Tailor-mad Britain

Is the case of teachers who were banned from wearing jeans and t-shirts yet another proof that overpaid school management boards need to justify their own existence?

Or are they just putting a false sense of order and perceived up-market pretentions to what’s supposed to be an environment supporting diversity and creativity?

There are two areas of everyday life of modern humans where adding the word “British” automatically creates an oxymoron. Cuisine and fashion. Agatha Christie had Hercule Poirot said that British didn’t have a cuisine, only food. And while some may argue that British fashion does exist, they would have a hard time defending an argument that it equals a good taste and that it translates to the masses and transposes to the everyday clothing. Ridiculously old-fashioned suits, skirts that emphasize all the wrong body parts and crazy coloured socks that make their wearer look like an idiot.

Strangely, though, Brits seem to be obsessed by clothing, but they really must like uniforms. Thousands of bank managers, million of kids etc. get of the tube, buses and cars in exactly same clothes. Watching the crowd at Canary Wharf, London’s other financial centre, kind of resembles a watching swarming in a school canteen. Sure, inedible junk is replaced with smoothies and supposedly healthy snacks, but the feeling of uniformity is there.

So great is the obsession with the concept of “dress code” that in 2006 the Daily Mail (who else) attacked the BBC when corporation’s reporters stationed in a war-zone during the Lebanon-Israel conflict didn’t wear suits and ties. “The truth is that the BBC is throwing away credibility by allowing its reporters to appear without ties. It implies carelessness and shows a lack of respect for the viewer and the subject matter,” wrote one Michael Cole. One year later, the tabloid’s daily maul was another reporter’s dress comprising shirt and jeans. And it’s not just the broadcasting…. Not a single GP doctor I saw in the UK wore proper doctor’s garments. Suits, shirts and ties whose knots are hotbed for bacteria.

School managements, after scrapping practical science experiments (children can watch them on YouTube), are on their crusade to kill off the last remaining bit of diversity – by forcing teachers to stick to the dress code deemed appropriate by the body of busybodies. All in an attempt to offer business-like appearance.

Birmingham Metropolitan College requires staff to wear business suits and skirts and … tidy, well groomed hair. On the index are: jeans, t-shirts, t-shirts with signs, inappropriate earrings, tattoos (must be covered), trainers (that’s sneakers), outrageous hairdos and colours….

Last year, a school in Tower Hamlets, one of the London’s most deprived boroughs (although it also covers the aforementioned Canary Wharf) sacked a teacher because he refused to give up his usual dress code – trainers and tracksuit pants. His outstanding results (96% of his students passed maths and science GCSE exams) and side activities (he worked with disabled children) had not effect on the schools decision. According to the council, he didn’t comply with “a reasonable management instruction”.

About 15 years ago, as I walked down the hall at a police station (reporting a crime) in a post-communist country, I noticed a sizable poster titled “A proper grooming of a member” with a picture of policeman’s head sporting a hair-do deemed proper by communist regime. “We keep it here for fun,” a plain-clothed detective answered my quizzical look.

Linguistically flammable

Canadian minister of citizenship, immigration and multiculturalism Jason Kenney sparked a controversy when he suggested that people without a satisfactory command of English or French should be denied citizenship. Let’s put aside the official bilingual farce, although, to be fair, speaking both languages does make sense in certain circumstances, for example, if a person happens to be an immigrant or wants to pursue a career in government.

Back to language tests. To demand a satisfactory command of the official and/or prevalent language is legitimate. Immigrants, in any major migrant destination, can spend their lives without the knowledge of English in some areas. Florida and China Towns are the most obvious examples. But the living is often reduced to survival as any involvement with the authorities requires help of other people. As a result, not knowing the language of majority confines individuals to their communities, limits their opportunities and fosters “ghettoization” of neighbourhoods.

On the other hand, authorities often make their announcements or application forms available in minority languages. The London borough of Tower Hamlets offered voter registration form and other documents and in many European and Asian languages. But while that can be viewed as a form of help and support, it also takes away an important opportunity for the new and old immigrants with poor majority language skills to become active members of the community beyond the borders of their language and culture.

Many of immigrants in Canada come from countries where even basic education is scarce and the opportunities to learn languages may be non-existent. The only way to learn English or French is to take a language course in Canada.

But the quality of teaching staff in various immigration centres is often questionable. An immigrant I know in Calgary went to English classes shortly after their arrival to Canada. Educated in Europe and fluent in three languages, they kept asking more profound grammar related questions such as “why is that”. The ubiquitous answer was “it’s like just that, English has no logic”. Which is a) rubbish, b) proof that the “teacher” was not really a teacher of English but merely an English speaking person without necessary qualification and lack of pedagogical skills.

It’s not an isolated case. In Canada and Britain, English language is not a part of standard school curriculum. English is reduced to teaching spelling and stylistics but it is not the same as teaching a language. People learn their mother tongue only by means of its everyday use. Asking an educated Briton or Canadian questions about an accusative or a plus quam perfectum (pluperfect tense) usually results in a pretty accusatory, i.e. dumb, look. Not to mention frequently misunderstood and thus potentially explosive “genitive case”.

According to the Conference board of Canada, about 40% of adult (working age) Canadians “do not have the literacy skills to cope with the demands of everyday life and work in modern society”. In other words, they are functionally illiterate. UN statistics from 2000 put Britain’s illiteracy rate to approximately 20%. UK government says that 42% of children leaving school at 16 “fail to achieve a basic level of functional English”. According to Daily Telegraph, one in six British adults lacks the literacy skills of an 11-year old.

A friend of mine spent two years teaching biology at two prestigious private boarding schools in Britain. That was her main assignment. As a secondary one – she taught overseas students English as a foreign language. In Britain.

This emphasizes the fact that teaching English to people who grew up in a non-English environment requires different methods, qualifications and skills which, apparently, most of the native speakers do not possess as they had no opportunity to acquire them.

If the federal government in Ottawa wants to make the command of official languages a condition for granting an applicant citizenship, it must reconcile its two often contradictory policies – granting substantial semi-autonomous language-related cultural and religious rights on the one hand and its integration policies. Second task would be to improve language learning programs for both immigrants and the Canadians.

Unfortunately, things are not that simple. Even if immigrants do speak perfect English or French and can present official diplomas from their home countries, they are often required to pass language tests because Canadian authorities or private companies chose not to accept their foreign qualification in a given language. But that’s a different story.