Jaroslav
Balvín
Department of Social Sciences and Health
As for
Social psychology, pedagogical
psychology, psychology of Romany thinking, philosophy of Romany thinking,
intercultural psychology.
Meaning of social a pedagogical psychology for
social workers engaged in Romany communities.
The Division of Romany Culture was founded at the
Apart from social subjects the students and future social workers are acquainted also with general and special pedagogy. And for their education neighbouring disciplines as social and pedagogical psychology are being applied as well. The psychology is adapted to the situation of Roma in a subject called Psychology of Romany Thinking held by the specialist on psychology Miroslava Čerešníková. She focuses in her published works (cf. e.g. Čerešníková, 2006, p. 118-129) as well as in her pedagogical occupation on psychological aspects of situations in which the Roma find themselves as a result of their historical handicap. These situations occur in Romany families, in schools, in relations between the majority and the minority and are often conflicting and have to by solved also with help of the social worker and teacher. In such situations knowledge of psychology is essential; that’s why the subject Psychology of Romany Thinking is so important for our students.
Equally important is also the teaching of the
subject Philosophy of Romany Thinking. An expert on Romany issues Lýdia
Lehoczká has been focused on matters concerning the identity of the Roma
in the long term. Compared the Psychology of Romany Thinking the basis is the
long-termed embedding of psychology in philosophy. Psychology has been from
Antiquity and the Middle Ages on traditionally
understood as the “science of the spirit” and was a natural part of philosophy.
The separation of psychology and its schematic constitution were founded in the
19-th century when psychology began to be connected with the means of natural
sciences, when empiric methods and the experiment began to be applied. This
separation from philosophy is called in psychology the “empiric turn” (cf. Kern
et al., 1999: 269). The spirit is of great significance in the psychological
and philosophical depth of Romany thinking. It is no accident that young Czech
Romany journalists labelled one of the newest magazines with high journalistic
quality “Romano voďi” – the Romany spirit (cf. www.romea.cz).
This magazine is aimed particularly at presentation of Romany personalities,
younger or more experienced ones. The point of this can be explained by the
Latin proverb EXEMPLA TRAHUNT – examples draw people. The introduction of
positive examples of Romany personalities is also a way to influence the
psychology of other Roma who’s sense of identity is not that much developed.
Is sense is described in scientific literature as “a permanent inner state
of balance with oneself, the continuity of self-experience and self- -feeling of the individual which is
often established in an important way by acceptance of certain social roles and
affiliations to social groups as well as by social recognition of these roles
in these groups” (Ondrejkovič, 1998, p. 357).
As Lehoczká writes, “the
interpretation of identity in a social psychological sense by the above
mentioned quotation allows us and motivates us at the same time to compare the
reality of the present-day life of the Roma ethnic group. The situation is hard
to compare to a permanent inner state of balance with oneself respectively with
a continuity of self-feeling and fulfilling of social roles … We suppose that
the less significant are based on these reasons as well” (Lehoczká,
2006, p. 55).
Education and teaching of Romany pupils is integrated into a whole system of natural and social factors, which influence and determine this process (cf. Balvín, 2004).
Psychology is important for teachers of
Romany pupils mainly because it focuses on studying of psychological events and
experiencing of certain situations in educational surrounding. They are influenced
by the ethnic, cultural and social background of the Romany pupil and the Roma
family which affects in a substantial way the behaviour and solving of
stressful situations (for instance the entry of the Romany pupil into the first
grade). It is therefore important for practical teaching, for practical solving
of pedagogic situations which psychological situations are a part of. As
Rastislav Rosinský who concentrates mainly on the question of the
motivation of Romany pupils says the biggest problem affecting the soul of
Romany child like “acid rain” is, that “the Romany children oscillate
between two diametrically different worlds and their view of the real life.
This is now the point on which the schizophrenia of the Roma matter emerges…
Even seeds of efforts planted into their soul run dry with each returning home
into an environment having an impact on them like acid rain”
(Rosinský, 2006, p. 98).
The pedagogical psychology is a scientific
discipline acting as intermediary between psychology and pedagogy. The teacher
of Romany pupils can find within its framework many advises on how to
communicate and on how the interaction between the teacher and Romany pupil and
other persons participating on this interaction (Romany family – pupil –
teacher, Roma community – teacher – school, majority – teacher – Roma minority
and so on) is supposed to look like. Denisa Selická is concerned with
questions of pedagogical psychology too. She points out that the social
pedagogue plays an advisory role as for children in seemingly stressful
situations: e.g. helping children to integrate into a collective, helping them
with emotional, moral and social disorders and so on (Selická, 2006, p.
87).
Also an individual view on pedagogical
problems is a requirement for pedagogy and education so that the pedagogical
psychology could have a more intense impact on pedagogical sciences, on the
practice of education, teaching and schooling everywhere where these are
implemented (Ďurič, Bratská and others, 1997: 221). And
education of Romany pupils and its specific situation mostly within Romany
communities in which the school works is one of these important points.
For teachers of Romany pupils it is without a
doubt necessary to acquaint with pedagogical psychology as a whole. But within
their disciplines is necessary to point out particularities related to the
Romany culture, the social environment and nonetheless with psychological
problems related to the situation of the Romany ethnic minority as a whole and
as for each of it’s manifestations in which psychological situations created in
the process of education of Romany pupils are very important.
“Ko tuke šaj phenel, soske te dživel? Ňiko, mro čho! U korkore pestar te phučel na kampel. Dživ u buter na kampel. Oda sa. Phir, dikh pašal peste u pharipen tut ňigda na skikidela…”
“Who is going to help you, what
are you living for? Nobody will tell you, brother. It’s useless to ask
yourself. Just live and that’s it. Babble this and that, look around and
sadness never gets you…”
Maxim Gorkij: Makar Čudra, Tatran Bratislava 1973, 1. edition, excerpt (taken from: Horváthová, 2006, p. 28 and 31 – Slovak and Romany text)
In the probably best-known and most catchy
writing about Roma from Maxim Gorkij on which the movie and many theatrical
adaptations under the title Gypsies go to heaven are based reflects a
Roma about the sense of his life and the sense of the lives of people
surrounding him. This reflection starts with the
refusal of the sense of existence of people bounded to the soil that has to by
permanently and strenuously cultivated and looked after for a whole lifetime,
of people not knowing anything else than one place they are working on until
they fall from exhaustion and in which they stay for their whole lives. He
says: my sense of life has different foundations:
·
I know for sure and I accept it that nobody is going to tell me what the
sense of life is.
·
To ask myself about the sense of life is really useless.
·
As a consequence of these facts there is no other possibility than to LIVE.
·
Living means to me wandering here and there.
·
Living means to me attentively looking around, discovering new and
foreign lands.
·
And that is the best way not to fall into depression.
Upon a nearer examination of this attitude
towards fulfilling of the sense of life we could find parallels with
existentialism, relativism of life hedonism and the like. This point of view is
however rather romantic and does not consider the harshness of the nomadic way of
life and the necessity to make a living also by means defeated and persecuted
by the majority population. This is not the place to cover this ideology in
details, although the comparison of the Roma philosophy of thinking and the
anthropocentric way of thinking would be very interesting. Concerning education
and schooling I will rather focus on the question if it is possible to draw
upon such a view of the sense of life as one of the most important ethic
categories, as it was presented in Makar Čudra. I suppose that the
priority TO LIVE was deduced from the following facts:
·
necessity not to think about broader associations,
·
isolation of the Roma community last for a long time in the past,
·
indeed, the priority was to live but often this was rather surviving,
·
the European historic social events, way of thinking and culture did not
affect the spiritual life of the Roma itself,
·
the surrounding world saw on the Roma mainly their outer traits: like
they looked like, like they maintained, but people were usually not concerned
with them and their spiritual life,
·
as a result of isolation from the mainly hostile surrounding moral norms
helping to defend against the majority society as well as the binormative
Romany ethics strengthened,
·
as a result of a specific living even a
atmosphere of animosity, hate, revenge against the majority society evolved.
Katarína Vanková writes: “it
was not until the last decades when Roma began to identify their destiny with
the destiny of the rest of the population and to understanding identity in a
part of the Romany population. First time in history it came and comes to
equalization, granting of rights, free development and acknowledgment of
nationality. For the first time a situation was created when
the relations between the Roma and the majority society don’t have to be a
priori those of distrust and inequality”
(Vanková, 2006, p. 44). Even though the social change
in the past decades was without a doubt of great importance and represented a
radical turn I am a supporter rather of the evolution of changes in relations
between the Romanies and the not-Romanies. The problem of ethic rules depends
on historic circumstances, it has its evolution which
imitates in its own way the economical and political development. Ethic norms
also have their evolutionary and contradictory dialectics, their particular
historical embedding similar to the development of the society. Thus the
differences in the level of sedentarization of the Romany communities surely
influenced the idea of the sense of life. The Romanies have been living in
certain Slovak territories for longer than 500 years now and in a certain
symbiosis with the Gajos in villages. The Romanies were settled in the
Contact
Doc. PhDr. Mgr. Jaroslav Balvín, CSc.
Director
Department of Social Sciences and Health
Kraskova 1