Educational lifeboats

Boats come in different shapes and sizes and have different functions for different people. The image of a lifeboat however, means more or less the same thing to all of us. It is a means of survival, something that is essential to one's existence. In this sense education in a country that struggles with the waves of changing socio-economic and cultural contexts is certainly a lifeboat.

Nowadays when we think of lifeboats the images of immigrants come to mind: people who have risked their lives to escape war, poverty, persecution and torture, who have suffered violations of freedom, worship and political rights.

If we understand our desire to take on educational lifeboats to better futures we are a step further in understanding the needs of people who have literally taken a lifeboat to better living. As they step out of their lifeboats are their dreams of a better future realised?

What is certain is that for many of these people education is certainly the next lifeboat they hope to catch. With their presence our usual understanding of educational lifeboats need to be transformed, not only to accommodate their needs but also for our own sake, to enrich our educational journeys, making them more humane and conducive to enhanced democracies which are respectful of diversities.

These were the main ideas that Paul Bartolo and Simone Galea have followed in setting up a Programme for Culturally Responsive Education (CRE) within the Department of Education Studies, with the close collaboration of Andrew Azzopardi, and the support of Joseph Giordmaina, head of Department, and former dean of the faculty, Carmel Borg.

The CRE programme aims to establish culturally responsive education as an interdisciplinary teaching and research area at the Faculty of Education by organising activities within the faculty and the wider education community that raise awareness of the importance of recognising, understanding and engaging with culturally diverse others.

Recently, the programme team has organised a seminar entitled Respecting Diversity: A Culturally Responsive Education, as the first activity of the programme.

In his introduction to the seminar, Dr Bartolo, a senior lecturer in Educational Psychology at the Faculty of Education, explained that the programme aims to generate and disseminate new knowledge in relation to culturally responsive teaching that is particular to the Maltese context. It also aims to develop teacher education curricula and educational materials that respond to the interests and needs of culturally diverse students. In line with the present educational policies presented in the National Minimum Curriculum and the document For All Children To Succeed, the programme's principle aim is achieving equality in educational outcomes that respect the different learning paths different children want or need to follow.

Other introductions by Dr Galea and Dr Azzopardi emphasised the need of more educational encounters with the public and with different stakeholders also through academic and research activities to cultivate deeper understanding of the needs of different people and their situations. Their research project Educating For Open Mindedness - A Primary School Narrative, intends to raise awareness on the educational experience of children coming from different ethnic backgrounds in particular primary school/s with the aim of empowering them, other children and the school community in general.

Dr Galea, a lecturer in the Department of Education Studies within the Faculty of Education, made the first paper presentation at the seminar, "Can the migrant speak? Voicing Myself, Voicing the Other". The paper referred to the well known article by the postcolonial feminist Gayatri Spivak Can The Subaltern Speak? in asking how the culturally different other can be represented in knowledge constructions. Dr Galea invited academics and researchers to rock their boats in critically thinking about their ethical and powerful privileged positions as researchers in taking responsibility for the knowledge produced in the name of or by migrants. Drawing on the short story The Dumb by Walid Nabhan, a Palestinian who migrated to Malta some years ago, she pointed out to the educational possibilities for researchers and academics of finding themselves represented by the "other" such as the migrant. Paradoxically it is the migrating subject who suggested ways out of the elsewhere that academics sometimes confine themselves into. As Dr Galea concluded, the way towards the migrant is to become a migrant oneself and have the courage to risk abandoning their safe and usual lands.

In outlining the journeys of undocumented migrants, Katrine Camilleri, provoked the audience by making it think about why the migrant is essentially thought of as a black person of African origin. Dr Camilleri explained that unfortunately, the lifeboat has become the emblem of a Maltese society under threat from this phenomenon that agitates our usually calm waters of national security, cultural homogeneity social cohesion. Dr Camilleri explained the dangers of inadequate reception and long-term detention policies that unjustly criminalise the "undocumented" migrant so that their integration becomes highly problematic.

The educational needs of the undocumented migrant children were highlighted by Juan Camilleri whose Master's research showed the positive experiences, problems and dilemmas that challenge three migrant adolescents and their educators including their parents. Arguing for the educators' need of listening to migrant children's narratives, Mr Camilleri explained that these children mostly struggle with experience of intense fear of death and trauma, loss and humiliation, and verbal racial abuse. They also have to deal with problems of self-acceptance and feelings of shame in negotiating a new self-identity as well as insecurities and instabilities regarding the future. Mr Camilleri insisted that successful insertion of children within the school is not to be left to chance.

Dr Azzopardi's presentation of his manifesto for the multicultural school laid down the principles that passionate and keen educators for social justice should find inspiring. Dr Azzopardi, a lecturer within the Department of Youth and Community Studies at the Faculty of Education, argued for the individual and group rights to develop their particular identity and have a sense of belonging, being particularly aware that identifying and diversifying characteristics can be used as a justification for creating ghettos and "reserves" - psychological, spiritual, religious, cultural, linguistic and any other. The commitment to working towards a multicultural school should be coupled with the wider public and social engagement in identifying the impact of racism and other barriers to acceptance of differences.

Brian Vassallo focused on the challenges of multicultural contexts faced by local educational leaders in promoting a positive classroom climate which is conducive to high quality learning. Mr Vassallo stressed the need for a training programme for teachers and parents in the 'area' of teaching/learning across difference, the establishment of support systems in schools to deal with eventual difficulties and the needs for heads of schools to work closely with educational authorities to provide teachers with short and long term field experiences into culturally diverse settings so as to ensure the success of all their students.

As a teacher educator and psychologist who has been working in the field of inclusive education for many years, Dr Bartolo explained that the increasing number of immigrants moving within and across countries has alerted policy makers and educators across Europe to the urgent need of educating today's teachers to adapt their teaching to the diversity of pupils' needs and differentiate the strategies employed. His presentation called for teachers to cross the bridge of a culturally responsive education. This is the necessary ethical leap for teachers in reflecting deeply about how their teaching can bring about social change that makes schools and society more equitable.

Dr Bartolo argued for a holistic educational approach by educators that is intimately connected with students' lives and the socio-cultural inequalities that unfortunately are frequently replicated in educational circles.

What was essential to Dr Bartolo was the educators' recognition of their own Western, Euro-centric perspectives and assumptions that have been detrimental to their efforts in bringing about a socially just education.

Tesfamichael Beraki from Eritrea skilfully chaired the paper presentations and the numerous comments from the floor. He also contributed in the discussion by drawing on his work experience with the Jesuit Refugee Service in organising awareness raising campaigns in schools to tackle racism and discrimination and to highlight refugees' rights in Malta.

It is clear that migrants have managed to rock our boats in thinking what the roles of educators should be in educating for diversity. What has been unanimously agreed upon during the seminar is that culturally responsive education is a lifeboat, which we cannot afford to miss.