The "cliches" of the critics

The CXC results are now out, and the Ministry of Education reported that there are improvements in core subject areas but it is still not “good enough.” I remembered last year, I had a friend who was sitting CSEC mathematics, very good friend. I questioned him on core topics that I know will come on the paper and he was clueless. I sat with him a few days I went through some core topics that he was oblivious about and he later informed me that he got grade 3. I was happy I could help.

Prior to students receiving their results, teachers, parents and students were anxious. Students were anxious to see their grades, parents were anxious to see the end result of their years of ‘investments’, teachers were anxious to see the aftermath of their many efforts, hours of extra classes, retreats, camps, seminars etc. The results came out and I can only imagine the mixed emotions sparkling around, from happiness, to sadness, tears of joy, to tears of disappointment.

I know that many schools congratulated all those who have done well, from those who got the nine, ten distinctions to those who only pass just five subjects. The analysis of this year’s passes have been done, and the many critics did give their cliché analyses of the circumstances. In the midst of all the celebrations, I have to agree with the minister that even though there are improvements, it is still not got enough. And in our 52 years of independence our education system continues to suffer, failing our students, our society and our nation.

The Minister reports, “Candidates who sat this year's CSEC examinations recorded an improvement in 14 of the 35 subject areas, with mathematics recording the highest jump - a 13 percentage point increase in passes -moving from 42 per cent last year to 56 per cent.” Additionally, “Overall, the science subjects recorded the largest improvement in passes, with seven percentage points.”

This is how it ought to be, imagine of this trajectory continues, Jamaica will have something to celebrate. As such, we would be on a path of growth, being that the overall growth, development and production of a country is solely based on how educated the nation is. There is an increasing demand for implementing STEM education and since the science and mathematics passes have improved, I must say there is hope. But how can we reach the remaining 44 per cent? According to Thwaites, the improved performance in mathematics is attributable to a number of initiatives implemented in high schools under the ministry's national mathematics teams. If this is the case, I commend the ministry for such initiative and hope that it will continue and be even better.

I also commend all the stake holders who played a part in the improvements of this year’s results. The celebration would be on now, but the attention will soon be shifted to those who failed. I am just curious, the critics have proved me right, I expected nothing different than the cliché notions of blaming teachers and the ideology of failing schools.

Publicise SORs? Are there any other options?

According to a Gleaner article, “Opposition spokesperson on Youth and Gender Affairs Olivia 'Babsy' Grange has expressed strong concern and disappointment that the long-promised Sex Offenders' Registry is not yet up and running.” The Office of Children Registry (OCR) has recently reported that the child abuse rate has increase by about 40 per cent. Now, there is a growing concern about this issue because there are persons who know about these cases and are not saying anything. What can be done to reduce child abuse? What can be done to break the ‘silence?

Will the publication of a Sex Offenders Registry (SOR) help in the reduction of child abuse? 

According to the opposition spokesperson, everyone has the right to know if his neighbour is a sex offender. She further states: “Yes, I think neighbours and communities should be aware of who the sexual offenders are. We need this in the protection of women and girls, the elderly, as well as our boys.” However this has generated some concerns by human rights activists, for according to them, “the publication of sex registries has proven to be an ineffective deterrent to offenders. Only the United States and South Korea now publicise sex-offender registries, and neither of these countries has reported a decline in sex offences as a result of community notification.”

Publication of SORs has its disadvantages, and since countries which have publicise it has reported no decline in sexual offences, should we follow through with this idea? If it is that we do not publicise SORs, what are the other alternatives? This issue must be addressed swiftly, it cannot be that children’s future keep being destroyed by these offenders. If we ought to know whether or not we should publicise the SORs, we need to examine the issue, weigh the pros and cons then determine if the pros outweighs the cons. If the latter holds true, then I suggest that we find other means of addressing the issue, we cannot run with an idea because it ‘sounds good’ without noting its long term implications. What is the point in having a buying a machine that does not work? However, because it does not work in USA and South Korea does that mean it will not work in Jamaica?

Lets break the chain of suicide

The World Health Organization (WHO) recently published research findings which concluded that, more than 800,000 people around the world die from suicide every year -- around one person every 40 seconds. “Unfortunately, suicide all too often fails to be prioritised as a major public health problem,” said WHO Director-General Dr Margaret Chan. She further stated, “Despite an increase in research and knowledge about suicide and its prevention, the taboo and stigma surrounding suicide persist, and often people do not seek help or are left alone. And if they do seek help, many health systems and services fail to provide timely and effective help.”

I have a genuine concern as it relates to suicide, and as Director-General Dr Margeret Chan pointed out, suicide fails to be prioritized. The report says that, in some individual countries, however, the highest rates are found among the young. Notably, suicide is the second-leading cause of death in 15 to 29-year-olds globally. This finding is more than overwhelming, and I believe that more should be done to tackle this problem. Despite our deficiencies in the health sector and the failure of the Health minister, I believe that more can be done starting at the community level.

Suicide reports have been all over the media, we hear of police committing suicide, MPs saying they are receiving suicidal messages from members their respective constituencies, and the list goes on. Then there is the recent death of actor Robin Williams which is said to be suicide. One may never know what a person is going through, what circumstance initiate suicidal thoughts, and instead of us criticizing and condemning the act, especially those of the Christian faith, we must see it as a problem and address it. Though I am a Christian, who am I to judge? There are men in the bible who were servants of God, who committed suicide, consider King Saul and Sampson.

Dr Jorge Rodriguez, chief of the Mental Health Unit at the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO), said “The most important message is that suicide can be prevented, especially if we identify people at risk and intervene early…People who have attempted suicide are at higher risk of attempting it again, he noted, making it important for health personnel to provide follow-up of such cases, with family and community support.”

The new WHO report identifies a series of measures that can help prevent suicide, among them: creating national strategies for suicide prevention; restricting access to the most common means of suicide, including pesticides, firearms and certain medicines; providing medical follow-up for people who have attempted suicide; incorporating suicide prevention as a central component in health services identifying and treating mental health and substance abuse disorders as early as possible; and responsible reporting on suicide by the news media

I also would like to add that each on every one of us has a duty, give a listening ear to a person who is struggling, take the time to talk with a person and encourage them, and refer them to a professional. Let us break the chain of suicide by being our brother’s keeper.

Failing teachers? Is that so?

The Gleaner carried a Column titled, “failing teachers” published on Sunday August 24, 2014. The writer explored various aspects as it relates to areas in which teachers are failing the nation, and challenges various stake holders to improve the teaching and learning process, and by extension, our educational outcome. However, there are some aspects of the article that I take issue with. Mr. Mason stated that, “There are too many substitutes in our classrooms. This results in a lack of discipline or respect between the teachers and students.” This is a fallacious claim, since he provided no evidence to support it. Respect between teachers and students should always be mutual, whether the teacher is a substitute or not.

He also stated that, “When the Jamaica Teachers' Association speaks of the single largest contribution to the poor state of education being in the home, the impression is left that the family life of our students has significantly deteriorated in recent times. I have seen no data to support this.” Since, Mr. Mason is oblivious, let me inform him. The home is one of the most critical aspects of any child’s development. As it relates to children and the home, we look towards three paramount developmental areas, Early Literacy Development, Emergent Literacy and Oral Language. These three are vital toward any student future academic success being that they are all mutual inclusive and they start within the home. Factors which affect these areas are socioeconomic background, lack of parental involvement and according to (Sulzby, 1985), lack of a literacy rich environment, among others.

Of the three, Oral Language is most vital. Oral language development begins in infancy when adults respond to the infant’s cooing and babbling. The stronger a child's oral language development, the greater is the literacy success. Because increased literacy correlates to enhanced learning ability and sharper critical reasoning skills, an emphasis on oral language gives children a proven foundation for dramatically accelerated success in life. When students fail to have strong foundation in these areas, the work of teachers becomes more strenuous and it affects educational outcome. So Mr. Mason, it has nothing to do with students’ family life being deteriorated.

Mr. Mason further states, “Teaching used to be seen as a calling. Women in my family, as well as friends, treated the profession with the pride it deserves. Pity this does not happen much anymore. Since this is not so, why the resistance to pay for performance?” Mr. Mason, It does not take rocket science to know that this system is unfeasible. What would be used to measure performance? In light of teaching and learning, what does Lev Vygotsky, Jean Piaget, and other theorists have to say? Any science student should be able to tell you that in order to measure both qualitative and quantitative outcomes of an experiment, there has to be a control group which is exposed to same conditions as the subject being measured. Even a simple mathematics topic like measurement shows why it is impractical, being that one knows what measurement is.

Finally, Mr. Mason makes the argument that, “The teachers' colleges are perceived to be the weakest link in the tertiary training chain. Persons are admitted to colleges who have run out of other options because of their own academic deficiencies. One must question the value of having a teacher of mathematics who did not pass the subject at the high-school level.” Over the years, teachers colleges have done a successful job in training quality teachers. The problem lies with the administrators of various schools. No teacher places him/herself in the education system. If you have a teacher of mathematics who did not pass the subject at the high school level, there isn’t a need for a question of value; the question is how such teacher gets the job in the first place. And most of our teachers in the system are misplaced, how can you have a teacher who has masters in home economics teaching primary school children?

I am not sure what Mr. Mason means by ‘miseducated’, but as far as I am concerned, nobody goes to school to learn how to be a parent and you do not need a degree to know that you need to be involved in your child’s life. As educators, we do not blame home environment, we are simply saying that it has a significant impact on any child’s future academic success. 

Minister's master book list is impractical

As we begin a new academic year, parents were busy getting things for their children for back to school. There was be a rush for books, pencils, uniforms, shoes etc. Parents have to get all the necessities in this tough economic time. I can imagine that there were very tight budgets and parents were seeking to cut down on costs by whatever means necessarily. It is against this background that I want to bring our attention to the Education Minister’s master book list.

This book list was created on the premise that parents are complaining that they are spending so much money buying books that are never used. But we educators, though we understand the tough economic times we live in, I must say that the minister’s master book list is impractical. I wrote an article in this blog supporting the Minister and one of my colleagues read it and shared that she disagrees. Consequently, I asked her to justify her disagreement and she brought to my attention something most persons are oblivious about.

My colleague has been teaching for quite a few years, and she expressed that books that will work for students at Campion College, will not necessarily work for students at Bustamante High School. This is solely based on the differences in cognitive levels of students that attend both schools. As such, the books that are used at various schools have to be carefully selected, depending on careful examination of various factors.

Dr. Dick, a Gleaner columnist, stated that, “Obviously, some persons will make the judgement call of what is the appropriate textbook and it cannot be each teacher at each school selecting the textbook. Concerning the prescribed texts, it could be that a group of experts should make the decision and all schools, and ultimately all students, use the same texts. In other words, all the Jamaican children should benefit from a similar education no matter which high school the person attends.”

I am a student at Church Teachers’ College going into third year few weeks from now, and, I have done many theories in learning. I am not sure as to what area Dr. Dick did his PH.D in, but if he had been to Teachers’ College, he would have known why the aforementioned perspective is impractical. In second year, I did a course titled ‘Literacy Across the Curriculum’. In that course, one learnt about readability of text and readability levels of students. There are three readability levels, instructional, frustration and independent. As such, it is the teacher’s responsibility to evaluate the readability of the text, and therefore determine if the text is appropriate as it relates to the readability levels of students.

This type of evaluation cannot be done by a ‘group of experts.’ Though they might be able to determine the readability of the text, it is not possible to determine the readability levels of students, bearing in mind that the readability of students varies according to schools, class and grade. Therefore, not all students can use the ‘same text.’ So, with this in mind, it has to be each teacher at each school selecting the textbook. I understand the background of which the minister decides to create the master book list, but the minister cannot do such being ignorant of fundamental principles in teaching and learning.

Kenroy Davis is a commentator on social issues with a special focus on those relating to education. Email feedback to: kenroy.davis20@gmail.com