Old School Education: Part 1 – Cutteridge and The Mighty Sparrow

Jun 15, 2014 News

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COUNTRYMAN – Stories about life, in and out of Guyana, from a Guyanese perspective

 “De poems an’ de lessons they write an’ sen’ from England’ impress me dey were tryin’ to cultivate comedians. Comic books made more sense; you know it’s fictitious without pretense; Cutteridge wanted to keep us in ignorance.” (Dan is the Man … Mighty Sparrow)

By Dennis Nichols
The Urban Dictionary defines the term ‘old school’ as anything from an earlier age, especially that which is seen to

be old-fashioned, and highly regarded. My parents, who died more than four decades ago, were definitely in that conservative bracket, my father more so, being a teacher/headmaster and a ‘Methodist gentleman’. My mother veered slightly more liberal, but still with enough of colonial sentimentality in her to also be considered in that category. Across the English-speaking Caribbean then, ‘old school’ was the mind-set of the majority of parents, teachers and education officials responsible for the moulding of our children’s minds.
So, what would my parents think of the world today – their world, Guyana, having sprung back to life in 2014? They left a world of modest buildings and yellow buses, jukeboxes and transistor radios, typewriters, rotary-dial telephones, ‘real’ books, and seemingly-respectful schoolchildren. What would they make now of Georgetown’s altered cityscape with its concrete mutations, the minibus cacophony, youths with iPods and iPads, laptops, tablets, smartphones, e-books, the ubiquitous internet and schoolchildren who aggressively flaunt their independence and disrespect for authority.
Or would they think it’s just a matter of change and perspective?
They wouldn’t think; they’d sink – silently, right back into their graves, with a feeling that they had inadvertently entered some kind of twilight zone. Yes, a lot has changed in our country over the years, especially since our independence from Great Britain, 48 years ago. Before then, the colonial flavour of our education system was evident in our schools, and with it came an adherence to rules, regulations and sentiments emanating from the ‘mother country’ to the point where we (the descendants of slaves and indentured servants) sang with gusto before Her Majesty, “Rule Britannia! Rule the waves; Britons shall never be slaves.” (Ahem!)
Back when my parents were growing up nearly 100 years ago, they studied from a text

called The Royal Readers, a series of elementary school books that dealt with mostly British literature (in a simplistic form) European history (often in defence of the Empire) nature study, general knowledge and basic grammar.
In my early childhood, we had the West Indian Readers, a set of books written by British colonial Director of Education, J.O. Cutteridge, with somewhat similar content, but with an entertaining twist – a gang of colourful characters that caught and held our childish imagination. These books were later (and even then) criticized by some Caribbean nationalists for their cultural bias and (in the case of West Indian Readers) their inane, illustrated characters.
The older ones in our society no doubt remember the Mighty Sparrow’s famous and hilarious calypso ditty, “Dan is the Man in the Van’ which satirized Cutteridge’s books in the early sixties. The calypsonian poked fun at what he saw as the simple-mindedness of ‘Dan (the man in the van)’and the ridiculousness of “Twirly and Twisty’ (the two screws) a pig dancing a jig for a fig, and ‘Winkin, Blinkin and Nod’ sailing off in a wooden sloop.
According to Sparrow, “…Cutteridge was plenty times more advanced dan dem scientist; I ent believe dat no one man could write so much stupidness. Aeroplanes didn’t come so soon, scientists used to make the grade in balloon; Cutteridge make a cow jump ova de moon!” (YouTube it if you want to hear it)
An internet blogger commenting on the song noted that Sparrow asked, “Was there some hidden agenda to keep all us colonial subjects docile and subservient to the Great Empire by brainwashing our smarter students?” Some may see that as a rhetorical question, but some could argue, I suspect, that these books were designed in part to suit the simple and colourful tastes of simple and colourful children, and in any case there would probably have been little objection from the majority of cavalier, cricket-loving, calypso-gyrating adults. But there’s no space for a comparative analysis here.
In the case of the Royal Readers, if they are studied today, it should be evident to discerning readers that those books were to a large extent, culturally-biased against the experiences and expectations of West Indian children. To this was added a romantic sadness and sentimentality that may have sought to engender loyalty to the Empire, and empathy for their often luckless European heroes and heroines, particularly in the genre of British poetry. I recall that my mother would have tears in her eyes as she read such poems as ‘Little Jim’, Lucy Gray’, ‘Bingen on the Rhine’, ‘Young Lochinvar’, and the story of ‘The Little Match Girl.’ She passed on the habit to me, and to this day I can’t read the poem ‘Llewellyn and his Dog’ without choking up over the disservice done to poor Gelert.

Even at Queen’s College, which I felt was leaning a bit more liberal and socially-inclusive in the sixties, a platter of English literary fare was dished out, with the likes of Shakespeare, (of course) Trollope, Golding, Dickens and the poets of Epic Verse. Where were Mittelholzer and Naipaul, Lamming and Walcott, Kamau Brathwaite, Martin Carter and Jean Rhys? As far as I can recall not at QC, unless they were studied during my frequent day-dreaming episodes.
For my part, I certainly would have preferred A.J. Seymour’s ‘The Legend of Kaieteur’ , a narrative of courage and myth, to John Keats’s ‘The Eve of St. Agnes’, a tortuous tale of eroticism and superstition. Likewise in History Class I probably would have gone for the West Indian Slave Trade over The Crusades.
So how does old school teaching and learning of Reading, Literature and History compare with the modern fare? I’m not sure, especially in the case of primary schools. And our recent CXC/CAPE results (like all examination results) do not really give a clear enough notion as to how adept our children are in these areas. But at the very least they are being exposed to a more Caribbean-flavoured dish of contemporary and historical expression. Of course Shakespeare is still around, but alongside the old bard and his friends are New World names like Mark McWatt, Trevor Rhone, Hazel Simmons-McDonald, Derek Walcott, Earl Lovelace and Olive Senior.
In History, there is now much more focus on the Caribbean, South American, African and Asian regions as they relate to our past, with Slavery and Indigenous Peoples high up on our most-studied list; even recent Cuban history, and the politics of Gandhi and Mandela are given increased prominence. Imagine, ‘Apartheid and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’ of South Africa sparking a discussion on ‘The Doctrine of Non-violence and Satyagraha’ in India; and how far it may go to help young Guyanese bridge the racial divide in our own country. The possibilities are limitless.
And so the dynamics of teaching and learning shift over the years. Are things (social and educational) better now than when my parents sang ‘Rule Britannia’ or when The Mighty Sparrow sang ‘Dan is the Man in the Van’ or when children were children, whatever that means? Again, I’m not sure, but we can look at that next week.

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