Is that the whole story, Mr. Harris?

Jul 14, 2008 Letters

Dear Editor,
I agree with much of Mr. Adam Harris’s Sunday column, “There is so much wrong with Guyana,” (July 13, 2008), but I disagree with his notion that the lack of corporal punishment is one of those wrongs.

He said that the corporal punishment (CP) that he received at Queen’s College (QC) kept him in line, making him the good person he is today.

But I think the caring, supportive and fairly well-provisioned home that nurtured him – as he wrote about several columns ago – plus the fact that he attended QC, contributed much more to his present state than the CP he received.

On the other hand, most of those who came from uncaring, unsupportive and under-provisioned homes and attended community high schools (CHS) and received CP are not in Mr. Harris’s contented state of being today.

It wasn’t CP that made the difference, it was the quality of the school and home that did so.
If the CHS had the same human and material resources and expectations that are poured into schools like QC, then they, too, would have been boasting of successful old boys and old girls and Old Student Associations like their more well-off counterparts.

It is a tragedy of criminal proportions what our society has done to the children in the CHS. Then CP is administered to those unfortunates, only compounding the tragedy. A close relative of mine, who had a learning difficulty due to a childhood accident, failed the SSEE and was placed in a CHS. She was driven from the school because the teachers laughed at her mistakes and beat her.

Where are the alumni of the CHS today, Mr. Harris? If CP had made a difference in their lives, we would be hearing them making the same meaningless boast that some QC and other alumni trumpet: “I was beaten and I didn’t turn out bad.” Did CP make a difference in their lives? Did it improve their academic performances and social skills?

In referring to the QC student who allegedly robbed a taxi-driver at gunpoint, Mr. Harris correctly noted, “That school, indeed, produced the best and the worst, but never a gunman.” The point we must not miss is that, in spite of CP dished out in the ‘good old days’, QC still produced some of the worst (I am not so certain about the “never a gunman” part, but certainly at least one arsonist, though).

Mr. Harris said he is convinced that the student was a drug addict. That brings us to drugs, drug lords and their backers — three things that are definitely wrong with Guyana. Care to go there, Mr. Harris?

M. Xiu Quan-Balgobind-Hackett

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