|
After more than four decades, it would be excusable for a
teacher to want to call it a day. But for Arthur Weinberg,
69, helping youngsters to read and write is a life mission.
Arthur trained as an architect in South Africa but on leaving
his homeland for England, and becoming a Bahá’í in 1960, his
interest in teaching grew.
“I was excited by the way that the Bahá’í teachings encouraged
universal education, and the emphasis placed on literacy,’
he says, “so I enrolled on a programme to learn to help children
who were really struggling to learn to read and write.”
Arthur began teaching in the early 1970s, when conditions
such as dyslexia were not yet widely discussed. Children with
literacy problems often were simply labelled ‘backward’.
For the next twenty years, Arthur patiently helped hundreds
of pupils in East Kent to reach a standard of reading and
writing where they could cope with the demands of everyday
life. His full-time teaching career culminated in managing
the Canterbury Remedial Centre which served more than 50 schools
in the municipal catchment area.
On retiring in 1989, Arthur took up private tuition and continues
to teach pupils on a daily basis from a small classroom at
home.
His skill at reversing the fortunes of pupils with low ability
to the point where they achieve good GCSE results, and even
university entry, is recommendation enough to bring a steady
flow of parents to him, who are eager to assist their children’s
progress.
In addition, Arthur has written two novels for older children,
The Refuge and the Cave and The City and the Heart,
in which he addresses themes such as combating racial prejudice.
“I wanted to deal with these issues by creating characters
that young people could actually relate to,” he says. Recently
he’s shared the books with a Kent Police working party on
which he serves, which works to tackle racism among teenage
offenders. At the same time, he’s also helped a number of
Roma refugees in Dover to learn basic English.
“Literacy gives everyone the power to discover the truth
for themselves,” he says.
“From a Bahá’í perspective, that’s the beginning of self-awareness,
responsibility and making a useful contribution to society.”
RW
|
