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In Defence of Education
HOWARD GREGORY
Sunday, November 01, 2009
A few years ago I had occasion to pass by the Melbourne campus of Kingston College which I had not been to in quite a while. I was taken aback by the massive concrete wall which had been erected not just to demarcate the boundaries of the institution, but to protect it from criminals and prowlers who would prey on the institution.
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| HOWARD GREGORY |
I felt a sense of outrage that so much valuable and scarce resources had to be invested in securing a school when there was such a great need to improve the quality of delivery of education to the boys who were students there as well as the facilities.
For a while I tried to make sense of this development. It reminded me of an experience of one of our churches located in Western Kingston. For quite some time, the church was being burglarised regularly. When a new priest arrived he decided that he was going to make the church intimately connected with the surrounding community and not just a place for those who came from outside to worship on a Sunday or for the occasional mid-week funeral or Bible Study. His perspective was that the burglaries sprang from an emerging sense of alienation between the residents of the community and the church. He undertook several initiatives which saw the young men on the streets and their children who played in the roadway become involved with the ministries he initiated. As a consequence of this strategy, the priest was able to leave his car unlocked when at the church as a matter of policy, and the decision was taken not to install any grills as was advocated by the members. Today, the church has no grills, neither has the computer facility which was subsequently developed as one of the outreach ministries of the congregation.
Using the principle of alienation as a possible basis for understanding the targeting of educational institutions by criminal elements, mainly young men, one is left to ask what is the alienation in relation to in this case and what can be done about it. It is easy to pinpoint the notion of a criminal mind in these young men who would see the school as a place for easy and wanton vandalism. I believe that in most cases it is a direct result of what has been discussed ad nauseam as the marginalisation and underachievement of the young men in our society. A recent breakdown of a particular cohort of prisoners in Jamaica which was published in the media showed that a common element among young prisoners was the low level of educational achievement. I believe that in some cases this has been the result of inconsistent schooling, perhaps because of the economic situation of parents or a low value attached to education, a failure of the educational system to engage their attention and creativity, or behavioural problems which made the school system antagonistic toward them. To whatever causative factors we may attribute their alienation, the reality is that these young men have been alienated from the system, do not appreciate the value of schools and the education they offer, and see them only as feeding trees, like any other institution, to be robbed.
Within recent days we have had ample evidence of this reality in the case of the 15 young men who vandalised the Green Pond School in St James and made off with many of the computers. The consequences of their actions have been traumatic for the students who use the computers, and have set back those preparing for their CSEC examinations. It is no secret that these computers are being used in the perpetration of the lotto scam. Perhaps the lesson being taught to the school community is that the lotto scam and its gains are more important than the more tedious and demanding path of academic pursuit and achievement. At least in this case the students were not around at the time the burglaries were being committed.
Not to be outdone were the gunmen, who the following day decided to give the students of the Farm Heights Primary and Junior High School in St James a real lesson in trauma. Like men from the Wild West, they shot vendors at the gate of the school, then invaded classrooms to continue their acts of violence against terrified students. It is common knowledge around St James, Montego Bay in particular, that shootings of this nature are intended to teach certain people a profound lesson or to settle a score. It does not necessarily mean that the people shot on any particular occasion have done wrong, but that some individuals within the community need to 'learn a lesson' on the workings of the criminal world. That this activity took place in the environs of the school may be indicative of how profound a lesson the criminal elements want the young minds of the school community to learn. After all, fear can be easily grasped at this age.
But it is not only those outside of the educational system who are behaving in ways that suggest a measure of alienation from the value and objectives of education, but those within. Accordingly, we heard of a schoolboy and his cronies leaving their classroom in St Ann's Bay where they should be pursuing their daily education, travelling all the way to Claremont with an intent to hurt and snuff out the life of another. For obvious reasons, all the details surrounding the circumstances of the murder of the student and the relationship between the killer and the victim have not been released.
From what I have gleaned, both boys have had an antagonistic and violent relationship for some time. The victim had posed serious disciplinary problems for his school in the past and was kicked out but was reinstated by the Ministry of Education after a legal challenge. Additionally, it has been asserted that the violence between the two boys was related to gang conflict which originated in the community in which they live. So here were young men who gave violence priority in their lives which resulted in a tragic end. They were living in a residential community which taught them that gang war is more important than the pursuit of an education.
It should not surprise us then that Minister of Education Andrew Holness has been placed centre stage in trying to address this serious problem of alienation, indiscipline and violence which has developed within and around the educational system, effectively siphoning off the resources, energy, and attention which should be invested in the education of the nation's children.
Clearly, if the Ministry of Education, as is alleged, had been ordered the reinstatement of the victim of the Ferncourt murder after he was guilty of disruptive behaviour, the teachers and those close to the situation may be questioning the Ministry of Education's strategy in dealing with disciplinary problems which arise in schools on a regular basis. This must also be seen against the background of the proposed school for children with disciplinary problems being shelved for another year as the proposed facility was commandeered for other purposes in the wake of the Armadale Detention Centre fire.
The minister has also had to ensure that there is appropriate legislation that would hold parents accountable and subject to prosecution as in the case of the Ferncourt murder. He has also put plans in place to ensure that the creation of safe school zones becomes a reality. The resources of the ministry in the areas of guidance counselling and trauma support are clearly overextended, based on the frequency and intense nature of some of the events which have transpired in recent weeks.
It cannot be that the minister of education, in conjunction with his staff, has to take on responsibilities akin to a minister of national security at times. If the minister and the various stakeholders in education are going to have a measure of success in fulfilling the mission of our schools, then the minister will need to be provided with the necessary resources such as an institution for children with disciplinary problems; a buy-in by teachers into new ways of exercising discipline and control within the classroom that do not involve corporal punishment; the unequivocal commitment and investment of parents/guardians and the community in the maintenance of discipline in our schools and the pursuit of the ideals of education for their children; and a fearless reporting of those who perpetrate violence and criminal activity within and against our schools. The school for its part will need to find more creative ways to engage the attention and creativity of our boys in the pursuit of education. The society, on the other hand, must explore ways of helping our young men develop a sense of self-worth which would result in them appreciating the value of the pursuit of education and training; foster more positive values and relationships within the community which do not condone antisocial behaviour; nurture positive images of manhood; and at the same time, find a vision and a path thatn can offer hope to many of our young males.
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