#BTColumn – Not chilling with Laurie

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the author(s) do not represent the official position of Barbados TODAY.

By Ralph Jemmott

Dr. Peter Laurie’s submission in the Sunday Sun of October 23 came as a bit of a surprise, not least of all its seeming complacency on what is regarded as a matter of some weightiness. The submission seems to make rather light of the outrageous nature of an offence committed on a number of Barbadian eleven-year-old school children. Afterall, he calls on critics like myself to ‘Chill’. I include myself because a few words from his piece are quoted from my own article published in the Sun the previous Sunday October 16.

Let me make it clear that I have not as yet publicly called for either the Minister of Education or the CEO to resign or be fired because as I suggested, I am wary of being seen as part of anybody’s political ‘head-hunting’. I do think, however, that the Chief Education Officer appears rather too young and inexperienced for a job that as a retired principal pointed out,  requires more administrative experience than she has.  

Mr. Laurie is not totally unaware of the travesty of the IDB survey ostensibly perpetrated not once, but twice on young unsuspecting Barbadian children. He admits to the “legal and ethical issues” raised by the IDB sponsored survey. These issues by his own admission relate to “privacy, consent, appropriateness and data protection”. Imagine a two-hour test containing 300 items of questionable propriety, in which pupils just out of primary school were asked to affix their names totally without parental consent.  All this done apparently in the presence of a supervisory team totally unknown to pupils and parents. But Dr. Laurie’s recommendation is to “Chill”.  

Where Laurie crosses the line is when he attempts to “explain the context of the survey to the public”. The aim as he understood it, was in his words, “to expand technological skills… based on science, technology engineering arts and mathematics (STEAM)”. Dear Peter, if that was the aim as you understood it, why were eleven-year-olds asked about gender identity and suicide? How on God’s good earth would such questions induce them to become in your words “makers rather than simply consumers of digital technology”. Pray tell. 

The purpose of the pre-test, presumes Dr. Laurie, is “to evaluate the project’s impact on reducing negative behaviours among the children involved”. The word “presumably” is Laurie’s, not mine. Presumably, he himself is not quite sure exactly what the purpose of the pre-test was. But the other question is precisely what “negative behaviours” were the testers looking for. Like a good member of the post-colonial elite, Laurie falls back on the credentials of the organisations supporting the survey. The survey was in his statement: “a joint partnership between the Ministry of Education and the IDB. It is funded by the Porticus Foundation and the Japan Development Fund and is implemented in collaboration with the Trust for the Americas, Code. Org the Inter-American Development Bank and the Ministries of Education of Belize and Barbados”. Those are a lot of credentials and a lot of funding. But does it confer the right to ask black Bajan ‘pickney’ a host of inappropriate questions? I thought Massa day was done, but as the song says,  anything can happen when you “owe your soul to the Company store”.  

The latter part of Laurie’s article is arguably the most unpalatable aspect of his submission. He declares himself “on the progressive, modernising side of our culture”. Progress and modernity are words loaded with relativist ambiguity. In relation to homosexuality I have made it publicly clear that one should “live and let live” because in my uninformed opinion some of it is physiological and genetic. Who did sin, this man or his parents that he was inclined ‘Gay?’ Barbados as a country has shown a tremendous tolerance for homosexuality, the kind of open display seen in Barbados was never tolerated in Jamaica. 

But Laurie sees popular criticism as “reactionary conservatism run amok” and bordering on “paranoia”. He ends with an analogy unworthy of a qualified academic. He likens Barbados’ reaction to “the authoritarian populist right, waging a war against liberal modernity”. What a stretch! He actually makes an insidious comparison with, of all persons, Vladimir Putin and his attacks on “degenerate” Western democracy. We are like Putin? Has Dr. Laurie observed what some aspects of “liberal modernity” are doing to the world? He concluded with the comically implausible and simple-minded statement that, “of course the mere mention of gender fluidity causes insecure males everywhere to foam at the mouth”. Chill Pete, please CHILL!  

Ralph Jemmott is a respected retired educator and commentator on social issues.