Deb­bie Ja­cob

We don't have a Car­ni­val men­tal­i­ty in this coun­try. We have a plas­ter men­tal­i­ty. We have long since passed the stage (no pun in­tend­ed) of be­ing a hap­py-go-lucky peo­ple sym­bol­ised by the rev­el­ry of Car­ni­val and plum­met­ed in­to the depths of de­spair where gov­ern­ment plans to do noth­ing but put a plas­ter on every gap­ing wound.

We are suf­fer­ing from crime and The Gov­ern­ment wants to slap a plas­ter on the prob­lem rather than deal with it. All I can say about the Dan­ger­ous Dog Act and Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Tim Gopeesingh's com­ments last week about fix­ing our ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem is "plas­ters." It might not seem like the two is­sues are re­lat­ed, but they are be­cause they are both re­lat­ed to crime and Gov­ern­ment's re­fusal to deal with it.

Rather than deal­ing with ir­re­spon­si­ble, cru­el peo­ple whose dogs in­jure and kill peo­ple, the Gov­ern­ment wants to en­force an ar­cha­ic, bar­bar­ic law that con­demns good peo­ple and good dogs. Plas­ter. The Gov­ern­ment wants to en­force a neo-colo­nial­ist men­tal­i­ty of di­vide and rule by try­ing to make those who are stand­ing up for a work­able Dan­ger­ous Dog Act ap­pear as peo­ple who don't care about peo­ple who were at­tacked and killed by dogs. Plas­ter.

Gov­ern­ment has writ­ten us all off as blind, deaf and dumb peo­ple who will buy in­to un­work­able laws-like the Dan­ger­ous Dogs Act-just be­cause do­ing some­thing like slap­ping an inane law on the books looks like a so­lu­tion when it's just a plas­ter.

Then we come to Dr Gopeesingh's com­ments last week about ed­u­ca­tion. Yes, teach­ers should be in class and they should be teach­ing and if they're mak­ing need­less ex­cus­es to leave school and take ex­tra leave then we need to find out why. What is re­spon­si­ble for this ir­re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and ap­a­thy?

The main prob­lem in our schools is ir­rel­e­vant ed­u­ca­tion that does not ad­dress the needs of the teach­ers, stu­dents or so­ci­ety. Take, for in­stance, Eng­lish. Teach­ers need to feel free to choose books that help stu­dents deal with the is­sues and prob­lems they face in to­day's world. Hon­esty, in­tegri­ty, com­mit­ment are all is­sues they have to face in this bru­tal world. Stu­dents need to know how to ex­press them­selves.

The num­ber one is­sue in this coun­try to­day is anger. Has any­one in the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion-or the Gov­ern­ment for that mat­ter-no­ticed how an­gry young peo­ple are to­day? No, Gov­ern­ment just con­tin­ues to slap plas­ters on prob­lems with­out try­ing to un­der­stand them.

I was shocked-no ap­palled-that no one in the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion or the Gov­ern­ment ever con­tact­ed me about my columns on teach­ing CXC Eng­lish lan­guage at the Youth Train­ing Cen­tre (YTC). That was an op­por­tu­ni­ty for some­one in Gov­ern­ment to speak to a jour­nal­ist and ed­u­ca­tor who had gath­ered some in­sights in­to teach­ing at-risk boys.

The on­ly per­son even re­mote­ly re­lat­ed to gov­ern­ment who con­tact­ed me and showed any in­ter­est in what I was do­ing was for­mer Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Hazel Man­ning. She wrote a very sup­port­ive let­ter. Dr Sel­wyn Ryan al­so con­tact­ed me about my work.

When I de­cid­ed to write those columns about teach­ing at YTC, I told my stu­dents how much their sto­ries could mean to the Gov­ern­ment as it shapes laws and ed­u­ca­tion­al poli­cies. The boys' re­sponse was, "We don't want you to get your hopes up, Miss."

No, when it comes to every­thing from the Dan­ger­ous Dog Act to fix­ing our crip­pled ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem, the Gov­ern­ment doesn't want to deal with in­for­ma­tion. It wants plas­ters. I'm sure on the heels of the Dan­ger­ous Dog Act we'll have some act to deal with teacher per­for­mance, a prob­lem that has been de­bat­ed ad nau­se­am in the US for years.

The US has nev­er fig­ured out a good way to mea­sure teacher per­for­mance. That won't stop the Gov­ern­ment of T&T from dol­ing out plas­ters. When it comes to ed­u­ca­tion, the Gov­ern­ment will feel se­cure in know­ing it has cut off a leg and put a plas­ter on the gap­ing wound.

We need to get to the heart of the mat­ter: cre­ativ­i­ty, com­mit­ment and rel­e­vance in ed­u­ca­tion. Don't look at pun­ish­ments. Re­ward teach­ers who pur­sue more ed­u­ca­tion or try new and in­no­v­a­tive meth­ods in the class­room and prove their re­sults.

As for longer school days, are you mak­ing a bad joke?

School is not fun, Dr Gopeesingh, so no one wants a longer day. School is gru­elling work to­wards ex­ams that hang over chil­dren's heads like a guil­lo­tine. It's an or­deal from 8 am to 2.30 pm, a vi­cious fight to get home through traf­fic on roads that have be­come a maze of in­ef­fec­tive one-way streets.

When stu­dents go home, they study a pile of use­less, ir­rel­e­vant in­for­ma­tion and feel like fail­ures if they don't get it, don't have the mon­ey to pay for the lessons to get it or sim­ply don't want to learn it be­cause they don't see the need for it. And we won­der why there are an­gry young men out there who would rather deal drugs or do crime? Re­al­ly?

Do you re­al­ly think, Dr Gopeesingh, that one an­swer to our ed­u­ca­tion­al woes is longer school days? Plas­ter. Every­where I turn, I see peo­ple in T&T cov­ered with plas­ters and limp­ing through life.