Teaching can be more than Political Correctness

A week or two before I came to Ecuador to work with children as a volunteer, a school vicar kissed a ten-year old girl on the cheek at an award ceremony at the end of a school year. After a complaint by the parent the vicar was forced to step down after inciting ‘indecent behavior’. The question begs: has this political correctness all gone too far?
In a contrasting culture in Ecuador, schoolchildren are ever so affectionate to the volunteers by wanting to be picked up, hugged and kissed as soon as you arrive in the morning. They swamp you like pigeons do in Trafalgar Square when you pick off a loaf of bread. It is overwhelming to say the least.

There is no doubt, however, this kind of conduct in Britain would be severely frowned upon, with questions asked about the motives of that teacher. Once a complaint heads your way, suggesting even the slightest hint of ‘teacher abuse’, consider yourself looking for another career outside of working with children.

But why should this be the case? What the volunteers offer here, is something more than teaching. Something which even children in Britain do not get. Love. What is necessarily so despicably wrong with ‘touch’.

An American teacher, who is working here as a volunteer, said on an occasion she was left with an awkward situation where one of her students was strangling another. For the risk of leaving a mark on the arms of the attacker, she had to think twice before taking action, where to most the course of action is obvious.

The children here love to be loved, and the volunteers love dishing it out in multiple doses. There is no risk of parents marching up the hill saying ‘I’m sorry but, you’re just giving them too much attention. I’m filing a complaint.’

Many of the children here have a single parent, some are orphans, some a beaten terribly badly for superficial misdemeanors and school is a place where they get away from the harsh realities of life.

The result is a positive one. The children turn up to school, unless they are made to work by their parents for that day. They want to learn, to get it right and feel a little better when they go home.

Ask someone in the street today ‘what was your favorite subject was at school.’ It is a practical guarantee you could marry their favorite subject with their favorite teacher. The infamous expression that ‘if you are having fun you are not learning’ is ridiculous and incredulous.

A recent English lesson in the freezing school of Urcusiqui, which sits at an altitude of twice Ben Nevis’, was met with skepticism at first. It is on the other hand their third language behind Quichwa and Spanish.
If, however, you turn the lesson into a sing-song, pronouncing each syllable by itself, it gets the whole class up in arms.

Hello. How are you? Very Good. And you?

It would be nearly impossible and perhaps slightly ridiculous to try to bring this method of teaching back to the UK. But there must surely be a stop to this profound culture of political correctness we have found ourselves in. There must be logic behind reason, and a smile behind teaching.