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| Anne Slater is part of the T.H.O.M.A.S. Team Life Long Learning ‘Education is an ornament in prosperity and a refuge in adversity’ Aristotle. |
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The excitement of ‘GCSE’ and ‘A’ level results is over for another year. Those young people whose happy, smiling faces decorated our newspapers, because they had gained the results expected of them will now go one step further along the road leading to academic success. Others will review their plans in the light of their results, to make decisions about their futures. But what of those who didn’t even sit the exams, those for whom school is a no-no, a ‘dirty’ word associated with everything they dislike, fear or consider as irrelevant. Those who chose or who had the choice made for them not to take the exams. For a number of years now I have been involved with the education of young male addicts on our rehab. programme. If the accepted aims of education include ‘the provision of even the minimum skills necessary to enable men and women to take their place in society; the provision of vocational training to enable them to be self-supporting and independent; and encouragement in the seeking of further knowledge; then in the light of my experience I feel that these educational targets have failed to reach so many young people. At the very least 50% of all the young men who have been on our programme have only a basic grasp of the rudiments of English grammar. When called upon to describe the function of verbs, nouns, pronouns etc. many of them respond as if they were being asked to transcribe Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales from the original text. This is not to say that they can’t verbalise their thoughts and ideas (indeed Chaucer would bow to their knowledge of colourful expletives), but too many of them have difficulties with expressing their thoughts in writing; they seem reluctant to put pen to paper. What is interesting, however, is the fact that when I include a quiz in one of the sessions where written answers are part of the exercise, then their competitive spirit comes to the fore and gives them the motivation needed to compete. At these times, most if not all, members of the group are eager to participate. If this competitiveness, this apparent eagerness to get the highest score, perhaps to get one over the others (especially if I include questions relating to a personal interest or hobby) this motivation could be translated into other areas of the education programme, that would be a great thing, and I continue to search for clues to find the answers. To go into a teaching/learning situation with some of the groups can be and often has been a very painful experience. Trying to stimulate minds, that for so many years have been closed to anything but their addiction, their needs, their ego, is a very daunting exercise. Sometimes I have asked myself , ‘Why am I doing this, why put myself through this heartache?’. Because very often that is what it has felt like. But just one spark of interest, one moment of enthusiasm makes it worthwhile.. What I find most difficult to understand is the fact that the lack of literacy skills of quite a lot of the young people has not been picked up much earlier, either by schools or other authorities. Maybe it has and has been rejected by the boys themselves. One boy told me that his parents didn’t know he could neither read nor write until he was fourteen years old, because they were not interested. I can’t verify the truth of that statement, but the fact remains that someone should have picked up on his difficulties much earlier. It’s not of itself a sign of low intelligence that many people fail to reach their full potential, there are too many factors involved for it to be that simple, but in the groups that I work with, motivation or the lack of it seems to be of considerable importance. It is becoming clear to me that the emphasis on educating the young solely in the hope ‘that they will get a good job at the end of it’ is to neglect all the other aspects of what education is about. When attempts are made to motivate them, to ask them to open themselves and their minds to new horizons, new experiences, and all they can say is ‘What good will that be to me in the future?’ then somewhere along the way we have let them down. Encouraging them to appreciate, amongst other things, works of art, music, all forms of creative art, offering them socialinteraction skills, stimulating their interest in their environment and community, urging them to be both politically and critically aware of the issues surrounding them is what we should all be involved in. The present trend towards Life-long Learning is an excellent idea and can be a great motivator for society as a whole. If we can instil into young people the idea that education isn’t just there to help them get a job (worthy though that may be) but can help them throughout their lives, then maybe we can motivate all those who left school under-educated and disillusioned, to carry on discovering new horizons, just for the sheer enjoyment of it all. I, and many others I know who care about education could then feel a lot happier about things. Hopefully then, all those happy faces seen in our papers celebrating their exam success now will be toasting their continued successes decades from now. ‘Learning is ever young, even in old age’ Aeschylus. |
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