Communication

When I applied to spend a year in Finland in the back of my mind there was an element of thrill at the fear of going to the unknown. The biggest factor was probably that I was about to leave my comfortable Catholic diocese of Liverpool to a land of 7 diocese, 20 priests and one bishop. Everyone asked me about how I would cope and that was the prime concern for me. How would I manage without my mass, and familiar structure. It felt like a wilderness from the strong basis I was leaving. And yet since I've returned my eyes to my home town have been opened more and more as I began to look beyond the religion to the society and the place in which I've grown up. The place I would have once described as traditionally religious and passionate is becomming more and more vague in my understanding of the place.

As I've mentioned countless times, Wigan is in the top 4% in the UK of unwanted teenage pregnancies, with England the highest in Europe. On Wednesday I learned that studies show that Wigan and Leigh are in the battom quarter nationally of adult literacy. From this, there is at least a 10% gender gap with it very often being the father in a family who is unable to read, write, listen and speak to a particular standard. Whereas I oftern moan that we should have a system more similar to the American one when it comes to education, this session on Wednesday went on to compare ours to that in Finland. The blank, wilderness with no God or spirit for me. Finland has the best education in Europe, with them only starting at the age of 7 parts of the literacy scheme. It is one of the biggest faults here that we start to make children learn to write at 5 when they can still not speak properly.

As a teacher I should be concerned about this, and I am- it embodies everything I work for and need to consider. But what I began to think about on Wednesday is that at one time I would have thought, but the positives- the faith, the passion, the beliefs; these, we have got right. Today...well the question stands as to what is more important to a community- the ability to be able to communicate to God or to each other?