Dear Editor,
Events taking place in other countries within the region, especially Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago, should serve to guide our actions here in Guyana. There are often important lessons which can be learnt from these occurrences, but my constant worry is whether we recognize the signs and heed the warnings. Particularly, the recent report on Jamaica’s plan to install metal detectors in schools after countless violent incidents on school grounds, and the riot which occurred in a school in Trinidad a few months ago, should be of significant interest to our policy makers in the education system. Discipline in schools has long been an area of significant concern, however it is only after something serious occurs that we focus on it, adopt our band-aid approach to the problem, and soon revert to business as usual.
Teachers continue to lament the continued decline in levels of discipline in our schools. To the extent that schools are a microcosm of the wider society, it is inevitable that the increase in violent behaviour and the use of weapons which accompany such behaviour, will soon find its way into our schools. They have already entered our churches, the last bastion of peace and tranquility. Instead of being reactionary, which the instillation of metal detectors clearly is, we can develop a comprehensive plan to avoid this dilemma altogether. Such a plan must first recognize that we live in a completely different era, and traditional approaches to discipline and student behaviour in general, need to be upgraded.
It is not enough for the Ministry of Education to publish a Handbook of Alter-native Disciplinary Strate-gies, as well intended as it might be. There are complex psycho-social realities which need to be examined and adequately addressed. The recent debate on the use of corporal punishment exposed the fact that we are trapped between our traditional modes of operating and our more modern, research-based, approaches to discipline and punishment. As such, more needs to be done to prepare our teachers to effectively address issues arising in the classroom.
Many teachers continue to use corporal punishment because (a) they lack the requisite skills to effectively use the alternatives, and/or (b) they feel that it is the only thing that appears to work. Teachers continue to raise the argument that the students only respond to corporal punishment because that is what students are exposed to at home. It therefore suggests that more needs to be done to educate our nation about this problem which compounds itself. In which case, our schools can play a critical role in shaping our society.
The Ministry of Education, and the Ministry of Human Services can devise strategies to simultaneously address this issue on both fronts. It should entail additional training for our teachers on effective contemporary classroom management techniques, a greater emphasis on guidance and counselling in the schools, more active participation by school welfare officers, parental skills training in non-formal settings for parents – especially young mothers and fathers-and increased focus on the role of school administrators in effectively managing these institutions. Our approach in schools has to focus more on the actual teaching of discipline, which should be recognized as being separate and distinct from punishment. Where punishment is em-ployed, reform needs to be the objective stressed, as opposed to simple retribution and deterrence.
There are a number of factors which collectively im-pact on this problem; the absence of males in the education system to balance the approaches to discipline, the lack of resources to hire and train required support personnel, the pressures placed on young parents, especially single parents within our current economic context, and the decay in the moral fabric of our society, are a few which readily come to mind.
At the same time however, we cannot throw our hands up in disgust. I strongly feel that the hard-working men and women in our classrooms on a daily basis, if given the right support, can still make a significant difference in our society; provided we heed the warnings, and commit ourselves to addressing the problems before they become too large.
Yours faithfully,
Olato Sam
