Many of us cannot imagine life without school, education, learning. Some people wonder how it is possible to live in the modern world without education, without any formal schooling, even of the basic level, which is guaranteed by the Polish system to every citizen.
A few years ago, a man who had come into close contact with the Roma people for the first time in his life, when we were working together with them, couldn’t believe that one could not finish elementary school. At the time, we were working on a photo album whose heroes were the Roma, the last wanderers who, as a result of the actions of the communist authorities in Poland, had to abandon their previous way of life. All of them, without exception, probably had no education, not even a basic one. It was the 1960s.
My Roma friend Rubin, who became interested in our project, finished his education in the third grade of elementary school. He always said that he had learned as much as he needed to, he could read the Bible and count…He was involved in trade like his whole family. He was twenty-one years old, spoke perfect English and German, which meant he spoke four languages, because his mother tongue, Polish and Romani, the traditional language of the Roma, were also to be mentioned. When the new, complicated recording equipment had to be operated, he was the first of a group of several people who were to collect the oral histories of the characters in the photographs.
Our co-worker, a well-educated, native Polish speaker still marveling, watched with curiosity the progress of the first Roma he had ever met in his life and found that if one had no formal education, one had different experiences, acquired different skills, and received a different learning from life…. He appreciated this and understood that not everyone should be measured by one yardstick.
But what are the reasons why the people in the photographs and my colleague did not finish school? Why, even today, many of them do not have higher education, although more and more Roma are formally educated, and there are many Roma in Poland who graduated from prestigious universities, who are PhDs, professors, and lecturers at Polish and foreign universities?
Roma are the largest ethnic minority in our country, according to the last, current Census of 2011 the number of Roma in Poland is 16,725 people. However, over 90 percent of Roma in our country do not have higher education (current data from the Ministry of Interior and Administration). In order to answer the above question, it is necessary to learn about the difficult history of the Roma, or rather Gypsies, who arrived in Europe centuries ago. The first confirmed presence in Europe dates back to the 14th century, although it is believed that Gypsies appeared as early as the 11th century. Since then, and perhaps even before, their fate has been the struggle of a nation without a state to survive. You can learn more about this in the section on Roma history on the Roma Culture Portal. Romani people are fighting for their rights even today, because nothing is given once and for all, and there is always something to prove.
Learning practical skills was valued higher than formal education in most traditional Roma communities, because it gave them the opportunity to survive. For many, it was virtually unattainable due to their low social status, which had determined their fate for centuries and still does. The ability to trade, learning a trade, once traditional, such as boilermaking, fortune-telling, blacksmithing, music-making, basketry, and others allowed them to make a living, but even that was often not enough….
So when I look at the characters in the photographs, Gypsies in their sixties, who would not return to wandering, I understand why they might have been reluctant to cross the threshold of the school. Would their appearance, traditional dress, and sometimes too poor clothing be accepted? Would the fact that they couldn’t speak Polish well because their first and most used language was Romani be understood by teachers and peers? Finally, would they cope with learning when their parents, grandparents could not help them due to simple lack of skills.
And can the majority society, the modern one, accept that someone lives differently, according to its own rules and has different priorities in life? I know from experience that many people have difficulty with this, so education is a great value, both formal and informal. And everyone in some way needs to learn throughout their lives. Also in order to understand others and not to repeat misconceptions that “learning is incompatible with the Roma culture” and “Roma people are reluctant to learn”, which I often encounter during lectures or meetings where I talk about Roma history and culture, or even worse, I read vulgar posts about it in chat rooms or social networks.
Education about national and ethnic minorities in Polish schools is still a topic which is approached in a perfunctory way. Multicultural and intercultural education present in the Polish educational discourse since the 1990s is mainly dealt with by animators and informal educators, of course, if they have such a possibility.
Since 2004, Roma Education Assistants have been working in Polish schools to equalize educational opportunities for Roma students. They help in lessons, they can settle disputes between schools and Roma families, they explain cultural differences which are incomprehensible for many. Additionally they bring Roma culture closer to Polish students, and they tell about Roma history to Polish and Roma students, because the latter cannot always learn about the history of their nation at home or at school.
This is why it is becoming so important to educate the society in various ways, including online. The House of Culture Foundation is facing this problem by preparing an easily accessible portal, from which we can learn as much about the Roma as we need to in order to better understand their culture, social situation, and maybe even our own society.
Agnieszka Caban
