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As students prepare for exams.
MICHAEL BURKE
Thursday, May 22, 2008
It is that time of year again when one can almost cut the air because of the level of tension caused by examinations, both at the secondary and tertiary level. The pressure is on for the CXC candidates to pass and to go to the tertiary level. And at the tertiary level the pressure is on to get qualified enough to get a job. Why do we keep doing this to ourselves and to the youngsters? Surely, there must be a better way.
Some time ago, much was made of the present reality that 80 per cent of those graduating from universities are women. What is happening to the young men? In the first place, the system is stacked against males. Men tend to learn in a hands-on manner. In the olden days, law students were articled to lawyers. Small wonder that the discipline of law was more attractive to men then. But men are far more visible in medicine even at present, because much of the medical training is hands-on.
The same can be said for subjects like civil engineering and agriculture. But even with some of the so-called hands-on disciplines, many times it has been reduced to theory. One farmer asked an agricultural extension officer some 30 years ago, "With all your big diploma or degree, can you tell me how to bring in a herd of cows from the bush?" Urban residents may not know that getting a herd of cows to move is an art that can be learnt only by experience.
The farmer's point is that certain important things were not being taught to agricultural students before they could be considered to be qualified agriculturists. The same is true about so many other disciplines. How, for example, can you have a sixth-form student who boasts of getting a "1" in Caribbean history,but cannot state the impact of Henry Morgan on life in Jamaica today? There are many Jamaicans who know of Henry Morgan as a fact of history, but cannot connect it to the present.
The pirates were the bondsmen who came to Jamaica as prisoners for six years in the second half of the 17th century. Morgan himself was not actually a bondsman, but was one of the soldiers who came with the English expedition in 1655.
Led by Admiral Penn and General Venables, the expedition captured Jamaica from the Spaniards on May 10 that year. As the Spaniards tried to recapture Jamaica and as there was yet no army, the governors allowed the pirates free reign as they helped to ward off the Spaniards.
Eventually, as piracy affected trade in the region, the Treaty of Madrid (1670) between England and Spain agreed to allow Britain their possessions in the Caribbean. Free trade was to be permitted and piracy was to be stopped. In order to stop piracy, Henry Morgan who had continued after being warned, was imprisoned in the Tower of London, along with the governor of Jamaica, Sir Thomas Modyford. Later it was discovered that the only way to really keep the treaty was to release Henry Morgan and appoint him governor of Jamaica.
Morgan carried out his mandate to stop pirating by selling prime land cheaply to the pirates and they became the aristocracy and slave owners of Jamaica. As they were basically corrupt men, such practices have continued to the present. That is one part of the impact. The other part of the impact was that the slavery now entered a more brutal phase as there was no set of rules on how to treat slaves such as existed under the Spanish (Encomienda System) or the French (Code Noir).
One consequence of that was the stud farms where slaves were bred like dumb animals and treated as such. It certainly explains mental slavery, which persists today. <span style='font-size: 11pt'> But one can get a distinction in CXC history and not know this. And many sociologists will say when I question their ignorance, that they are not historians but sociologists. However, sociology should be informed by history.
Likewise, some historians with doctorates cannot understand why we have the sort of problems that we have. A doctorate in history should comprise an understanding of sociology as a result of the sort of history that we have all experienced.</span> But one could stretch the Henry Morgan legacy to the way things are conducted at the Ministry of Education. The awful practice of changing textbooks every year under the guise of improvements is a case in point. It is as if some people feel that it is their time to make some money, so they arrange with their friends to have their book on the syllabus.
The shameful disqualification of a student for a prestigious scholarship on the basis of hearsay is another. It seems to be all a case of friends looking out for friends. I will never forget the schools' science exhibition of 1970 when a school without an exhibit made by the students came first in the competition. But these are some of the things that students in Jamaica go through. And once again the system, though flawed, is the one in use as students prepare for exams.
[email protected]
MICHAEL BURKE
Thursday, May 22, 2008
It is that time of year again when one can almost cut the air because of the level of tension caused by examinations, both at the secondary and tertiary level. The pressure is on for the CXC candidates to pass and to go to the tertiary level. And at the tertiary level the pressure is on to get qualified enough to get a job. Why do we keep doing this to ourselves and to the youngsters? Surely, there must be a better way.
Some time ago, much was made of the present reality that 80 per cent of those graduating from universities are women. What is happening to the young men? In the first place, the system is stacked against males. Men tend to learn in a hands-on manner. In the olden days, law students were articled to lawyers. Small wonder that the discipline of law was more attractive to men then. But men are far more visible in medicine even at present, because much of the medical training is hands-on.
The same can be said for subjects like civil engineering and agriculture. But even with some of the so-called hands-on disciplines, many times it has been reduced to theory. One farmer asked an agricultural extension officer some 30 years ago, "With all your big diploma or degree, can you tell me how to bring in a herd of cows from the bush?" Urban residents may not know that getting a herd of cows to move is an art that can be learnt only by experience.
The farmer's point is that certain important things were not being taught to agricultural students before they could be considered to be qualified agriculturists. The same is true about so many other disciplines. How, for example, can you have a sixth-form student who boasts of getting a "1" in Caribbean history,but cannot state the impact of Henry Morgan on life in Jamaica today? There are many Jamaicans who know of Henry Morgan as a fact of history, but cannot connect it to the present.
The pirates were the bondsmen who came to Jamaica as prisoners for six years in the second half of the 17th century. Morgan himself was not actually a bondsman, but was one of the soldiers who came with the English expedition in 1655.
Led by Admiral Penn and General Venables, the expedition captured Jamaica from the Spaniards on May 10 that year. As the Spaniards tried to recapture Jamaica and as there was yet no army, the governors allowed the pirates free reign as they helped to ward off the Spaniards.
Eventually, as piracy affected trade in the region, the Treaty of Madrid (1670) between England and Spain agreed to allow Britain their possessions in the Caribbean. Free trade was to be permitted and piracy was to be stopped. In order to stop piracy, Henry Morgan who had continued after being warned, was imprisoned in the Tower of London, along with the governor of Jamaica, Sir Thomas Modyford. Later it was discovered that the only way to really keep the treaty was to release Henry Morgan and appoint him governor of Jamaica.
Morgan carried out his mandate to stop pirating by selling prime land cheaply to the pirates and they became the aristocracy and slave owners of Jamaica. As they were basically corrupt men, such practices have continued to the present. That is one part of the impact. The other part of the impact was that the slavery now entered a more brutal phase as there was no set of rules on how to treat slaves such as existed under the Spanish (Encomienda System) or the French (Code Noir).
One consequence of that was the stud farms where slaves were bred like dumb animals and treated as such. It certainly explains mental slavery, which persists today. <span style='font-size: 11pt'> But one can get a distinction in CXC history and not know this. And many sociologists will say when I question their ignorance, that they are not historians but sociologists. However, sociology should be informed by history.
Likewise, some historians with doctorates cannot understand why we have the sort of problems that we have. A doctorate in history should comprise an understanding of sociology as a result of the sort of history that we have all experienced.</span> But one could stretch the Henry Morgan legacy to the way things are conducted at the Ministry of Education. The awful practice of changing textbooks every year under the guise of improvements is a case in point. It is as if some people feel that it is their time to make some money, so they arrange with their friends to have their book on the syllabus.
The shameful disqualification of a student for a prestigious scholarship on the basis of hearsay is another. It seems to be all a case of friends looking out for friends. I will never forget the schools' science exhibition of 1970 when a school without an exhibit made by the students came first in the competition. But these are some of the things that students in Jamaica go through. And once again the system, though flawed, is the one in use as students prepare for exams.
[email protected]
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