The tragedy of law­less­ness that has found its way in­to so many of our sec­ondary schools is cause for deep con­cern, and I be­lieve we must not on­ly seek to find im­me­di­ate so­lu­tions, but we must seek to find long term so­lu­tions in or­der to save the rest of our stu­dent pop­u­la­tion in the years to come. If we do not do this, the re­al­i­ty is that the sit­u­a­tion will con­tin­ue to get worse and more of our young peo­ple will be lost.

In the '70s, be­fore guid­ance of­fi­cers were trained and ap­point­ed to schools, the min­istry had a pro­gramme where each year, two or three teach­ers were se­lect­ed to be trained in guid­ance and coun­selling for a year at UWI. The teach­ers had a day off each week to at­tend lec­tures, and class­es were al­so held for some weeks dur­ing the va­ca­tion.

At the end of that year the teach­ers who were trained, con­tin­ued to teach their in­di­vid­ual sub­jects, but were now open to be­ing more sen­si­tive in the way they han­dled their stu­dents, es­pe­cial­ly the "dif­fi­cult" ones.While the onus is not on the teacher alone to curb vi­o­lence and in­dis­ci­pline, a teacher who is not trained to han­dle "dif­fi­cult" stu­dents, can es­ca­late the prob­lem.

Some teach­ers in their frus­tra­tion, very of­ten write off a dif­fi­cult stu­dent and of­ten us­es in­sults to try to have a sense of con­trol in the class­room. This makes the sit­u­a­tion worse, of course.

The time has come for every teacher at sec­ondary school lev­el to have an in-ser­vice coun­selling course. Even though a guid­ance of­fi­cer is as­signed to the schools, a stu­dent is re­ferred to the coun­sel­lor when he/she is iden­ti­fied as be­ing trou­bled, or a source of trou­ble.

While I am not say­ing that there should not be per­ma­nent guid­ance of­fi­cers in schools, I do be­lieve that if the sub­ject teach­ers are al­so trained in coun­selling, a "dif­fi­cult" stu­dent is more like­ly to be in­flu­enced in a pos­i­tive way by a teacher who he is in con­tact with dai­ly, who he feels cares, and who with train­ing, can guide him in a pos­i­tive way.

I al­so feel that the min­istry must, as a mat­ter of ur­gency, seek to ap­point in our schools, teach­ers in the Cre­ative and Per­form­ing Arts. I was read­ing in one if the news­pa­pers, the dis­ap­point­ment of pa­trons who at­tend­ed the Ju­nior Mu­sic Fes­ti­val in Port-of-Spain.

In the dif­fer­ent cat­e­gories of Sec­ondary School choirs, St Joseph's Con­vent, of Port-of-Spain and of St Joseph, were the on­ly choirs to com­pete. Those who have been at­tend­ing the Mu­sic Fes­ti­val both in the north and south, will tell you that even though the pri­ma­ry schools are well rep­re­sent­ed at the fes­ti­val, in the sec­ondary school class­es, the com­peti­tors are in the main from the so called "pres­tige" de­nom­i­na­tion­al schools.

Most of our gov­ern­ment sec­ondary schools are with­out mu­sic teach­ers. Be­ing part of a school choir, a school's steel­band, or a school's or­ches­tra, is a bond­ing ex­pe­ri­ence, and the hours of prac­tice would take our young peo­ple off the streets.

As a mat­ter of ur­gency, I im­plore the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, to place teach­ers of the Vi­su­al Arts, The­atre, Mu­sic and Dance in all our schools. Some of our so-called "mon­sters" in our schools, while aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly weak, may have been bril­liant ac­tors, painters, mu­si­cians or dancers if they had had that op­tion. In ad­di­tion, young peo­ple who are gift­ed in the arts of­ten bond in a spe­cial way with their teacher of the arts. If these teach­ers are not avail­able lo­cal­ly, then im­port them!

I pray that my sug­ges­tions will at least be con­sid­ered by those in au­thor­i­ty.

H Barnes

Guillen Dri­ve, Gulf View