribes negotiated but they obviously came to some sort to arrangement. But with easier travel and a stable exchange rate it’s all a lot easier. 

Why have we chosen isolation? Have we, actually? Thankfully actually fewer than 37% of the British people chose that. There is yet hope for true exchange.            

             

What we did on the days we went to France

We always tried to combine a certain amount of fun with something that was quite educational. We also liked to give the students a little free time but only so much that they couldn’t get into trouble in that time or get lost. And as always when taking young people out of school we had a plan for the worst case scenario but hoped for the best.  

So, we included:

·         A set of instructions in French that guided the students through the town.

·         A sort of I-spy exercise where they have to find examples of types of shops, goods sold in them and prices  

·         A shopping exercise

·         A café exercise

·         A creative writing exercise (in French – oh yes!)

·         A collecting of language exercise.  You are surrounded by language when you are in a foreign country. You can hear and see it all around.       

It was always important as well to allow some down time. They needed time just to stand and stare.

Students worked in groups of between eight and ten and had one responsible adult with them. This might be a teacher of French, a teacher of another subject, a language assistant, a parent who had come along or a student teacher. The trickier characters were assigned to the more experienced teachers.

In some cases the students knew more than the adult in the group and anyway it was always part of the café exercise that the students ordered for the adult.   

Free-time was staggered and the adults hung around in a designated space that any child separated from his / her group could report to. We did all of this initially before the days of mobile phones. The latter of course have made this a lot easier.

Back in the classroom for the last few days of term students would carry on working on their projects. They were encouraged to take photos. An accidental one was beautifully appropriate. One girl took a picture of a display in a bridal-wear shop. The photo showed the reflection of the group staring at the window. She had captured the English admiring the French.

“It’s the same as in England but different as well, isn’t it?” she said.

Spot on. That’s how we learn from each other. Take an appreciative look. Be amazed at the difference but be even more amazed about what is the same.

If you’d like some more details about the activities described above, just comment and I’ll blog about them individually.  

   

Cringe 3 – This one really matters

My first story really should never have been told by the newspaper. The family clearly wasn’t coping. They were also spending €260 a day on taxis. Seems ludicrous. Surely there was a driver amongst them? Why not hire a car? Or move nearer to the hospital? If they were too stressed to work this out for themselves, I’m incredulous that someone didn’t help. 

The second story is so bad it’s good. In fact, you have to laugh. 

However, what I’m going to relate now is perhaps a more common experience and one that we all should and can avoid. 

I was amazed one day when my daughter, in her last year of primary school, came home with a letter about a day trip to France. As a teacher of French, I was used to taking children to France for the day and the timings made me raise my eyebrows. This was pre-tunnel days. I couldn’t see that the children would have much time in France. My worst fears were confirmed: the children sat on the coach all the way to Dover from Southampton.   They crossed the channel on a ferry. They drove to a supermarket where they waited for over an hour on the coach whilst the teachers stocked up on booze. Then they came home again. Yep. It was a booze-cruise for the teachers. Sure, it’s always fun going with your mates on a coach – as long as you don’t get travel sick and of course a few did. The group passport and the ferry can be fascinating too.  Our kids, though, were used to travel abroad and the “mouth-boat” as they used to call ferries or “fairies” is not so unusual for them. I’m not sure that this particular trip was worth either the day off school or the money.

My daughter did already speak a little French. I used to run a French Club for primary kids and she was a member. However, we hadn’t yet done anything that would be useful in a shopping centre in France.

I’ve written various packages of materials for use with students on day trips abroad. I’ve made a few solo trips to research for these. Every so often I’ve come across students on the dreaded day trip to France. The teacher in me can’t help getting stuck in.  

On one such occasion at a supermarket I queued behind a couple of girls who looked about ten years old. At least they’d got to get out of the coach.  They were giggling quite a bit. I think they were nervous about having to pay for their goods and were worried that the cashier might say something they didn’t understand or that they might not have enough money.  

  

“You do know some French, don’t you?” I asked as we waited. 

The girls nodded. 

“What do you know?”

They admitted to “Bonjour, merci, au revoir.” 

“Do you know your numbers?” I asked.

They nodded again. 

“And you’re good at arithmetic?”

They shrugged.  

“Watch the till,” I said. “And try and work out what number she’s going to say.”  

The cashier later told me it was nice to see English people making the effort to speak French. 

“That was fun,” said one of the girls. 

I then showed them how they could learn more vocabulary by studying their till receipt. 

Later I came across some of their teachers in my favourite café. It saddened me to see them speaking loudly if politely and slowly in English. Okay, so they might not be teachers of French, but most of them were probably of the generation who had done some French at school. You get plenty of clues from listening to the people in front of you in the queue. It only takes a little effort. 

I’d like to think that their two students I’d spoken to earlier would do a lot better. I know the ones I’ve taught over the years certainly would.  

Un poco de vino tinto white or Cringe 2

She really was determined that these stupid Spanish people were going to understand her. Maybe if she shouted loud enough they would get it. She remembered her Spanish lessons. Wine was “vino tinto” wasn’t it? Pronounced “beano tinto”. She was making an effort, wasn’t she? 

We were almost at the top of Tiede, the volcano, on Tenerife. This lady didn’t look as if she was about to climb the last few metres to the top. 

“Un glass of vino tinto white,” she repeated, louder again

“Quiere vino tinto o vino blanco?” said the barmaid.

“I want. A. GLASS OF WHITE WINE. UNA GLASSA OF VEENO TINTO WHITE.”

The barmaid poured out a glass of red wine.

“No!” The woman pointed at her rather grey T-shirt. “WHITE! Wino whito.”

“Vino blanco!” The barmaid poured the red wine away, fetched a clean glass and filled it with white wine.

 There was then some wrangling about the bill. The English woman seemed to think she was being charged for both drinks whereas really she was being charged tourist prices. This was a popular café, half way up the road that lead to Tiede’s peak. 

Now, there’s no harm in getting into a bit of a pickle when trying to communicate in another language. My Spanish is pretty good but even I managed to order chips today instead of fried fish. I allowed the waiter to tease me a little about my pronunciation of “rosada”. We’ve known him since he was a young lad and now he runs the restaurant. 

However, again it was this sense of entitlement that irritated me. She went on and on about it throughout her meal. “Fancy not understanding when I did my best to speak Spanish.” “That girl must be really thick.” Everybody knows what “white” means, don’t they?” “If they want to make money form us tourists they should learn English.” 

The latter perhaps does have a little merit. Yet even here is an assumption that English-speakers are more important than other people. The Spanish anyway are wonderful communicators without having to use any words. I’ve mentioned before that we can’t all be expected to learn every language but we can all make an effort to be polite and pleasant when there’s a bit of a struggle on.

Vino (beano) tinto by the way? Yes, you’ve got it: red wine.