Dear Editor,
On March 29, 2010, Stabroek News published an article by yours truly, in which was provided a suggested outline for dealing with school violence. Subsequently, the VSO contacted me to collaborate on a week-long training workshop on classroom management for selected teachers from throughout the nation. All plans were put in place for the programme, which was going to cost the government no financial outlay whatever, but at the last moment, the plan was jettisoned by NCERD on the basis that enough information was not being offered. Yet exactly what information was missing has never been disclosed.
With the geometric upsurge of violence throughout the society since then, I am again offering my services, free of charge to the Minister of Education. I can put together a team of talented and experienced educators who can focus on a proposed training programme to include student centred classroom instructions; reading and writing workshops; effecting consequences without corporal punishment; identifying and addressing learning disabilities and challenges, including managing emotions and dealing with anger; the Workshop Model of instructions; the Writing Process and incorporating the teaching of English across the curricula; cross-curricula planning and collaborative teaching; the concept of mentoring for new teachers; setting up a print rich classroom environment; establishing a safe and nurturing learning environment by building emotive connections and building trust; instituting a range of evaluation tools of which standardized testing would be one, but not the only, component and social media and technology in education.
I strongly believe that our nation’s teachers should be armed with tools that can make them move away from corporal punishment and still be able to effectively manage the classroom.
After all it is a well-known fact that violence begets violence and the school is one place where the anti-violence message can become effective as a component of the national process to address and redress violence in society.
Meanwhile, other components of a comprehensive programme to address violence in schools should include:
• a Violence Free Schools Act laying down zero tolerance for weapons and mandating significant consequences for students who infringe it;
• collaborative development of anti-violence measures by administrators, teachers, parents, and students, with a review procedure for legal compliance;
• a mandate that all schools institutionalize a code of conduct that demonstrates a commitment to violence prevention and helps staff and students feel safe;
• programmes that run the gamut, from general educational improvement efforts, to interventions that target specific types of illegal or anti-social behaviour;
• in high-risk schools, training in violence prevention-for all staff; • the development of partnerships between schools and community so schools can capitalize on and reinforce the efforts of religious and recreational organizations; social service and public health agencies; the business community and law enforcement agencies;
• a child-centred academic curriculum to help students become empowered, develop organizational skills and take responsibility for their work and actions.
Editor, I do not claim infallibility or absolute expertise with respect to the above but the simple reality is that our nation’s education can do with all the help available and when diaspora Guyanese are willing to lend their time and effort, at their own expense, to help out, the government must be able to set up mechanisms to foster and channel all such offers.
Besides, such mechanisms would reinforce the government’s commitment to harnessing diaspora resources which President Ramotar made the centerpieceof a trip to New York City some time ago.
I know of many diaspora professionals, active and retired, who are quite willing to travel this path as a way of either giving back, or honouring their prebears who migrated from Guyana, and regardless of their political loyalties or ideological outlook, their tremendous knowledge and expertise are sorely needed to foster the process of national development and move Guyana to developed status, as the President proclaimed to be his mission.
Yours faithfully,
Annan Boodram
