The social reality of Jamaica’s educational “mis-system”

By Paul Andrew Bourne, MSc. (candidate), BSc. (Hons)

In retrospect, I spent one entire year in an eleventh grade English Language class with a teacher who had a Masters Degree in English from the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus, who found the need on one occasion to write on the chalkboard. Being that I was a primary non-communicator of the Queen's dialect and that I was fed a rich diet of the African and European languages combined (i.e. patois), mastery of Standard Language proved a burdensome task to say the least.
My language teacher believed that my writing skills were below the expected grade level and so left much to be desired, as someone who aspired for tertiary education. Moreover, when one adds the reality of being schooled in an innercity community with residents who were non-practitioners of this vital language of international communication, life was just too much of a transition into the echelon of the middle class - vernacular. So, when one couple that experience with my early training in a non-traditional high school, the diet of patois that we were fed by our classmates was a delicate for the affluent and this was even more enriched a meal when oftentimes our very teachers partake in a feast of our demise.

Despite my learned language teacher and the depth of her knowledge in the discipline and having a comprehensive understanding of our social reality, she [Miss Blank] offered me [all] books and a noble quotation that was and I quote "just continue to practice." Oftentimes I wondered what I had done wrong in my other life to justify been born poor and black in order that I be sent to an innercity school in "Jam down". As it relates to the latter social construct, nothing is innately wrong with that pigmentation but that you are frequently left aback.

As a by-product of Vauxhall Secondary (one of the newly upgraded High schools), in those days mastery of English language was just a dream. It appeared that I was always very intoxicated with pure water before attending language classes because I was always in some distant land when my teacher [Miss Blank] was in her world. It appeared that my past intoxication with water has led to my present position of not liking to consume the product. Could that be suppression of a dislike I carried for my teacher; because she offered little in the form of assistance in a subject that I so desperately wanted to grasp? Miss Blank's world was hiding on a distant chair within our same environ. She would be miserably busy completing grading class work while we drift on a raft in the serene ocean of confusion.

The Caribbean Examination Council (CXC) and General Certificate of Education (GCE) English language results of Jamaican candidates over the history of the examination concur with my experience to make it typical. If those results were disaggregated into categories of schools types, I forward the position that the newly upgraded high schools' students are performing remarkably below their traditional high school counterparts. Therefore, what are the technocrats who seemingly know and having recognized this non-mastery phenomenon of language in schools in Jamaica planning in order adequately address the situation?

The irony is I believe, the high failure rate in English in CXC/GCE is a social reality in Afro-Caribbean diaspora in Jamaica. This situation has it answers in ineffective versus effective teaching style.

My eleventh grade language teacher said that our writing was atrocious, but, how were we to learn the essentials and-or the fundamentals of writing Standard English without the input of a ?'good' coach? Interestingly our teacher had us writing endless number of essays, completing volumous comprehension passages and a vast number of summaries as few as the sands on the seashore without a continuous feedback in a week, for what end? All of her efforts, in retrospect, were in aid of the transition of better writing. Wow! The reality was, one person of twenty-five passed Language in the CXC examination that year.

This problem language for countless Jamaicans cannot continue; and so the architects of our educational system must forge a path to address a social ill that may retard future sustainable development of the island. In order to transform the populace in this society into understanding the primary reason for a proficiency in the language, the school system in Jamaica must universalize the language problem.

It took a failure in CXC English Language, in my graduating year at secondary school, before I knew the effectiveness of an inefficient teacher. I spent another eight (8) years working effortlessly to combat the negative scars of the language teacher. In 1997, I conquered my language-phobia when I got a grade II in the CXC examination. Despite that fact, I was still afraid, reserved, and passive in regards the subject. On entering the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus, to read for an undergraduate degree in Economics in 1999, I wished English was not require but I knew this would never be the case. I asked the question, "Why, why Language."

In 1999, when I sat in my first English class, FD10A, and saw the volume of work to be covered with the construct of my weaknesses in the subject, my heart sank below the earth's crust in anguish and despair. All past demons in Language arose from the dead and began haunting me again. I was reserved, passive and paralyzed by the intensity of my fears so much so that in retrospect, I swear those factors led to my demise in the course that year. What was I to do, to be successful? I worked like a builder on a structure that had a day for completion. Despite having worked with the intensity of sailor, I was snatched by the demon called failure.

In my finalizing year of the undergraduate degree programme, I met Ms. C. Jones a lecturer in the department of Humanites and Education, UWI, Mona Campus who really made a difference in life, today. She transformed my fears into boldness, my passiveness into activeness, and my feeling of failure into aspiration of success. She used effective and timely illustrations in a concise manner that made for immediate understand; I was challenged to excel. She utilized her own writings as guide for us to comprehend the correct approaches in writing Standard English. She did not create false hope in making us accept the notion that we would all be successful. But the brevity, the conciseness and the motherliness in corrections were techniques that are fitting motivators.

The learning process was done in fun while within a high degree of seriousness. The regular use of the chalkboard and continuous normal internal class interactions and personal contact sessions with timely feedbacks were just some of the methods that she implemented to increase our mastery of the discipline while simultaneously working on our confidence. I passed the course alas. I got a B for the course but this was disappointing as I missed the B+ by two (2) marks. It was no surprise to me that I did but I thought I did better than displayed by the final grade. This is my first reflection on the importance and value of an effective teacher.

With the difficulties of this foreign and non-native language, our teachers of English Language must begin to teach the fundamentals of the language as against assuming that secondary school pupils have or ought to master the language's syntax by themselves. Because in excess of 50 percent of Jamaicans are native users and sole users of Patois, the teaching of Patois must be done in a manner that where the students grasp the translation of the Patois and its correct usage in Standard Language. Today, I see a remarkable reduction in the number of syntax errors and past weaknesses in language. I speak with confidence that an ineffective teacher in English Language is similar to car without brakes traveling downhill. He/she may not destroy the cargo's coverings but its fragile contents may be perfectly undamaged. Therefore, by merely attending a taught class in Standard Language is not a measure of imparting the syntax if the pupils are unable to write and or efficiently use the language. What is the yardstick used to measure efficiency in imparting language? Many language teachers continue to pussy foot around our students instead of effectively imparting the language, this if continue can only end with increasingly more students being unable to communicate beyond their present environs.