Garth Rattray I grew up seeing her sacrifice nights and weekends preparing lesson plans, making charts and marking papers. She taught throughout most of the day and assisted students in need of help after school hours.
I WAS relieved to learn that the Government has fulfilled its promise to award our more than 20,000 Government-paid teachers the increased salaries that they so richly deserve. Teachers are essential for the progress of any society; we cannot survive without them. Unfortunately many parents unfairly rely heavily upon teachers to fully educate and/or reform their children.
Academician, sociologist and dean at the University of the West Indies, Professor Barry Chevannes, was the keynote speaker at the opening ceremony of the HEART Trust's seminar on Lifelong Learning, held at the Jamaica Conference Centre (March 26-27). The Jamaica Observer reported that he lamented the "quality of education being offered in Jamaica". He also "argued that the educational system had failed in some respects to produce citizens with good morals and life-coping skills." Prof. Chevannes centred his talk on tertiary institutions but he mentioned the high crime rate among juveniles and blamed it on the failure of the community, the education system and the family.
The over 400 participants at the conference included students, teachers, policy makers and persons in business. I, however, wondered if anyone invited the parents/guardians. The family is the nucleus of every society. Homes should provide solid foundations on which teachers can build. Parents are quick to chastise school teachers for failing to make their children into model citizens but the 'raw materials' provided may be of such poor quality that it is often too little, too late. My main criticism of the education system (at the primary and secondary levels) is the failure to ensure greater parental involvement in the schools.
My mother is a retired school teacher. I grew up seeing her sacrifice nights and weekends preparing lesson plans, making charts and marking papers. She taught throughout most of the day and assisted students in need of help after school hours. I have always known that the quest to impart knowledge can be time consuming, rigorous and exasperating, it's not just the regurgitation of information. Most teachers are doing the best with what they have.
I came to appreciate the veracity of the Biblical parable concerning the sowing of seeds (of knowledge) on fertile soil, fertile soil with thorns and rocky ground when I spoke to a group of high school students a little over a week ago. Some children were receptive, others who could learn seemed fated to have negative influences (thorns) impede their progress and a few seemed incapable or unwilling to acquire knowledge. It is a parent's sacred duty to foster fertile minds within their children while protecting them from the negative influences that may interfere with their child's development.
Education is an ongoing, multifaceted and dynamic process. Studies suggest that we respond to tones of speech and even music while still in the womb. After emerging we spend a great deal of time learning about our bodies, interacting with our parent(s) and exploring the limits of our new environment. As we grow older we continue to learn by interfacing with people outside the family unit and the wider community. It is at this impressionable stage that we form life-long attitudes and habits. The formal education system can only be effective if the homes of children are conducive to the assimilation and absorption of knowledge, the tool with which they can build their future.
Within certain communities some female youngsters grow up believing that formal education is valueless, they opt to produce progeny for social acceptance, fiscal viability and old-age pension. Some males gravitate towards get-rich-quick lifestyles and sometimes end up running afoul of the law. It is impossible for teachers alone to undo all that brainwashing.
Some parents send children off to school expecting teachers to work miracles, but the number of hours spent at school during an academic year cannot undo the indoctrination that home environments wrought. The average parent is responsible for one or two children but the average teacher is responsible for 30 or 40. The parents' job is to provide home environments conducive to academic pursuits. They must instil the discipline that it takes to study and encourage high educational goals.
A proper education forms the basis of every endeavour. It should be obligatory for parents to attend regularly scheduled parent-teacher meetings and for them to play more active roles in the running of our schools. I firmly believe that parents have far greater influence over a child's education than teachers do.
"Children might or might not be a blessing, but to create them and then fail them was surely damnation" (Lois McMaster Bujold).
Dr Garth A. Rattray is a medical doctor with a family practice.
