When I was eight years old or thereabouts (so long ago I can’t remember exactly) I attended the local junior school in the heart of a West-Riding-of-Yorkshire mining-cum-farming village. The community was homogenously white, so when we were introduced to a new trainee teacher, who was Asian, our jaws dropped (that, I do remember). Up until then my sister and I had been the exotic ones, having moved from Cumberland, but this teacher was something else.
Whether he was Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi or what mattered not to us. All we cared was that he was more heavily tanned than anyone we knew, spoke with a funny accent (funnier than West Cumbrian, according to my best friend), smelled funny (it must have been garlic) but dressed 'normally'.
I can’t remember his name, only that he was softly spoken, very patient, approachable, and held our attention with his wonderful 'stories' and clear explanations. He also made us laugh (phonetically, that’s laff not larf). I haven’t got any sense that he portrayed himself or his community as victims or victimised, or that we were privileged or ignorant. In 2020 he would probably consider that sort of attitude and language, even if it has merit, as counter-productive and divisive, whereas he was all about enlightenment, common ground, respecting differences, and leaving a peaceful, positive footprint.
The most vivid memory I have of his time with us is a school trip to Huddersfield, where he pointed out the different styles of dress of the Asian ladies – the saris, the salwars and the colourful, dreamy fabrics. He took us to his local supermarket and talked about the foodstuffs we never saw in the Co-op. I pointed at some funny-looking potatoes and asked my friend if she knew what they were.
“These are yams,” said an even darker-skinned lady with a broad, white smile. “We eat them in Jamaica. They are delicious.”
“How?” I asked.
“We peel them, boil them and mash them.”
“Why don’t you just eat potatoes?” I asked innocently, not meaning to be rude.
The lady laughed, grabbed several yams for her basket and proceeded to the next tray, full of a green vegetable that was also beyond my comprehension. It might have been okra.
After 'our Asian' had finished his stint at our school, we didn’t immediately forget him like we did other trainee teachers. Sometimes we would ask each other how he might have handled a certain situation or explained some tricky sums.
I was far too young to understand at the time the significance of his presence at our school, and too much detailed memory has been lost for me to analyse it properly today. But the fact that I am now reflecting on his lessons for the first time in, well, decades is sad, even if the memories are happy.
No comments:
Post a Comment