Change from Within: An Approach to the Challenges in Education

Change from Within: An Approach
to the Challenges in Education

Pauletta Chevannes

The question was posed recently by a group of teachers in the secondary schools: “Why are today’s teenagers so difficult to cope with? Why can’t they conform as we did in our time?” This is a question, I am sure, that teachers all over the country are asking. But in order to begin to answer this question we have first to recognize that children today live and interact in a society that is totally different from the one in which we were raised.

Children today are socialized in an environment of violence—a society in which a brother kills a sister for a few dollars; a society in which the “shatter” (the youth who “shat”, shoots) is the role model in some inner-city communities; a society in which even the law officers, who are supposed to be our protectors, are themselves the target of violent acts.

No child today can ever comprehend a Jamaica in which a murder or a rape was a phenomenon. With our access to newer forms of communication, sex is an open, public spectacle. There is no reverence in the act. Now children see and experience aggressive behaviour every day as they travel on the buses, to and from school. In fact, if they are too passive, they will never reach where they are going. The Jamaican proverb, “Humble calf suck the most milk,” has been replaced by “Humble calf get lef’.”

With fierce competition in sports, as there is now the possibility for a schoolboy or schoolgirl to become a professional sportsman or sportswoman earning large sums of money, aggression on the field of play, and even more so among spectators, is becoming a part of the game.

With the migration of parents to overseas destinations, and the hitherto stable grandmother now herself younger and seeking to make life better, more children are becoming heads of households, having money-earning responsibilities, themselves involved in illegal activities—children at school, adults at home and in the communities.

Schools are therefore being challenged to find new ways to educate youngsters, for if we do not deal with the social problems, these problems that are a part of the consciousness of our students, how then can we begin to deal with the history, the principles of accounts, the biology, the language skills?

It is this very dilemma that caused four schools, all located in violence-prone areas in the Kingston and Spanish Town metropolitan area, totally unknown to each other, to begin a search for a new and different philosophy and methods which had their roots in the experiences of these individual schools:

                    School                                                       Location

1.  St. Peter Claver Primary                                  Waltham Park Road, Kingston

2.  Windward Road All-Age                                 Windward Road, Kingston

3.  Friendship Primary                                          St. John’s Road, Spanish Town

4.  Charlie Smith Comprehensive High                Arnett Gardens, Kingston

It was these new methods and these new philosophies in these schools, which in 1992 attracted the attention of the committee under the guidance of Sir Philip Sherlock in the office of the Vice Chancellor of the University of the West Indies.

The committee documented and analysed the process, and with the financial assistance of the Grace Kennedy Foundation, the Canadian International Development Agency, and UNESCO, the Change from Within project began, and now forms part of the Ministry of Education and Culture’s thrust to assist in improving the quality of the human being graduating from schools.

All four schools in their own different ways tackled the problems by a methodology which

1.   Sought to arouse the interest of the students.

     We sought to answer the question: What are the things to which youngsters in schools attach meaning and significance?

     In all four schools the areas of sports and the performing arts were identified as areas in which the children comfortably expressed themselves and from which they derived pleasure.

2. Demonstrated how the performances in these areas of self-expression could be improved, through self-discipline and self-motivation.

3. Transferred this self-discipline and self-motivation in sports and in the performing arts into the academic sphere, into their social interaction, into all aspects of their lives.

4. Built trust as a means of reinforcing commitment to the institution, respect for self and for others, and a sense that the school belonged to the students, so that they would have the responsibility to ensure that the institution was a disciplined, learning, and caring environment.

5. As final component of this methodology, built a partnership between schools, parents, and communities. For as the children developed a sense of pride in their achievements, new-found self-esteem, a sense of responsibility, then parents and communities began to form alliances with the schools.

I offer the example of the school where I was principal where this approach was taken, and the results which followed.

Charlie Smith Comprehensive High School was for years known as a school which excelled in schoolboy football. The school’s feats in football were not, however, having the impact that it should have had, as the football activities were associated with indiscipline and low achievement. The school was in fact a football factory, graduating very talented footballers who could not read or write.

Having identified football as the area to which our students attached significance and meaning, in January 1993, we decided to apply the methodology described to the football team. We began by convincing the sportsmen that their capacity to do better would increase with self-discipline. We therefore instituted minimum academic and punctuality guidelines. No one could represent the school, unless he met these guidelines. The training schedule became a school activity, with attendance registers just as in the classroom. The entire school population was mobilized to insist that the footballers see themselves as students and not just as sportsmen.

A teacher was assigned to the team, with the responsibility to ensure that problems were sorted out, discipline was maintained, and a report was given by the team itself to staff and students on the performance of the students after each match. The students were exposed to counselling on a regular basis; they were exposed to different social settings; and emphasis shifted from the “individual” to the “team”.

In 1994, the school reached only the semifinals of the competitions. This was used to teach the lesson of strength in times of defeat. Meanwhile the attitude of the boys began to change dramatically. They all began to record attendance of between 80 percent and 100 percent, they were gentler, quarrels in the camp became fewer, and differences were settled peaceably, or by arbitration by request. In 1995, the school won the Manning Cup, Oliver Shield, Walker Cup, and above all, most disciplined team. One member of the team graduated with eight subjects in the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) Examinations. Another young man unable to read when he entered the school three years earlier, graduated with one subject in the CXC Examinations.

Because the success of the team was linked to the general school community,  we began to see a sense of ownership of the school by the entire student body. The students began to take pride in their school surroundings, in the sanitation, in their attire, in learning to read, in representing the school, to the point where two young boys who noticed an activity for schools at the Bank of Jamaica Auditorium, marched into the bank and enquired why it was that their school had not been invited. Their representation was so convincing, that the Bank of Jamaica held a special seminar of the same type for the students of the school.

The parents had traditionally seen the school as a place that basically kept their children off the streets. It was very difficult, even when they could afford it, to get them to provide their children with the necessary materials for school. A parent-teachers meeting would attract 20–30 persons, and most parents ignored making their contribution to the school, required under the Cost-Sharing Scheme.

We began to publicly award parents of students who performed well in school. This exercise was held twice a year, and at our graduation exercise we made a “Parent of the Year” award. Parents were invited to tell stories to students, to counsel students, to accompany students on field trips and excursions. The parents began to show ownership of the school and started showing a sense of responsibility. Within two years, the compliance rate for the Cost-Sharing Scheme jumped from 40 percent to 84 percent.

We demonstrated trust in the students by allowing them to plan activities, independent of the adults, even to the point of inviting visitors to address them on specific topics. Teachers meetings were sometimes held during the school day, with senior students responsible for the classes, and we trusted them to settle disputes among the younger students, as well as engage them in responsible activity. The trust was therefore built between staff and students and between students themselves. This led to a sense of confidence and respect in themselves as well as others.

Within four years of patient application of this new approach, always undaunted by the many setbacks, we very slowly began to experience changes in attitude, changes in behaviour, and improvement in accomplishments.

In “Change from Within”, the school becomes the centre of change and possesses the potential for changing the wider society. However, before our children change, we must as teachers change our attitudes and our approaches to educating them. We must above all believe that they are capable of achieving.This is the foundation on which we will then move forward to a better understanding of how to help them to become better citizens, even as we, as well as they, are surrounded by so many difficulties.

It is not easy, but it is possible.