How Can The Teaching Of English Be Used To Develop A Wider Cultural Appreciation?

Despite the cultural mix of most twenty-first century schools, the level of cultural awareness or empathy with the wider environment appears to be lacking. During my Phase A teaching placement, I was tasked with teaching Poems From Other Cultures and Traditions to a key stage three class. Topics covered at length included racism, violence and exclusion in Tatamkhulu Afrika`s Nothings Changed and working-class alienation in Tom Leonard`s Unrelated Incidents. I was surprised by the lack of empathy the group showed towards to the poets experiences when I provided them with biographical details to show how the poems were borne from real life experiences and anguish. I was strongly effected by what I had seen. Many students claimed not to be able to imagine or relate to incidents occurring before they were born or in another part of the world. It seemed that as the link between poet and student, I had a duty to both to bridge this apparent gap. In order to share the experience of the poets I needed to find a way to enrich the knowledge and emotional intelligence of my students. Much has been written about cultural awareness in schools and in the curriculum. Little seems to have been written specifically about the potential for boosting a wider cultural appreciation in the English classroom. One exception to this rule, the recent Teaching Secondary English As If the Planet Matters, appeared to be such a poignant and almost scathing title that emphasises the point that English lessons may not usually commit to this kind of responsibility. According to the author, Sasha Matthewman `English teachers have a very powerful role to play in teaching about cultural representation and significance of environmental matters`. (Matthewman 2011: 3) In order to discover how I could ensure I was playing my part in this, I explored the role of culture in other areas of the curriculum. My starting point was to investigate opportunities for broadening cultural understanding in a perhaps more traditionally acknowledged area of the curriculum, Humanities. I prepared a set of questions for a head of faculty and their team that would enable me to understand what opportunities students have in History, Religious Education and Geography for widening their understanding. The other key focus was to find out how staff ensure they are culturally maximising their curriculum in a effective yet considerate way. Much of my essay will review and reflect on literature on the teaching of cultural issues and the most effective and appropriate methods of teaching them. I leant much about increasing the cultural understanding of students in the secondary school, primarily the necessity of knowing your students and never making assumptions or appearing biased. An English teacher should never underestimate the potential for presenting and drawing out views, experiences and opinions in their subject which should retain its central role in the representation of culture and language.