Big men feeling small
Weak ones standing tall
I will watch them fall
They won't go when I go
And I'll go where I've longed
To go so long
Away from tears
Unclean minds mislead the pure
The innocent will leave for sure
For them there is a resting place
People sinning just for fun
They will never see the sun
For they can never show their faces
There ain't no room for
the hopeless sinner
Who will take more
than he will give
He ain't hardly gonna give
Imagination, 12 the Band
There's a fella from Balandra called Chris Dennis who likes to walk on water. Well it is more of a dance and it's more like love and if ever you have a chance to see him surf you might have a hard time differentiating him from the waves.His life and his passion for surfing are featured in a new locally produced film called Between Worlds that premiered this week.His story is so classic Trinidad. Big dreams, small money. It is bittersweet and disgusting too, that poverty in an oil-rich nation could stop a talented, driven young man from achieving his goals.But he has so much dignity you can only be thankful for his parents and his hard life that must have given him all this humility and grace.
And I can see mischief in his eyes and in his smile. I can also see a brilliant teacher and the kind of person who would potentially motivate young people to want to get into the water and love it as much as he does.He says at some point in the film that he learned more about life from the sea than he ever did in school. And I believe him totally because I remember what it was like to be too precocious, too distracted, too much in my own imagination to ever see school as the only place I could learn.
And I am thankful that the mother understood that too, and made sure that school didn't interfere with my education.There's a part in the film where a woman from California talks about him visiting schools in inner city California and making such a difference to the lives of young minority children who'd probably never seen a black surfer before in their lives.I wonder if under Tim Gopeesingh's version of proper education, children in Balandra schools would ever get a chance to access that kind of teacher.
I wonder if his presence would be so well received in schools in his hometown of Balandra. I wonder if the primary schools there would have to beg the Ministry for a bligh so that Chris could come in and stir the imaginations of young people like himself. To see the sea as more than just a source of food. To be able to love the sea, its curve, roar, stillness, majesty. To walk on water with nothing but a thin curved board between you and the awesome power of the waves.
And maybe some child that he inspired might not just want to surf. That child might also want to find a way to harness wave energy so that their community doesn't have to depend on T&TEC for electricity.And maybe some other child might be inspired to create a line of Trini swim wear. And maybe another might decide to become a marine biologist.Because there are so many doubting voices to contend with. So many children who constantly hear only about what they can't do. So many boundaries set up for our children, and then we wonder why they turn against us.
School teaches you to follow rules, to regurgitate information to pass someone else's test of your worth. School should really be teaching us how to think. How to feel. How to know the difference between sense and nonsense.You're not ever supposed to stop learning. You're not ever supposed to think that you know it all. When you stop learning you die.The problem with our education system is that it convinces you that the only information that matters is what the Ministry of Education gives you.
It does not consider the stories your semi-literate grandmother tells you as education. It does not consider figuring out the train system in a metropolitan city at age seven for your mother who has no sense of direction as education. It doesn't consider counting drum beats and learning rhythms as education.What a terrible world to be a child in. Where information and your access to it is regulated and controlled. Where your imagination is only for creative writing but not for creating solutions.Do you remember falling in love with the sea or with playing football or with drumming?Somebody needs to put Tim Gopeesingh in a class and make him repeat it until he remembers his passion, whatever it is.Education should not be about passing exams. Education should be about creating a passion for learning.