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| COMMENTARY By Stephen C. Walwyn |
| GRADUATIONS FOR WHO? Brightest not
always best |
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The high school achievement scores produced
in the Federation each year for the last several decades,
but especially the last two, have been impressive indeed.
Relative to the other countries in the OECS, the Federation
of St. Kitts and Nevis has continued to produce among
the best scores overall in terms of top performers in
our high schools.
But what about the average or under-performers in our
system, which represent at least 90% of our students?
That we are able to produce the cream of the milk in
the region is a testament to an historically strong
educational program – given to us I suppose from
the British but perfected by the genius of Caribbean
people.
Having watched up close and from a distance the educational
system though, I am curious what the public who are
the consumers of our system think about what aspect
of the system deserves the credit for this enviable
achievement. Is it the way our schools are managed?
Is it the classroom management by the teachers? Can
we say that high scores roll out impressively each year
because of the political directorate at the top of the
educational hierarchical structure? Or can we say that
this phenomenon has more to do with the actual day to
day administration by the officers at the top of the
educational civil service, such as PEO and HER officers?
Interestingly, in Nevis over the past twenty or more
years, it has been a woman serving as Principal Education
Officer (PEO) and performing the roles of educational
officers. What’s happened to the men, particularly
when we continue to astutely point out the lag in the
performance of boys and the dropout rate favoring males
over females? Perhaps the female heads of the department
are responsible for the high achievement scores? Maybe
it is a combination of all of the above? I would give
the ribbons to the dedicated and very hard working teachers,
who despite severe limitations in the system have continued
to harness the gold in our “brightest” students.
It must be said too that our Caribbean and Federation
culture that has always promoted excellence can take
some of the credit. Our teachers find a way each year
to inspire and motivate our young people to do well,
and for this we should be especially proud. We should
however find ways to reward and take better care of
our teachers. We cannot overestimate their importance
to a brighter future for all of us! What about our under-performing
students however? How are we doing with them?
Those students who are not as motivated for all kinds
of reasons or who, despite our best efforts may not
achieve at the highest levels of their potential or
aptitude? Is our educational system geared toward inspiring,
motivating and rewarding them? I say not! In fact it
is to my mind our most glaring deficiency. Our average
and low achieving students are really our brightest
stars! They are the ones who remain home when the top
performers go away to study, many of whom never return
to make a contribution…..they contribute to other
societies. The average and low-achievers are the ones
who build and manage our infrastructure. They start
businesses and run them. They are strongly represented
throughout the civil service; in fact they run the service.
They run the length and breadth of the tourism sector,
the backbone of the economy. They run our health service
and happen to provide ALL of our security in the nation.
They ARE the country! Why is it then that our educational
system is so geared to marginalize and almost ignore
those students who are not getting 12 CXC passes with
honors? Should not our system prize, encourage, even
praise them? Our long and elaborate graduation ceremonies
are only for the “brightest and the best”
– the top 1%-10%, while the “most improved”
or some similar consolation prize is given begrudgingly
to a single individual. Throughout the year and especially
at our graduation ceremonies, we need to recognize the
emotional intelligence, the non-academic strengths,
the intelligence lodged in other aspects of the brains
of many of our students.
It is high time that we figure out a way to address
the various learning styles and methods of some of our
students who don’t fit the mould that we have been
teaching to for centuries. A boy or girl who may have
attention deficit hyperactive disorder or who learn
better visually, or whose relational, verbal or creative
brain is far more developed than the left-brained mathematical
or literature driven orientation that we are conditioned
to recognize, desperately needs instruction, guidance
and stimulation. Or students whose natural business
acumen need cultivation and proper guidance? Some of
the most successful business men and women, the best
political leaders actually came from academically low-achieving
backgrounds. We can intentionally and deliberately create
more of those if we change the way our system now works.
At the very least we need a lot more “extra-curricular”
– the performing arts such as drama, music, dance,
etc., along with more of our resources put into the
hands-on vocationally oriented kinds of classes.
Long gone are the days where the only professions we
were interested in recognizing were medicine and law.
We are living in a different world, but our educational
system hasn’t changed one bit. A library can be
filled with the material out there with the available
research that has been done and the amount of writing
about this subject. It is high time that we in the Caribbean
and particularly in our region and Federation move beyond
our comfort zones and both recognize and develop the
brains of the vast majority of our children (Nevis lags
behind St. Kitts in this regard). This will improve
our society by leaps and bounds. It will do more than
we can imagine to stave off some of the criminality
and delinquency that many of our students turn to (although
ironically, St. Kitts lags behind Nevis on this score).
Some of them go that route because they are bored, do
not feel significant and their social and academic needs
are not fully addressed….. sometimes not at all.
They despair since they feel so invisible in school,
which they realize is not really for them. Much of their
“behavioral problems” which challenge the
otherwise competent teachers is a direct result of the
fact that no one is appreciating that they learn differently
and that their interests and brains work differently.
It is high time that our political leaders direct some
of their aggression and with a little vision and foresight,
create programs that can direct and train the very capable
teaching fraternity to provide for the learning needs
of ALL of our students……or get people on board
who can or will. Graduations would be a lot more interesting,
since they wouldn’t be 2-3 hours in length only
bigging up the supposed “best and the brightest”. |
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