Teaching Matters: Imagine enrolling a first-year student aged 13 in your school. Her father tells you politely that he is not sure how long she will be a student. She is betrothed to a boy at home in Pakistan, and could be recalled in order to marry at any time, writes Breda O'Brien
This kind of culture shock is being encountered regularly in schools. Right across the country, so-called "newcomer" students are presenting challenges that were unimaginable even a decade ago. The newcomers are far from a homogenous group. Some students' parents are from the 10 accession EU countries, others are refugees and asylum-seekers from places such as Libya and Nigeria, and others are on work permits from everywhere between China and Iran. They represent a major challenge to the Irish educational system, which is not geared to meet their diverse needs. Some students do fine, particularly if they arrive with fluent English. Others flounder.
At the moment, a student is entitled to help with English for two hours a week, but only for two years. If a student has arrived in Ireland in fifth class, he or she will only have a year's provision for learning English when he or she arrives at second level. Worse off still is the pupil who arrives in fifth year, because it would be virtually impossible for him or her to sit the Leaving Cert. Pity, also, the teacher presented with the challenge of several such students, all from different cultures.
Often, neither the student nor their parents can speak English. For example, schools have noticed that parents from the EU accession countries are highly motivated and ambitious, but are working all the hours God sends. Even when schools offer free English language tuition to parents, they are too busy to take up the offer. This leads to all sorts of difficulties, not least because the communication between the school and the parents becomes dependent on the student. In the grand tradition of students everywhere, the messages that return home are often, to put it mildly, either garbled or highly selective. Translation services are urgently needed.
Other cultural groups also present significant difficulties, including negative attitudes to women teachers, or radically different ideas regarding discipline. Teachers sending home notes in journals about minor infringements were told matter-of-factly by African students that they had received a beating for the transgression, and would not do it again.
Sometimes there is racism between different groups of newcomer students. One teacher reported that she was amazed at the degree of animosity between what she considered to be a homogenous group of Romanians, until one student spat at her: "Don't call them Romanian. We are Romanian. They are Roma - gypsies! " Shocked at this response, she remonstrated with the student, only to be told: "Perhaps I will learn to like Roma when you Irish learn to like Travellers." Of course, some of the cultural differences are far more positive, often including the formidable work ethic and ambition associated with immigrants throughout the world. Other students bring a tremendous richness in terms of music or art from their native country.
On occasion, students have no previous education, and have landed in a system where they are expected to acquire not only literacy but in a new language. It is clear that the two-year cap on English language teaching means a failure to meet the needs of many students. Much more is needed, including a kind of cultural immersion where students can begin to understand unspoken norms in Ireland. It is valuable for all concerned to realise, for example, that in some cultures it is considered rude for young people to meet their elder's eyes. So a child may be judged as evasive when they are being polite. Mind you, some newcomers are none too impressed by some of our cultural norms, such as 14-year-olds engaging in binge-drinking.
Traveller children are entitled to one and half hours of resource teaching a week for the duration of their time in school and also receive an increased capitation grant. While it has its limitations, given that some students require much more, it does allow schools to be much more flexible in meeting the needs of Traveller students. This model should be implemented as a matter of urgency for non-English-speaking students, with more being given to those with no previous education.
There are very practical aids that the Department of Education and Science could provide. For example, there is a pressing need for a basic admissions policy and code of discipline to be made available in many languages, with particular reference to the status of women teachers, and Irish norms regarding corporal punishment. At the moments some parents sign the code of discipline, but do not have a clue what it entails. There is also an urgent need to provide in-service training for teachers.
Education has a central part to play in helping integration to become a reality rather than a pious aspiration. Many of these students' parents come to Ireland, believing they will stay only to earn and save, and then go home. Just like the Irish exiles of previous generations, some of them will end up making their permanent homes here. With some imagination and extra resources, the DES could forestall many possible problems, and make the transition from being a "newcomer" to "new Irish" much easier.
Breda O'Brien is a teacher at Dominican College, Muckross Park, Dublin. bobrien@irish-times.ie
