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Improving from Within- A Positive Approach to School Improvement

What can we learn from the emerging science of Positive Psychology, of how human beings thrive and how should this understanding of human well being influence our schools? We are experiencing seismic changes in the educational landscape but how many educationalists are asking the question about what education is really for in a global, technological and competitive world?  

In this world, what is the job of a teacher and how is it changing? How do we co-create a curriculum with our students that is relevant and engaging? What does pedagogy look like in this generation and how can we develop ‘contracting’ relationships between students and teachers? As leaders, how do we take courageous steps to lead our schools in a direction we intuitively know is good but may go against received wisdom?

Improving from Within is a model for school improvement that has developed from 20 years of working with schools and noting what really works as well as observing the impact on the teaching profession of increasing negative extrinsic drivers. It is time to re-address the balance. Improving from Within is our response.

If you would like to be involved contact us: sue@1078051064.test.prositehosting.co.uk

 

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30 years since those deaths which could have been avoided

As a society and culture we are big on anniversaries. In case you didn’t realise, next month is the 30th anniversary of the Falkland’s war. I was about to call it conflict but I think ‘war’ sums it better. After all, there was killing and dying. Sadly, some of it could have been avoided. Even during the war, more could have been done to reduce the numbers who died.

I was told over the weekend that after one particular battle the whole war could have been brought to an end. But apparently the Brits didn’t just want surrender but they wanted a big victory with all its glory- and, of course, more deaths.

At the time I was a full-time student doing my teacher training course at the Selly Oak colleges in Birmingham. I remember going to an anti-war meeting at the George Cadbury Hall. We had the great EP Thompson speaking. During the questions and answers I made a little speech. I tried to remind everyone present that, of course, life in far away islands was precious but it helped if you had a white skin. This meant that the Falklanders were seen as worth rescuing with the use of the full British might. However the residents of Diego Garcia were not. This was an island ruled by the same Brits which had been ‘depopulated’, a euphemism for colonising and clearing out a people so their land could be put to other use, deemed to be more beneficial to the national interest. Although the crime had been committed from as far back as 1968, I learnt about it in 1983 when a compensation claim had been made by a group of the islanders who obviously were still waiting 15 years on.

Anyway, my claim to fame is that when I made my little speech, with some anger, I recall, there was uproar as everyone clapped very loudly. I sat down feeling a little embarrassed.

Recently, someone said that we probably wouldn’t have gone to war if we had had a different prime minister instead of Mrs Thatcher. But I thought we were a democratic government with a cabinet and accountability to a parliament and nation. If this is what can happen here, it is not worth contemplating the damage that can be done by real dictators.

As Bruce Springsteen once said, “trusting your leaders will get you killed”.

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Dear old Grapes of Wrath

At last, I was able to share with my students my all time favourite book. I was convinced then that Steinbeck was not about the displaced of Oklahoma but of Mirpur. They had recently (I first read the book in 1973) been forced out of their family homes where they had lived for many generations. Now they would have to resettle in other parts of Pakistan where, often, like the migrants in the book, they were treated as unwelcome aliens by their fellow citizens inside their own country. Like Steinbeck’s ‘Oakies’ they were called names such as ‘MPs’.

We then got onto some writing. Given below is a contribution from my students.

What I see in the mirror

If I really analyse what I see, I only capture a small insight of what I really am. It is rare to be able to know someone and gain an understanding of them from one glance at their reflection.

But the little part that I do see complements my extrovert personality. It allows me to see who I am; something you cannot know just by thought.

When I look in the mirror, I make sure I see the things people miss, how my eyes seem to change colour depending on where I am, how my mischievous smile hints that I have something up my sleeve. Truth is, you never really understand for yourself who you really are, until you explain what you see in the mirror.  

 

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Seeing the world from others’ eyes!

I am going to let one of the students tell you the next instalment of my work with the Writers Group in a school:

 “You can never really understand a person, until you climb into their skin and walk around in it”, read Mr Iqbal from the book ‘To Kill a Mocking Bird’. An interesting statement that made me ponder; that you cannot really judge a person until you’ve experienced what they’ve experienced, until you’ve felt what they’ve felt, until you’ve seen what they’ve seen. As humans, it is our natural instinct to judge others. We do this everyday at work, on the bus, walking down the street or even at home. We form judgements without seeing the story from the other side”.

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Writers Group; the next instalment

I peek out of the window and see that it is a lovely sunny day. Perhaps, I will be able to walk the dog to my favourite spot. It’s the one which, although in Birmingham, always takes me back to my birthplace. It happens especially on days such as this. Maybe, it’s the way the light hits the bushes and all the wild grasses. Both locations have such a higgledy piggledy feel; so wild and wonderful.

But for now, I am with my writing group. I check on their homework progress. Some of them tell me they were able to visit my website and read the blog. Just to make sure they weren’t just saying it, I asked them what they had read and was told about the entry I had made about working with their group the previous week.

I will let one of the students tell you what we did:

He talked about his own life and how it was like for him at school, where he had to sit in a row on the hard stoned floor and learn for the next 5 years. He then showed us a picture he had taken of his school and the way it looked. In the picture, it was a school assembly.

He read an extract from a book ‘Cider with Rosie’ which was written by Laurie lee. The extract also described the boy’s first day of school relating to Mr Iqbal’s own experience.

He seems to be a man who reads a lot and considers his past important along with his present. He seems to enjoy telling stories of his past remembering what it was. He always talks in a soft, gentle tone with a smile on his face.

Sadly, I never made it to my favourite walking spot. By the time I came back, checked emails etc, the cloud had set in. Of course, I did take the dog out (you have to; he won’t settle down otherwise). But, it was only a functional walk; down to the bottom of the hill and back. I always feel warmer afterwards, no matter how cold it is and today was no different.

Let’s see what I bring away from my next meeting with my writers group

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Us and Them

I met my youth worker friend at the gym this morning. It had been quite a while since our last conversation. There were a couple of minutes, in the steam room, when we talked about his plans to politically educate the young people he is working with so that they can make informed decisions at election time. We agreed that they shouldn’t vote for someone just because he (when are the Pakistani women going to come forward!) was from their community or biraderi, extended family. I suggested he should invite all the political parties, one at a time, to send in local election candidates so there could be meaningful exchange. Also, this way he would not be accused of favouring any one political party.

We then got talking about Pakistan, how often we go back, the specific areas we each come from (except in his case it was where his family came from as he was born a Brummie). Later, I said: “isn’t Chakswari over the other side of the bridge?” He said: “No, it’s Dadyal that’s over the other side”.

I think the ‘the other side’ depends on which side of the bridge you are standing!   

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My name

My name is Karamat,

Comes from Pakistan,

It’s Urdu, you see.

My uncle gave it to me.

 

It gets used and abused.

 

Some pronounce it kara-mat and some just a plane K

Others kramat

And others ramat

And others still kramatt.

In some parts of my Hometown, people even call me Karamjit.

 

My uncle didn’t expect it to be abused, only used, properly.

He thought it was beautiful.

It really* is!

 

It means miracle, best written in Urdu.

 

Just ask if you are not sure how it goes.

 

*Thank you Bradley

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Is diversity all about differences?

A few years ago as a part of my voluntary community work, I was involved on the management committee of a Birmingham community advice centre. One day I bumped into a fellow Pakistani. When I told him about my involvement, he said “are there other ‘apne log’ (our people) involved there?” When Asians use this Urdu phrase, they almost always refer to not just people of their own ethnicity but also to those who come from the same clan, ethnic community and district.

 The advice centre concerned was run under the auspices of a Church of England church, with a White vicar who had a real heart for the inner city and its people. Much of the congregation of this fairly ordinary church was made up of White or African Caribbean worshippers. Most of the staff of the advice centre were of Pakistani and Bangladeshi Muslim background as were its clients who chose the advice centre in preference to their own community’s services because they saw it as more impartial and professional.

The question certainly made me think about who ‘our people’ were in such a situation. For example, for a Pakistani or Bangladeshi in need of advice, was it people from her own ethnic group, clan or fellow Muslims. Or was it the African Caribbean worshippers who donated their hard earned income so that she could access free advice; or perhaps it was the White vicar or the multi-racial management committee whose member I was. It made me wonder whether people emphasise too much their race and ethnicity and should go beyond this and focus on our humanity. We may then realise that we have much more in common than that which divides us.

That brings me to diversity. My involvement in it goes back to the 70s except it was called ‘equality’ in those days. It wasn’t until the 90s when ‘diversity’ was coined as a phrase. I believe it was with the publication of the book, in 1992, ‘From Equality to Diversity’ by Rachel Ross and Robin Schneider.  This definition of diversity from the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development best sums it up: “Managing diversity involves valuing people as individuals, as employees, customers and clients- everyone is different.”

The BIG QUESTION for me is: why focus on our differences when we have so much in common?

 We share spaces; we often use exactly the same products and services in exactly the same way. By recognising and ‘celebrating’ diversity, are we in the danger of perpetuating the differences? Perhaps, instead we should focus on our commonalities?

There are many situations where there is a duplication of services. We have neighbourhoods where a service is provided for one ethnic group and down the road an identical service is offered for another ethnic group; both are funded from the same public purse. Surely, our communities have lived together for long enough and are mature enough to use a service alongside others from a different ethnic group. Wouldn’t it be far better to encourage us to go beyond the few differences we may have and focus on what we have in common?

 So where does this leave Diversity?

Some of the orthodoxies have begun be challenged, albeit slowly. Munira Mirza from the Institute of Ideas, talking about diversity training, points out: “On one hand, trainers claim to eliminate stereotypes in the workplace, yet in talking about ‘different cultural perspectives’, they end up generating new and more insidious ones in their stead”. She points out that the “diversity machine is highly expensive, but more worryingly, it can be highly corrosive. It creates divisions within the workforce and generates an unhealthy preoccupation with racial tension in the workplace”. Ms Mirza goes on to offer diversity practitioners and others a challenge: “what has been lost is any sense of universal or common values. Contemporary society finds it difficult to claim that there are values and needs that are shared by everyone, regardless of their particular cultural upbringing, skin colour or ethnic background. Today, there is an absence of vision that can unite different groups.”

Later Ms Mirza makes a similar point in another article: “In our society we attribute much more positive significance to cultural differences, but increasingly lack confidence in people’s ability to transcend them.” She goes onto point out that we assume “that individuals born into a particular ethnicity or culture find it difficult to identify with people different from themselves”

Trevor Phillips, the recently appointed chair of the new Commission for Equality and Human Rights, has pointed out: “My concern is that policies have got to the point where we recognise differences even if it is at the cost of equality,” he said. “Diversity is not damaging to society; what is damaging to society is the recognition of diversity without the recognition of commonality”. Of course, it was not long ago that the Commission for Racal Equality, which Mr Phillips currently heads up, was talking about ‘All Different, All Equal’; don’t times change!

And finally, the words of Shakespeare help to remind us of what we have in common:

If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh…Remember we all feel hurt, we all feel pain

Merchant of Venice

 Note: this blog was previously published a few years ago 

 

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Writing about nothing!

I had the privilege of meeting a group of young people and starting the next ‘Writers of the Future’ group. How fortunate I am; being able to work with such engaging people, surrounded by books (we were in the school library). I so love what I do. I feel a bit of an imposter calling it ‘work’ though. My world today is so far removed from that of my elders. That was WORK. For example, my father used to walk for days with his donkey to different parts of Pakistan, transporting goods for businesses and, later, doing back-breaking shifts in Birmingham factories.

I explained to the students my purpose in being there and then asked them what writers did. Of course they all said: “write”. This was my cue to point out that before writing comes reading. So please would they read, read and read some more. Most of them were used to using their local library.

We talked about how easy it was to write once you get started; how to get inspiration (“from life”, said one) and how to get published using the internet (“make sure you are responsible in what you publish”, I said).

I asked them to do some writing. “Perhaps, you could write about meeting me”, I said.  I told them a little about myself and permission to make up the rest. They were off:

  • Mr Iqbal told us that he wanted to be a writer ever since he was young…
  • The slow and thought out manner in which he spoke showed that … He told us about meeting the man who started Urdu journalism
  • I can tell Mr Iqbal has a passion for writing and loves reading. …He is the first person I have met who has his own blog!
  • He believes that if he wants to achieve his dream of writing, he can do and do it (publish) for himself.

Rather than stare at them while they were absorbed in their activity, I decided to jot down some notes for my blog entry.

I had promised to share with them, each week, some of my favourite books. So, I read an extract of a speech Mr Jinnah had made (from Stanley Wolpert’s ‘Jinnah’):

Organise yourselves, establish your solidarity and complete unity. Equip yourselves as trained and disciplined soldiers. Create the feeling of an esprit de corps (we discussed what this meant with the help of a student who had done French!) and of comradeship amongst yourselves. Work loyally, honestly, and for the cause of your people and your country. No individual or people can achieve anything without industry, suffering and sacrifice

In the process, there was a history lesson- when Pakistan was founded, who ruled the area before, when Bangladesh came about.   

We had time to kill so we talked about bilingualism- one student is doing Urdu GCSE, one spoke Bengali. We then had a group-read of a colleague’s ‘blog’ and learnt about ‘doing foreigners’. I had to explain that this was nothing suspicious but ‘working on the side’. We also talked about ‘eating’ tea. Don’t the English have some strange practices, I thought!

Their homework: to read; to write, if they feel inspired; to look at my blog and, of course, Tim Dowling’s, whose writing gave us the title for my current work.

     

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Birth of a new charity

It all began in 2007 while I was visiting my Mum in Pakistan. On day two, I was woken very early by the azaan, call to prayer.  I began to think about the local community where most young people aspire to go to England. I wondered whether they could be encouraged to think differently. How about if more of them had better prospects here? What would help to make that happen? Given my own life’s journey, there was only one answer; EDUCATION.

So, I began to think about how more young people could be encouraged to succeed in education. I spoke to a few friends and respected elders. They spoke about the ‘hidden extras’; the costs which act as a barrier for the poor who wish to access, the otherwise, free education. One of them also said, “If you are planning on doing good, you should not delay”.  So, by the end of my week there, I had found a few people who were willing to be on our Committee; our eyes and ears at the grassroots.

I went back to the UK as planned and set about talking to people to see how funds could be raised. One thing was sure for me; I had given my word so something would need to be set up. It was just a question of timing.

Soon, I had managed to rope in enough people to take part in a sponsored walk with me. Where we would walk was not hard to think of. We decided that we would follow Birmingham’s No 8 bus route known popularly as the Inner Circle. This was because most people from the area to be served by the new charity had settled in and around these neighbourhoods.

In the end, 25 friends joined in on this 13 mile walk. Between us we had managed to speak to and get support from nearly 200 of our contacts. We raised nearly £2000 which got the charity off to a brilliant start.

Since those days, over 25 young people in and around my birthplace have been enabled to access education. During a recent visit to my Mum’s, I was able to sit in on a Committee meeting to see a few hundred pounds being distributed amongst 17 young people who are the current beneficiaries of the charity.

We now have a website. Please take a look: www.karamfoundation.co.uk

Karamat Iqbal