No child is a 'slow learner - says former OECS consultant

No child is a ‘slow learner – says former OECS consultant

Apr 22, 2012 News

Senior lecturer at the University of Guyana, Dr Henry Hinds, former OECS Consultant and Stanford University graduate, is urging teachers and the nation at large not to place children into intelligence categories such as bright, dull, and slow learners.
He was delivering his feature address to teachers at the third Biennial Guyana Teachers’ Union Conference in New Amsterdam recently. Dr Hinds said that it is not really nice to “define children as subnormal, abnormal, slow learner…We are all slow learners…Could we compete in ‘Dancing with the Stars’?”
He said that research today has revealed that “intelligence is not that one thing you inherit….and we now know that there are different kinds of intelligence– dancing, athletics, singing…we now know that there are multiple intelligences..we all have the various types but not in the same way”.
Dr Hinds added that this has serious implications for teachers, since they have to be aware that all children can learn, but “all children cannot learn everything in the same way which means that we have got to allow children to display the kinds of talents they have–Every child has some talent…the work of teachers is to find that talent”.
The lecturer said that when we recognise that children can do something, some of them would not be left in the margins. Rather every child will have a chance to achieve.
He also urged educators to hold high expectations for all students and to create a caring environment…”And try in every way to reduce the level of discrimination and inequity where it exists”. Speaking about how teachers grade their students, he noted that the aristocratic ideology (from the British) of grading students today in our schools “where we like to rank people…’I come first and you come second’ and at the end of the school year, there were lots of comparisons”.
But, he questioned, what happens to the child “who came last in everything?” “What do you do with that child? How do you repair that damage? We know how to deal with success; we do not know how to deal with failure”.
Comparing children’s performance to ensure improvement and devising strategies to bring about improvement is what should take precedence over ranking students’ performances in school. “Why do you want to rank the children?” he questioned.
Dr Hinds, whose specialty is curriculum evaluation, praised the various forms of assessment being done at various steps in the Primary school education, the National Grade Six Assessment.
“I am pleased that the Ministry of Education is not giving a one- shot Common Entrance. Instead, students are graded at various points, Grade Two, Grade Four, etc…Teachers might try to teach the test, but again, I think that’s why we pay headmasters and headmistresses a little bit more than we pay teachers, to ensure that teachers give the children a full experience– they’d still pass the test in an enriched way”.
Dr Hinds also urged the GTU to ensure there is a systematic study of the Caribbean teacher in a Caribbean school with Caribbean children, since to date, there has not been such a document or study, rather an overflow of that kind of information about North American schools and teachers.
A research in the OECS recently found that even though boys and girls pass the common entrance exams, more girls have better results.
“We must not jump to conclusions that girls learn better than boys–but we should ask under what conditions? Some people have argued that it is because we do not have many men as teachers, girls are doing better, but you have got to do the research to find out if that is truly so”.
He noted that in CXC, boys do better than girls in Maths and girls do better than boys in English every year. “The union has a challenge– don’t let us just say that this is so, the union has to be forefront in research…”

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No child is a ‘slow learner – says former OECS consultant

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