Latest update May 8th, 2024 12:59 AM
Aug 16, 2014 Letters
DEAR EDITOR,
The recent grim news of unacceptably high failure rate at the GCSE and CXC examinations come as no surprise, this kind of unwelcoming news haunts parents and students, particularly from the poorer class, each year. Sadly, for many students, their dreams to a path for a better life are shattered by this news. Lawmakers seemed unfazed; they immediately dived into a celebratory mood, spinning the propaganda machine. They selfishly heaped praise on government, taking credit and posing for pictures with those that have passed these examinations, not caring about the lives that have been destroyed by their actions.
Embedded in this disturbing news are two enormously important messages. Firstly, it alerts us that our educational system is a failure and needs fixing, yet we refuse to remedy the situation or perhaps we are incapable of doing so, only piling the stakes higher for a country experiencing a brain drain. Secondly, it raises the question why students at Queens College and other elite schools outperform students from poorer schools?
The educational system like other entities in the country is destined to fail because of a lack of expertise or failure to engage such. We bluntly refuse to engage the right skills. We knowingly mill students through this failed system, year after year, lifting their hopes and then ultimately shattering them. Failure assaults the mind of these youngsters, it inflicts emotional pain, it plays with their self-esteem, self-worth, self-confidence, as well as driving them deeper into poverty, suicide, substance abuse, and crime. Undoubtedly, we destroy lives. Our actions make us nothing but monsters.
The evidence is clear that the majority of the students from Queens College outperform students from poorer schools. Why is this happening? To answer this, we need to appreciate the fact that it is widely accepted and is the current view within the scientific community that academic performance is shaped by and is a product of the relative contributions of genes (nature) and environment (nurture). The environment constitutes a broad spectrum of factors ranging from quality of teachers or lack of teachers, parental educational levels and income brackets, nutrition, neighborhoods, crime , dysfunction and family support, to list a few.
Most students of Queens College enjoy the privilege of a better environment than a lot of their secondary counterparts. They mostly hail from better neighbourhoods with better educated parents within higher income brackets than students of those less privileged schools. Law makers further enriched their environments, stacking the deck against their counterparts, by selecting the better quality teachers for Queens College students.
It has been communicated that some of these other secondary students do not even have teachers for many subjects, for long lengths of time. Naturally talented students from Queens College will academically shine because they enjoy an environment conducive to the unfolding of their academic abilities, whereas their less fortunate secondary counterparts are in an environment suppressing rather than enhancing the unfolding of their academic abilities.
Similar arguments have been made in similar situations for the role of nurture on the unfolding of academic abilities or otherwise. A popularly discussed example demonstrates that Albert Einstein was able to shine academically because his environment was nurturing. Likewise, Wolfang Amadeus Mozart’s gifted musical ability would have never shone were he raised in an environment without a piano. Similarly, Michael Jordan’s sporting abilities would have never shone had he not been in a nurturing environment. The seventeenth century British Philosopher, John Locke and the twentieth century American Behaviorist Psychologist, Burrhus Frederic Skinner and many others have also subscribed to this school of thought.
All in all, this letter spotlights several issues within the educational system, entailing that students fail because the educational system itself is failed due to a lack of expertise. The wide disparity between academic performances in the country can be bridged by providing nurturing environments for all, not just a privileged few. This means that at the very least giving the same quality teachers to all.
I know enough to make this statement that all students can learn if coached properly. Some are slower learners than others but they will learn, so do not deny them or give up on them.
Annie Baliram
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