I wish to preface what some may perceive as controversial perspectives on the topical “dunce” discourse by noting that I am an educator who has been serving in the system for more than 23 years. I have taught at the secondary level, and presently lecture at the tertiary level.

As a teacher-trainer, I have supervised students practising at both the primary and early childhood levels. Having spent more than half my life dedicated to educating our nation, I too would be perturbed to have students unreservedly entering the school with the pronouncement “Dunce” affixed to their back. Nonetheless, having amassed heuristic and pedagogical knowledge over the decades as a reflective practitioner, I want to posit that much of our recent national approach to the “dunce” issue has been a missed opportunity.

Firstly, I believe we have missed several opportunities to engage in research to garner a more fulsome understanding of the choice to invest in a “Dunce” backpack from the perspective of the consumer. Conducting empirical research in the area would be the ideal methodology for understanding the socio-cultural context beyond why individuals felt it was appropriate to accessorise school uniforms with the functional prop in question.

By taking an investigative perspective, educational leaders could have better interpreted the web of meanings that might have been weaved by the “Dunce” subscribers. To not capitalise on such an opportunity to conduct research, regardless of the paradigm or scale, gives credence to the findings of the Orlando Patterson-led commission in the Jamaica Education Transformation Report, 2021, that education in Jamaica needs to be more data-driven, especially through internal mechanisms.

Additionally, to not conduct qualitative research, specifically, means negating to appropriate a voice to those who obviously have something to say. This act of silencing some members of society is deeply influenced by the formation of education on the island.

Historically, Jamaica’s education system is not only shaped by the British model but also advanced through the work of Christian missionaries. Sadly, since then, education on the island has emphasised learning the 3Rs and how to subscribe to morally and ethically normative behaviour. To deviate from the latter, as in the case of wearing a “Dunce” backpack, is an atrocity, as it challenges the traditional understanding of schooling as a place where students are at the margin and not the centre of the discourse. It gives voice to a group of unlikely people whose perspective does not fit in the normative discourse of school operation.

But herein lies what author James Baldwin asserts is the paradox of education — it can be a means of oppression and also liberation. Education promotes morality, which says that I must display socially accepted behaviour, but education also dictates that I challenge societal norms. The underlying question, therefore, is: What is the function of education in Jamaica? Is it only about behaviour training to ensure that the future society is made up of orderly and docile members? Is the function of education to maintain the dominant social positions of power in which the holders of power laud their own moral standing and labelling of others as morally inferior? Is it about teaching people to accept one viewpoint and not challenge traditions? If this is so, then we need to discard the National Standards Curriculum (NSC) and its lofty philosophical underpinnings that promote the development of 21st-century literacy skills, such as critical thinking and creativity. Why bother to engage the students in inquiry-based learning? Why advocate for students to be innovative and engage in problem solving and metacognition? In fact, why call for a transformation of the education system if the production input and expected output should not change?

In keeping with the NSC, one wonders how many schools have capitalised on the opportunity to timetable or emphasise the appropriate teaching of “bastard subjects” and programmes, such as health and family life education (HFLE) and civics. These programmes allow students to explore real-life situations and how to make the right decisions when confronted with ethical dilemmas. Therefore, if these programmes were being successfully implemented in schools, there is a strong possibility that the students who fashioned themselves in the “Dunce” backpacks would have given greater consideration to the message they are reflecting about themselves, their parents, and their schools. Chances are, if the lessons from these programmes resonated with these students, even if they were given one of these bags, they would not have been caught dead wearing it in public.

It, therefore, leaves me to ask: How many school leaders would have again missed the opportunity to introduce or reintroduce HFLE and civics in their schools? Having seen or experienced the “Dunce” backpack fiasco, how many have recognised the importance of a values and attitudes programmes, like the one launched in 1994 by former Prime Minister PJ Patterson, or the School-wide Positive Behaviour Intervention and Support (SWPBIS) programme that was introduced in 2015?

Many people have argued that it is the parents of the “Dunce” backpack carriers that should be blamed. I strongly posit that the issue is not a parental issue. It is a school governance issue. It is an issue that surrounds faulty curriculum planning and enactment at the school level and faulty curriculum implementation from the level of the Ministry of Education. It is time that the Ministry of Education, through its Core Curriculum Unit, paid greater attention to the implementation of these value-based programmes and subjects that some school leaders believe are unimportant to schedule or employ the appropriate people to teach. There must be a national push for the intended enactment of the NSC so that students receive holistic education rather than preparation for terminal examinations only.

The reality is that we missed the opportunity to welcome schooling from the 21st-century perspective. Instead of barring students from school compounds and classrooms and knowingly contravening their human rights, school leaders could have delved into their plethora of resources and handled the situation much differently.

For one, they could have engaged in the 21st-century methodologies of the flipped classroom or the democratic classroom by having the “dunce” backpack students determine how the matter should be resolved and why it should be done that way. These same students could have been asked to engage in research about the word “dunce” and what it denotes. They could have been asked to conduct polls on social media platforms, such as TikTok, to ascertain how their peers and others feel about their decision to wear the “Dunce” backpack to school. They could have been asked to analyse their findings and present them using technology. The students could have been asked to do a comparative analysis of the net worth of a person who did not complete high school but collects their “dunce cheques” and those who did and whose paycheques are “bright “.

The bottom line is that, from an educational standpoint, we have missed many moments to engage our students in experiential learning. Overall, we have missed many teachable moments.

We have missed the opportunity to join the 21st-century movement of emphasising social justice education and the promotion of non-discriminatory policies. We are either very hypocritical as a people or very inconsistent in our stance. Neither is acceptable, as these have perpetuated a system of inequality and inequity in our society. Two examples of these quickly come to mind: the recently proposed adjustments to the Student Dress and Grooming Policy 2023 by the Government and the fund-raising venture called Anything But a Bag Day that some schools undertake.

In the first instance, several Jamaicans lobbied for an amendment to the Student Dress and Grooming Policy 2023 for schools to include the wearing of varied hairstyles. Students’ freedom of religion, family values, and other expressions were considered. Soon the floodgates will be opened to many hairstyles that were once considered inappropriate for school.

In the second scenario, Anything But a Bag Day, students are allowed to carry their schoolbooks in buckets, garbage bins, pillowcases, and cardboard boxes. Yet no one affixed a meaning or any moral connotation to how the students were adorned. In fact, the more ludicrous the backpack replacement, the more the students are celebrated for being creative.

Who asked if they were going to school to sleep? Which principal turned back a student for taking their books in a pot, cereal box, or garbage bin? How many principals researched why some American schools came up with the strategy? Can I tell you that it was to search students easily for drugs and weapons?

One then just can’t help but point out the apparent hypocrisy in the way we value deviations from traditions and norms. There seems to be a privilege of some behaviour over others based on where they originated and who they affect. Where is the discussion on the content of those backpacks or the calibre of students carrying them? At the end of the day, the discussion is bigger than just the word “dunce” on the exterior of a bag. It is about how we see ourselves as a nation and the value system that we continue to hold on to. It is how we see labelling, without distinguishing it from “self-labelling”, which is often seen as a cathartic release. It is how the repercussions of colonialism still oppress us after centuries of Emancipation and decades of Independence.

I fear from our current perspective that we have become the living epitome of the original definition for the word “dunce”, coined in the 16th century, which refers to people who suffer the inability to unlearn and relearn.

Nicole Williams is a PhD student and lecturer in the Faculty of Education and Liberal Studies at the University of Technology, Jamaica. Send comments to the Jamaica Observer or elocinakeba@gmail.com.