BBC Radio 4 and the EpiPen
By Mark Greenow
We are up and running and so far, so good. When you are in the summer school bubble it is surreal - time seems to go both slower and faster and you forget about the ‘real world’. However, it was a bit difficult to get away from the UK general election this week. Does anybody else think it is strange that the election was on July 4th, American Independence Day? 45 years ago on that very day, I was working as a Camp Counseller on my first ever Summer School for Camp America and I was thrown in the lake for painting a Union Jack in the Art Block. Some people can’t take a joke! Then the American election later this year is on Bonfire Night November 5th when we celebrate Guy Fawkes attempt to burn down the British Parliament. Do you think somebody is trying to tell us something? The winds of change are definitely blowing. We may be better off back in the bubble.
Anyway, a couple of things got me thinking this week, something I heard on BBC Radio 4 and an incident with an EpiPen in one of the schools. I will get to the second one later but don’t worry everybody is ok. It was just one of those ‘summer school stories’ – believe me I could tell you a few! Somehow, these two things, reconnected a few dots for me concerning long held beliefs about the English Teaching Profession, the teacher-student relationship, how and why students learn and the potential power of summer schools.
So, after being the first person in my district to vote, I am driving to one of our centres listening to Radio 4. I am half listening to a play, only half because I hadn’t caught the beginning and didn’t really know what was going on. It was also set in a hospital, and I am very squeamish. For example, who could possibly want to watch Embarrassing Bodies, which always seems to be being graphically promoted when I am having my tea and watching Bargain Hunt?
What I heard went something like this. A daughter was talking to her mother who was in a hospital bed, and she said, “I learnt everything from you Mum”. The mother rather forcibly replied. “No, you didn’t. You learnt everything for me!” and then, after a pause, added “and for yourself”. That really struck me as rather profound, and it set me off down this path. Now these are big topics I have spent a lot of time thinking and writing about over the years, I can only touch on them here but perhaps they will each be stories for another day.
I haven’t been in a classroom for a while, and I would probably struggle to use the whiteboard, but I still consider myself to be a teacher. I loved teaching! I worked really hard to be the best teacher I could be. I started in the UK as a History (no future in that) and English teacher. I then moved to Spain and worked as an EFL teacher for many years. I kept self-improving (Degree /PGCE /CELTA /DELTA /Masters /DELTM). Wrote a book. Became an examiner. At my peak I was teaching 43 contact hours a week. I also kept doing Summer Schools because it was in my blood (and to pay the bills). It bothered me a bit though that my profession wasn’t as respected (or as well paid) as others, Lawyers or Doctors say.
A big part of the problem was that almost anybody who spoke English and had no qualifications at all thought it would be a good way to fund their world travel and, because (fortunately) everybody wants to learn English, schools would give them jobs. It is a bit different these days with inspections and distinctions between TEFL Initiated and TEFL Qualified etc. but it is still not completely regulated. The only professions I can think of that are less regulated are Funeral Celebrants and politicians! Also, after all these years we still can’t agree on the best way to ‘teach’ – there are more methodologies than political parties and everybody is having a go! Did you know TESLA are in the on-line teaching business now? Elon Musk hey? They recently laid off a lot of teachers and replaced them with AI but then had to re-employ them because the students complained. Maybe there is some hope after all!
Then there are the learners, each of which is completely unique. They all have different strengths and weaknesses, levels of ability, degrees of confidence and motivation. The fact is that students have always learnt in different ways, and they probably always will, from memorizing words in a dictionary to Swifties learning their heroine’s lyrics. Some will learn because of the teacher but some will get there in spite of their teacher, and unfortunately some will give up. Ultimately what is learned is controlled by the learner whether consciously or unconsciously, it is not something done to students it is something they themselves need to do.
They also learn at different speeds and are better at some language skills than others. “Not the Present Perfect Sir, we do that already”. “Donkey Hote was a famous writer”. “My mother was in the chicken”…. Then we have the problem of measuring progress. A surgeon can measure progress by the success of the operation. A Barrister by the verdict of the jury (whether guilty or not - OJ). For us, it is more difficult as learning is not linear and has many stops and starts.
It did knock my confidence a bit when all of this was beginning to dawn on me back in the 80’s. If I couldn’t teach anybody, any English at all then what was the point! Through Summer Schools I also realised the power of out of class learning. Sometimes students seemed to be learning as much from their friends as they were from their classes which was great but slightly demoralizing at first. What was I to do? It was too late to be called to the Bar (not that one) and hospitals were never an option!
However, I soon got back on track. I started to write more learner focussed materials and was enjoying the student interaction more than ever. I look back on this period as my ‘hey day’ as a teacher. I got lots of long-term students through exams and am most proud of the fact that I never had anyone fail Cambridge Proficiency. I began to work more with my students rather than as some ‘sage on the stage’. I couldn’t control what they learned but I could control what I did. I moved away from the prescriptive “I tell you” to the more supportive “you find out yourself”. Working more as a facilitator or enabler rather than the font of all knowledge. What I was doing was valuable and I felt appreciated.
I and like-minded colleagues also started bringing a lot of this to the Summer Schools we were working in. Then eventually I moved over to running Summer School’s and the rest is history as they say. Now in the twilight of my career I am helping a little with a project that I really believe in. We all believe at British Summer School that we really do have a new vision for Summer Schools in the 21st Century.
So here we are in July 2024. Students from Generations’ Z (an industry friend has just written a book about them, and he says that they spend 40% less time in social interaction than the generation before) and Alpha (an open book at the moment) have arrived at our Summer Schools from all sorts of learning backgrounds. At home they may be lost in a big class that is too difficult for them or bored because the content is too easy. Some will really want to learn, for others the importance may not have clicked yet. If you ask them, (and even more so their parents or guardians), the majority will still say they have come to improve their English. That should remain then a big part of our task and purpose notwithstanding the difficulty of accurately measuring what they have learned in just two or three weeks. However, it is now our job to teach all stakeholders that they can learn much more than, what must realistically only be, a limited amount of English.
Desmond Dekker wisely sang “It’s not what you learn it’s the way that you learn it”. I love the song and the sentiment. At British Summer School we aim to create an environment where students can grow and learn both inside and outside the classroom. Apart from ‘some’ English students’ can also LEARN to learn; to love learning; to reinvent themselves; to become curious; to focus; more about themselves; more about others; respect; to make friends; more about a subject or hobby; ‘why’ not only ‘how’; how to keep their room tidy; envisage their ideal future self; to synthesise; to reflect; how to organise their learning; to think more critically; the reason they want to learn; to not be afraid of making a mistake; to learn from their mistakes; to live without their phone for a bit; to communicate better… The list could go on and on.
Now with the passage of time, going back to my first experiences in Camp America – not only being thrown in the lake - I realise I learned so much and I still have some of the ‘merch’ and souvenirs. Some of the memories have faded but I will never forget how I felt that summer of 1979. It had a lasting, not just a fleeting impact on me and helped shape my career path and the person I would become. Even the bad moments - and everybody will inevitably have some on a Summer School as they will in life - lessen in importance as time goes by. They also make the best anecdotes!
So, what is the moral of this story?
The wise mother I mentioned at the beginning was correct. In a Summer School context, in the bubble, every professional and social interaction is a moment of truth which could light a spark somewhere in the learner. Some of these we can engineer others will happen naturally, and although we can nudge learners along and at best inspire their desire, ultimately though it will depend on them doing it for themselves.
What about the EpiPen you may be wondering? I have established here that I am not a doctor but as I understand it the EpiPen provides a shot of adrenaline into the system. It relaxes your muscles and gives you a boost. This just struck me as analogous with what a good summer school can do. It may only be a stepping stone to the best possible future every parent wants for their child but sometimes that fresh start really can kick start students’ on to great things. Who knows, the world outside the bubble might even be a better place one day.
And of course, your mother is always right!