For Afrika Speaks with Alkebu-Lan’s 200th show on Galaxy Radio, we present the second of three mini-lectures within the context of education and nation-building delivered by renowned education consultant Sis. Rosemary Campbell-Stephens. After focusing on strategies for parents and young people (https://www.mixcloud.com/AfrikaSpeaks/rosemary-campbell-stephens-lecture-series-pt-1-education-strategies-for-parents-young-people/), we turn our attention to educators.

The kinds of issues facing our children in the schools are well documented. (1) However, until fairly recently the plight of Afrikan teachers often flew under the radar. “Inherent racism,” said to be “hiding in plain sight,” is marginalising teachers to the extent that they are leaving the profession. (2)

The deficit created means that to attain proportional representation across all cultures there would need to be”51,132 more primary school teachers and 14,429 more secondary teachers.” (3)

So entering the profession could be considered an onerous undertaking. Moreover, with independent Black schools and home-schooling only catering for a fraction of our children, a people acting strategically within the context of nation-building ought to have an approach to addressing the needs of the 550,000 Afrikan children within the state school system. (4)

So it is within this context that Sis. Rosemary Campbell-Stephens offers the following strategies for educators that can be used both as a self-assessment/evaluation tool for existing teachers and preparatory guidance for potential educators.

“Strategies for Educators

What they didn’t teach you in teacher training
The first thing to say about being an educator, whether you chose the profession or as in many cases education chose you, you are in a blessed and honourable position as a teacher. Let no one rob you of your joy, the joy of teaching. So my thoughts are based on a love of teaching and those who teach, I count myself as part of the ranks.

One of the first questions for any educator who is serious about themselves to both ask and answer is what is my moral purpose as an educator? The second question, is how do I align my practice, with my values and purpose?

There are many great writers out there that provide sound advice on day to day strategies for teaching, please do read them; but before we delve into strategies for doing anything, we should be honest with ourselves about precisely what we are doing and why.

We all need to concern ourselves from time to time with the bigger questions of our time and profession and, irrespective of the stage that we are at in our careers, read more in order to avail ourselves of the knowledge and research that exists to continuously hone our craft and we also need to develop professional habits that enable us to be radical change agents, within and beyond our classrooms. There are great practical basic suggestions for the former, namely how to become a better teacher all over the internet and in text books, but the strategies that I will be sharing cover those areas that are generally not covered in general teacher training and are the professional habits that will enable educators to be great enablers and influencers in side and beyond their classrooms.

So while the strategies that I am about to share, are from an African perspective, particularly directed at conscious African educators, as part of a 3-part lecture series on education and nation building, these professional habits are certainly applicable to any conscious educators of conscience, irrespective of their background. Those who approach the calling of teaching as a moral imperative to, through education, empower, liberate and humanize, will hopefully find that the following habits resonates with what they know to be true and are already doing.

As in the previous lecture, the suggestions are just that, my suggestions, hewn out of 38-years of practice and action research in the field. It is certainly not an exhaustive list, but may add dimension and depth, or at least pause for thought to your existing practice.
1. Identify your purpose as an educator, beyond that which we can take for granted, given your title and job description as teacher or leader, what is your purpose?
2. Align your purpose, with your values and practice and collaborate with the like-minded.
3. Act with moral purpose.
4. Develop unambivalent racial pride, look to any other races of people on this planet, if you have forgotten how.
5. Connect with your community or the communities that you serve. Connect and seek to understand the realities of their lived experience, even if it is not one with which you or your family personally identify.
6. Engage with your students, especially emotionally, the heart sends more messages to the brain than the other way round, having significant effect on brain function. Your students are physical, emotional, intellectual, spiritual, ancestral and tribal human beings, as are you. Connect all aspects of who you are to all aspects of who they are, and can be. Stop focusing partially and sparingly on one tiny aspect of developing ‘intellect’ or managing behaviour.
7. Historian – the public schooling system of which you are a part has a history and is not a meritocracy, understand the system, what it was set up to do and how, only then can you determine your part in it, but be prepared to un-learn.
8. Activist – stand for something, speak up and out, be disruptive – a big shout out to the group of educators some of whom are dear friends and former colleagues, who challenged Hodder Education’s GCSE Sociology textbook’s authors at the start of the academic year 2018-2019, about the deeply disturbing racist stereotypes about Caribbean Families found casually there in, forcing the book to be removed from sale and the content to be reviewed. It is a small but important victory. By being alert, organised and prepared to act as a collective in the interests of our community, such educators continue a strong tradition of defending our children from the cultural genocide that is perpetrated, through an unchecked, immoral schooling system with an agenda for us as Africans, whether by default or design. There are times when we must resist, protest, act and require that when we speak truth to power, we are heard, this was one such time and there are many, many more to come.
9. Researcher & writer – do our own research, writing and in other ways documenting, unapologetically through your own lenses, in your communities interests’, in your own words.
10. Pedagogy – be the lead learner, discipline yourself to become steeped in honing your craft, and do not miss too many opportunities for your students to teach you something. Be ambitious about cracking some of the major pedagogical challenges facing many educators e.g. devising innovative ways to teach bodily kinaesthetic learners, academic concepts, this is but one example of a stubborn challenge yet unresolved.
11. Strategist – pick your battles, organise, plan and execute, leave no students behind.
12. Authentic – find your authentic voice as an Afrikan educator.
13. Do what matters most – in many classrooms/places of learning today that is about creating a safe space just for students to simply be on any given day.
14. Be present – we are living through very troubling times that have potentially grave implications for us as Afrikan people, but there is a lot of noise and deflections, sometimes the temptation is to just run and hide. Be aware, be conscious and be intentional about everything that you do and say.
15. Griots – never underestimate the power of story for engaging, motivating, empowering and passing on knowledge and wisdom to the current generation of students and the future generation of educators.
16. Teach your students how to learn, firstly about themselves, then to be curious about how they learn best and how to extend their range, so that they can transfer skills to different situations and have the confidence to move beyond their preferred learning style when required.
17. Create spaces and opportunities for students to learn specifically about what it is to be human, physically, emotionally, culturally, spiritually and intellectually, relate everything to life and being.
18. Be innovative – for goodness sake, have an original thought!
19. Creative – among other things create your own narratives about those you teach, who they are, what you as their teachers and they as your students are together capable of! Remove or block, and replace the deficit thinking and language that dominates the frontal lobes of the brain for both student and teacher and those who would attempt to measure and assess the potential magic that together you make.
20. Build your tribe, understand the importance of ancestry, identity and culture in the process.
21. Start from where students are at, but teach them how to be boundless intellectually and infinite beings.”
– Rosemary Campbell-Stephens

(1) Whitney Crenna-Jennings (21/12/17) ‘A black Caribbean FSM boy with SEND is 168 times more likely to be permanently excluded than a white British girl without SEND. Why?’ https://www.tes.com/news/black-caribbean-fsm-boy-send-168-times-more-likely-be-permanently-excluded-white-british-girl
(2) Rachael Pells (06/07/17) Black and minority teachers face ‘inherent racism’ in UK schools, report warns. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/bme-teachers-racism-uk-schools-black-minority-ethnic-education-nasuwt-runneymede-trust-a7827131.html; Lola Okolosie (07/07/17) Racism in schools isn’t just part of the grim past – it’s hiding in plain sight.https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/07/racism-schools-bame-pupils-teachers; Hannah Al-Othman (14/04/17) Black Teachers Are Leaving The Profession Due To Racism. https://www.buzzfeed.com/hannahalothman/black-teachers-say-they-are-quitting-their-jobs-because-of?utm_term=.vdqEZX7Bn#.emkqMLPpB
(3) Ade Onibada (29/11/15) Severe shortage of black teachers at all levels. http://www.voice-online.co.uk/article/severe-shortage-black-teachers-all-levels
(4) Department for Education (28/06/18) Schools, pupils and their characteristics: January 2018. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/719226/Schools_Pupils_and_their_Characteristics_2018_Main_Text.pdf

So tonight we ask the question:

What education strategies are there for educators?
1. Are you a teacher, how do you sustain yourself in the profession?
2. What is the best way to prepare new teachers?
3. Can we devise a strategy that will target the half a million Afrikan pupils in UK schools?
4. In what way can teachers be part of a nation-building agenda?

Sis. Rosemary Campbell-Stephens: is a world renowned Education Consultant with almost 40 years experience as an educator, who resides in Jamaica. Her previous roles in the include: Head Teacher, Visiting Fellow at Institute of Education, University of London, Associate at National College for School Leadership; Associate at Virtual Staff College, OFSTED inspector and Leadership Consultant at RMC Consultants (UK) and head of the National College for Educational Leadership (Jamaica).