A GUY'S VIEW
“Jehoshaphat was thirty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned twenty-five years in Jerusalem…. He walked in all the way of Asa his father; he did not turn aside from it, doing right in the sight of the Lord. However, the high places were not taken away; the people still sacrificed and burnt incense on the high places.”
– 1 Kings 22:42-43.
There are some sacred pillars and high places in this place that need to be torn down. Unfortunately, some people would give their lives to hold onto their places of worship.
Although it has long been clear that our 11+ examination is destroying the social fabric of this country, we continue to worship at the shrine of this false god.
This is at least the third time the issue of school allocation has engaged the attention of this column. Many others have spoken or written similarly over many years. It would not be unreasonable to assume that regardless of how much ink is spilled on this subject, nothing is likely to change.
One need not be a rocket scientist to understand that if you have an education system which takes the cream of the crop of our students and places them together in a few schools, distributes the middle performers across the majority of the other schools, and places all of the non-performers together in another group of schools, that system will create and maintain divisions among the population based on school ties.
One secondary school is so proud of itself that it indoctrinates its students to identify with it in the same way a cult brainwashes its followers. But school tie pride is not limited to that school. Others are equally as proud of their school, even if that pride does not rise to the level of a cult.
As fiercely proud as these people are of their alma maters, there are others who would rather not identify with theirs. Labels and stigmas are attached to schools based on performance. But what should you expect from an institution that gathers all the students that are brighter than their teachers, and from one where children cannot score 20 per cent in subjects which they were taught for more than six years?
When a sensible defence can no longer be raised, the Ministry of Education reminds us that all schools have Erdiston and University of the West Indies trained teachers. But while all schools may have similarly qualified teachers, the idea that they are all equal is as far from the truth as the east is from the west. Teachers do not a school make. Students do.
Assembling all the least able students in the country in a few schools is a deliberate exercise in keeping them away from the rest of the society: first in school and later in all aspects of their lives. This is not by accident. Racial separation has its place that is never touched, so this never needs to be discussed. Some high places are more sacred than others. But there seems to be a need to separate groups within the larger race so as to maintain class differences. The separation of the performers from the non-performers at age 11 does a splendid job in this regard.
Imagine locking 20 aggressive dogs in a single kennel with no outside intervention. A friend of mine had two dogs that hated each other. He always had to keep them apart. One day he returned home to find them both mauled and barely alive. They got free and fought to the near death.
The isolation of all of our children that are challenged to understand the learning concepts that the system imposes upon them amounts to culpable negligence.
It is illogical to expect that these students would not be disadvantaged, since there is no opportunity for interaction with other students and encouragement to strive for better.
They never have an opportunity to see what success looks like. These children are not stupid, so some will shine in spite of what is done to them, but many are doomed to failure, notwithstanding their latent talent, often through no fault of their own.
I cannot be convinced that the thousands of children that are housed in our newer secondary schools are dumb. That is impossible. These are the people that later keep the belly of this country working. If they do not perform at school, there has to be another reason other than their inability to learn, for they are more than capable of learning and doing well in life.
But before they reach the age of reason, many are convinced of what the society tells them about themselves by labelling them as not bright. And failure at school does not end at school. These young people graduate, even if only by age. And then what?
The evidence is in. There is no need for speculation. The prison population tells the story. So all the long talk that may now pollute our ears means nothing, because nothing will be done to change the fundamental flaw that is producing our problem.
It was interesting to hear the Attorney General who thought that the country was going to hell two years ago, now discover that there are deeper social problems confronting our school children. But that born again experience does not help us any. A blind man on a trotting horse can see that we have social challenges, except when political expediency stands up. We continue to recite the problem. What the country needs is solutions.
The solution cannot be to turn our schools into concentration camps. Already the Minister of Education is laying the foundation for the further separation of the schools by saying that there are some schools with greater problems than others, so the metal detectors that may be introduced at these newer secondary schools will not see Harrison College or Queen’s College. But is deviance limited to the stigmatised schools?
Did the Minister stop to ask why the problem schools are problematic in the first place? That is the easiest question in the world to answer. Look at their population and compare them with the so-called better schools. Strange as it may sound, one suspects that not even the Minister of Education or the Attorney General has the power to tear down this sacred pillar.
Of course, there are other people who can merely mention their discomfort with anything in our society and have it changed immediately. It seems, therefore, that the right people are not calling for a change to the classism which informs how children are allocated places in our secondary schools at age 11.
So the beat goes on.