Like everybody else I am caught up in the euphoria surrounding the recent success of Kingston College’s students at the latest CXC exams. We are all beside ourselves with joy and all-consuming pride. The commendations and congratulations are flowing to teachers, students, watchman, and anyone loosely associated with the KC phenomena. While the KC family was reveling in the “intoxicity” of this grand accomplishment, our brothers at Munroe could not sit still, they did some checking and hastened to point out that they too had experienced unusual success at the CXC level. Their passes had exceeded expectation, and clearly their boys were entitled to some of that adulation.
Well here I come to throw cold water on the parade and force the revelers to confront the smelly exhaust of this rose-filled excursion. Readers of this column will know that I am always concerned with the holistic approach of education and while I love a winner, I am just as concerned about a loser, because in our society it’s not usually the winners who end up being your local murderer or gangster, it’s those whom society has emphatically discarded. We’ve hardly gone into our local garrison and hear the Don being described as an academic over-achiever with 10 CXC passes or 5 CAPE passes. I recently inquired of a friend who visited Jamaica earlier this year and promptly rented a car and went to visit his old pals in a central Kingston garrison neighborhood, my first thoughts were how could he go on a vacation to the Island and venture into such dangerous territory. When I posed the question his response was “dem man dey know me, furthermore is a KC man a de Don”. Then my second question was, what kind of KC man would assume the fatalistic role of a “Don” in such a godforsaken area. My friend explained to me that the Don was from the area and was an academic washout at KC and was left with few options.
Right there lies the paradox of the education system. On one hand we have these brilliant youngsters who will use KC as a springboard to great things and on the other hand are the losers who were weeded out early because they did not display the aptitude that the screen test demands, and so their education opportunity was aborted. They were not granted the privilege of continuing to get a high school education. Surely this can’t be how we build a great society, discarding young boys at 14 or 15 because they fail to achieve a set number of passes in the screen test administered at grade 10. This is a cruel and callous way of destroying young men’s future especially in such a fractious society with limited opportunities.
As old boys and benefactors the money we raise and the options we provide should not be for just the bright, we must provide alternative training for the less academically gifted. Viable alternatives must be developed for late bloomers, boys who learn in a non-traditional way, boys with emotional, psychological, and parental handicaps. If we are truly a civilized society we can’t just plan for the brilliant among us, but we must find ways of training our slower students and making them into productive citizens.
Talented tenth
In his many writings W.E.B. Dubois made a compelling argument for investing in the talented tenth among our people. He championed the thought that the salvation of the race would be dependent upon the leadership of the smartest 10% among black folks. In later years when he ran into trouble with the white establishment he was forced to admit that the people who really came to his rescue were the overlooked commoner. He recognized that we can’t only depend on the talented tenth to lead the way, because they are the ones usually least likely to upset the apple cart. In actuality, those with nothing to lose are going to be the most hostile towards social order and the status quo. They invariably will view the laws of the land as oppressive and biased and will exhibit the most pronounced inclination to anti-social behaviour.
We know something can’t be right if a typical high school year brings in approximately 400 boys in the freshman class and only 270 sat the CXC exam four years later. Somewhere between the 9th and 10th grade we are losing the better part of 130 boys each year. They all did not immigrate to the USA or Canada. I would venture to say a significant number of those will be well on their way to being your underclass and key contributors to the acrimony engulfing the land. Statistics gathered by the children advocacy group “Hear the children foundation” say a majority of them turn to crime.
The waggonist among us will say you can’t save everybody, but our conscience should say, thirty percent is way too much to discard. Some may say it’s about choices and attitudes, and yes they would be partially correct. But on the flip side, we must acknowledge the miserable and disreputable conditions that exist in these inner city neighborhoods and understand that this venom is what gives rise to a number of youngsters making poor choices and fostering the wrong attitudes. And if we are to save the society, building more jails and hiring more police is not the only answer, making more prudent and conscientious social policies that benefit society must take precedence.
I will be one overjoyed old boy when the figures show that we were able to successfully educate 95% of the students who walk through the gates of KC, because then we would truly be a center of learning par excellence.
