Education for Mutual Understanding…

When I started teaching back in 1991 there was a cross-curricular policy where all teachers had to try to introduce Education for Mutual Understanding (EMU) in our lessons.  In brief we were required to use some of our lessons to remove suspicion, mistrust and hatred between our divided communities.  Back then for someone like myself teaching in a largely Protestant and Unionist school that meant trying to increase understanding towards our Republican/Nationalist and Catholic communities.

In all honesty, delivery was patchy with some teachers more enthusiastic than others and some subjects such as History and English lending themselves more to integrating such themes, but as an ICT Teacher I tried to do my part over the years.  Some simple ideas such as normalising Irish names such as Eamonn, Siobhan Eithne etc by including them in Spreadsheet and Database exercises did not transform anyone but provided opportunities to discuss with classes why those names seemed out of place to some of our pupils.  During one of the dreadful Drumcree summers I remember running a mixed web design summer school in the run up to the 12^th July and being concerned to see a loyalist paramilitary flag planted on the roof of our school.  When video conferencing became available, I remember linking with a couple of CMS schools and organising a joint trip to Stormont to meet some politicians from each side of the new powersharing executive.

None of those individual activities transformed our pupils.  They were designed to be subtle, to ‘fly under the radar’, so that parents would not accuse teachers of trying to influence the political views of our pupils.  The idea was that if all teachers made small seemingly trivial efforts to reduce sectarianism, we could reduce tensions in our respective towns and villages at a time when our communities were literally killing each other.

Now that the anti-immigration protests have vanished from our streets, I had hoped that N. Ireland would return to normal life, but for isolated newcomer families the fear and tension remains and we still hear of racist attacks on businesses. Underneath the calm we have the unresolved issue of our attitude to immigration.

Back during some of the dreadful Drumcree summers I warned on Sunday Sequence (with David Dunseith) about the difficulty of settling back into class the unionist pupils who spent the summer at the riots, perhaps even throwing petrol bombs. (An intervention that provoked outrage from a unionist MLA in the studio.)  A similar warning has now been issued by the Education Authority about racism.

Sadly, distrust of ‘foreigners’ is easy to encourage and some of those who mistakenly promised that Brexit would reduce immigration have tried to cover their error by importing racist rhetoric from England to shore up their support.  I fear many middle-class people still do not understand the different way immigration is experienced by working class communities.  See my article from last year.

While it is easy and correct to condemn those who were misled and took part in riots, that is only a partial solution.  A serious conversation about the impact of immigration needs to be had, but not on our streets.

As well as protecting minority children in schools (and this must be the priority), I wonder if schools and their overburdened teachers can find occasions to help to allow rational discussion of how societies inevitably change over the decades.

What, if any, teacher training is being provided centrally by EA to schools on dealing with racism? Do we need an updated policy on EMU?

As a retired teacher, it is easy for me to make suggestions – I don’t have to take on the extra work or classroom tension – but I hope there is a planned effort to reduce the tensions being stirred up over immigration.  We should try and imagine how we would feel if we were in an EU country (Spain, Greece etc) and were abused on the streets for being a foreigner.  As a society we need to talk about how much our hospitals and care homes rely on our immigrant populations.  Only by discussion, sharing and empathy will we reduce these tensions.

Arnold is a retired teacher from Belfast.