During his 11 years at St Benedict College, music teacher Andre Paul Huber has taught an increasing number of students from foreign countries.

In middle school alone, there are now 30 students from Syria, Italy, Britain, Serbia, India, Poland, the US and other countries.

“We realised that there were foreign students who were detaching themselves from the classroom and from Maltese students,” Huber told Times of Malta.

“Some Serbian and Italian students were always spending time together and, while it was good to see friendships developing, we were concerned this would create an ‘us vs them’ situation.”

He recalls one student who broke down in his classroom because they missed their country and others who felt happy and safe living in Malta after escaping a war-torn country.

The experiences of foreign students sparked discussion in the school about the need for guidance to teachers on multiculturalism.

In 2019, Huber had applied to take part in a project on music and arts through the EU-funded Erasmus+, which supports the professional and personal development of people in education.

At the time, little did he know he would be embarking on a two-year project, working with experts from other countries, to publish a teacher’s handbook on multiculturalism and interculturalism.

He turned out to be ideal for the job. He understood how some of the students felt as he had had his own experiences of adapting to a new country – twice.

Students are welcomed and treated equally

Born in Milan, Italy, Huber remembers how he struggled to learn Maltese and English when he came to Malta.

“Later on, I decided to further my studies in Italy and, despite moving back to the city where I was born, I felt like a foreigner! I had to relearn everything.”

Huber was the project manager, meeting regularly with the team of educators online.

The guidebook is aimed at helping both experienced and newly qualified teachers approach multicultural classrooms in a correct and humanistic way, he said.

“How can we guide teachers to be more equipped to make sure that the ‘us and them’ culture does not grow in the classroom?

“The idea is that we do not want students to have to give up their identity but for the classroom to become a safe community for all and a place to grow.

“The main goal is to provide a better understanding of what foreign students experience, both inside and outside of the classroom.”

The handbook for teachers.

The handbook, called Strategies Towards Radical Intercultural Values in Education (STRIVE), offers insight into and tools to address the realities of social integration and multiculturalism in the educational sector. It was published at St Benedict College Middle School in Kirkop last week.

St Benedict College is the only school in Malta that has a multiculturalism guidebook but not the only school in the world. The Erasmus+ project has partner schools from Lithuania, Turkey and Slovenia, which also have copies of the handbook in English and their native language.

The school has also put together a student’s handbook ‘Go Local’, which provides information for foreign students about the school and the country.

Longer-term aims include providing the handbook to other schools and giving classes to other teachers about multiculturalism, “of course, with the experts and psychologists who wrote the handbook”.

“I have learnt so much through this experience and I hope we can share this knowledge on a wider level to make sure all students, regardless of their nationality, are welcomed and treated equally.”