Time to say goodbye

Children learning to walk normally make many attempts until they are successful. When they fall the first, or the tenth time, they never think that they cannot do it. They naturally try again – as they were designed to.

Parents are delighted when their infants try, fall, and try again. A parent never imagines telling their child that since they fell, they are failures. They never encourage their children to stop trying and learn to live on their bellies.

Some children learn to walk earlier than others. We do not call them gifted, or more intelligent. They simply learnt to walk earlier. There is no reward for them and no punishment for those who learnt later. Why? Because normally, every child eventually learns to walk.

That is the essence of the ISO 9001 quality management system. People are managed to continuously improve, without any fear of failure while they learn.

Once our children learn to walk, talk and use the toilet, we send them to school – where they learn differently. Our school system encourages the 20 per cent of students who grasp the material earlier and discourages the remainder.

We convince most students that complex information can only be understood by ‘bright’ students. We cripple their minds by making them believe that there are limits to what they can learn and achieve.

The truth is that every child can learn if they believe that they can and are taught properly. Those who learn earlier are no more intelligent than those who learn later; they simply learn differently.

The: curriculum, class notes, rate of teaching, and examinations are all designed for those who learn the material earlier. The final insult given to those who do not learn it earlier, is that they should simply accept their limitations, and learn to work with their hands. Nothing is wrong with working with your hands, but we should not limit their options.

Every year, we damage most of our students, and then blame their resulting behaviour on: them, their parents, the school environment, gangs, or some other scapegoat. We convince them to believe that there are limits to what they can understand and then wonder why they do not exceed the ceiling to which we have cursed them.

Our educational system damns most people to work in entry-level type positions for decades. Those who do not want to spend their lives in such positions see no other option than criminal behaviour.

This year, Walbrent College celebrates ten years of teaching. We have trained over 1,000 people across the Caribbean, including those in prison. We have proved that anyone can learn complex information if properly managed.  Standards are set high and students generally achieve them – our minimum pass mark is 100 per cent.

I offered to implement the most beneficial parts of the ISO 9001 quality management system in all statutory corporations in Barbados, at no cost to them. This would have benefitted both staff and customers of these institutions.  The implementation time to see results was three weeks.

They considered my offer too expensive. Most chose to maintain their existing frustrating management methods. However, some invited tenders to improve the management of their organisations, but effectively excluded any Barbadian from tendering. How did we get so stupid?

There seems to be two purposes of our current educational system. The first is to train 20 per cent of our students to oversee the remainder in the national economy. This ensures that we remain in a similar economic position as our enslaved fore-parents – living hand-to-mouth after years of working.

The second purpose is to convince us that descendants of enslaved persons cannot do any better. We must accept that there is a limit to the competence and integrity of our leaders, and should stop expecting the ‘impossible’.

The only options for us are: BERT, incompetence, mismanagement, corruption, and the BLP/DLP. Barbados’ public services cannot be improved.  Barbados’ lawyers are as honest and efficient as they can ever be. The NIS building and the Fort George exquisite structure must be demolished. This is the best that can be done, so shut up, accept it, and stop offering alternative solutions – or else.

Jesus said to persist with giving people the best advice. However, if they will not listen, then try another method. So, this will be my last article for a while.  For those who read each week and were nourished, thank you. For those who shared our weekly articles, you do not know how refreshing that simple act was – like a cup of cold water. May God richly reward you accordingly.

For those editors who kept our weekly articles away from their readers, may you grow to understand that all ideas should contend. A special thank-you to: The Bajan Reporter, Barbados Underground, Naked Departure, and other social media news sites that behaved far more equitably than the traditional media in Barbados, in allowing our voice to be heard.

Of course, I must mention Barbados TODAY, which could easily have followed the directive to keep Solutions Barbados out of the press. Instead, they responsibly decided that the public had a right to know both sides of an issue – not only the politically sanctioned one. Be blessed.

Grenville Phillips II is a Chartered Structural Engineer and President of Solutions Barbados.  He can be reached at NextParty246@gmail.com.