The Education of Gypsy Children in the Kindergarten

By Mrs József Szemán
Source: Iskolakultúra, 1995/24.

The majority of Gypsy children live in large families and are open to relationships within the community. However, they do not easily become fond of the kindergarten, since they find company in their own community. Gypsy children are generally well developed in social terms, although they are afraid of strangers. Nevertheless, the presence of only one Gypsy child is sufficient for them to regain their courage and friendly nature. They feel secure among their brothers, sisters, family and relatives, and at family gatherings they have experienced that they are in the center of attention as small children. Thus, integration of Gypsy children in the kindergarten may be assisted by their brothers, sisters, older friends, family members and more distant relatives separately from each other.

HELPING TRANSITION FROM THE FAMILY ENVIRONMENT TO THE KINDERGARTEN

Gypsy children are breastfed for a longer time than children in general, they spend a lot of time with their mother, the family takes them everywhere they go, and in a bigger company children are passed around from hand to hand. They are not afraid of being left alone. The fear of separation and the need for body contact do not hinder their integration into the kindergarten community. The procrastination of the "let me get down" period (Jeno Ranschburg) is hardly observable in the case of Gypsy children. Whenever they become fond of someone, they usually show their affection by cuddling up to them, and the older ones usually express it verbally as well.

Some Gypsy families are not eager to send their children to kindergarten, because they are concerned that the children might be bullied by their peers. They often check up on the safety of their children and they want to be able to call in the kindergarten from time to time. As if they had more trust in their own way of bringing up children.

The integration of Gypsy children is also impeded by the diverse values of the family and the kindergarten. Children must be made familiar with the rooms and objects of the kindergarten gradually. It should be talked about each day when coats are taken off and put on, in case at home with their family, due to poor heating, this practice could not develop. (The threshold of Gypsy children's sensation of warmth is high, and they like wearing clothes and caps even if it is warm.) The use of devices they were not familiar with at home should not be forced on them before they get used to their noise or size (e.g. toilet, loud household devices, etc.).

The integration of children is made easier if there are several Gypsy children in one group, or one or two older girls in a homogenous group, since girls in the family learn to take care of smaller children at quite an early age, and can help smaller ones bridge language difficulties as well.
The integration of Gypsy children is impeded by the difference in eating habits. Gypsy children can be extremely tidy even when eating without using a plate, but they might have difficulties at the beginning with the use of cutlery and with chewing (e.g. at home they eat the pulpy food given to a smaller sibling). They soon get accustomed to the use of napkins, while having more difficulty using toilet paper.

Except for a few cases, regular sleeping in the kindergarten does not present a problem for them; they like placing beds close to one another. Due to the circumstances in their homes and the poor material conditions they are sleepier than the others, and fall into sleep easily.

One of the crucial factors of their integration is the different daily routine of their families, and a life ensuring more freedom than the kindergarten. Thus, they feel really happy when they play outdoor games and can move a lot. They are attracted by the abundance of toys in the classroom; and sometimes even young mothers sit down to play with kindergarten toys. This interest might be favorably exploited in the period of habituation. For instance, we can organize game sessions for the children and their families to develop a fondness of the kindergarten. Parents are happy to be assigned with tasks for the kindergarten; they repair toys and prepare embroidered tablecloths to decorate the classroom. While carrying out these tasks, not only do they come to like the kindergarten, but their trust in it and sense of responsibility towards it will also be enhanced.

This trust may also be built by playing ball games with the participation of the child, the family and the kindergarten teacher, or by playing with puppets, or organizing a party where the whole family is invited. In Gypsy kindergarten classes the employment of Gypsy nannies or nurses could also have a favorable effect on the integration of children.

If the child attends a majority class and not a homogenous Gypsy child community, at the beginning it is expedient to use the circumstances and interests of Gypsy families as a starting point (for instance, in the first days we might not ask for towels, pyjamas, training clothes or money for cinema tickets of non-Gypsy families either). Naturally, it does not mean that the favorable effect of more wealthy families on education should not be utilized; we simply should tackle the differences between individual families with more delicacy than usual.

In majority groups, parents often display their prejudices. It is important that positive potentials (e.g. dancing and playing together) of a mixed child community are made good use of, in order to contribute to the prevention of separation. Although it is difficult in the case of families, we should try to view children from a uniform perspective - namely, that potentially they are the geniuses, inventors, artists, the honest and hard-working engine drivers, or highly responsible zoo caretakers of the future (since it is rather difficult to decide now what will be needed more in twenty years' time).

The issue of integration of Gypsy children into the kindergarten may only be solved relying on the co-operation of their families. This involves that parents should be allowed to come into the class in the mornings, as well as making it possible for them to contact us any time during the day, should their distrust gain ground. On such occasions they can get ascertained that their children are not bullied by the others. From time to time, the teacher should see the Gypsy child home, thus beginning family visits gradually.

At the beginning of the school year, teachers should be careful in Gypsy classes not to receive lots of children simultaneously. Instead, they should organize that children living in the same community or large family may arrive at the same time. Special attention should be paid to setting up classes so that brothers and sisters (which, in the case of Gypsy children, does not necessarily mean brothers and sisters by birth) become members of the same class.

It is best when children of kindergarten age are taken by kindergartens in the vicinity of their homes. Teachers should never refuse Gypsy children living near the kindergarten due to the lack of vacancies, because wealthier families have more opportunities to overcome the problem of distance.

The poor financial circumstances of a family should never be an obstacle to Gypsy children attending kindergarten classes regularly. In such cases, organizations should be contacted whose function is to help children living under modest conditions. With regard to the issue of the children's admittance to the kindergarten, it is a good idea to ask for the advice of the minority local governments.

All possibilities must be exploited so that Gypsy children living in colonies could start going to kindergarten after reaching the age of 3, in the most responsive period of their lives (the first 4 years). The reason is to offer them primary preventive opportunities, compensation at an early age for an inadequate family background, and preparation for primary school.

Children of Gypsy families living under better conditions must be spotted one year before school age. It is to avoid cases when children who already reached the age of 7 turn out not to have been to any kind of community yet, although for their age they should be attending school.

Children are tolerant, do not discriminate and accept otherness. Adults are different in this aspect. Either consciously or unconsciously, they bring up their children to be racists. Prejudices may be equally found in Gypsy and non-Gypsy families. It would be desirable to achieve that Gypsy families can decide whether they want separate kindergarten schools for their children and separate classes within them, or they want to send the children into majority kindergartens. This is not the case today.

MAKING THE DAILY ROUTINE AND PRACTICES KNOWN AND ACCEPTED

The daily routine for Gypsy classes in the kindergarten should be adjusted to the lifestyle of their families. In heterogeneous classes, those routines having hygienic aspects should be introduced in the first year of the kindergarten (for instance, the hygiene of the periods between meals). By inviting a hairdresser or organizing a competition with practical knowledge in the focus, this programme can be made more colorful. Self-helping community activities might be encouraged in the field of clothing habits, as well as getting familiar with and following traditions and minority cultures.

CHARACTERISTICS OF EDUCATION IN THE KINDERGARTEN

The kindergarten education of Gypsy children has been dealt with more intensively since 1973, but there are still no precise statistics of their proportion in kindergarten schooling. In several towns (e.g. in Hajdúböszörmény, Northeast Hungary), where there are Gypsy classes at present, there had been no Gypsy children in kindergartens before 1983, and they only took part in the 192-hour long compulsory school preparation course. There is hardly any experience gathered about the kindergarten education of Gypsy children, neither are there explicit results of education in homogeneous and heterogeneous (Gypsy and non-Gypsy) classes.
In the past few years, kindergarten teachers have been working in accordance with local educational programmes in Gypsy classes. Several kindergartens employ speech therapists and teachers specializing in development, and they make more use of the Education Counseling Service (for instance in the case of decisions concerning schooling). In Gypsy classes, the social function of the kindergarten has increased in the past few years (e.g. providing the children with towels, sheets and pyjamas). At the same time, the self-organization of families sending their children to kindergarten has also become manifested in the more aesthetic clothing of the children.

Due to better material conditions and the provision of meals Gypsy families are more willing to send the smaller children to kindergarten (school), while they wish to keep the older ones at home to help them with their work. Whereas formerly the assimilative impact of state education, the suppression of ethnic culture and the problems of linguistic education kept the Gypsy population away from the kindergarten, today's experience is that there are only one or two children in each village or town whose existence is unknown before they reach school age. Gypsy families are happy to send their children over three to kindergarten (with the exception of those still breastfed), although, due to frequent illnesses, they are absent more often and they spend less time in the kindergarten. (Due to the smaller number of those having a job and the fact that several generations live together, parents take their children home earlier and often bring them in later; or even do not bring them in at all from time to time because of family occasions.)

As a result of the increasingly regular attendance of Gypsy children in kindergartens (e.g. in Tolna County it is up to 85 per cent) and the introduction of the compulsory school preparation, 96 per cent of children of the official school age start their schooling in primary schools. (Attentive enrolment procedures to school make some of them overage, but still in compliance with legal regulations.)

Formerly, children with less experience about life, underdeveloped build and proneness to illnesses were sent to special schools in greater proportion. (In the past few years their replacement has been restricted, and they were given the opportunity to be exempted from certain subjects.)

The primary preventive potentials and expertise of the kindergarten is more increasingly accepted by Gypsy families as well. Kindergarten teachers strive to organize the life of Gypsy children so that the traditions and values of Hungarian kindergarten education are alloyed with the reinforcement of the cultural and linguistic identity of Gypsies, while also paying attention to the abilities of Gypsy children (e.g. outstanding musical skills, good sense of rhythm, manual skills).

Since the enactment of the Act on Social Issues (1993), kindergartens accepting Gypsy or socially disadvantaged non-Gypsy children have been operating as family help centers as well. Kindergarten teachers getting integrated into the lives of families have become excellent partners for the staff of the network of social institutions.

THE ORGANIZATION OF PLAYING, WORKING AND STUDYING

The way Gypsy children play is affected by their living in large families and in close contact with nature (e.g. playing with younger children, cooking together with their mother and elder sister, preparation for cooking, visiting other households, celebrating, hunting for rabbits with their father, gathering plants). Since gender roles are differentiated more in Gypsy families, the imitation of the parent of the same gender is more intensive, but the relationship with siblings and the frequent gathering of relatives convey a more general form of adult behavior to children. The choice of themes in the games of Gypsy children in the kindergarten is rather rich: cooking, eating, looking after children, daddy-mummy games, traveling in groups, jumping, hunting for rabbits, fishing, running around, playing ball games, playing Indians, fighting games, driving a car, playing with dolls, playing cards, chess, etc.

Almost every Gypsy family has a television set and a record player, and watching video films is frequent. Children in the kindergarten relive their television experiences with an even more passionate intensity while playing (partly due to housing problems). They like films which connect to their lifestyle in one way or another. While playing, they mainly identify with characters similar to them (e.g. an oppressed black American), which refers to their developed emphatic skills.

The social sensitivity of Gypsy children in a peer group is adequate, which is also manifested while they are playing. They accept one another, and Gypsy children excluded from the game for violating the rules have the social technique which helps them get back to the playgroup. Gypsy children's consciousness of games and reality is good, but their knowledge of rules, due to their upbringing focusing on practicality, is somewhat lagging behind their peers', but it can be developed.

Children who have less toys at home start playing at a level of getting familiar with them, and so they seem less developed than the others - which, nevertheless, does not mean that they are lagging behind in personal development. In a personal development programme they soon catch up with the others.

Due to their practical education at home, organizing work in Gypsy children does not pose problems. Little girls help their mothers and grandmothers with the cooking at home, although laying the table is more neglected than in the kindergarten. Children get used to serving themselves soon, and their good manual skills make up for the blanks in their experience. However, more emphasis should be placed on work processes which are not repeated in their homes frequently enough.

The motional activity of Gypsy children can be well utilized when organizing work in the kindergarten. The advantages of mixed ages become apparent while carrying out certain tasks, because Gypsy children are used to watching the older ones and imitating them.

When assigning tasks for work, the principles of graduation and regularity becomes more significant in Gypsy classes, since there will be elements in implementing the task which are missing from the family model. The physical ability of the children are good, and results might be achieved easily with regular feedback, praise and patience (e.g. in keeping the tidiness of the classroom, or in gardening work or looking after animals).

In the organization of work it should be taken into account that the children have different experience of life. The missing elements should be made practiced even when playing, and teachers should not give up teaching these at least at an elementary level even if the children will not have the opportunity to apply these at home (e.g. a wardrobe and towel of their own, or using the toilet).
By making the children like working and by developing the necessary skills, the kindergarten should have an effect on Gypsy families through the children; and an opportunity should be given to them to observe working processes in the kindergarten and also to undertake tasks. (E.g. the families can plant flowers and bushes by the fence of the kindergarten for themselves, participate in their care, or the kindergarten can encourage the organization of jobs in the environment of the families.)

The involvement of Gypsy children and families in the cleaning of the kindergarten or its yard and in the protection of its equipment may make the kindergarten more attractive, promotes the sense of responsibility and urges reproduction. Thus, everything should be done, with love and patience, so that the basic skills and practices of carrying out work are enriched and deepened in the children as an impact of the kindergarten. All this must be done even in cases when the teacher does not receive reinforcement from the family. "The faith of teachers is more a question of nature than view, and it assumes two things: that people can be educated (to be better than they are now) and taught (for more than they know now). Great teachers regard the first one more important," wrote László Németh, the great Hungarian writer and educator.

In the learning process of Gypsy children the effect of the family are the most prominent: imitating, following models and little verbalism. In a Gypsy family, social, emotional, behavioral and exploratory learning is more powerful, and the use of the cognitive (intellectual) sphere is not that important. The involvement of children in the game of the adults, their work, promotes spontaneous learning.

The function of the kindergarten is getting familiar with a totally different way and effect of experience and knowledge, as well as providing for the supplementation of missing parts. The kindergarten helps children arrive from an acting or scenic thinking at an imaginal and then conceptual thinking.

In a Gypsy class it is advisable to organize all sessions in a free form, and perhaps change to the introduction of fix-scheduled sessions from the middle of the last year. The organization of guided learning (workshops) in a class of homogenous age and composition (Gypsy) assures that children of families with better speech skills and more readiness for intellectual activities do not push the Gypsy children's activity into the background. It is probable that the plentiful variations of homogeneous and heterogeneous age and group composition not known so far must be found out, and these must be adjusted to the needs of parents and the possibilities of the kindergarten (e.g. individual and differentiated group workshops within the Gypsy class, ability to move here and there between homogeneous and heterogeneous classes, etc.).

The function of guided learning (workshops) is the complementation of the spontaneous learning opportunities inherent in the playing and working of kindergarten children, the correction of deficiencies found in family education, and the creation of equal opportunities before starting primary school. In the kindergarten education of Gypsy children it is worth giving preference to freedom in education, also followed by the family at home, within the framework of classroom and outdoor games and spontaneous learning. However, during the free and compulsory workshops, as children are getting older, more emphasis should be given to making them get used to persevering by certain elements of the activity. The success of this objective is mainly dependent on the personal appeal of the kindergarten teacher and the impact deriving from her impressive personality, rather than resorting to "strict" techniques.