The man wearing a galabia, who passes you on his way to work, may not speak a word in Maltese or English. His wife, hiding her face in elhiga, may hardly ever come in contact with Maltese people. They may have been living in Malta for several years without making any Maltese friends. Like the English abroad with their fish and chips or tea at four, they cling to their own way of life and to one another.
The immigrant parents send their children to the local schools and at school their children are on the same footing as everyone else's. In lessons and in play, they have to speak Maltese. In this way, it is the children of immigrants who are placed in the best position to understand their non-immigrant contemporaries, to interpret the new culture to the other and to move between the two. School is the immigrant's point of real contact with the host community.
Most of us use the term "immigrant children" to include at least two broad categories. First, we use it to refer to children from overseas who have come to Malta to live here with their parents; some of them may be in their teens and may already have been at school in their homeland. But the term is also applied to children born to immigrant parents after they have been trying to settle in Malta and many of these children are now in infant and elementary schools; they have not known any home than the one here.
Within these two categories, the real immigrant children are the first group; the others we would do better to call "children of immigrants". We might also think of the difference within the two groups, between, say, West Indian children - who may be from a large island like Jamaica or a tiny one like Nevis - and children from Somalia and Sudan.
To a teacher these differences may seem less important than age differences or than the different kinds of schooling the children may have had before coming into their classes. An eight-year-old junior who has had two or three years in an infant school in Malta is in a very different position from a 12- or 13-year-old who is just flown in from Punjab.
Our aims in educating children with such different backgrounds are naturally the same as our educational aims for all children: to help the immigrant child (or child of immigrants) to realise his potential, to discover himself and what he is capable of and to give him an understanding of the society and the age in which he finds himself. What can he make of Malta and its place in the world of 2009, the year in which Barack Obama assumes office as President of the US and where everywhere there seems someone is suffering on account of politics, religion, language or colour.
How do the immigrant child and his classmates fit into this scene? What part will they play in making or breaking the peace in 10 or 20 years' time?
I deliberately raise major issues like these for they place in a far more manageable context the specific problems that arise when we talk about immigrant children. The problems that get most talked about are the ones that relate to the children's initial difficulties in adjusting in school here. They are difficulties similar to those that a Maltese child is likely to experience simply as a result of changing his home and his school. He will feel disoriented for a time, insecure perhaps. He will miss the familiar friends and teachers, the routine, the well-known buildings.
Think of the Maltese family that emigrates to Canada or Australia: parents and children go through a big upheaval. And, yet, they have many familiar things to cling to. The immigrant child landing in Malta is not so lucky. Almost everything is new and unfamiliar: the house, the bustle of traffic outside, the school buildings, the things one is expected to do and, above all, the language spoken all around.
You may have read a book called Spring Grove in which two teachers relate their experience with immigrant children at their school. "For the first few days in school, the children invariably look frightened, almost haunted. One can only smile and hold hands, and with a firm, gentle voice say things which, although not understood, will try to give a sense of security.
Time and time again in the education of immigrant children one comes up against the language problem. This lies at the heart of things. The Division of Education should provide opportunities for teachers to share information about teaching techniques and find teachers who could explain the children's cultural backgrounds. It is true that teachers have tended to react faster and more imaginatively than administrators or those who make and direct policy. Teachers and children - all children - suffer when the administrators bury their heads in the sand.
Language is not something one learns in a vacuum. It embodies and transmits a set of cultural values and the immigrant child has to understand Maltese values and to relate them to the values of his home culture. To help him to do this, his teachers need to know a great deal about the cultural transition of which he and his family are still a part. It is the nature of communication that is important for a real understanding and for tolerance.
The immigrant child does not come to school to be transformed into a typical Maltese schoolchild. He comes to be a part of the school, to add to it things that are part of his culture and to take away an understanding of things that are not. I dream of a school that as well as celebrating Easter after Lent celebrates Ghid al Fitr after Ramadan. Children bring figolli and mamoul (traditional sweet made form semolina, butter, dates, spices and walnuts). There might be a great deal of good feelings on such occasions and words may seem to matter little. But the really sustained effort is that which affects something deeper and longer standing. It depends on communication in the fullest possible sense. It depends on a willingness to learn, on the part of both teachers and pupils.
Nowadays, curriculum development is much talked about and teachers are often excited by the gospel of new maths or science. It is equally important that like other parts of the curriculum, such as social studies, religious education should also be subject to change and in such a way that takes into account the needs of a multicultural society. Among these needs are an awareness and an understanding of racial prejudice. This mettle, too, has to be grasped, not just for the good of the immigrant children in school here but for the good of all children.
World Refugee Day may be a good occasion for us to reflect how all this is best done. It is up to the schools and the teachers and, perhaps, a stronger hand is needed from the Division of Education.