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Wi get featured.. suh sumadi ah duh pHD pan wi????
I read this because I liked her column last week..
Carolyn Cooper, Contributor
On a recent visit to Hellshire beach, I found some of the elusive young men I was worrying about in last week's column, "Where are the eligible men?" Those young men who ought to be prepared for tertiary education, but are not.
So I have a partial answer to the question I was asked by a male reader who pointed out the impact of migration on the dwindling numbers of eligible men in Jamaica: "Any insights to share as to what they would opt out and do? Even puss and dawg need degree now to flip burger in Burger King, so I cannot fathom what they (not the puss or dawg dem) would do, coming from a middle-class background, without post-secondary education."
As I sat in Aunt Merle's shop enjoying my fried fish and bammy, I struck up a conversation with a group of young men who were lyming close by. And talking of lyme, I must congratulate LIME on the fantastic job they're doing to transform some of the ramshackle huts on the beach into elegant, thatch-roofed shops.
My amazed response to the upgrading was, "What a way the place look like Barbados!" I was reminded of Oistins, a fishing village in Christ Church that's a popular Friday-night hangout for both locals and tourists. Every time I go to Barbados, I think that Jamaica should try to be a bit more like Barbados; and Barbados should try to be a bit more like Jamaica. Barbados is so nice to visit. But I just couldn't live there. It's much too orderly on the surface. Underground, that's a whole other story.
With its new marketing line, 'Portmore, for sure,' LIME is also rehabilitating the Naggo Head bus park. What a transformation! I made it my business to meet Scheed Cole, the mastermind behind both the Hellshire and Naggo Head artistic projects. I was introduced to him by a member of his design team, the talented architect and fine artist Candace Clunie, whom I met hard at work on the beach.
The young men I spoke to at Hellshire don't come from a middle-class background. They are part of that large group of supposedly 'working-class' people who simply can't find ready-made work. They have to be scuffling to create jobs for themselves. One of them, who looks quite buff, runs a home-based gym. He's not making money yet, but he's optimistic.
Most of the youths were enjoying a spliff and they were in a good mood. So they humoured me as I asked them in turn, "Yu still in school or yu working?" With one exception, they said I could report our conversation if I didn't reveal their names. Teddy definitely wanted me to 'talk up di tings.'
He gave me his business card which proudly announces in bold letters: TEDDY'S PLUMBING SERVICE, 24-HOUR SERVICE for all your plumbing needs. Phone 855-8617. Teddy, who lives in Woodford Park, says he's doing quite well in his own business. He apprenticed with an experienced plumber then branched out.
Like all of the other young men, he hadn't done well in school. He particularly disliked reading. After leaving school with no formal qualifications, he turned to plumbing. For recreation, he got into computers and had quite a shock: 'A bare reading yu ha fi do pon dis?' [It's all about reading?]
An essential passport
Suddenly, reading was no longer an unpleasant subject to be endured in school. It was an essential passport to an exciting new world. So Teddy just logged on, literally and metaphorically. Doing email was a challenge at first. When his friends asked how he was taking so long to answer their emails, he had to confess that he couldn't spell some of the words. Bit by bit, he got the hang of it.
Naturally, with my interest in language politics, I asked Teddy which language he uses on the computer. He says if he's talking to his friends he uses 'patwa' but if he's talking to foreigners he uses English. Unlike many Jamaican educators who simply refuse to accept the fact that we are bilingual, Teddy is completely at ease with the idea of living in two languages.
On that score, Teddy is far more sensible than Peter who asked a 'cute' question on The Gleaner's blog about my talk at Freiburg University: 'Did you lecture the Germans in Jamaican patois?' The Germans are taking our language far more seriously than some of us are. Andrea Moll, a graduate student at Freiburg, is doing a PhD dissertation on computer-mediated communication, focusing on data downloaded from www.jamaicans.com.
I don't know how long it's going to take our educators to acknowledge the fact that there's something fundamentally wrong about 'dissing' a child's mother tongue and trying, instead, to teach in an unfamiliar language. This folly is the root of the problem of male underachievement. Girls, who tend to be more patient learners, will try to work with the system. Boys will just give up.
Teaching literacy in the mother tongue
I'd bet my last dollar that if young men like Teddy were taught literacy in their mother tongue, Jamaican, they would have no problems learning to read. Their literacy skills could then be transferred to their second language, English.
Scheed Cole is an excellent role model for working-class young men who need to learn to take reading seriously while they're still in school. A product of Kingston's inner city, Scheed made up his mind that education was going to be his passport out and back into his community. As he says on The Gleaner's 'Inna De Yard' video: 'If is one thing about my life that is a theme, is that you decide your future.'
Carolyn Cooper, PhD, is a teacher of English and an advocate of Jamaican language rights. Visit her bilingual blog, Jamaica Woman Tongue, at carolynjoycooper.wordpress.com. Feedback may be sent to [email protected].
I read this because I liked her column last week..
Carolyn Cooper, Contributor
On a recent visit to Hellshire beach, I found some of the elusive young men I was worrying about in last week's column, "Where are the eligible men?" Those young men who ought to be prepared for tertiary education, but are not.
So I have a partial answer to the question I was asked by a male reader who pointed out the impact of migration on the dwindling numbers of eligible men in Jamaica: "Any insights to share as to what they would opt out and do? Even puss and dawg need degree now to flip burger in Burger King, so I cannot fathom what they (not the puss or dawg dem) would do, coming from a middle-class background, without post-secondary education."
As I sat in Aunt Merle's shop enjoying my fried fish and bammy, I struck up a conversation with a group of young men who were lyming close by. And talking of lyme, I must congratulate LIME on the fantastic job they're doing to transform some of the ramshackle huts on the beach into elegant, thatch-roofed shops.
My amazed response to the upgrading was, "What a way the place look like Barbados!" I was reminded of Oistins, a fishing village in Christ Church that's a popular Friday-night hangout for both locals and tourists. Every time I go to Barbados, I think that Jamaica should try to be a bit more like Barbados; and Barbados should try to be a bit more like Jamaica. Barbados is so nice to visit. But I just couldn't live there. It's much too orderly on the surface. Underground, that's a whole other story.
With its new marketing line, 'Portmore, for sure,' LIME is also rehabilitating the Naggo Head bus park. What a transformation! I made it my business to meet Scheed Cole, the mastermind behind both the Hellshire and Naggo Head artistic projects. I was introduced to him by a member of his design team, the talented architect and fine artist Candace Clunie, whom I met hard at work on the beach.
The young men I spoke to at Hellshire don't come from a middle-class background. They are part of that large group of supposedly 'working-class' people who simply can't find ready-made work. They have to be scuffling to create jobs for themselves. One of them, who looks quite buff, runs a home-based gym. He's not making money yet, but he's optimistic.
Most of the youths were enjoying a spliff and they were in a good mood. So they humoured me as I asked them in turn, "Yu still in school or yu working?" With one exception, they said I could report our conversation if I didn't reveal their names. Teddy definitely wanted me to 'talk up di tings.'
He gave me his business card which proudly announces in bold letters: TEDDY'S PLUMBING SERVICE, 24-HOUR SERVICE for all your plumbing needs. Phone 855-8617. Teddy, who lives in Woodford Park, says he's doing quite well in his own business. He apprenticed with an experienced plumber then branched out.
Like all of the other young men, he hadn't done well in school. He particularly disliked reading. After leaving school with no formal qualifications, he turned to plumbing. For recreation, he got into computers and had quite a shock: 'A bare reading yu ha fi do pon dis?' [It's all about reading?]
An essential passport
Suddenly, reading was no longer an unpleasant subject to be endured in school. It was an essential passport to an exciting new world. So Teddy just logged on, literally and metaphorically. Doing email was a challenge at first. When his friends asked how he was taking so long to answer their emails, he had to confess that he couldn't spell some of the words. Bit by bit, he got the hang of it.
Naturally, with my interest in language politics, I asked Teddy which language he uses on the computer. He says if he's talking to his friends he uses 'patwa' but if he's talking to foreigners he uses English. Unlike many Jamaican educators who simply refuse to accept the fact that we are bilingual, Teddy is completely at ease with the idea of living in two languages.
On that score, Teddy is far more sensible than Peter who asked a 'cute' question on The Gleaner's blog about my talk at Freiburg University: 'Did you lecture the Germans in Jamaican patois?' The Germans are taking our language far more seriously than some of us are. Andrea Moll, a graduate student at Freiburg, is doing a PhD dissertation on computer-mediated communication, focusing on data downloaded from www.jamaicans.com.
I don't know how long it's going to take our educators to acknowledge the fact that there's something fundamentally wrong about 'dissing' a child's mother tongue and trying, instead, to teach in an unfamiliar language. This folly is the root of the problem of male underachievement. Girls, who tend to be more patient learners, will try to work with the system. Boys will just give up.
Teaching literacy in the mother tongue
I'd bet my last dollar that if young men like Teddy were taught literacy in their mother tongue, Jamaican, they would have no problems learning to read. Their literacy skills could then be transferred to their second language, English.
Scheed Cole is an excellent role model for working-class young men who need to learn to take reading seriously while they're still in school. A product of Kingston's inner city, Scheed made up his mind that education was going to be his passport out and back into his community. As he says on The Gleaner's 'Inna De Yard' video: 'If is one thing about my life that is a theme, is that you decide your future.'
Carolyn Cooper, PhD, is a teacher of English and an advocate of Jamaican language rights. Visit her bilingual blog, Jamaica Woman Tongue, at carolynjoycooper.wordpress.com. Feedback may be sent to [email protected].
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