#BTColumn – The Government Industrial School issue

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by this author are their own and do not represent the official position of the Barbados TODAY Inc.

The unfolding issues at the Barbados Government-run Industrial School has shown up some deep seated deficiencies in the way things are done in the country.

They say that everything is culture and culture is everything. Culture here refers to the prevailing values, attitudes and sensibilities that people carry around in their daily lives.

It has nothing to do with Crop Over, calypso tents and wuk-up. In fact it is my sincere belief that the wuk-up culture and the grosser forms of the entertainment culture has served to erode the finer sensibilities that once characterised Barbados and Barbadians.

We devise policy, set up institutions like the GIS, appoint Boards or Management committees or whatever and hire people to do the work. However, we never look back critically to see how things are going on the ground over time.

Then someone legitimately blows a penny-whistle indicating that all is not well within the well-sealed walls of the institution. But this is not before attempts are made to shut-up the whistle blower who chose uncharacteristically to rock the boat, refuses to let sleeping dogs rest or to sweep the dust under the proverbial carpet. That may be the crux of our problems.

We say we want critical thinkers and one of the critique of our educational system is that our children are not being taught to ‘think critically.’ The inconvenient truth is that Barbadians generally speaking do not tolerate critical thinkers, particularly those who speak truth to people in ‘authority.’ There are two aspects to the problem.

One is the small size and population of an island where everybody is family to or close friend with everybody else.

The second aspect is that no one who thinks critically can expect to get ahead which in a small country is what most persons want. The tendency is to play the game, keep one’s mouth shut and conform.

In the last few decades Barbados has seen the rise of a mediocracy that is in the local parlance very ‘touchous’ when it comes to criticism. Our society has failed to produce critical thinkers because the Culture does not tolerate truly critical thought from persons regarded as ‘trouble trees’.

The notion of an obviously troubled 14-year-old girl lying naked on a concrete floor should not obtain under any circumstance. It speaks to an absence of both thought and empathy.

We extend so much praise when some children do well in the 11 Plus or win Scholarships and Exhibitions, and deservedly so, after all, achievement is achievement.

Why are we paying so comparatively little attention to those at risk of falling through the cracks, after all, they are also the nation’s children.  Are we all not supposed to be in this together? Whatever that means.

Sometimes the treatment of the unfortunate reflects a Victorian era mind-set which blames people for their own misfortunes the result of which some self-righteous individuals call Sin, to which they through God’s supposed Grace have never succumbed. These comprise ‘The Religious Right.’  Then there is the ‘Ultra Liberal Left,’ those who absolve the unfortunate from any responsibility for their own failures.

It is always someone else’s fault. Blame it on colonial law on wandering, inequality or just simply on some eponymous entity called ‘The System.’

It is about time we black people in Barbados face certain uncomfortable truths about ourselves. Many of the problems facing black, at-risk boys and girls are a consequence of poor parenting and in particular poor or absent fathering.

One inconvenient truth is that too many children of my tribe are brought into a world by fathers and mothers who lack the material and cultural wherewithal to enhance their life chances. Part of the problem is economic, put simply, financial poverty, and more significantly generational cultural impoverishment.      

Since his return to Brass Tacks David Ellis had been a bit more pointed in his critique. On Friday, March 19, he observed that with all the talk about caring about black people, beyond the talk, ‘you have to fight for people like that (the GIS girls) to prove who you are.’

When I did Educator’s Forum with the late Matthew Farley, we raised the issue of the need to establish a more concrete infrastructure for reform education, as Barbadian society was clearly producing more and more children likely to be at serious risk.  The evidence was obvious.

Contrary to what one caller said on Monday 22, some children are born with mental illness as a result of congenital issues, birth defects due to drug abuse and foetal alcohol syndrome. It is difficult to deal with ordinary children in ordinary schools far less in an institution with a number of deeply troubled youth. But there but for the Grace of God goes you or me.

Since the GIS issue was raised everybody has some simple solution to what are sometimes extremely complex problems. I know of two bright girls who at age 14-plus developed forms of bi-polar psychosis. It is a condition not uncommon among girls of that age. Children are not born perfect and they come into an increasingly imperfect world.

Let us all try to be a bit more empathetic. On Brass Tacks a caller told of a lady who had given some cosmetic items to girls at the GIS. There was a brief period when I attended St. Dominic’s Catholic Church and the lady’s name was prominent in the charitable work done by the Catholic Community.

She was told that the stuff was withheld from the GIS inmates, on which telling she asked to have the material given back to the donors.

If the caller was truthful, the cosmetics intended for the girls was confiscated and used by the staff for their own and their families’ benefit. Apparently the assumption was that GIS girls did not need cosmetics.   

Ralph Jemmott is a respected retired educator.