Showing posts with label Library. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Library. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Simple math for value in leading for literacy and numeracy Speech to UNESCO National Commission launch

Remarks at Leading for Literacy and Numeracy phase 2 launch by Dr Kris Rampersad   
 Chair of the Trinidad and Tobago National Commission for UNESCO,
Trinidad and Tobago Representative on UNESCO Executive Board


A recent IDB report that notes the sad fact ‘that too many Caribbean students finish primary school without acquiring levels of literacy and numeracy sufficient to equip them to succeed in secondary school or in an employment market that is increasingly complex and competitive.”
We who are inside the system have known that for a long time and that no country—not even one rich in natural resources, as that report notes —can flourish without a population so educated.
That report also notes UNESCO’s definition of literacy as the ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, communicate, compute, and use printed and written materials associated with varying contexts. UNESCO recognises that literacy is both a right in itself and an instrument for achieving other rights and that it is impossible to separate the right to literacy from the right to education.
That IDB report on literacy and numeracy in the Caribbean takes its definition of numeracy from the Australian Association of Mathematics Teachers: that to be numerate is to use mathematics effectively to meet the demands of life at home, in paid work, and for participation in community and civic life. Numeracy is to mathematics as literacy is to language. It states:
From these definitions emerge a picture of literacy and numeracy as the fundamentals of education and a means for social and human development. Such definitions are contextual and influenced by the practical necessities of life. In the area of literacy, for example, terms such as functional literacy, cultural literacy, quantitative literacy, and computer literacy, among others, have emerged in recent years, a direct result of attempts to articulate the higher demands of literacy imposed by contemporary society. Similarly, what sufficed for numeracy 20 years ago cannot be adequate today. The common calculator now includes keys for functions that were previously only understood by scientists and engineers. (IDB Regional Policy Dialogue on  Education: Literacy and Numeracy in  the Caribbean  Report )
When the Trinidad and Tobago National Commission of UNESCO met to consider this project, following the mandate of the Commission’s President, the Minister of Education,  Dr Tim Gopeesingh, in our general discussions there were numerous examples from commissioners about the various challenges they faced in learning mathematics – ‘math anxiety’ among them, which could itself fill a story book.
I had my story, too, about learning to read and learning mathematics.
As a child I read everything I lay my eyes on. Everything, no exaggeration. Reading materials were limited in the country districts, you know. My reading materials came from signboards passing by on a drive, to labels on cans, and of course books whether they were mine or of others, whether they were text book, story books, newspapers. One of my earliest memories as a preteen is jumping up and down in frustration for want of reading matter as I had read everything on the bookshelf which largely contained text books from agriscience, science to social studies etc of my elder siblings.  The nearest library was miles away in the nearest town and inaccessible until I started high school. 
My story of mathematics is a different one. I could calculate almost any sum or measurements in my head – my father who was a part time market vendor loved taking me to the market because I calculated costs of his whole sale and retail goods and the special discounts he wanted to offer to special customers instantly in my head. Calculations of weights and measurements, distances, and the like in my head came easily.
And yet I struggled with text book maths and for exams it took extra effort to make the grades.
I - what we call crammed - for my O-Level mathematics exam with an intense focus in the few weeks before the exam. I gritted my teeth on the deadline crunch and made out a lesson plan of the different modules and mapped out a path to learning each and the formulas associated with them. That meant, actually having to write out in words, and create a story around each formula and their connected components - for real. I turned my maths text into a story book: and that’s how those remote and alien formulas jumped to life, and made sense to me so I would remember them in an exam room.
Mathematical formulas were not the English language, like my story books, so I needed to dedicate special time with lots of coffee at exam crunch to interpret formulas into the language that I knew. I came to that understanding that I needed to understand mathematics in the context of some correlation to reading. If I hadn’t, I could have easily fallen through the cracks too, because text book teaching did not provide that approach I needed, and which perhaps can also account for many of our so called failure at maths - that students’ approaches to learning mathematics, as with learning language can vary, so teaching methods and tools must incorporate the kind of variety we are trying to include in the teaching of literacy.
The problems and challenges we have uncovered in the pilot leading for literacy programme may be very applicable and relevant and similar to what is needed for numeracy.
My story of learning is just one such story and I’m sure is like one which as educators you might have heard several times over.
As we embark on this, the second part of the National Commission for UNESCO Leading for Literacy – and now Leading for Numeracy project
I have a few things I want to lay on the table for your consideration:
1.     That this project offers an ideal opportunity to explore the possible points of intersection between the challenges we face in teaching language, the English language included – which we erroneously consider our first language, but which educators are now discovering need to be taught as a foreign language and teaching the language of mathematics, which may also be considered a foreign language: that can help bring text book learning closer home to the applied, oral traditions approach that is more natural to our people.
My analogy of the need for literacy in numeracy is just a component of that general right to literacy recognised by UNESCO which precedes the right to information: about a decade ago some of us in the civil society movement fought to have that right to information recognised as a basic human right across the Commonwealth and UN systems.
All of these rights now converge in the computerized age in which we function: HTML/Computer language is an amalgam of competencies in numeracy, literacy and everything in between and has brought startlingly home to us the need for unification of the humanities and the sciences – the former represented in literacy – the latter in numeracy: a separation that has for long been perpetuated by our school system, in the creation of subject grouping that separate those in the arts from those in the sciences and which still persist in terms of the awards and scholarship systems.
O we must consider the areas of convergence in the teaching of literacy and numeracy: as not to be treated as separate competencies, but intertwined – and in treating here both numeracy and literacy together, we have in this room the beginnings of the formula to do so.

So now I want to leave with you a little bit of homework: some numerical calculations that came to me in reviewing the distance travelled with the leading for Literacy pilot exercise still in progress: 40 principals and 80 teachers trained in literacy and numeracy; and class loads of infant 1s and 2s receiving their badges ‘I am learning to read’ and their parents engaged also in the parenting for literacy initiative.
Some of the feedback from our trained educator leaders were: Students have been making great progress with Letter Recognition and Sounds of Letters. There are a few struggling along, mostly the ones who never attended preschool. They are still adjusting to school. Learning is taking place, some who were answering in one word sentences are now describing what is happening in pictures. Oral Language has improved. Students are enjoying the singing, actions and dancing …
The teacher did a concept lesson on the letter m. The objectives of the lesson were achieved. The children were able to give the sound of the letter m with the motion and gave words that begin with that letter sound. They were also able to identify pictures and words with that letter sound as their evaluation. The children were also able to trace and write the letter. The teacher also integrated maths in the lesson using the thematic approach. As a follow up,  the teacher was advised to build a wordwall with pictures and matching words of the letter m.  Another follow up will be using m words in sentence strips for reading.
The students are visibly having fun as they learn! Their laughter and sometimes giggles must make one smile.
Even those with whom we could not have gotten through last year are showing some progress. Unfortunately their progress is a bit slower than the younger children. All however are saying the sounds, doing the actions and completing the written assignments.
The teachers also continue to add resources to develop their model classrooms.
The teachers know what they are doing and are given autonomy in their classes since they also have had to struggle with slow learners, Curriculum Rewrite training and a multitude of other challenges.
But as I always tell them, challenges make us stronger and better!

There are challenges too. Another comment from among those trained:
We have two first year classes with a total of forty-eight students (25 and 23 boys). My teachers are working overtime with the students. The class with twenty-five students seems to be so cramped and the students are restless with the humidity. My heart goes out to these two committed teachers so I visit regularly and have discussions, and offer suggestions of encouragement. In both classes there are five year old students whose developmental levels are not ready for primary school. There are many individual differences within the classes and there are even cases where parents have already given up on their sons. Grandparents are forced to take the role of the biological parents and for various reasons. Some of them are unable to cope with these energetic grandsons. I have, however, taken the names of such parents and have been chatting with them on the phone appealing with them to assist their sons in the observed areas of weakness e.g., hand exercises to develop his motor skills, forming his letters with the hook, proper way to hold a pencil, correct way to hold his exercise book, revising the letter sounds etc. The teachers have even observed bullies within their classes so I have contacted those parents via phone and have asked them to visit for further discussions. Despite the various challenges, my teachers continue to be passionate, working extremely hard, and I am walking the journey with them for we want this experiment to be successful. The school disruptions are regular but we are trying to cope and at the same time encouraging our parents to work with us. With our sale of "milkies and freezies" for the month we have purchased a pack of laminating envelopes to laminate and preserve our letters and pictures, pretty expensive though but we are hoping to reap the benefits of our sacrifice in the future. God bless, hang in their colleagues and we all will be proud of our efforts!
The spin-off benefits are yet to come when these infant ones and twos impact on their parents and peers and siblings and communities.
Another comment:
The year-1 pupils showed the ability to correct their peers if any letter was sounded incorrectly. The Year 1 students were very eager to offer sentences when called upon.
That’s what we at the Trinidad and Tobago National Commission for UNESCO did with around half a million dollars, one quarter from UNESCO and the rest from the Ministry of Education and various sponsors: 40 principals, 80 teachers, loads and loads of infant ones and two and their parents learning to become leaders and readers.
For this, Leading for Literacy and Numeracy for Secondary Schools, the second component of the programme, our budget is just over one million dollars (TT). Your home work is to calculate what may be achieved with this million more; and then further on, what we could achieve with 34 million, or 36 million, for literacy and numeracy; and then with the additional permutations of all these infant one and twos passing on their learnings and their excitement and enthusiasm for reading to siblings, parents and peers in the communities, for not just 2250 boys but several communities and families and the permutations and spin off benefits ofthat.
That’s the multiplication we need to do: from an investment of just about half a million that’s what we got, and that is only in the preliminary stages, and within just about one year – using existing infrastructure, which, I note from your reports, are plagued with numerous problems and challenges of their own. On which note, might I add that it continues to puzzle me – and perhaps those from Chaguanas can help me understand the logic and calculations in this: when does a court house become more important than a library? To my mind, it seems if we had more libraries, we will need less court houses, not so? Isn’t that the simple arithmetic?
As curriculum officers, principals and teachers being taught to lead for literacy, take these learnings and take charge of your communities. That was the challenge I threw out to the first guinea pigs of our project when we launched around this time last year, August 2013. And now I challenge you to, too, take charge! Lead. Return us to the time when the school was the centre of the community and principals and teachers were indeed respected heads and leaders of our society.
With that, I leave you to your homework. Happy learnings, and I look forward to return at the end of this week to witness the results of this exercise then, and beyond,

I thank you.

August 18, 2014
Port of Spain, Trinidad



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Tuesday, April 23, 2013

LiTTour and LiTTscapes in Spotlight - Final 2 days of Special LiTTour offer

LiTTour and LiTTscapes in spotlight as Bocas LiTFest Begins Thursday
Last 2 Days for Free LiTTour Offer: Register Now! call 1-868- http://goo.gl/pcZxm
see also:
http://www.trinidadexpress.com/featured-news/Bocas-Lit-Fest-begins-tomorrow-204384801.html

Bocas Lit Fest begins tomorrow

 At the third annual NGC Bocas Lit Fest which starts tomorrow at the National Library the very first Bocas Henry Swanzy Award for Distinguished Service to Caribbean Literature will be awarded to Trinidadian John La Rose (posthumously) and Sarah White for their own exemplary work publishing and promoting Caribbean writers.
In the 1940s Henry Swanzy was the editor in what is now the BBC World Service of the weekly Caribbean Voices programme that featured creative writing from the English-speaking Caribbean. It became pivotal in shaping the development of the region’s post war literature, now regarded as the Golden Age of Caribbean writing. 
The programme helped launch the careers of many writers who achieved international fame: Trinidadians Sam Selvon and Nobel Laureate VS Naipaul; the other Caribbean Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott from St Lucia; Kamau Brathwaite and George Lamming from Barbados; Jamaicans Gloria Escofery, John Figueroa and Andrew Salkey; Guyanese Edgar Mittelholzer, Wilson Harris and Ian McDonald; and EM ‘Shake’ Keane from St Vincent. 
Between 1943 and 1955 when Swanzy left, 400 stories and poems along with plays and literary criticism had been broadcast by 372 contributors. On Swanzy’s departure the Times Literary Supplement wrote “West Indian writers freely acknowledge their debt to the BBC for its encouragement, financial and aesthetic. Without that encouragement the birth of a Caribbean literature would have been slower and even more painful than it has been”. Naipaul noted that Swanzy brought to the programme ‘standards and enthusiasm. He took local writing seriously and lifted it above the local’. 
John La Rose migrated to Britain in 1961. With his partner, Sarah White, he founded in London in 1966, New Beacon Books, both a pioneering publishing house and a specialist bookshop focusing on writers and writing from the Caribbean. For him publishing was a vehicle to give independent validation to one’s own culture, history and politics, a way of achieving cultural and social change. They published works by writers such as Wilson Harris, Andrew Salkey, Errol Hill, Dennis Scott, Erna Brodber, Mervyn Morris, and numerous others. 
La Rose co-founded with Andrew Salkey and Kamau Brathwaite, the Caribbean Artists Movement, providing a platform for Caribbean artists, poets, writers, dramatists, actors and musicians. In 1982 he co-founded and directed the International Book Fair of Radical Black and Third World Books until 1995. The George Padmore Institute, an archive, library and educational research centre housing materials relating to communities of Caribbean, African and Asian descent in Britain and continental Europe, was established in 1991.
On Thursday at 5 p.m. Horace Ove’s film on La Rose Dream to Change the World will be screened, followed by a short talk by Sarah White on the work of the late John La Rose and presentation of the inaugural Award. 
Every year the NGC Bocas Lit Fest and the National Museum and Art Gallery partner to invite an artist to create a limited-edition work of art. The first numbered piece becomes part of the unique Festival Art Collection of the National Museum and Art Gallery. Funds raised from the sale of the signed, numbered works go to the Lit Fest.
The 2013 festival artist is Wendy Nanan whose piece for this year’s event was unveiled on the First floor of the National Museum and Art Gallery, Frederick Street, Port of Spain. Born in Port of Spain in 1955, she obtained the BFA (Painting) in the UK and currently lives and works in Port of Spain. She has been exhibiting regularly since 1985, including shows in France, Britain, Canada, and the Dominican Republic.  
Transmission pursues Nanan’s interest in the book form, and the idea of the transfer of knowledge.  
A special tour of Port of Spain through the eyes of award winning fictional writers and famous characters began last Saturday.
Based on the critically acclaimed LiTTscapes – Landscapes of Fiction from Trinidad and Tobago by Kris Rampersad, the LiTTour starts 8 a.m. by prebookings only, leaving from the South Quay compounds of the Public Transport Service Corporation, through the capital city: landscapes and lifestyles; institutions, cultural life, politics, architecture and will be free to persons who, until tomorrow, purchase, a copy of LiTTscapes – Landscapes of Fiction from Trinidad and Tobago. 
LiTTscapes presents Trinidad and Tobago through some 60 writers in more than 100 works since 1595. Head of the Guyana Prize for Literature, Professor Al Creighton described LiTTscapes as a work of art; a documentary, a travelogue, a critical work with visual and literary power.  It takes us on a tour of the country, giving some exposure to almost every aspect of life. 
In conjunction with LiTTscapes and LiTTours, launched last August, Rampersad has also introduced LiTTributes – events in tribute to Caribbean cultures and creativity which have to date been staged in Guyana, Antigua and Trinidad and Tobago and soon in the UK and USA. They are meant to promote literacy, creativity and interactive appreciation of the global multicultural milieu Trinidad and Tobago.   
Customade LiTTributes and LiTTours based on district, theme or body of literature are available on request. For details contact 377-0326 or email lolleaves@gmail.com and visit: www.kris-rampersad.blogspot.com.

The NGC Bocas Lit Fest is free and open to all. It runs from April 25-28 at NALIS.
Free, secure weekday parking is available in Queens Park Savannah with a free hourly shuttle service to NALIS and back. For more information about the Festival programme, visit www.bocaslitfest.com.


The 2013 NGC Bocas Lit Fest 
Schedule for Thursday

The 2013 NGC Bocas Lit Fest officially kicks off!

Writers vs. Politicians 
with Martin Daly, Paula Gopee-Scoon, 
Sunity Maharaj, and Ralph Maraj
Looking ahead to our Edinburgh World Writers’ Conference debates, local luminaries read portraits of politicians — hilarious, ironic, tragic — from classic and contemporary works of Caribbean fiction by Jamaican John Hearne, Barbadian Austin Clarke, Trinidad-born
Monique Roffey, and Guyanese Pauline Melville
9–10 am • Old Fire Station

WORKSHOP
Getting started
with Marlon James
For new writers: how to find your subject and voice, and break through the barrier of the opening line
10 am–12.30 pm • 1st Floor Seminar Room

FATHER FIGURES
Colin Grant and Hannah Lowe
chaired by Ruth Borthwick
Prose and verse portraits of Jamaican fathers, by the authors of Bageye at the Wheel and Chick
10.30–11.30 am • Old Fire Station

POETRY
Marion Bethel and Cyril Dabydeen chaired by Nicha Selvon-Ramkissoon
Readings by poets from the Bahamas and Guyana
10.30–11.30 am • AV Room

NEW TALENT SHOWCASE
Danielle Boodoo-Fortuné
The first of our New Talent Showcase writers reads from her poems and discusses her work
12–12.45 pm • Old Fire Station

PERFORMANCE POETRY AND OPEN MIC
Lunchtime jam
A selection of performance poets take their vibe to the streets of the city. Plus a chance for budding
writers to share their work
12–1 pm • Abercromby Street Arcade

FILM
Barbado’ed, dir. Shane Brennan and Paul Arnott
The poorest community in Barbados is the Redlegs, the direct descendants of Scots transported to
Barbados in the 17th century.
Scottish author Chris Dolan discovers what they know about their roots, and what their prospects are
12–1 pm • AV Room

FORGOTTEN STORIES
Andrea Stuart and Chris Dolan
chaired by Margaret Busby
Forgotten parts of the history of Barbados, retold by the authors of Sugar in the Blood and Redlegs
1.00–2.00 pm • AV Room

WORKSHOP
Length matters
with Cyril Dabydeen
There are stories that need a few dozen pages, and some that need a few dozen words. An introduction to short-short fiction
1.30–4 pm • 1st Floor Seminar Room

DISCUSSION
Beyond a Boundary at 50 with Deryck Murray and Arnold Gibbons, chaired by Kenneth
Ramchand C.L.R. James’s great book on sport, politics, and society celebrates its half-century in 2012. A panel of sportsmen and scholars discuss its continuing relevance
1.30–2.30 pm • Old Fire Station

MUSIC
Lovey and Co.
with John Cowley
The first Trinidadian musicians ever to be recorded were Lovey’s Original Trinidad String Band, in 1912. The author of Carnival, Canboulay, and Calypso tells the story, and discusses Lovey’s legacy with Trinidad Express features editor Deborah John
2–3 pm • AV Room

FICTION
Courttia Newland and Ifeona Fulani
chaired by Ryan Durgasingh
A reading of new fiction by the authors of The Gospel According to Cane and Ten Days in Jamaica
2.30–3.30 pm • Old Fire Station

FICTION
Kerry Young and Diana McCaulay
chaired by Giselle Rampaul
Jamaican family histories transformed into fiction by the authors of Pao and Huracan
4–5 pm • Old Fire Station

SHORT TALK
Alison Donnell and Michael Bucknor talk to Barbara Lalla about the Routledge Companion to Anglophone Caribbean Literature, and our evolving literary canon
4–5 pm • AV Room

ONE-ON-ONE
Marina Warner
The British author of Alone of All Her Sex and Stranger Magic talks to Lawrence Scott about myths, history, and stories
5–6 pm • Old Fire Station

FILM
A Dream to Change the World: A Tribute to John La Rose, dir. Horace Ové, CBE
A documentary about the life of the late John La Rose, poet, essayist, publisher, trade unionist, cultural and political activist, and founder of New Beacon Books and chairman of the George Padmore Institute in London
5–7 pm • AV Room

BOCAS HENRY SWANZY AWARD
The presentation of the inaugural Bocas Swanzy Award, recognising distinguished service to Caribbean letters, to John La Rose (posthumously) and Sarah White of New Beacon Books
7–8.30 pm • AV Room

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