Dear Editor,
As we grow older, we sometimes tend to over-react. It is in that vein that I note the letter: “All four answers to this question were wrong” in Stabroek News of June 13.
In that letter, the writer raised matters such as the number of years British Guiana was known as Guyana; 100 square centimeters equal a square meter; Queen Victoria ended the slave trade and freed the slaves; the date when Lacytown was named; and identifying a right angle.
I commend the writer for bringing such matters to public attention, and I commend Stabroek News for publishing such views.
In matters such as these, however, I tend to consider also explanations such as the possibility of proof-reading error; error based on the state of knowledge/beliefs at the time; error based on linguistic interpretation; error based on misinterpretation/miscalculation of the actual facts. As I said in Stabroek News before, those who write and/or compile, and/or proof-read test papers may wish to re-consider the system that is now in place, and encourage more careful setting of questions and more careful proof-reading of the final documents.
That said, I am a bit disappointed that the writer quotes Ms Lillian Dewar, her then Headmistress at Bishops’ High School as saying about the novels of Georgette Heyer: “Are you still reading that trash?” That may well have been the private view of some teachers, and may well have been a reflection of their views on such literature as “Uncle Stapie Pon De People” published in the Sunday Argosy prior to, during and after World War II, and “The Palm-Wine Drinkard” published by Amos Tutuola in 1952. I suppose some teachers didn’t like the Hardy Boys books, and the Nancy Drew books either.
With respect, I do not consider any literature as trash. One may feel that the writing is not on par with that produced by Chaucer, or Shakespeare, or Gerard Manley Hopkins, or Eric Williams, or Edgar Mittelholzer, or Martin Carter. But again, with respect, I do not consider it to be trash merely because it does not attain a certain pre-conceived standard.
I am equally disappointed over the writer’s assertion: “I do not remember being given inaccurate information about anything by my teachers from primary through secondary schools. But I have come across wrong or misleading information again and again, especially since I started looking at the Primary School Assessments.”
With respect, from a background of half a century of teaching at the primary school, the secondary school and the university levels, it seems to me that the writer either has a faulty memory in relation to this matter, or she had the most fabulous set of teachers I have ever heard about.
My greatest disappointment, though, is with the writer’s assertion: “Editor and Madame Minister of Education, when I was in school we did no history of B.G. History was the history of the Greeks and the Romans and of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Geography was also the Geography of the British Isles. Nor did we study Guyanese or Caribbean Literature.”
I do not know what the writer specifically means by “we”, and I did not attend The Bishops’ High School in the 1950’s or at any other time. But Editor and Minister of Education, I assure you both that my experiences at Sacred Heart R.C. Boys’ School in the 1930’s and at St Stanislaus’ College in the 1940’s were not similar to those the writer depicts. Indeed, what I remember is that questions on the history and geography of British Guiana were routine at the Government County Scholarship Examination that my colleagues and I had to write in those days to gain scholarships to places like Queen’s College and St Stanislaus’ College and The Bishops’ High School.
I believe that, from time to time, there are errors in test papers set for examinations at all levels around the world. Those involved in the process are human beings who can make mistakes, or indeed, occasionally have a mental aberration. I encourage Stabroek News not to be disheartened, but to continue the good work of publishing teaching materials, test papers, etc. Further, as I understand it, the Caribbean Examinations Council now engages with NCERD in the setting of the National Grade Six Assessment papers. There may therefore be smaller margins for error.
Now let those who wish to do so, continue this serious discussion. After all, as the mast-head of the Chronicle on Main Street used to say in the old days: “Where all men think alike, no one thinks at all”.
As for me, I gaan bak in gool!
Yours faithfully,
George N. Cave.
