Dear Editor,
The programme ‘I am Guyanese’ aired on Channel 6 on Friday, September 28, 2012, raised more questions on the purported subject of ‘education’ which the guests – the Chief Education Officer and the Secretary, Guyana Teachers’ Union – were invited to discuss.
This viewer caught the programme when the question of violence by male students (“boys”) was posed, as related to the concurrent migration of male teachers from the ‘classroom’ – reflected by the example given by the CEO of himself being addressed as ‘Miss’ on a recent school visit.
Although the construct of the programme did not articulate the point, there appeared to be an arguable connection between the absence of male teachers on the one hand, and that of male students on the other, and the consequent differential in performance between the latter and their female counterparts.
While at a juncture in the discourse the significance of a reference to empirical evidence might have been missed, the suggestion about conducting house-to-house visits with a view to ascertaining the domestic environment of the identified male delinquents, emitted little resonance; one wondered (with 20/20 hindsight) whether education officials had ever thought of intervening with the Bureau of Statistics to include questions that could elicit answers relevant to the perceived predicament – the same for parents as for teachers.
Exotic as the idea may sound, it is not impossible to contemplate the linkage between the migration of males from the teaching profession and the migration of adults from the homes of students. In a sense therefore the CEO was right when he observed that the problem demanded a multi-sectoral approach; and again one wondered whether there is a role for the socio-psychologist to play in the effort to resolve a very fundamental societal dilemma.
Focused as the discussants were on their respective areas of competence and responsibility, it was hardly expected that they may have reflected on the more constrictive factors which may be afflicting males of all ages (particularly of one orientation) in the society as a whole. They would not have taken into consideration (at least publicly) the pervasive imbalance which encompasses lives as parents, as extended families, and as communities in which they only subsist.
Growing up during the last two decades any childhood would have been exposed either directly, or subliminally, to an inordinate degree of violence: daily published reports of robbery, rape, murders; carnage on the road; disposals by drug lords; harassment, particularly by ‘deadly’ police; not to mention the ramifications of biased official decision-making, stories of economic exploitation which deny those they know opportunities for a better life; the much discussed infringement of basic human rights – all this reinforced by the explicit and repetitive programming of violence on TV, routinely accepted by the better educated and socially more comfortable models, as mere entertainment.
Yet our educators speak of the search for “empirical evidence” of the reason that “schoolboys” react violently. Even the private sector was quoted as enquiring: “How can we help?” ignoring the fact that behaviours of elements of their own workforce reflect the ‘violence’ syndrome.
Yours faithfully,
E B John
