Living up to my Back-to-School Promises
Reflections on my relationship with la rentrée.
For the past 17 years, the first week of September or ‘la rentrée’ as the French call it has become a defining milestone in my life. As a parent I have photographed my children, standing tall in their new coats on their very first day with their out-sized bags, shiny new shoes and shinier smiles. As I teacher I have colour-coded seating plans, hand-written labels for new pens for new students, painted walls, gone to town with a staple gun and backing paper and been jolted awake in the middle of the night with the obligatory anxiety dreams. I have experienced the privilege of greeting the same faces in year 7,8,9,10 & 11; noticing how they have grow taller, stronger, hairier, funnier and become more themselves. I have always loved the la rentrée. But in 2014 I left the classroom for new adventures in teacher development and an unexpected chapter began to unfold in my back-to-school story.
In the summer of 2015 I heard about the growing numbers of children stuck at our border in Calais and I knew that I wanted to do something to help. All too soon it was September and I couldn’t help but think about what that meant to me. It was September. They were children. They should be in school. They should be standing in front of the door to the place they call home, grinning at the camera, in over-sized clothes just like my children. But they weren’t. They were trudging through rain-soaked toxic mud on a wasteland in Calais hoping that someone would donate the right sized flip flops or a warmer coat that day.
So I figured if these children can’t go to school, why not take school to them? “How hard can it be?” I asked myself. I soon found out when a week later, on 9 September 2015 I launched a crowd-funder to buy a double-decker bus on Ebay and turn it into a mobile classroom. The idea attracted some truly amazing and inspiring people and quickly gathered steam. As it turned out, it was doable after all and together, with the help of many others, we built a school in a bus. We’d kept our promise. We took the ‘back to school’ experience to the children in the Calais Jungle and it was wonderful. Children from Elm Grove primary school bought ‘back-to-school’ bags for the occasion. They filled them with goodies for children they did not know and would never meet. They bought drinks bottles, lunch boxes and scented rubbers. They made hand-written notes that brought tears to my eyes. They really cared about making it special. The children in the Jungle were thrilled to receive them. They learned how to make typical packed lunches and raised their eyebrows at some of our European school traditions. It was a special and hopeful time. We were buzzing from the news that the Dubs Amendment might be passed. When we believed that our country could would take 3000 refugee children from the camps and bring them to safety. We were anticipating the arrival of a modern-day version of the Kinder Transport. The train that had brought a little boy named Alf Dubs to safety and saved him from the holocaust. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-36140619. Back when we thought that this would be the last rentrée that children would spend in the mud in Calais. Back before the government reneged on that promise and left them all behind.
So here we are again, at la rentrée 2018. There are still thousands of human beings strewn across Europe living in limbo; not moving forward, unable to go back, waiting to be given a school or university place so they can get the education they so desire. But while they wait despairingly for the authorities to meet their needs something magical is happening. Thousands of amazing human beings are seeking them out and doing everything they can to make that time count. By talking, listening and learning together they are helping people to find their way back to who they always wanted to be. Allowing them to build themselves up, develop skills and prepare for a better life. There is something extraordinary that happens while sitting with someone, watching them figure things out, answering questions and seeing the light shine behind their eyes when they understand something new. There is a special smile that people wear when they feel pride. Those smiles make you smile back, you just can’t help yourself. They warm your belly and make your heart feel like its smiling too. Those smiles can make tears leap into to your eyes and they let you know, really know in your guts and your heart and your head, that the person wearing that smile has experienced something that will stay with them forever. Bearing witness to learning is a privilege that I am grateful for every day of my life.
It is our mission at Crisis Classroom to make these experiences as accessible as possible and so we invite everyone to become involved. We have created a methodology and training to design activities that tend to bodies, hearts, souls and minds. You don’t have to be a trained teacher, you just have to be open to sharing what you know with others. This way of working goes beyond the unidirectional transfer of knowledge. It’s protective and responsive and it’s offered with empathy and kindness. We invite people to learn alongside us and to find their way back to the person they always wanted to be. We do this by working on solutions WITH people, not FOR people. It’s dignified, empowering and it’s inclusive. We each have something we can add to this story.
There are currently over 200 trained practitioners going about, opening up safe spaces where people can come together and learn. You’ll find them in community centres, offices, cafés and schools. They’re also in refugee camps, welcome centres and on pavements throughout Europe. We walk alongside one another, learning together step by step, until it’s time to go our separate ways.
My rentrées have been changed forever; my classroom is now inflatable, I drive it around in a minibus & my staple gun lives in a back pack. The pens I carry are no longer labelled with hand-written words of encouragement and I follow the progress of my students at a distance. But they are no less magical for it. This summer I went to visit students whom I first met in Calais in 2015. They are beginning their second year at university. Quelle joie! They have their new back packs, laden with stationery, heads full of dreams and a strong sense of how to make them become a reality. Their rentrée stories are just beginning and I couldn’t be happier to write those words.
I’d like to invite you to make new stories with us too. Whether your idea is to share your favourite recipe once or explain the theory of relativity again and again and again there is a place for you within Crisis Classroom. You can travel the world or stay right at home. Your practice fits around your life, your passions and your availability. If you have a skill or an interest that you are willing to share with kindness, expertise and humanity then we will help you with all the rest. You can get involved as an individual, a team of colleagues, a business, a club or a school group. Please write to Kate@crisisclassroom.com to start a conversation. Who knows where it might lead!
Our next volunteer training takes place at SOAS, London on October 1st & 5th. https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/crisis-classroom-volunteer-training-day-1-tickets-48945618663?aff=eac2 It’s ‘Pay What Feels Good’ (£5 — £500) and open to anyone over 18 years of age.
Thanks for reading. Thanks for caring. Please do share if you think others may like to read it too.
Yours, Kate McAllister
