The education system is out of control — Part Two

May 09, 2010 News

What else could be expected?

By Clarence Perry

The environment in many of our schools was not too far removed from the days of slavery when the whip and harsh punishment prevailed. If you could not learn fast enough, you felt the whip across your back.
It will not be an exaggeration to say that the school environment was permeated with violence and the violation of human dignity – both physical and non-physical (“you stupid boy”, “you fool”, “you lout”).
Violence begets violence.   Many of us, whether we realize it or not, bear psychological, physiological and physical scars resulting from the hands of our parents and teachers, however well-meaning they might have been.
In Guyana, our current school practices have remained virtually unchanged since our colonial era – hence the inherited cultural mindset evident in some proposals being offered as possible solutions to the issue of violence in schools.    This type of philosophical orientation and consequent thinking is not appropriate for the people of a new nation who have to chart their way in the twenty-first century.
The underlying structures (assumptions) of our institutions are so fundamentally a part of our traditional way of thinking that they are rarely questioned or examined and large segments of the Guyanese society simply take for granted the present model as appropriate to meet the emerging needs of the twenty-first century.
“It was good for me….See where I am today….All we need is more of the same…We just have to be more efficient.”
A school system which awards privileges at birth, gives the recipients a corrupted view of education, even if it offers them some social advantage.   This is discrimination.   And discrimination, whether it is based on social class or ethnicity, is a form of violence and an affront to human dignity.
Our brand of schooling is not only dehumanizing (An Education Policy, MOE, 95) but also destructive.   Many children from poor, underprivileged, underserved homes (no potable water, no electricity, little or no transportation to and from school, no toys or opportunities for safe and wholesome play), are also susceptible to a variety of mental deficiencies as a result of the prolonged undernourishment of their mothers during pregnancy, many of whom have had no access to any kind of modern prenatal or postnatal care.
Yet, these children are sentenced to death at the tender ages of seven, nine, and 11 years, simply because they cannot learn as fast and jump the same academic hurdles at the same time as children from the better homes who have received better nourishment, have access to a variety of toys and opportunities for safe and wholesome play, access to alternative sources of electricity during power outages, better dental and medical care, and have been brought up in more enriched and supportive learning environments.    A process that remains open to tremendous abuse.
To make a bad situation even worse, many children are deprived of important aspects of their childhood development.    In preparation for the academic ”obstacle jumps” at levels two, four and six, many children have to forego essentials such as play and other activities of interest.
Such a situation can never contribute to the healthy and wholesome development of young children.   Indeed, it is difficult to imagine a more blatant example of institutionalized violence and injustice against innocent, vulnerable and voiceless children.
In other words violence is inherent in the organizational structures of the school system.
When we bear in mind that children have no choice as to who their parents will be, we do great harm and injustice to individuals when we refuse to validate their individuality but, instead, attempt to force each and every child, regardless of their individual differences into the same mould.
Those children who cannot fit into the mould are branded as mentally deficient and as failures – a most crass violation of the dignity of individuals.

(To be continued)

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The education system is out of control — Part Two

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