Education month ends tomorrow and as far as annual observances go, this was a pretty interesting one with several highs and lows. Among the lows were the recent incidents of violence in schools. There were two cases where adults ventured onto school property and attacked children perceived to have harmed their children/relatives. In one instance, one child’s parent reportedly slapped another child and in the second a child was injured after he was chased around the school compound by the knife-wielding relative of one of his peers. Both incidents are engaging the attention of the police.
Another low was the public admission via letters from educators to this newspaper that the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) School Based Assessment which contributes to a student’s final Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) grade is largely fraudulent. Of course, this was one of the worst kept secrets in the country. The parents who buy or write papers for their children know; the students who did no ‒ or minimal ‒ research know, as do the teachers who write the papers, do the research or blindly accept submissions they know the students could not have done. But do not for a second imagine that this only occurs in Guyana. The signs are that it is as widespread as the CSEC is. This suggests that the administrators at CXC are also aware. Whether they will do anything about it remains to be seen.
The ‘Jeopardy’ competition for teachers organised by Ms Samantha Williams, Education Officer attached to the National Literacy Unit of the National Centre for Education Research and Development has to be counted among the highs. It would have served to test teachers’ knowledge of different subject areas and their ability to respond quickly—a challenge mostly thrown at students. Another high has to be the Rap competition also organised by the National Literacy Unit, which reportedly sought to use students’ love of rap music to sensitise teachers to the possibilities of using this medium as a teaching tool. Of course, the use of music as a tool for the teaching of academic subjects is not new. It has been successfully done for decades, though not in Guyana.
The use of Rap music, which it has been widely agreed resonates with students more than other music forms because of its freestyling, is also being used in other countries. There are several videos proliferating on YouTube and Vimeo of teachers in classrooms, mostly in North America, rapping grammar to students. And right here in Guyana, rapping was being used, at least experimentally, in the local private school Marian Academy as far back as 2013, by that school’s English Mistress.
The proponents of using popular music—rap and hip hop—to bolster teaching say that it works. It is difficult to imagine it not working. Music breaks the ice, helps overcome literacy deficiencies and can allow for slower or bashful children to catch up.
The surest way to determine if music is working to impart knowledge of course would be to ask the beneficiaries—the children. However, that has been largely unheard of until now. In August this year, UNESCO’s Regional Bureau of Education for Latin America and the Caribbean (OREALC) based in Santiago, Chile, launched an online regional consultation designed to listen to the voices of young people aged 15 to 25 years old. Called, ‘Tell Them What You Want to Learn’, the two-part survey seeks to find out from young people what they want to learn and more importantly, how they want to learn it.
According to OREALC/UNESCO, the initiative was undertaken within the framework of the new global Education 2030 Agenda in collaboration with various stakeholders in the region and with the support of Fundación Chile, which is acting as the technical secretariat of the whole process.
Unsurprisingly, the preliminary results of the first part of the survey released by OREALC/UNESCO revealed that young people want to learn beyond schooling and the traditional forms of teaching in “a collaborative, practical way, making use of online resources, with talks, workshops, and courses, placing strong emphasis on play and discovery.” The second part of the survey is currently underway and ends on October 31. It is available online at http://www.dilesquequieresaprender.org/answer-the-enquiry/ One hopes local youth will take the opportunity to let their voices be heard.
Indeed the way the world works is changing and methods of teaching and learning must change to keep pace. Classrooms where children sit in rows of benches and learn by rote, still dominate in many parts of the world. Research has found that these do more harm than good. Children who do not fit into the neat little boxed space they are forced to occupy are deemed disruptive and in the typical classroom, either banished to the back or perpetually punished; both methods serve to quell creativity. Those who are slow or bashful are usually forgotten; they simply make up numbers in the classroom. Sadly for this latter group, the current method used in this country, which sees them promoted to the next grade whether or not they have grasped anything that was taught is just as harmful.
Education really should allow for children to learn at their own pace with teachers facilitating rather than dictating. The Ministry of Education’s rap music initiative is a step in the right direction. Many more such leaps are needed.
