Da­reece Po­lo

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) has re­ject­ed the move by the ad­min­is­tra­tors of Trin­i­ty Col­lege, Mo­ka to chas­tise more than 20 stu­dents for sport­ing afros and corn­rows dur­ing their grad­u­a­tion cer­e­mo­ny.

The chil­dren re­ceived their cer­tifi­cates af­ter the event had end­ed but TTUTA Pres­i­dent Mar­tin Lum Kin said while he un­der­stands that rules are im­por­tant, there are ba­sic rights that these stu­dents must be af­ford­ed. This in­cludes the right to free­dom of thought and ex­pres­sion.

“TTUTA un­der­stands the need for uni­forms in school and this is through­out Trinidad and To­ba­go. How­ev­er, we have to cau­tion our ad­min­is­tra­tors and our ed­u­ca­tors in the schools that the school rules can­not su­per­sede the Con­sti­tu­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go and the rights of the chil­dren,” he said.

Lum Kin al­so im­plied that the grad­u­a­tion was not the right fo­rum to pe­nalise the chil­dren for the al­leged rule breach since grad­u­a­tion is a vol­un­tary event.

“A grad­u­a­tion isn’t an of­fi­cial part of the run­ning of a school day. It is a cer­e­mo­ny which the schools put for­ward in or­der to cel­e­brate and to have a form of school leav­ing. So in this in­stance, it was some­thing out­side of the nor­mal day’s run­ning,” he said.

The de­nom­i­na­tion­al school board, Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha (SDMS), has al­so re­spond­ed to re­ports on the in­ci­dent.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al Vi­jay Ma­haraj said a child’s ap­pear­ance does not de­ter­mine his or her in­tel­li­gence.

“Does the hair­style de­ter­mine what is in­side the head?” he asked rhetor­i­cal­ly.

Youth de­vel­op­ment and trau­ma spe­cial­ist Hanif E Ben­jamim took Trin­i­ty Col­lege, Mo­ka to task and chas­tised the ad­min­is­tra­tion for fail­ing to prop­er­ly ad­dress the is­sue.

“By all ac­counts, it has not been man­aged well thus far. This has far-reach­ing im­pli­ca­tions for our Black males–a pop­u­la­tion that we be­lieve, in Trinidad and To­ba­go, are al­ready go­ing through a lot in terms of crime and crim­i­nal­i­ty,” he said. Ben­jamin added that the stu­dents will un­doubt­ed­ly face long-term trau­ma aris­ing out of the shame they felt when they were hud­dled on a bench away from their peers dur­ing the cer­e­mo­ny.

“What you’re go­ing to see hap­pen­ing here is our young peo­ple who were in­volved and al­so look­ing on may fur­ther pull them­selves away from main­stream so­ci­ety and be­gin to de­fend them­selves in their own way, in their own right. It is ev­i­dent to me that we are miss­ing the mark when it comes to youth de­vel­op­ment and in miss­ing the mark, we in­fu­ri­ate our young peo­ple. We make them an­gry, we make them reclu­sive and we make them hate so­ci­ety even more,” he said.

He called for more peo­ple to be trained in un­der­stand­ing youth de­vel­op­ment be­fore they run schools and in­sti­tu­tions in charge of young peo­ple.

The trau­ma­tol­o­gist said this will en­sure that much-need­ed dis­cus­sions take place be­tween young peo­ple and out-of-touch adults.

“We need to be­gin to have con­ver­sa­tions with our young peo­ple. We have been talk­ing to them just like the prin­ci­pal, just like the dean in that church–We were talk­ing to you, we were telling you–And it is clear that has not worked over the last year or so when they were try­ing to im­ple­ment this rule. Their [chil­dren’s] voic­es con­tin­ue to be re­ver­ber­at­ing on deaf adult ears.”

The school pre­fect, Jo­van Hen­ry-Ali com­ment­ed on the mat­ter via so­cial me­dia.

He said, “This is­sue was not one of racial im­pli­ca­tions but one of do­ing the right thing and fol­low­ing rules. These rules have been in place long be­fore these stu­dents came in­to the school. While I hope these rules will be changed in the fu­ture, they must still be fol­lowed.”

But this is not the first time a school has come un­der fire from the pub­lic for its po­si­tion on nat­ur­al Black hair.

In 2019, Liselle Mor­ton-Tay­lor sent a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter to the prin­ci­pal of St Stephen’s Col­lege af­ter her 15-year-old daugh­ter Ka­li­ka Mor­ton was warned against wear­ing ban­tu knots to school.

The in­ci­dent was re­solved af­ter the Gov­ern­ment launched an in­ves­ti­ga­tion. It end­ed with the child be­ing al­lowed to wear her nat­ur­al hair with­out dis­crim­i­na­tion.

The As­so­ci­a­tion of De­nom­i­na­tion­al Boards of Ed­u­ca­tion will meet with Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly at 9 am next Tues­day where this mat­ter will be raised.

The is­sue is not about race–school pre­fect

The school pre­fect, Jo­van Hen­ry-Ali com­ment­ed on the mat­ter via so­cial me­dia.

He said, "This is­sue was not one of racial im­pli­ca­tions but one of do­ing the right thing and fol­low­ing rules. These rules have been in place long be­fore these stu­dents came in­to the school. While I hope these rules will be changed in the fu­ture, they must still be fol­lowed."

But this is not the first time a school has come un­der fire from the pub­lic for its po­si­tion on nat­ur­al Black hair.

In 2019, Liselle Mor­ton-Tay­lor sent a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter to the prin­ci­pal of St Stephen’s Col­lege af­ter her 15-year-old daugh­ter Ka­li­ka Mor­ton was warned against wear­ing ban­tu knots to school.

The in­ci­dent was re­solved af­ter the Gov­ern­ment launched an in­ves­ti­ga­tion. It end­ed with the child be­ing al­lowed to wear her nat­ur­al hair with­out dis­crim­i­na­tion.

The As­so­ci­a­tion of De­nom­i­na­tion­al Boards of Ed­u­ca­tion will meet with Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly at 9 am next Tues­day where this mat­ter will be raised.