WHAT IS THE REGGAE DANCE LAW

(One Dance Won’t Do)


By Myrna Loy

He stood there against the wall, dressed in a silvery-grey suit, razor sharp seams, toes turned outwards; silk socks and crocodile shoes. He was standing in between his two bredren - one arm hugging his waist while supporting the elbow of his other arm so that his fingers could stroke the stubble on his chin. He was rocking his head to the music – a leather cap tilted precariously on one side of his head. From a distance it looked like he was sneering. He closed his eyes slightly, raised an eyebrow, and looked straight at me. I rolled my eyes but couldn’t help grinning. Just look at him I thought: “ ‘im tink him nice - who stands up like that these days? I said to myself, while another part of me was thinking... he’s too cute!


I saw him lean back his head as if he was saying something to one of his bredren. I knew his type - the type that had not evolved; the type who had not moved with the times; the type who probably had a 30 year old BMW or a Cortina outside that was his prize possession and had the nerve to say: ”me have a bimmer outta back.. you whan come ride wid me?” with every pun intended. Why did I always attract this type? And the weird thing is, something about them fascinated me against my will.

I wanted to choops, and look for someone ‘I could take home to mother’ but that wasn’t happening in this club, not now.. not tonight.

We had established eye contact and connected with a smile, which was a fatal combination in the dance arena. I knew he would be confident now to walk over - and true to form he does:

”W’appen baby?” he says, in a deep Barry White voice. My eyes scan him swiftly. Hmmm, diamond in left ear, clean hair cut, smooth skin, a goatie, big hands, clean nails - I can’t help smiling back. “Yuh waan rub a dub to dis chune yah?” His choice of words perturbs me a little, but I think, what the heck, it is only a dance!

Derrick Harriott was singing “some guys have all the luck” in the background, the treble is high, the base is low - a wicked chune. I would be a fool to let this dance pass me. I accept, praying he can ‘rub-a-dub’ so that I am not disappointed.

That is the thing about a dance – with the right partner and the right music, it has a magnetic effect. I mean, a dance should just be a social interaction between two people, however, in a rub-a-dub dance, integrate it with a the right song, the right riddim track and the right person, it becomes a fatal prescription for a love affair.

I wanted to dislike him because of his outdated stance, and unsightly gold chains around his neck, but he pulled me towards his hard frame and I am just the right height to rest the side of my head on his shoulder and that was it. His cologne mesmerised me - it should be a crime to smell so good! I wanted to find an excuse to dislike him. I found plenty but they weren’t enough to make me refuse him: he wasn’t articulate, my parents would not approve of his earring and gold tooth, but when he cupped my back with his strong hands; pressed his nose in my neck and breathed hot air down my chest throughout the dance - that was it - my knees went, literally.

Have you ever danced with a man (or if a man is reading this, have you ever danced with a woman) and your legs start to tremble uncontrollably? Well, that was me on the dance floor - and then it was not only my legs that were trembling uncontrollably, it was my body too, but in sync with the riddim, so hopefully no-one noticed, except him and me.

The man could dance - his body navigated mine with such expertise, it was as though he was teasing out sensations with his meandering. One dance led to another as the DJ selected one nostalgic chune after the other. I am sure we must have danced through 7 records without stopping.

“You know how fe move eeeh?” he whispered hotly in my ear. I winced at his accent combined with his choice of words, but smiled without meaning to. I didn’t approve of the sensations that were going through my body with just a dance, they were taking me down a road I had no intention of travelling.

“So what’s your name? “ he continued.

“Susan” I lied, “What’s yours?” [I always called myself Susan when someone asked my name at a dance, probably because I am expecting them to realise that it is not my real name] but they always fell for it..

“My name is Denton Walker”, he said with a wide grin; the light catching the gold tooth, causing it to sparkle.

Denton Walker?? You can’t get more black than that I thought.

“I used to know a Susan,” he continued.

“So what?” I felt like blurting out, “... as if I want to know all the Susan’s he’s slept with!”

“She beautiful jus like you.. she have a nice smile jus like you, and she dance nice jus like you..” All of a sudden, the dance didn’t feel so sweet again, I withdrew from him and told him I wanted to use the ladies’ room.

“Bloody cheek!” I thought as I reached the woman’s room, flushed and with no desire to pee. Fancy asking a woman to dance and then talking to her about another woman, as though I am supposed to be flattered or interested! But then I thought: “hole up.. hole up… you don’t even know the man so why you getting in a tizzy? It was true. Why was I getting so wound up about a man I hadn’t known for more than 30 minutes. Did the 7 consecutive dances licence me to be jealous or have a claim on him?

Yes, I guess in my mind they did. A man doesn’t dance with a woman 7 times and it don’t mean anything. Besides, rub-a-db dances could lead to love, long-term relationships and sometimes marriage. It was the reggae dance law that if you danced consecutively with someone 4-5 times, an implied contract was formed. It would be inappropriate for him to ask anyone else to dance and the woman would not dance with anyone else either - unless of course, you were fool enough to leave the man/woman to go to the bathroom before you secured the digits, and spent longer than 10 minutes in there like I did, then the impled contract was broken (although not irretrievably). If you were lucky, you might find your dance partner when you come back, that is if s/he hasn’t been whisked away by someone who can dance just as good as you

I realised that I was giving Denton permission to breach the Reggae Dance Law by staying away so long, so I eventually got myself together and wondered why I had reacted so possessively. I figured that even though I had only just met him, we had made a connection through the dance. The riddim spoke on our behalf and we consummated the relationship through the vibes. So, what had happened between Denton and myself was more than a dance - it sounds crazy, but I can’t think of any other explanation, can you?

I patted my nose with a powder puff, reapplied my lip gloss, puffed up the side of my hair which had been flattened by the dance, composed myself and went back into the dance hall. Denton was dancing with someone else.

“Well, it didn’t take him very long did it?” I said to myself angrily. I stood there trying not to look annoyed. I started dancing by myself to signify I didn’t care, although secretly I felt uncomfortable. I wished that someone would pull me for a dance so I wouldn’t feel so conspicuous. I wanted to be in a position where I could ignore him and I could do that if I was dancing with someone else.

I started looking for the two girls I had come in with. One of them was brukking her back with this tall guy. I don’t know how she wined like that. She was like a snake, and her protuberant bottom swished from side to side - it was very noticeable in the clingy fabric she was wearing. My other friend was engaged in conversation (while dancing), with some guy she had just met.

As I walked over towards them, one short, fat man with acne and large framed spectacles, pulled me for a dance. “Be careful what you wish for came to mind!” He had on one of those dogtooth jackets, a black shirt and a white tie and white trousers.

I eyes fell to the floor, he had cream shoes on. How the hell can you wear white trousers and cream shoes? His face was shiny too, which was probably why he had acne! If this was my knight in shining armour then I preferred to do without! Just as I was thinking of an excuse to decline the proposition, I felt someone tug my arm gently from the other side. When I looked up to see who was, it was Denton - gorgeous by comparison. So even though I wanted to be spiteful, refuse or at least give him a taste of his own medicine, I couldn’t. I saw the woman he had been dancing hovering around, with her lip hanging down, hair mash up where she too had rested it on his shoulder - looking as though she wanted him to dance with her again, so even though I didn’t want her left offs, I did not want to refuse just in case he danced with her again. I rationalised it by convincing myself that since he only danced with her once and had danced with me 7 times in a row, he obviously liked me better! Besides, the alternative was to dance with someone who was not only height-challenged, but unattractive. I allowed myself to be pulled into Denton’s confident arms, which seemed more forceful this time around!

Relationships, children, love and marriage have been initiated by a single dance. Audrey Hall definitely knew the meaning behind the song: “One Dance Won’t do”.

Colorism

I was reading Deborah Gabriel’s book “Layers of Blackness” – Colourism in the African Diaspora, and the first thing that came to mind as I read, was does colourism really exist today?


Deborah Gabriel, apart from being the author of ‘Layers of Blackness’ is a teaching professional and a journalist. The book was inspired by a feature Deborah wrote about skin bleaching in 2005, which followed a documentary about skin bleaching by a black female filmmaker and by the failure of mainstream writers to discuss the psychological and historical factors associated with skin bleaching. The primary aim of her book, despite its connotations of shades of colour is, she says: “to unite, not divide people of African descent”.

The thing is, from my perspective, the word ‘colourism’ is a divisive word. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term, it is, in blunt terms, when someone says “no badda tawk to him – him too black” or, “don’t go out into the sun my dear, you will get too dark!” Colourism (according to Wikipedia) is a form of discrimination in which human beings are afforded differing social treatment based on skin colour. The preference often gets translated into economic status because of opportunities at work. Colourism can be found across the world and the term is generally used for the phenomenon of non-white people discriminating within their own ethnic group!

Yes, in plain talking it means blacks discriminating against blacks because of their colour, which is why many of the darker-skinned people have opted for bleaching creams to make their complexions lighter. I read on the website that in India, Fair & Lovely, which is a bleaching cream, have cornered 70% of the bleaching cream market! And there is a video on the internet made in Egypt which claims “if you want to be successful and attractive, bleach your skin white”. It is this kind of misrepresentation that gave rise to many tragic mulattos in the early 1900s. How many of you saw “Imitation of Life” by Fredi Washington who played Peola, a tortured self-hating bi-racial girl who said to her Negro mother: “Don’t come for me. If you see me in the street, don’t speak to me. From this moment on I am white, not coloured. You have to give me up!” Wanting to live as white because she was tired of being treated as a second class citizen ‘that is being treated like a 1930s black American’. She passed as white and begged her mother to understand, which along with the 20th century advert cited above, implies that success comes with skin colour. So in answer to my initial question, does colourism still exist today – yes, sadly it seems that it does!

In order to understand the present, we need to refer to the past, so let’s have a look at the possible reasons for colourism. Most of us know that light skinned Negroes were the ones kept in the house, while dark skinned Negroes were made to work in the fields. Did this imply that the light-skinned slaves were more superior to the dark-skinned or was it because the mulattos (as mixed-race were called back then) were the product of rape and therefore the slave masters felt some paternal loyalty to their offspring? Did the perceived preferential treatment adversely affect dark-skinned female slaves, or could it be that because the light-skinned slaves were remnants of their offspring,, they were happy to see them being given an opportunity to enjoy a marginally better lifestyle? We will never know. All we know is how it has been translated to us through the centuries, that lighter is brighter and blacker is slacker – but is that true?

There is an argument in the United States that on average, African-Americans score 7 to 15 points lower than European-Americans on IQ tests. Many conservatives believe this is because blacks are genetically inferior to whites. But liberals believe that the IQ gap is the result of nearly three centuries of slavery and yet another 130 years of segregation and institutionalized racism.

Hume, Krieger, Sidney & Coakley and many others have tried to state that the lighter you are, the higher your IQ level. Have you ever heard such a load of tosh!? If that is the case, why is Professor Geoffrey Palmer, DSc, OBE whose skin tone is dark, one of three people in the UK who has a Doctor of Science? A Doctor of Science (DSc) for those of you who do not know, is conferred on a member of the university who has a proven record of internationally recognised scholarship. Professor Geoffrey Palmer OBE is such a member and as such, was required to submit a selection of his publications on Grain Science, to the board of his faculty, which decided that he merited this accolade, along with Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell, a white Scientist and radio astronomer who discovered what turned out to be neutron stars, also called pulsars.

When I interviewed Professor Geoffrey Palmer who is the author of “The Enlightened Abolished” on my radio show in March of this year, he told me that the reason he accepted the OBE the day before his mother died (apart from his mother telling him he should) was to show that he was as competent and as intelligent as anyone else on the planet, and that is of course regardless of colour (shade or otherwise)!

So let’s put this colourism to bed and end it with the famous words of Marcus Garvey:

The appeal I now make is: "For God's sake, you men and women who have been keeping yourselves away from the people of your own African race, cease the ignorance; unite your hands and hearts with the people Africa, and let us reach out to the highest idealism that there is in living, thereby demonstrating to others, not of our race, that we are ambitious, virtuous, noble, and proud of the classification of race.

FORGOTTEN BRANCH OF BLACK COMMUNITY PERSEVERES

By Charles R. Saunders


In the eastern Canadian province of Nova Scotia, an unsung branch of the black diaspora persists. The history of the black Nova Scotian community is a singular story of survival that is all-too-often overlooked. It shouldn’t be; it involves not only one small province, but also two continents.

People of African descent have been part of Nova Scotia’s history since the beginning of European exploration and colonization – and, perhaps, before that. A black man named Mathieu Da Costa was part of a 1608 French expedition. Da Costa served as an interpreter between the French and local Mi’kmaq people. His knowledge of the Mi’kmaqs’ language suggests that he had prior experience among them.

The first major presence of blacks in the region came in the wake of the American Revolution. Lord Dunmore, royal governor of Virginia, offered freedom to African slaves who joined the British in their battle to suppress the rebellious American colonists. Blacks were faced with a choice between rebels who desired freedom for themselves but not their slaves; and a colonial power that promised freedom for the slaves.

Many blacks chose to join the British before the Americans belatedly promised freedom to slaves who fought for the rebellion. After the British lost the war in 1783, they resettled most of the blacks who had fought for their cause in Nova Scotia – which had opted out of the revolution. About 3,500 Black Loyalists, as they were called, migrated northward – along with 1,200 slaves held by Loyalist whites who had also fled the newborn United States.

Like the whites, the free blacks were promised land and provisions as a reward for their loyalty to the Crown. Unlike the whites, the blacks received less than they were promised – and sometimes nothing at all. Even so, a group of Black Loyalists founded Birchtown, the first free black settlement in North America. Angered by the lower wages the blacks were forced to accept, whites from neighboring Shelburne stormed Birchtown in North America’s first race riot.

In 1791, John Clarkson, a British agent for the settlement of freed slaves in the West African colony of Sierra Leone, came to Nova Scotia to recruit Black Loyalists for a “back-to-Africa” migration. The blacks’ experience in Nova Scotia had been far from idyllic. Racism was making a mockery of their freedom. Thus, about half of the Black Loyalist population set sail for Sierra Leone in 1792. The half who decided to stick it out in Nova Scotia – along with another group of freed African-American slaves who arrived after the War of 1812 – formed the ancestral core of the province’s black community.

That community remained small and scattered. Some blacks lived in Halifax and other cities and towns; others in isolated rural communities built on those early land grants. African Nova Scotians have struggled against the same racism that besets blacks throughout the diaspora. Within the context of that struggle, some black individuals from the province have made their mark in the wider world. Here are some examples:

William Hall, son of freed slaves, was the first black person and first Nova Scotian to earn the Victoria Cross, in service with the Royal Navy during the Indian Mutiny of 1857.

George Dixon became the first black boxer to win a world championship when he took the bantamweight title in 1890.

Sam Langford, a 5-foot-7 pugilist who started his career as a lightweight and ultimately competed successfully at heavyweight during the early 1900s, was so feared that no champion – not even the great Jack Johnson – was willing to give him a title shot.

Portia White was an opera and concert singer of the mid-20th century whose voice was favorably compared with that of the legendary Marian Anderson.

Daurene Lewis became the first black woman mayor in North America when she was elected in Annapolis Royal in 1984.

More recently, poet George Elliott Clarke won the Governor General’s Award in 2001, for his book Execution Songs. Kirk Johnson fought for a world heavyweight title in 2002. And in 2006, Mayann Francis was appointed Lieutenant-Governor of Nova Scotia.

Over the centuries since 1783, the core black community has been augmented by newcomers from other parts of Canada, as well as migrants from the United States, the Caribbean, other parts of the diaspora and Africa itself. But the population remains small, and black people continue to face racism in the education, economic and justice systems.

Still, the community perseveres and progresses, keeping alive the heritage of ancestors who took a chance on a hope for freedom during a time of slavery.

By Charles R. Saunders is the author of the Imaro novels.

To learn more about his work, visit www.charlessaunderswriter.com

RELIGION: AN AID OR HINDRANCE TO SPIRITUAL FULFILMENT?

By Fiona Whata

Whoever we are, we are all the same. We all want the same things in life: happiness, fulfilment, not just in our lives, but also within ourselves. What makes us happy, what motivates us? As no two people are alike, the desires and goals of people are varied. Yet, through whatever walk of life, through whichever era, some common themes tend to emerge of what drives us through our lives: who are we? Why are we here?
Spiritual wholeness is an eternal quest for the human race. The two most common pathways to this goal are religion, which I define as an organised system that believes in the spirit world and adheres to a specific set of practices designed to bring them closer to God, and what I call spiritualism, which has the same goal as religion but without its structural aspect. Attending church regularly would fall under the category of religious, while I would regard reading tarot cards and exploring one’s psychic potential as spiritualism. The aims of the two are the same, yet there is a curiously uneasy relationship between the two. In trying to understand why this is the case, we may understand ourselves better.

Christianity’s hostile attitude towards all things psychic is well acknowledged. The King James version of the Bible states in Leviticus, ‘A man also or woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death: they shall stone them with stones: their blood shall be upon them.’ Deuteronomy further elaborates,
‘There shall not be found among you….anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD.’

However, what the Christian faith has failed to acknowledge is that the construction of its own religion appears to heavily rely on psychics, and that the chronicles of its saviour reveals him to have been, perhaps, the greatest psychic who ever lived. The Bible, in particular the Old Testament, is full of prophets. An online dictionary defines a prophet as an authoritative person who divines the future. In modern day parlance, this would be a psychic. Holy men such as Moses, Isaiah, Samuel and Daniel either spoke with God, saw visions, predicted the future, or all three. The psychic gifts of clairaudience, clairvoyance and fortune telling are clearly at work here, and the display of psychic activity become more abundant when Jesus makes his appearance in the New Testament.

The Black British Experience through the Eyes of a Jamaican

By Winston Walker

I have always thought that coming from a colony has probably made a lot of us culturally richer than we care to believe and the economical racism that many of us face from a visible minority today, can be traced right back to the attitude and ideals of our old colonial masters. When we were in our own country we were made to feel very much like second class citizens so why should we be made to feel any different in the country of our masters? My grandmother was a very God-fearing woman who went to church from a very early age and thought it was very important to hold on to her religious beliefs when she moved to England.

My Grandmother had worked in nursing in Jamaica and went to church every Sunday, a tradition for most people from the Caribbean that they have tried to maintain. So what a joy when she discovered that there was a church just down the road from the room that she had rented. She put on her best clothes and made sure that she had money for the collection. While in the service she felt that she stood out as she was the only black face in the congregation, but she did enjoy fact she was still holding onto the values that she had in Jamaica. The service only lasted an hour and when it finished she sat down, hoping that someone would come and talk to her as she was still feeling very isolated and was in urgent need of making friends. Suddenly she heard a voice behind her saying, “hello, we have never seen you here before”, she also sensed a little intimidation in the voice. She looked behind her and noticed it was the priest who had been giving the sermon, she felt reassured by this and the sight of the man in the black robe made her feel very comfortable, but all that was to change.

The priest asked if he could sit down and have a chat with her and she said that was fine. “Thank you for coming”, the priest said, “but my parishioners are not comfortable in the presence of black people, so if you don’t mind please don’t come back to this church.” At that moment she just wanted to get on a plane and go back to Jamaica. My Grandmother would never express her views vocally and she would not have done so on this occasion, but this would be a story she would tell myself and the rest of our friends and family many times. This experience was also to make her a very bitter woman, but she would not be the only one who would have these experiences, and in years to come there would be a generation who would not tolerate these prejudices and many would lose there lives or find themselves imprisoned fighting for the right to be treated the same as their fellow human beings.

We often confine stories like my Grandmothers to Bible belt America or Apartheid South Africa, although racism was not as harsh in Britain as it was in these places for a lot of people from visible minorities. In Britain a lot of these people would embrace the ideals of such black leaders Nelson Mandela, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King. Although I do believe in non-violence, I would have believed in the Ideals of Malcolm X as I believe that we all have a right to defend ourselves by any means necessary. I do not believe in the saying that we should turn the other cheek, it does not make sense.

When I was 16 I began taking an interest in these people and also the general history of the many black people who were born in the Western world and I came to discover that we are a people who have no name, no religion no culture and no identity. I remember talking to a Rastafarian friend many years ago and him asking me my name and replying “Winston Walker” “No” he said, “that is your masters’ name”. I didn’t understand it then, but I would get to know what he was talking about in years to come and would embrace these values as I tried to find something I could identify with in life.

Although I would deny that I am racist, I do believe that racism has dictated the lives of many black people in Britain, whether it be through housing, education, social welfare, judicial issues or employment etc. I have always asked myself, why is it that when we - people of a visible minority want anything to maintain that certain level of integrity within our cultures - we always seem to find ourselves going to areas that look like they have not been developed since the second world war?

The area I grew up in reflects the economical racism that many of us experienced and are still experiencing today. A few years ago I looked on the internet and was looking at the area that I grew up in Birmingham. I was to discover that many years before, people of a visible minority were invited over here to live. These areas were very suburban, exclusive areas, so why, when these people moved to these areas, were they never developed? I think it would be fair to say the same about many places where people of these minorities decided to settle in Britain.

Throughout the 70s and early 80s these problems were highlighted only through frustration that led to riots in many British inner cities where people were getting a little sick and tired of living in these atrocious conditions and also by the way many were being treated by the law and the judicial system. If you were black you were more likely to have some form of social stigma attached to you, whether it be a criminal record or mental illness, or there was always that expectation that if you were black you were expected to have some form of negativity attached to you, you could be a drug dealer, mugger or thief etc. There are certain elements of people within white middle class Britain, who will always find it hard to accept that all black people are not drug dealers or robbers or thieves, and these people, I do feel, need educating.

At the beginning of my story, I referred to myself coming from a colony. I do think there is a lot of ignorance from the nations who ran these colonies, as being the servant we knew everything about our masters, but at the same time our masters knew nothing about their servants, in that sense the servants have become richer than their masters. Whereas in our home countries we were taught everything about the British Empire it also amazes me that we were never taught anything about our cultures. Whatever I learned was taught by my parents, so does this mean that although we live in multi-cultural society that one culture is more important than the other? I say that we need to embrace each other’s cultures and learn something from each other.

While living in Scotland I often saw a lot of weariness when it comes to the English, but that same weariness, I would say, is the same weariness that people of a visible minority have experienced with whites for many years, hence referring back to the story of my grandmother. I personally am not looking for sympathy or pity, but understanding and to be able to share what I have to offer. Am I happy with race relations in Britain? The answered would have to be yes, but there is always room for improvement. Things have changed since my Grandmother came to Britain, but I also think that these situations must never be forgotten, so that they cannot be repeated.

Within the United Kingdom there are four different countries, England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. I always ask myself in which category do we people of a visible minority fit in. I personally do not want anything to do with any of these, to be part of one would be separatism, but I would prefer to be part of something that is British as I see a whole multitude of people included in the term of being British. We have Scottish, Welsh, Irish and English and I would also include people from the Caribbean, Africa, Asia, etc. In my eyes that’s what makes Britain great.

CAN WHITE FOSTER PARENTS EQUIP THEIR BLACK CHILDREN TO DEAL WITH RACISM?

by Winston Walker


Whilst out shopping in my local supermarket, my eye was captivated, by a young black girl being rather unruly, this girl in my opinion could only been aged around 5 or 6, however what struck me even more was that she was addressing the adults who were with her as mother and father, but what was unique was the fact that the people she was addressing as mother and father were also white, I assumed they were her foster or her adoptive parents.

I never really thought much about it, until I spoke to a friend from the city in which I grew up, this friend like myself is black, however he was also adopted by a white family, although he praised the way he was brought up he would often confide to me the problems he would have in adult life in relating to other black people and also believing the stereotypes and labels that are often attributed quite unfairly to many of us.

Although I do not want to undermine the credibility of people being parents, I think I can identify the issues and the backbone to his problems; we need to look at ourselves as black people and the issue of the lack of black people coming forward to be adoptive or foster parents.As stated in the previous paragraph we must not underestimate the credibility of people being responsible parents, however, what I must question is how these children are developing within a modern British Society, however we must start looking at ourselves and how we are failing our own.
All too often is the case is many people who choose to foster or adopt youngsters are often from white middle class suburban Britain, and often is the case, that these communities do not interact with multi-cultural Britain and in the process leaving these children with the lack of identity that is needed.
A question I often ask myself, who prepares these youngsters for the racism that exists within not only the society we live in, but also the world at large?, who will understand these children when they confront issues such as racial abuse or exclusion or often the isolation we feel, in some segments of the society that we live in, who teaches these children of the history of black people? as I am confident that they will not be taught these issues in schools.

I having been born in Jamaica and raised in Britain I never came across a situation in which I was taught about black culture in school or college, or heard of where black culture is a part of the education curriculum in modern British society.
An issue, that caused controversy in our media most recently was pop idol, Madonna, adopting a child from Malawi, however although we have to commend her for the courage in doing this, we must ask certain questions, such as, how many black people does Madonna have coming to her house?, how can she prepare these children for the issues that they will have to face as they develop into adulthood, and as stated in a previous paragraph, how does she explain when these children will come across issues of racial abuse and prejudices that sadly still exist.

Myself can relate to issues of stereotyping and labelling, having being educated in boarding schools, due to difficulties in childhood, although spending time with family of a weekend and holidays, my problems arose when I left school at the tender age of 16, and generally not being able to relate to certain situations not only in the white community, but also in the black community, and was often left with a sense of not belonging anywhere, however I do not criticize the way I was educated, as I have often thought that it has left me culturally diverse, with an understanding of two cultures.

As for black people fostering or adopting white children, I am confident in saying that we are well equipped to do that, and this can be put down to the long history of colonialism that many of us have come from, and as I often say in many debates that I have had, many of us are culturally richer than we care to think, as not only us, people throughout the world will know everything there is too know about Britain, however we often find that native Britain does not understand or in some instances will not want to make the effort too understand the people who live amongst them, however in our own countries we are forced to understand these societies just to survive.

The problem lays with us, whatever reasons our children are being put in these situations, we have a responsibility to our own so that our identity and integrity can be maintained within our culture, we are a caring people, no matter what we have come from, and it is important that we find more people from our background to take on the roles of foster or adoptive parents, we need to start caring about each other and not just our own biological children, but all our children.We also need to be educating our youth on the practice of safe sex and contraception, as we do have a very long history of teenage pregnancies and in some cases creating an unwanted generation, who will find themselves, lacking in identity and culture.

The problems that come from many people coming forward to do these kind of work or deeds, may come from weariness, of being investigated and the procedures that now all people who choose to foster or adopt will have to endure, however I must I have to agree with a lot of these procedures, as anybody who is put in a position where they have to be cared for, must also be protected and we as a society must always protect our vulnerable, however we has people who come a long history of colonialism also have a duty to maintain the integrity and standards that we have maintained within our culture for so long, and that must start with our young people.

Is Journalling the way to improve the learning experience?

EDITORIAL by Myrna Loy

“Learning journals provide a framework to support the process of reflective learning in individual courses and in the portfolio process as a whole. Their use not only documents the developmental process of the portfolios - making it more than just a presentation of selected work - but supports the self-assessment of processes and their documentation. It 'keeps records', encourages metacognition, ownership and control, and provides guidance” [University of Oldenburg and UMUC]

I have recently changed my career towards teaching – well when I say teaching, I should say I have a teaching qualification which I intend to use to support my inspirational mentoring service. I have also been developing counselling skills as a part of my continuous professional development. Why counselling? Counselling skills develop not only listening skills, but empathetic, cognitive, behavioural and social skills as well - all of which should be a prerequisite to the effective teaching and learning experience.

In pursuing my PTLLS Award and BTEC in Counselling this year, I noticed that Learning/Reflective Journals seem to be a mandatory part of the portfolio development process and not a recommended tool of support. Both Teachers and Learners are now required to produce learning or reflective journals as a form of evidencing their work and documenting the impact of the way they learn/teach. It seems to me, that the current school of thought is that documenting thought processes while learning (i.e. thinking about the way they learn and/or teach, and writing it down) will improve the learning and teaching experience.

According to the University of Worcester’s Study Skills Advice Sheet: “a learning journal helps you to be reflective about your learning, this means that your learning journal should not be a purely descriptive account of what you did etc but an opportunity to communicate your thinking process: how and why you did what you did, and what you now think about what you did”.

I am not sure about other learners, but I found that by thinking about how I was learning, and trying to track and record that process by writing it down, very inhibiting. I found that thinking about the way I was learning prevented me from absorbing information being given both verbally and visually. Another part of the reflective process is to observe what was happening in the classroom, how was I reacting to colleagues, was their questions/interruptions conducive to my learning experience; and were the learning techniques of the teacher effective and if so how. Can you imagine trying to think about all of that while trying to absorb new information?

Many teachers have complained about the journaling process and I can’t say I blame them! They are saying that they cannot concentrate on their lesson plans or schemes of work because their brain is thinking about how they are teaching as opposed to achieving their objective, in order to be able to document it after the class is finished.

According to Laurence E Morehouse, Author of ‘Maximum Performance’, he states that “When you start thinking about what you are doing, you try to reorganise and/or add extra motions. Your motions become uncoordinated, and because you are tracking almost counting your movements, you inevitably slow them down.” He further goes on to say that: “If we were to try to read or write or think word by word, the mind simply couldn’t carry all those details. So the words have to be simplified into a single thought. We focus on a central theme....” “.... The object in a performance is to shut off your thinking which you do by shifting your focus from the details of the action to the goal of the action...”

“... Even in that instant during a sharp exchange of volleys at the net you have predetermined where you are going to hit the ball. Two things are accomplished in the process. First, you have established a strategy. Second, by committing your thought to your objective, you have pre-empted the time; you are only thinking about getting there, not how you are to get there. The first is important, but the second is crucial.”

What these extracts tell me is that journaling is actually inhibiting teaching effectiveness and performance. It is not natural for the brain to analyse every process it takes to learn something! We all know that if we start concentrating on how we are doing something – even something as simple as walking, our steps become awkward and unnatural.

Journalling may have benefits in therapeutic or emotional situations where the client is stressed or has been abused and needs to revisit the causes, but in a learning environment, I am not convinced that reflective journalling is an effective or efficient way to improve the teaching and learning experience.