On Wednesday morning, I was lucky enough to catch some excellent presentations at the US Embassy's Public Forum on the contribution of the Fulbright Programme. The phenomenal Margaret Brissett-Bolt, now the Ministry of Education's coordinator for inner-city schools, spoke of her experience as the young principal of St Peter Claver Primary. Margaret developed the school into an international model of a student - and community-centred institution of learning.
She related to us her first visit to the school's grade six class, where she was struck by the look of hopelessness in the children. When she asked what she could do to make things better, a child named Nordia spoke up: "If every day the teacher cuss you, tell you that you soon breed, then you go home and you get cuss the same way - Miss, wha di sense?"
Then a little boy added, "Wi get cuss too - how wi black and ugly."
"That changed me," said Margaret, herself the daughter of the legendary educator, Mrs Gloria Brissett. "It was difficult because the teacher was older than I was, but I went to her that very day and moved another teacher to that class." She said the once hopeless Nordia now holds a Master's in Social Sciences from UWI. The education ministry coordinator is heartened by the teachers with whom she has been working. "I have come to love my children," said one principal to her. "If you don't love the children and the community, you can't do it."
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/colum...HE_CRISIS_.asp
She related to us her first visit to the school's grade six class, where she was struck by the look of hopelessness in the children. When she asked what she could do to make things better, a child named Nordia spoke up: "If every day the teacher cuss you, tell you that you soon breed, then you go home and you get cuss the same way - Miss, wha di sense?"
Then a little boy added, "Wi get cuss too - how wi black and ugly."
"That changed me," said Margaret, herself the daughter of the legendary educator, Mrs Gloria Brissett. "It was difficult because the teacher was older than I was, but I went to her that very day and moved another teacher to that class." She said the once hopeless Nordia now holds a Master's in Social Sciences from UWI. The education ministry coordinator is heartened by the teachers with whom she has been working. "I have come to love my children," said one principal to her. "If you don't love the children and the community, you can't do it."
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/colum...HE_CRISIS_.asp