Thru Novel Lenses! New Vision New Perspectives New Ideas New Directions For the New World! Futuring Sustainable Development in the Post Pandemic Planet From Pre School to Policy Making
Children of Leela's Learning centre are glued to Dr Kris Rampersad presenting novel ways of inspiration.
We have heard often enough the rhetoric that we cannot expect different results by doing the same things. We continue our solutions oriented approach to transformation and change through lifelong learning methods, with our novel angles and perspectives to reform the climate of despair to one of hope and nurture youth from ages 3 to 103 against the culture of criminality. And we remain hopeful that the apathy that has set in on leaders of industry, institutions, agencies and individuals, will begin to lift with this and our other methods. To support our efforts, read on... beginning at the beginning.
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football
and well-played alcohol will break down every social wall
From WM Herbert, Handmade (for the World
Summit of Arts and Culture, Newcastle UK
June 2006)
Dear Ken, Sir,
So a decade
after we fo-rum together - because you know for sure we share more than the
same initials and on the same programme at the World Summit of Arts and Culture
in Newcastle when you got a taste of the stuff Trini creativity is made of -
you coming for more, eh? On my home turf? Ah
drinking babash, cause dey…
Sir Ken boy, ah
hear they importing you to we soil – ‘cause nothing cyar hide in we choonkey
lil island. Although we have no grapevine and grow no grapes, news, especially
if iz some cochoor, spread like crop season bushfire. The bacchanal and cankalang alone could drive
ah woman to drink. Ah drinking babash,
cause dey…
From the fire in
meh wire ah hear they bringing you and some other boys, just like they bringing
the IMF, to tell we about creativity and what to do with we education and how
to do creative business and about creative enterprise. As if we don’t know how
to do creative business.
Ah drinking
babash, cause dey…
Sir Ken boy, you
think we Trinis don’t know creative business? You really don’t know how
creative we could get with we rum! We could take next people rum and bottle it
and say is we rum yes. A label over a label and look papaya - is your rum! That
is how creative we could get, here, Sir Ken boy. You might want to use that in
one of your speeches.
Ah drinking babash,
cause dey…
We have we own
kind of creative economy too and creative accounting and management that is
what they lorn in dem Institutes for higher, or hire, learning - I not sure which.
They growing creative managers and we still hoping they go ripen into some leaders.
Where else, eh, billions of dollars flowing in from oil, dey say, and all them
oil business in billions of dollars debt and they not thinking bout diversifying they still waiting for the next
oil boom, just like how as soon as Carnival done, they cyar wait fuh the next
one. Is like dat. That sounds like some creative sense to you? Oil tabanca to
fill a tabantruck. And the lil artist and writer still balancing a budget and
living without debt eh, so is tax and tax and tax we into debt and drink. Ah drinking babash, cause dey…
Sr Ken, I know
you like to talk about enterprise. I could tell you about Enterprise. In fact I
will show you, when you come. In
Enterprise dem boys know creative pursuits eh. Guns, drugs, murder and mayhem. Dey
learn well. Wild wild west style just like in the movies they cyar practice
they trigger-happiness in, cause we doh have ah movie industry. So is practice on
the streets, day and night: bang! bang! Live movie action. Ah drinking babash, cause dey…
Sir Ken, remember
the couple nail biting hours we shared watching the 2006 World Cup qualifiers in
front of that screen in the Newcastle/Gateshead caterpillar they call the arts
centre – we have one now too, we own arts centre that not only look like a
caterpillar, it have caterpillars and other termites crawling all over too, right smack in front
the Range as if to say is a bigger saga boy than the natural beauty of the Northern
Range. Crumbling like all them institutions law, parliament, education, all crumbling at the beams from termites and parasites 'cause the centre cannot hold. It open in 2009, three years after I return from the Summit, talk about cultural transference. You will see it when you come, if
you get time to step out of the higher-at place they keeping you nah, I could take you on an eye-opening LiTTour - a Journey Through the Landscapes of Fiction - although it staring you in your face is all fiction eh, no truth in that at all at all.
Ah drinking babash, cause
dey…
Sir Ken, boy,
your visit really send me down memory lane. When we was watching that football match
World Cup Qualifiers T&T vs UK 2006. I nearly chew-out the top
of all meh fingers after that first goal, hoping that we boys would at least
score one peeny-weeny goal against ye old Brits so I could ah tell the fo-rum the
next day when I presenting on MAS Culture what mas do fuh we! Well-qualified to
tell how we boys had some good babash that’s why they lick all-yuh good. Ah drinking babash, cause dey…
But just how they rig the match and give we
poor boys dat coonoomoonoo kindda liquor the Scots call ‘water of life’ ooskie,
so the boys played like coonoomoonoos. Is no different nah, is just so they rig
my presentation and I come with the best powerpoint with motion video of the
winning 2006 most colourful wining Carnival girls inserted in powerpoint even
before powerpoint had invented the movie insert feature – but the first world
didn’t have the new software to run it, at least that is what they say, as if I
could believe that the first world didn’t have the software and me from me from
a teeny weeny backward banana boat island have this technology. Ah drinking babash, cause dey …
Good thing I had
a back-up plan and walk with me rum for the fo-rum in the NewCastle caterpillar,
eh Sir Ken, boy. Because between you and me you never know how them boys would
perform. But we could export real creative ways of managing football funds eh –
arkse Jack, ah warn you, it go blow yuh mind. We creative fuh so. Ah drinking babash ‘cause dey…
That day at the
summit when you and your boys stumbled out of the room, with two goals and well
at least I scored with some ‘well-played alcohol’ – ask WM Herbert who made
that poem for and on our fo-rum at the World Arts Summit where that line came
from.
football and well-played alcohol will break down every social wall
From WM Herbert, Handmade (for the World Summit of Arts and Culture, Newcastle UK June 2006)
Is we Trini rum
he talking ‘bout! It is true we didn’t win the world football qualifying match,
but we won the World Summit fete! Ah could tell you that because I had the
creative intelligence to pack meh bottle ah rum for the fo-rum! You have to
agree, that was pure genius to break down them social walls if not the glass
ceiling, eh! And it look like I help T&T qualify too cause at last now we
have you, Sir, come here and grace we with your knightly presence! After all
the times I have to go to talk to fo-rums in all yuh first world, tho not here,
eh, not here! But exchange is no robbery where creative enterprise is concerned
eh. Now you understand?
Ah drinking
babash, cause dey…
Sir Ken boy, to
tell you the truth, I really thought when I see the invitation from the World
Summit on Arts and Culture to talk, and me name list next to yours on the
programme, I thought that is why I was invited you know, to bring some Trini
rum for the fo-rum, so is the first thing I pack. And 9/11 rules didn’t kick in
yet so I could walk through immigration with it so bold face holding it in
front me, waving it like the national flag and all them immigration and customs
people through the Brit airport nodding and smiling maybe hoping for a sip.
Ah drinking babash cause dey…
I couldn’t bring
babash though. It was not just because of the airline rules and ye olde
mercantilist impulse to make everything indigenous like we own way of making we
own rum illegal. It is really because as a true daughter of the soil - eating
dirt, as they say, cause breaking that glass ceiling tough boy - I holding on
to me secret knowledge of babash-making because we like to keep we real
creative stuff hidden in the backyard nah. Ah
drinking babash ‘cause dey…
They importing
you and the boys to tell them how to be creative without a mind about parting
with their creatively-earned foreign exchange – easy come easy go.
Ah drinking babash ‘cause dey…
Who knows more
than me about how they killing creativity, eh, about passion eh, about living
yuh talent, about multiple intelligences eh? Ah drinking babash ‘cause dey…
Now we boys don’t
have not even a peeny eeny bit of curiosity to know the secret knowledge of
creating babash, after they kill the industry dead dead to feed a few pipers to
play some foreign tune for them. Those who have a lil curiosity want to know for
free, ask Spree, and still they wouldn’t listen. Ah drinking babash ‘cause dey…
If you want to
know how to kill Trini creativity – Sir Ken boy – I know that is yur pet
subject and you want some local insights, I sharing, for free because in
T&T the arts is a freeco thing, only to laugh for an evening comedy show,
not to use to make education and law and social reengineering and to mean something
to we in we own image. Nah. We have to
hide it and practice it in secret – like drinking babash.
Is not just the
education system, nah, is how they stomp out we homemade rum and make it
illegal – the same way they make we marriage traditions and drum beating
traditions illegal, and plenty plenty thing that good for the grass roots – if yuh catch me drift – everything
grass roots illegal here, even grass. Dat’s why nobody take on the law. It
illegal to get married, it illegal to have sex, it illegal to smoke weed and
still everybody doing it. Just like we have laws against murders, laws against
incest, laws against violence and child abuse, laws against thiefing, and laws
against all kinds ah thing – and that eh stop nobody! Ah drinking babash, ‘cause dey…
Maybe they think
that as a daughter I shudda be tie up and tie de knot not realizing that is one
old law – and who take on the law here anyway eh – get married at 12, 14, 16 - not
me. I keep my focus on the instructions to go forth and multiply which I really
thought mean go fly off on this trip and dat trip and multiply intelligence,
with this idea and that idea, and follow this dream and that dream to teach
people about creativity and cultural industries and how to reengineer education
for self-esteem and to think for themselves and to value what they know and
what they have and appreciate they multiple intelligences – I really
thought that is what that meant yes: go forth and multiply. Ah
drinking babash, ‘cause dey…
I fly out because
I didn’t want to be stripped of me self-respect, left wandering in the street
like the lil ex-Mayor of Chaguanas, nah. We filling them lil girls head with
ambition that a Woman’s Place is in the House of Parliament and some of the
women we put in the top there only want your head cause they head filled with
being part of the old boys’ club. Sisterhood dead dead. That is what happen
when you put yourself up for public office here. You could turn into a raving
lunatic if you don’t have a stash ah babash, yes arkse ex-Mayor Natasha.
Ah drinking babash, ‘cause dey…
As she find out
too, it turns out, I was wrong and I should ah stay home and mind baby and leave
them ambitions to the boys, like you, who they importing through the creative
cultural foreign stock exchange and stick with me home made backyard country
brew.
Ah drinking babash, ‘cause dey…
Although I not
from the Caroni, like everybody else who come here by boat my ancestors get rum
before they get pay, so this fo-rum thing in meh blood and I still could knock
back a good few like any of the boys at any fo-rum, mano-y-mano, shatter the
glass bottles if not the glass ceiling – you want a list ah the fo-rums in
which I scored fo-rum after fo-rum: Newcastle, South Africa, India, Malaysia, France,
Costa Rica, Brazil, Argentina, Belize, Jamaica, Colombia, Mexico, Barcelona,
Scotland, Montreal … It reading like the World Cup qualifying list eh?
Ah
qualify for sure, drinking babash, ‘cause
dey…
When you come ah
go show you, Sir Ken, here at home we know where to find the real stuff. Is a
small island, nah. Everybody know where to find babash or guns or drugs, or who
kidnapping who for ransom and who planning to do for who, who doing prayers on
who head, who is the boys dealing, and trading and stacking organs and orange
juice in freezers – everybody and they lawyer know, but not the law – we call
it creative blindness because if you know yuh could get you light out, just so
just so. Ah drinking babash, ‘cause dey…
Sir Ken, you
will find out for yourself, eh. Here, everybody done know everything ahready.
All we want is a lil laugh and that’s why they invite you, so they could laugh
a lil bit. They done know that culture is a song and a dance and a comedy show
so everybody with a lil bit a creativity try to get into comedy because they
have to eat. Plain and simple. Culture is not about intelligences and policy
and curriculum development and conscience building, and social stability and
inclusion and management, and business. You mad or what? And is best they hear
it from you who doh really know dem so it could sound nice and distant and
theoretical and academic. You would be fine. Dey wouldn’t cut the mike on you
because you from foreign, as they do to me for talking the naked truth. Ah drinking Babash cause dey…
Sir Ken, you
would have a great time. You go come; you go go back home and say what a nice
people, who laugh plenty at all you jokes and make some ah they own jokes too,
and the rum flow like water and the babash hiding in the back room and you get a nice bit a foreign exchange people here
cyar even get to send they children who away to school. Ah drinking babash ‘cause dey…
When you leave
we could go back to blaming the old Brits for the mess we in although the Brits
using we creativity to teach creativity, and we with we own independent
institutions in we own self-determining nation – well is not we is dem to blame. Ah drinking babash, cause they…
If you want some
fresh material, for Port of Spain or even for them TED Talks you know where to find me, eh Sir Ken, boy, and say how-do-you-do-to-me girl Lizzie eh, and me famalee, the royalings, and if you have luggage space take these letters I have for she, please 'cause ah cyar afford the postage stamps. Ah drinking
babash, cause they…
If you want to
know the rest of the refrain, arkse that Rumbunctious Rumraj.
World
Summit repositions arts & culture
Clear
role in governance and sustainability defined
By Dr
Kris Rampersad
football and well-played alcohol
will break down every social wall.
From WM Herbert, Handmade
(For the World Summit of Arts and Culture, June 2006)
If culture is to be defined as the product of human
interactions,
the place of the human in a world traumatised by diminishing
social, environmental, political and equitable economic relations was at the
core of the World Summit on Arts and Culture.
Held in Newcastle/Gateshead, England from June 14 to 18, 2006
through sponsorship by the International Federation of Arts Councils and
Culture Agencies, the Arts Council of England and the Commonwealth Foundation,
the Summit saw arts and culture practitioners and activists in dialogue with
policy makers, planners and supporters.
In keeping with the theme “transforming people, transforming
lives,” some 500 Summit participants grappled with challenges of helping
Governments and decision makers to recognise the position of culture and the
arts in regenerating societies’ physical and social environments and economies.
Effectively, they invited revision in conceptualisation, approaches, and
methods that have so far dominated decision-making, which, in the general
division of labour functions and responsibilities, have left regeneration and
sustenance to the sciences, economics, politics and the hard-core world of
doers - not dreamers.
Skepticism that the arts has a place in this isn’t altogether
unfounded, given that artistic development has traditionally leaned on
philanthropy, the generosity of supporters, donors, endowments, and other the
like - polar opposites, surely, to, notions of sustainability.
But some 30 presenters outlined working examples of how, when
well-directed, the cultural industries can sustain societies: from use of
architecture to reduce delinquency in a district in Houston, to development of
a district in Ethiopia by indigenous craft, to how the Carnival festival from
Trinidad and Tobago has evolved to global proportions represented in some 150
countries around the world and involving a range of artistic talents and
skills. Participants were also exposed
to the UK’s Creative Partnerships that effected regeneration through art,
architecture, music, design, theatre and film. In Kielder, for example, art and
architecture such as the Belvedere and Skyspace combine with the local
landscape, riverscape and skyscape to bring the natural environment into
sharper human focus, while encouraging environmental protection and reviving
the district’s tourist economy.
From
an unchallenged premise that more people participate in culture, than vote, the
Summit asserted the potential of culture and the arts in providing for basic
human needs of food, shelter and clothing, while retaining its traditional role
in nourishing minds. In its easy capacity to support co-existence and
accommodate divergent views, polar opposites, diversity and difference through
its metaphors and similes, borrowings and samplings, and general artistry, arts
and culture were seen to hold key solutions to minimizing the negative impact
of the conflicts between economic development and sustainability, technological
advancement and traditional practices, nature and nurture that result in social
and economic inequalities, disempowerment, and ethnic strife.
The exchange of project and ideas for processes of execution, as
well as methods of quantifying input and outputs from arts and culture-based
projects were stimulating and inspiring. NewcastleGateshead proved the ideal
incubator for this global mishmash of thinkers and doers. De-hyphenated and brought together to create
one of the world’s most successful stories of the potential of arts and culture
for not only economic regeneration but social cohesion of “rival districts”,
these districts are now joined by the hip, as it were, in the Sage Centre where
the Summit was located. In all of this, participants found time to create a
World Choir and a Summit Song, A Poem - an extract from which is cited above -
a drama; share nail-biting moments of the FIFA World Cup, and take a sneak peak
into Hollywood’s Hogsworth, through the hospitality of the Duchess of
Northumberland at Alnwick Castle where parts of the JK Rowling’s Harry Potter
movies were filmed.
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
