Wednesday 19 March 2014

Political Correctness in Education and Mountain Tourism




For over 30 years I was an oral examiner for learners of English as a foreign language.
In that role
 I’ve seen normally confident, high-ranking military officials and civil servants reduced to the debased position of struggling to express themselves in an alien medium                                                                         
 I’ve seen children from remote mountain villages, where they had little or no communicative language practice, burst into tears in sheer terror on meeting a foreigner for the first time - never mind one about to examine them
I’ve been in drawing-blood-from-stone situations where anxiety kicked in, paralyzing the candidate into silence.

 And you learn from experience:
That a kind word and a warm smile can melt petrification
That a touch on the arm and an expression of humour can rapidly dispel crippling anxiety
That candidates who are confident and strong need help too – to be deftly guided to reach their ceiling, to operate at their level of full potential.

All of that is what it means to be an examiner.

 In recent years a well-known organization, operating internationally and broadly involved in offering English language services, however, has moved the goalposts in the interviewing game. The role now promoted is one of pure script-reading. Any candidate difficulties are to be dealt with solely by repetition, facial expression and gesture. The canon is one is given a rubric and one must not deviate from it.
So here we have it - reductio ad absurdum: one ‘interlocutes’ and adopts a quasi-robotic role. In such a context the Communicative Theory is of necessity eschewed. This, my dears, is neither interacting, nor communication and certainly not examining. This behavior is allegedly promoted so that all candidates are given ‘equal opportunities’. So it’s our old friend ‘political correctness’ rearing its ugly head; the reductio ad absurdum being that the examiner is permitted no real contact with the person before him, but is, nonetheless, expected to assess his language level.

 The reason I’m broaching this topic of examining in the first place is that recently I received several e-mails from another well-known organization, operating internationally, partly involved in organizing such exams. Now it was quite a surprise to see I was on their circulation lists since I haven’t examined in years - when I began to feel the pressure of examiner gag and strait-jacket, I decided to call it a day. But my second great surprise was that I was apparently required to provide them with my Criminal Record! The assumption - gasp! – was that I have a criminal past. Now presumably what they were asking for – had it been properly translated and expressed- was for a clean police record, the equivalent of a Criminal Record Check available from the Disclosure and Barring Service in GB. And here’s another strange thing: the required criminal record check in Greece was to   have been issued within the last month, whereas the equivalent British document issued within the last three years was deemed an acceptable alternative  : ( ?

I can understand why employers want to be sure that they are not inadvertently putting children in potentially dangerous situations, especially in cases like this where a good number of the clients involved are young learners. But British statistics show that such sexual predators constitute only 0.5% of the population. No one can condone such criminal  activity, yet is that statistically significant enough to generate such fear that PC - here ‘Professional Correctness’  – both in the British classroom and in language examining contexts generally, means that attempts to communicate, comfort and reassure are seen as unacceptable and unnatural behaviour?
 The original objective of Political Correctness was to ensure the inclusion of individuals into society. Nowadays some of its exponents have become inflexible, self-righteous and convinced that only their perspective is ‘the valid one’. The in loco parentis role of the educator should not be jettisoned. What one should be operating on is a policy of Moral Correctness: extending caring, nurturing, support and encouragement - the corner-stones of  family values – to those in our charge,  and feeling free to do so.

Detective Chief Inspector Bob McLachlan, Head of Scotland Yard’s Paedophile Unit, rightly says, ‘One of the main things in not to frighten parents to  death’. I believe that the measures being taken could well create such an atmosphere of fear.   But not to appear totally callous let me make a helpful suggestion: that the exam organizers reconsider their long-term habit of running such oral examinations in hotel bedrooms.  


Let’s move on to a cheerier subject – travel. This time you’re joining us on a trip we went on with my brother and his wife when they came out to see us towards the end of the year. In last year’s March blog we visited Elatohori and this time we are only 8 kilometres from there, again near Katerini and behind Mount Olympus. We had been enjoying really mild weather, but as we ascended the mountain escarpment, we gradually moved into autumn with leaves changing colour and the atmosphere becoming sharper.
 We were in the village of Aghios Dimitrios. Below you can see the church in the square with its brightly- coloured icon depicting this mighty warrior.
                              














Nearby is the school and even if your thirst for knowledge spiritual and educational has been sated, to cater for all your needs is a fresh-water spring, claiming that Macedonia is more Greek than Greece.




 








                                   



 Our accommodation is the stone-built guesthouse, Dimatis, bearing the name of the family who run it.
Here is Kyria Katia, the matriarch of the establishment, with her son, Thodoris, who handles the shop-front business. Katia, from a well-known line of skilled bakers and confectioners, is famous for her bread, pies and sweets. The cheese pies she had made for our breakfast were memorable.
                               

 

 










What is interesting is that there is a family-run farm with deer and wild boar. This cheeky chappie showed great curiosity towards my husband, the photographer. Clearly, the village hunters don’t carve knotches on their belts, but display their prowess otherwise- these are boar tails!         
            

 
 
 








                





Our stay at the guesthouse marked a special occasion – my brother and his wife had their wedding anniversary- so here we are at the table all set – both table and us – to celebrate! 


 

                                 
 The picture below shows two things:
the empty plates show that their grilled mushrooms and their salad of rocket, figs, walnuts, sundried tomatoes, parmesan, balsamic vinegar  and pomegranate seeds all went down a treat;
and that the farmer-son doubles as a waiter, serving us delicious venison in a red wine sauce with noodles.
This took me back to when we were kids in the West Highlands of Scotland and lucky enough to live next door to Johnnie MacArthur who worked for the Forestry Commission. He was in charge of occasional culls on the red deer to protect the young trees. Interestingly these culls often happened around Christmas and New Year, so our festive table had no turkey. There might be the odd pheasant – road-kill, of course! And our mother made a roast haunch of venison with rich black gravy like no one else.                             
                                  


















     On our second night there we had wild boar with roast potatoes and rice with cinnamon chestnuts and raisins with a garnish of tomato jam, made by our waiter’s wife, the cook. Here she is preparing some of her many jams and preserves. 

                                               

              
                                     
As we took our leave it was with warm memories, loads of chestnuts we’d gathered on the mountain and several extra pounds.  A sign in the village commends the Dimatis for ‘good food’. To use a good Greek word that is a fine example of litotes!                                                                     



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