The people of T&T, including the media, are addicted to pronouncements from "outsiders" which they regard as the "gospel truth." Recently, a Unesco representative spoke of violence in our schools, and the editorial of one newspaper seemed to concur that violence is a problem in our schools, not only in T&T but in the entire Caribbean. If some big guy from a big organisation says so, it must be so.
Before we get ready to issue diplomas in violence and crime, or add these courses to our curriculum in the sense that if we can't beat them we might as well join them, let's pause and ask ourselves some pertinent questions. How many children have been shot to death in schools in T&T over the last 20 years? The answer is one–the distraught young man who went to the International School in Westmoorings and fired shots and, according to the police, refused to drop the gun.
This happened in the aftermath of a mass shooting at a school in the US and might have been a copycat situation. How many children have been arrested in schools for violence towards the teacher, including armed violence? How many students have been arrested in schools for armed or unarmed violence to other students? What percentage of schools has had to be closed due to violence either in the schools or in the immediate neighbourhood? How many parents have gone to school, assaulted the teacher, the principal or another student on behalf of his or her child?
If we could put these stats up on a board for the nation to see, and compare them to other places, a very different picture might emerge.
We are a people with our blood very close to our skins. We are a people used to making noise when something is not perceived as right or fair. You can hear a quarrelling parent coming down the road for a quarter of a mile in the countryside, but we usually settle for a cussing out, although verbal violence is violence, and is disruptive, as everyone considers it a spectator sport. Work ceases when a cursing and irate parent arrives. In 1956, when I first began teaching at the El Socorro Government School, the principal gave the three new young staff members some advice: "Always stand behind your chair when you talk to a parent. If they come at you hit them with it."
We all laughed, of course, and in my long career, which began in T&T and ended in the US, I was never the victim of an assault by either parent or student. I can't remember ever having to stand behind my chair either. This is not to say that there is no violence in our schools. Where children once threw rocks at each other, or fought (boys) with fists, they now can carry concealed weapons–knives and guns. How the tradition evolved that the last day of school for the term is fight day I do not know, but it exists in other cultures also. Media exposure of all that goes on encourages a climate of fear. Children may well go to school expecting to be kidnapped by strange adults with cars, raped by security guards on campus, or by teachers, or assaulted by taxi drivers on their way home from school.?
Considering the violence meted out to their ancestors on the plantations in the Caribbean, and then further injustices to their indentured ancestors, much of which they can now read online, our Caribbean schools are really quite peaceful. The most violent period in American schools that I know of was in the immediate aftermath of the release of Roots. Children watching brutality learn to be brutal, and are vengeful for what "was done to us." Unesco, if it thinks we have a problem in our schools, may well appropriate money for counselling in non-violent problem-solving techniques. It could pay for one crisis counsellor in target schools for 18 months, to see if there is a change. (The educator in me insists on lighting a candle rather than cursing the darkness.)
This could be a useful workshop added to teacher training modules, as well as to in-service training for those already in the profession. The Ministry of Education could also introduce problem-solving techniques, but it must also address the issues of teacher compensation, class load, periodic teacher performance assessments, the kindness and compassion teachers show to students, and the rigidity of curriculum offerings–these all have a role to play in student behaviour. I would like someone with the means investigate a town and its environs the size of T&T in the US, in Colombia, in Nigeria and India or Pakistan to compare figures on what is happening in schools.
They would find that worldwide children have learned to fight via TV and from adult action in their societies, including parliamentarians. They should also study the schools in much-maligned Cuba. The latter does not seem to have violent children.