TES article about the new Cornish Language Saturday School !

MAGA ( the Cornish Language Partnership organisation partly funded by central government and european sources) is helping to financially support a new Saturday School Movement opening in Camborne. Skol dy’Sadorn Kernewek aims to offer pre-school children an introduction to the Cornish language. The TES, ran an article on the new pre-school , all to the good, but interestingly referred to Cornwall as ‘the only English county with its own language’ . The article also gave some translations for a number of phrases including the very positive educational phrases:

Shut up - taw taves/syns dha glapp

Don’t do that - na wra henna

Go and see the headteacher - Ke ha gweles an penndyskador

The bell is for me and not for you - An klogh yw ragov nyns yw ragowgh

Whilst the inclusion of more references to the culture of Cornwall in the educational press is most welcome the standard of journalism in this TES piece is poor. It’s assertion that Cornwall is an English county, for example, is contested by many Cornish people. Similary its choice of translated phrases seems to poke fun at Cornish language teachers. Surely there are more age appropriate phrases that could have been considered in an article setting out this new provision?

Irrational Curriculum

The recommended reading list for Key Stages Three and Four National Curriculum English includes very little Anglo-Cornish Literature and no Cornish Literature in translation.

Have a gake at the wall being built here.

First, the canonical breeze-block:
Austen, Blake, Browning, Bunyan, Byron, Chaucer, Congreve, Clare, Coleridge, Collins, Conrad, Defoe, Donne, Dryden, Eliot, Fielding, Gaskell, Goldsmith, Herbert, Herrick, Hopkins, James, Keats, Marlowe, Marvell, Milton, Pope, Shakespeare, Shelley, Sheridan, Spenser, Stevenson, Swift, Tennyson, Trollope, Vaughan, Wells, Wilde, Wordsworth, Wyatt.

Secondly, the cement:
Adam, Amis, Armitage, Auden, Ayckbourn, Barker, Bennett, Cormier, Fowles, Frost, Greene, Hare, Harrison, Hill, Hughes, Huxley, Jennings, Larkin, Lively, Orwell, Owen, Pinter, Plath, Porter, Pullman, Russell, Sassoon, Shaffer, Shaw, Sherriff, Smith, Trevor, Wesker, Wyndham.

Finally, the tokenistic multi-cultural plaster:
Agard, Angelou, Brew, Desai, Gordimer, Rai, Syal, Mah.

I want to knock down this wall, but I can’t.

Did you know that Dickens was going to write a novel set in Cornwall?
The Brontës – they had connections to Penzance didn’t they?
Yeah – Lawrence, all that signalling to the German subs off Zennor.
And Matthew Arnold – his mother was Cornish wasn’t she?
And surely there’s enough Celts in there anyway?

I mean, come on, Robert Burns, W.B. Yeats and R.S. Thomas.
The Scots, the Irish and the Welsh are safe enough.

And William Golding, he was born in Newquay wasn’t he?
Your Booker Prize winner, he was.
And what about Hardy – all that Boscastle and Emma stuff;
Beeney Cliff, Lyonesse and all.

What you moaning for anyway?
You’ve got Charles Causley in there.

Good enough then.
Good enough.

I see them now: all those enthused kids
down Parc an Tansys, back Pengegon,
keenly plodding through their
Dryden, Pope,
and Sir Thomas Wyatt.

Cornish schools and PFI

Getting an overview of the Cornish Education landscape is difficult at times…. after  all where is there that offers a comprehensive overview of what is happening? Thankfully technology helps in offering a space for the sharing of information……one example is the cornishzetetics blogsite where you can read about the impact of PFI on Cornish schools. http://cornishzetetics.blogspot.com/2009/10/pfi-scandal-hits-cornish-schools.html .

 

What about a University for Cornwall?

I was working with Anglican and Methodist clergy last week  as part of their ’Induction to Cornwall’ Day. I was asked a question relating to Higher Education in Cornwall. The minister wanted to know if Cornish students studying for HE courses in Cornwall resented the fact that their Awards ( with the exception of University College Falmouth ,of course) were  made by institutions outside Cornwall.  I’m not sure what students think currently as I haven’t asked them recently. ( Note to self – Ask them).  As for me,  at one stage I did think that there was a head of steam that  meant a University of Cornwall was likely to happen but the possibility seems to have receded. I see little evidence from any political quarter of a will to push for a University of Cornwall. Have polititians decided that because there is HE provision in Cornwall ( albeit mostly validated by HEIs in England) that nothing further needs to be done? Would such a decision be the right one? In spite of the growth of HE provision in Cornwall do we need our own University?

‘Talking proper’

I have been very pleased with the good will that has allowed my initial research to kick off. Thanks for allowing that to happen. It’s already raised some interesting issues including the important one of the perceptions of others.

Someone spoke to me recently about their application for a national position with one of the large Awarding Bodies ( such as OCR , Edexcel and AQA). This colleague mentioned that in her opinion,  if  she had spoken to someone about the application rather than placing her request in writing, she would not have got the job. It makes me quite sad to think that this is the case. Ken Phillipps talked of mothers helping to depress their children’s  Cornish accent, so it’s not new, but it  really bugs me to hear current stories. Some Early Years students I spoke to last week were quite sure that it was their job to model ‘good’ English in order that the children speaking Cornu-English should learn to speak properly. They were quoting the lead coming from government publications.  The group and I had a  about this but regretfully because of time couldn’t go into detail…… 

But I wonder how far this has depression of accent is ingrained in people and often self-censured? ……. it made me think about the extent to which I temper my own language when I first meet people including  students………  on one hand the ability to use different registers appropriately is sophisticated but the question of what drives it is another…..let me know what you think……