NOTA BENE

 

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As of 1st March 2007, hard copies of St. Martin Studies (2006.1-2) can be purchased
from the University of St. Martin (www.usmonline.net).
Questions about the publication can be sent to consultants2006@gmail.com.

 

 

 

LIST OF ARTICLES

 

Introduction.. 8 (By the Editors)

“Educate Me”. 11 (Lenworth Wilson Jr.)

Welcome Speech.. 14 (By Mrs. Sarah Wescott-Williams, Dutch St. Martin's Commissioner of Education)

Key to a Brighter Future:  A Vision for Higher Education in the New St. Martin.. 16 (By Josianne Fleming-Artsen)

Three decades of innovations in Caribbean education systems:  Why some succeed and others don’t.. 21 (By Zellynne Jennings-Craig)

Dealing with the Historical Paradoxes of a Globalized Educationalisation – a way to write the “New” Cultural History of Education?. 50 (By Marc Depaepe)

Keep the heaps together!   Diversity, citizenship and education: St. Martin as a Caribbean immigration metropolis, lessons from Amsterdam and vice versa.. 68 (By Iwan Sewandono)

Pedagogy, identity, and politics  Educating in an identity (ethnic) crisis context: A study of the French West Indies case. 78 (By Max Bélaise)

The American University of the Caribbean:  Montserrat’s Loss, St. Marteen’s Gain   87 (By Gracelyn Cassell)

The General Agreement on Trade in Services  and Education in the Caribbean:  Three Case Studies.. 98 (By Marguerite E. Cummins-Williams)

The Evolution of Science Curricula in Developing Countries  and the Issue of Relevance   124 (By June George)

Letting the voiceless tell their stories Using oral sources for Caribbean history writing:  yet more biased accounts?. 133 (By Milton A. George)

What the Tamarind tree whispers:  Notes on a pedagogy of tragedy. 140 (By Francio Guadeloupe)

Changing Times — Creating  Inclusive Schools.. 145 (By Yegin Habtes)

Does Block Scheduling Decrease Instructional Time?  A Look at St. Croix’s Five Public Secondary Schools  using Four Block Schedule Types.. 162 (By Jeannette J. Lovern)

The concept of good governance  as a practical guide in education for public administration   177 (By Rob Paulussen)

Social and Emotional Learning: Is it the missing piece in our schools?. 184 (By Marilyn Robb)

Understanding Linguistic Diversity in Caribbean Classrooms: Ethnographic Methods for Teachers.. 191 (By Peter Snow)

Decolonizing the Educational System on St. Martin,  or How to Teach Globalization  under the Flamboyant Tree. 196 (By Maria Cijntje-Van Enckevort)

Progressive Education: an alternative or an illusion? About the implementation of educational innovations in Belgium and elsewhere. 205 (By Marc Depaepe)

Planning and Leading Change:  Creating a New Change Model for the implementation of a Teacher Education Program on St. Maarten.. 215 (By Josianne Fleming-Artsen)

Getting the Job done! Let the Sisters speak Historical development of Catholic Education on Sint Maarten (1890-1990): an oral history account.. 220 (By Milton A. George)

Doing Theology in a Caribbean Context:  The Caribbean and the challenges of becoming oneself. 236 (By Milton A. George)

Making sense of the Afro‑Caribbean concubinage  from a canon law perspective   245 (By Milton A. George)

What their modernity can teach us:  exploring the linkages between Black Atlantic identity formations in the Caribbean and consumer capitalism.. 257 (By Francio Guadeloupe)

How to Define St. Maarten Culture?. 264 (By Charlotte Hagenaars)

Educating our teachers in the Caribbean for the 21st century:  Challenges and prospects   269 (By Zellynne Jennings-Craig)

A Kingdom identity: mirage, illusion, or vision?  Some allochthonous thoughts on the European and Caribbean Dutch, unequal equals with an elusive common identity. 293 (By Silvio Sergio Scatolini Apóstolo)

Some thoughts on Education as Bildung.. 306 (By Silvio Sergio Scatolini Apóstolo)

Some thoughts on the Meaning of Education in the Learning Society. 311 (By Silvio Sergio Scatolini Apóstolo)

Some thoughts on Jean-Paul Sartre and Education.. 316 (By Silvio Sergio Scatolini Apóstolo)

Otto Huiswoud:  Political Praxis and Anti-Imperialism*. 322 (By Maria Van Enckevort)

Information about the authors.. 333

 

 

 

 

 

Copyright © 2006

University of St. Martin

 

 

 

St. Martin Studies 2006

1. Conference Proceedings:

Re-Thinking Education in the Caribbean: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow. A local imperative in a global context

 

2. Papers on Education and/or the Caribbean

 

 

 

Editors:

Maria Cijntje—van Enckevort

Milton A. George

Silvio Sergio Scatolini Apóstolo

 

 

 

Published by

 

University of St. Martin

1 University Boulevard

P.O.Box 836

Philipsburg

St. Martin

Netherlands Antilles

 

Website: www.usmonline.net

 

 

 

A catalogue record of this book is available from the University of St. Martin.

 

For general information on our products and services or to obtain technical and expert support, please visit our homepage: www.usmonline.net.

 

To contact the editors, e-mail them to:

educonsult@caribserve.net (Maria Cijntje—van Enckevort)

consultants2006@gmail.com (Milton A. George & Silvio Sergio Scatolini Apóstolo)

 

 


 

St. Martin Studies 

 

 

 

2006

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1

 

 

 

 

USM Conference Proceedings

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Re-Thinking Education in the Caribbean:
Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow. 
A local imperative in a global context

 

 

 


                                                                         

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Maria Cijntje-Van Enckevort
Milton A. George
Silvio Sergio Scatolini Apóstolo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 


 

 

 


Introduction

The colonial powers engineered a Caribbean fragmented in terms of languages, as well as legal, political, and educational systems. Even though the emancipatory movement of the last century began a process of regional exchange of ideas and ideals, active interaction and profound regional integration still remain a vocation to which the Caribbean is called. The USM Educational Conference of 2006 was conceived of as a propitious opportunity to promote the regional exchange of ideas and experiences, as well as to broaden visions and facilitate the creation of ever new networks across the Caribbean and beyond.

From the start, each of the groups that make up our societies has been confronted with the challenge to reinvent itself within the concrete geographical and historical coordinates within which it found itself—sometimes by choice, but often by force. Such a process of self-reinvention was innovatively undertaken: our forerunners managed to weave influences coming from different corners of the world into a tapestry of colours, sounds, smells, dances, tastes, languages, stories, songs, and more.

Today, our different Caribbean societies are being confronted with the challenges of an increasingly globalized world. Not only do many of our compatriots travel to foreign shores to study, work for a while, or settle down there for good, there are also thousands of newcomers who arrive on our territories with their own needs and dreams, hoping to “make it” among us. St. Martin has become a true immigration metropolis. Of all the Dutch island territories, Dutch St. Martin is the one where the foreign-born population is almost twice the size of the locally born. In such a context, even words such as “diaspora” need redefining. As always, it depends on the perspective of the one telling his or her story. Oddly enough, the stories of disillusionment and discrimination told by many of our compatriots who emigrated to apparently greener pastures resemble the stories related by the immigrants who are seeking to find a home among us. We become the other, for better and for worse.

The mobility characteristic of our transnational world entails that educators are often no longer educating their pupils and students just for their country of residence, but for the world.

Educating the future generations has always been a tall order. How to prepare our young for a world which, in a certain sense, does not yet exist; moreover, for a world that in many ways is not and will not be ours? Educating is about keeping the present in sight, which is the legacy of our past, while trying to predict and steer the course that our societies and the world will be taking.

No matter how daunting it may appear to us, the challenge to educate our young so that they can become fully-fledged members of our society is an imperative that our societies cannot neglect. We must all embrace the call to action and realize that our educational choices and deeds must be grounded on a thought-out and concerted reflection that surpasses the borders of our classrooms, schools, and even territories.

With this year’s Educational Conference, the University of St. Martin wished to contribute to the discourse on the nature, mission, shape, goals, and tools of the educational endeavour in our Caribbean region and beyond. Education is an open-ended reality, so too is the question how to do it in ways that are fair, efficient, qualitatively of high standards, and visionary.

 

The editors

consultants2006@gmail.com

 



“Educate Me”

Educate me, emancipate me, now hate me cause I’m not what you thought you created me to be...

Education has been the social tool, seeking to give meaning to our existence. “Boy go get your education so u can be somebody”.

Such a subtle tool used by the slave-masters and colonizers as they figured that this way… they wouldn’t get no resistance.

So they rape our thoughts and inject their indoctrination of superior relations, triggering an outbreak of segregation throughout my block, my town and even this wanna-be global nation.

 

And yet… We embrace education

 

Some of us use our education just to feed and caress our grand egos

Then sit around an office desk 18 hours a-day fantasizing about the Ritz Carlton and the Grand Lidos

Never getting a chance to know nor even peradventure to fulfill our telos

Trying to find the meaning of life while straying further and further away from our true purpose

 

And yet… We embrace education

 

“Education is the key to a thriving economy”, that’s what the politicians say

And of course they’re right… cause the more education you get is the more taxes you pay.

Calculus, Ecology, Statistics, Psychology, Accounting, Philosophy, History, Biology, Chemistry, Computer Technology

All this knowledge gained just to make sure that the society would acknowledge me

Acknowledging a piece of paper, rather than what truly makes us who we be.

 

And yet… We embrace education.

 

You show me a man liberated by education and I’ll show you a man enslaved by indoctrination.

Prisoners of philosophical ideals conjured up by matters of religious damnation.

Brainwashing us to think that we are being elevated by this brainwashing,

Then they leave us stuck in unemployment lines and make us redundant by employing machines.

Say they’re cutting cost of labor while the cost of education is constantly on the increase

 

And yet… We embrace education.

 

Certificates, Associates, Bachelors, Masters and Doctorates degree

Propelled by self-imposed ambitions of what they want us to be

So we all wanna go to college and get into the Ivy League university

Not to be enlightened but to see what they want us to see.

Now I’m a rebel without a rebellion ‘cause I’m still paying the fee.

But this poem proves that in my mind I am free… so now I can say

You educate me, emancipate me, now hate me cause I’m not what you thought you created me to be...

 

Lenworth “Da Def Poet” WILSON Jr.

University of St. Martin, N.A. (Education student)

lj_liljr@yahoo.com


 

 


Welcome Speech

Dutch St. Martin’s Commissioner of Education

 

 

Dignitaries,

USM President, Mrs. Josianne Fleming-Artsen

Organizers,

Speakers,

Presenters,

Ladies and Gentleman,

 

Good evening!

On behalf of the government of St. Maarten I welcome those of you here, visiting our shores, especially if it is your first visit.

To all present and those yet to join you for this conference, I convey my wish for three most exciting days of deliberations, as you “re-think Caribbean Education.”

Your aim to re-think education cannot be momentary.

It cannot be a rethinking only of where we are today. We are where we are today, also educationally speaking, because of decisions we made, or did not make in the past.

Not only decisions about education and systems of education, but about our development in general. Politically, economically, socially as well.

So in my opinion, you rightfully place your aim to “re-think education” in a historic (yesterday), a present (today) and a future (tomorrow) context.

St. Maarten is privileged to host a gathering of so many distinguished scholars of Caribbean experiences in education and the educational processes of our countries. While we have not always walked the same road or done so at the same pace, many common historical issues shape our educational systems.

Our starting position, for some decades and for others centuries ago, is similar, coming out of a colonial system.

How we dealt with that legacy, what we maintained from that legacy is evident in varying degrees today in our individual educational systems.

So you have a plethora of issues that you dissect and reform, and which will still be familiar to all of us.

My own assessment is that the USM has selected a distinguished assemblage of scholars and educators from the region and beyond to do the critical examination of educational issues and matters in the Caribbean in the broadest sense of the word.

And as I stated earlier, St. Maarten is proud to host such a distinguished panel, and I add, somewhat vainly, “rightly so.”

In the words of Dr. Scatolini a few days ago: “This is a chance for the Dutch Caribbean to get on the map.” Permit me to paraphrase: This is our chance to position ourselves on the map. Not only geographically, but also educationally.

To position ourselves, we need to create the environment like USM has done now and on several occasions in the past. Bringing this calibre of scholars together.

The physical size of the University of St. Martin, while ever expanding, should never be a deterrent not to think big. In fact in today’s modern world, especially when it comes to education, the question of whether “size matters” or not, is a mute one.

As small nations, constantly seeking to stay on the cutting edge of global educational innovations, with the constraints we face, we often run the risk of overlooking our own inherent strengths.

What these are and whether they are strengths rather than occasional bursts of energy will be become evident during many of your discourses.

And finally, several of you will from varying angles be looking at the Caribbean individual, at us.

And hopefully this inspection or introspection will be the impetus to move beyond the often heard lamentations of why we are not all that we can be, but rather focus on whom we have come, despite it all.

Would that, Dr. Bélaise, from your reference, by any chance be the “new man or woman”?

Ladies and Gentlemen, again welcome, much success and even more inspiration.

 

 


 

Key to a Brighter Future:
A Vision for Higher Education in the New St. Martin

University of St. Martin, the Netherlands Antilles

usmdirector@sintmaarten.net

 

Currently, the Netherlands Antilles are undergoing a constitutional change, which would separate all five islands, Curacao, Bonaire, St. Maarten, Saba, and St. Eustatius and allow each one to have its own relation with the Netherlands.

St. Maarten is looking forward to achieving this new status and thus is preparing for this new identity in which the University of St. Martin has its role to play.

The Conference on Rethinking Education in the Caribbean has inspired me to make a contribution to the preface of the Country St. Martin status. The theme I will address focuses on The Key to a Brighter Future: A Vision for Higher Education in the New St Martin. Some of the challenges facing tertiary and higher education on St. Martin are pertinent to the constitutional change debate and some guidelines for a vision for tertiary and higher education for the Country St. Martin are recommended.

An excelling tertiary and higher education sector will be key to a progressive, unified, and novel society in the country St. Martin. Education and training after the high school levels will be more important in realizing career directions and lifelong opportunities to achieve a balanced, unified and culturally and socially vibrant society, in which each and everyone can participate. With more emphasis on self reliance, the demand for more knowledgeable and research oriented human resources will also increase. For every St. Martin citizen, the ability of being able to unlearn and relearn, research and document, change direction or career paths will be paramount to survival and success. An onus will be put on tertiary and higher education to fulfil these demands.  

In St. Martin, serious work needs to be done in the tertiary and higher education sectors and there are considerable challenges. Although the island boasts a post secondary vocational institute, The St. Maarten Institute for Technology and Hospitality (SMITH), a hybrid commuter college, The University of St. Martin (USM), and a post graduate medical institution, The American University of the Caribbean (AUC), there is a fundamental need for a sound tertiary and higher education policy.  Recognition should be given to the fact that the majority of students at the AUC are not St. Martin natives or Antilleans, while at USM the ratio is 60% Antilleans to 40 % non Antilleans (University of St. Martin Annual Report, 2005). The Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development states, in its report entitled Educational Policy Reform in the Netherlands Antilles, that “Tertiary education is a neglected area of educational provision of the Netherlands Antilles” (2001:26). On St. Maarten this is no exception and to add to this as Rowley points out, “Higher education institutions are recognized as being in the knowledge business and increasingly exposed to pressures in the market” (2000:1).

Currently, the significant increase in the number of St. Martin students seeking tertiary and higher education has put pressure on education officials and subsequently, because of the lack of proper planning, government is forced to take ad hoc decisions. These include decisions such as students being allotted scholarships to study anywhere and for whatever they want, types of assistance offered to tertiary institutions, and the omission of tertiary institutions and higher education institutions from round-table or constitutional talks or research projects. For tertiary or higher education institutions to receive the allotted federal government grants or subsidies requires surgical precision. Overall, based on how tertiary institutions are treated, government’s perception of these institutions may be as sine qua non. This is a blatant disrespect for local tertiary and higher education institutions and impacts the prosperity of the island nation as a whole.

According to Badejo (1989) in his book, Claude a Portrait of Power, “Prosperity…not always means the mere availability of money. But even by that yardstick, it is doubtful if St. Maarten can really be classified as a prosperous island” (p.170). Claude as cited in Badejo (1989) posited, “Only a limited number of people have gained financially and it is doubtful if those benefits can compensate the loss of Philipsburg to foreigners. Prosperity should therefore be redefined” (p.170). This statement still seems true today.  In this light the redefinition of prosperity must include tertiary and higher education for all St. Martiners. Country St. Martin will require more academic, intellectual and research prosperity in order to recapture our losses which include the capital.

Functionalism perceives the society as a living organism with many interrelated parts (Pai & Adler, 2001). These living interrelated organisms show some commonalities and according to Durkheim (1985), “Members of the society need to have a set of common beliefs, knowledge, and values for social unity and cohesion”… “for every society requires that its members have different roles” (21). This organic unity of society leads functionalists to speculate about needs, which must be met for a social system to exist, as well as the ways in which social institutions satisfy those needs. Social systems work together to maintain equilibrium. It is achieved through the socialization of members of the society into the basic values and norms of the society so that consensus is reached. Tertiary and higher education are considered microcosms of the larger society. The school perpetuates the established social, cultural, economic and political structures and norms (Pai & Adler, 2001). Universities have traditionally been seen as cloistered communities for reflection, and have now grown into open communities, thus giving more access. Policies ensuring access to tertiary and higher education to the Country St Martin’s tertiary institutions, colleges and universities must not be overlooked. Simpson and Wendling (2005), noted that the “sole purpose of colleges and universities is the advancement of knowledge and research” (p.385). In Country St. Martin, this should be no exception and tertiary and higher education should facilitate research and documentation, while enabling the expression of sound arguments based on research without fear.

Based on the social make-up of the island, tertiary and higher education in Country St. Martin will no doubt have an impact on the surrounding islands and region.

According to the United Nations in its State Party Report (1999) at the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination in the Netherlands agued that St. Maarten has a regular immigration from the “Dominican Republic, Jamaica, and Haiti” (Article 5(e)(iv), 206). This means a regular inflow of students that becomes almost uncontrollable. This includes children from both the (documented and undocumented) foreign residents. These immigrants also proceed from the French (northern) side, because of our open border policy. Although this information is primarily focusing on the primary and secondary school systems, noteworthy is that tertiary and higher education sector is also impacted. Many migrants from countries such as the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Guyana and Dominica irrespective of their documented or undocumented status tend to seek tertiary or higher education. Thus, it is safe to state that on St. Martin the phenomenon of internationalization of education has been taking place in an unstructured and unplanned manner. However, in the Country St. Martin internationalization should become part of the economic existence and tertiary and higher education policy.

Considering the trans-nationalization of education, “the internationalization of tertiary and higher education, the international exchange of students, scholars, bilateral and multilateral agreements around knowledge, research, transfer of expertise and skills and flows of learners and scholars are all vitally important and must be pursued energetically and extended” (Asmal, 2006:4). With an increased demand for competent and qualified human resources in country St. Martin this internationalization of tertiary and higher education will become more pronounced and the proper policies and laws will have to be drafted and adhered to.

There is a constant discrepancy between educational supply and the demand of the possible educational resources. This issue is evidenced in the Bureau of Educational Research, Policy, Planning and Innovation report (2006, February), where data are provided on how many educators are delivered per annum. The USM has delivered from “2002-2005, 16 teachers” (p.7), and further information from the “study-financing section at the Insular Department of Education shows that the majority of teachers who study teaching in the Netherlands do not return to the island for employment” (p.8). In addition, on the tertiary and higher education level this is also the case in other sectors since most of the demands cannot be fulfilled in terms of the types of programs being requested by the students on the island. Furthermore, there are no economies of scale to support the offering of a wide variety of courses and programs. Thus, innovation is a necessity in this sector and in Country St. Martin the need for innovation and use of technology especially distance learning and e-learning will be greater. The University of St. Martin has had this experience with Mount Saint Vincent University and the University of the Virgin Islands and continues to innovate... 

Since the financing of tertiary and higher education continues to be an issue, the need for greater returns on investment in this sector will be paramount.  In the future, the role that governments will have to play in regards to tertiary and higher education will be more pronounced as the appropriation of tax payers’ resources for this sector will increase. In Country St. Martin the methodologies and laws governing the allotments of scholarships and grants to pursue tertiary and higher education will have to be revamped and redesigned. Although the review of the policies is currently taking place by government, the revamping and redesigning of these policies are a must. Students should be given access to scholarships through loans and contractual agreements.  Laws defining tertiary and higher education will have to be drafted specifically for Country St. Martin recognizing a wide variety of disciplines and degrees. However, it is at the policy level where differences will ultimately be made. The policy governing grants and scholarships for tertiary and higher education will have to be in concert with the changing and diverse needs of the country and its students; we must take advantage of new technologies, provide higher returns on investment of tax-payers’ funds and ensure the returns are internationally competitive in quality.  Thus, once these policies are implemented correctly, Country St. Martin will be in possession of internationally recognized (accredited) and qualified human resources and human capital.

Vision is the fundamental force that drives everything else in our lives and for Country St. Martin this is relevant. It encompasses us “with a sense of unique contribution that is ours to make. It empowers us to put first things first, compasses ahead of clocks, people ahead of scheduled things”(Covey, Merrill, and Merrill, 1994, p.116). A vision can also be described as knowing the results and outcomes and being aware of the implementation process through conceptual and creative thinking (Bennis and Nanus, 1985). Envisioning tertiary and higher education in Country St. Martin and developing vision into reality is a challenge and a work in progress.

To summarize, due to the pivotal role that tertiary and higher education will play in the new status for the island nation, a clear vision and understanding of this sector is necessary. This understanding should include a proper definition of tertiary and higher education, the role that tertiary and higher education plays on St. Maarten and in the region especially in relation to migration and trans-nationalization, new trends in this sector, sustainability and emphasis on the research element.  In addition, proper laws and policies governing tertiary and higher education sector are a must since these will provide more opportunities for participation for all our citizens, create improvement incentives for quality, research and information dissemination while encouraging citizens to realize its value.  The tertiary and higher education sectors should not be held solely accountable for bringing about the necessary changes. The community itself in Country St. Martin will be instrumental in actualizing the relevant prosperity.

 

References and/or complementary bibliography

Asmal, K. (2006). Higher education in a changing world: opportunities for transformation and renewal. Conference conducted at the meeting of the Association of Commonwealth Universities, Queen’s Universities, Belfast.

Badejo, F. (1989). Claude, a portrait of power. St. Maarten, Netherlands Antilles: International Publishing House.

Bennis, W. & Nanus, B. (1985). Leaders: The strategies for taking charge. New York: Harper and Row.

Covey, S. R., Merrill, A. R., & Merrill, R. R. (1994). First things first. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Bureau of Educational Research, Policy, Planning and Innovation. (2006,

February). Planning teacher supply against demand. St. Maarten, Netherlands Antilles: Government Printing Office.

Durkheim, E. (1985). Definition of education. In J. H. Ballentine (Ed.), Schools and society: A reader in education and sociology (pp. 19-22). Palo Alto, CA: Mayfield.

Pai, Y. & Adler, S. A. (2001). Cultural foundations of education. (3rd ed.). New Jersey: Upper Saddle River.

Rowley, J. (2000). Is higher education ready for knowledge management? The International Journal of Educational Management, 14(7), 1-9.

Simpson, E., & Wendling, K. (2005, Nov.). Equality and Merit: A Merit-based argument for equity policies in higher education. Educational Theory, 55(4), 385-389.

University of St. Martin. (2005). Annual report, St. Maarten, Netherlands Antilles Ministry of Education. (2005). Tertiary education policy directions for the 21st century (White Paper). New Zealand: Government Printing Office.

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. (2001, September). Education policy reform in the Netherlands Antilles. Curacao, Netherlands Antilles: Government Printing Office.

United Nations High Commission for Human Rights. (1999, July). The elimination of all forms of racial discrimination (CERD/C/362/Add.4). Washington, DC: Author.

 


 

Three decades of innovations in Caribbean education systems:
Why some succeed and others don’t

University of the West Indies, Jamaica

eddevser@cwjamaica.com

 

Introduction

Why do some innovations succeed and others don’t? The term “innovation” itself may give us a clue.   An innovation   is an idea perceived as new; it need not be objectively new, but to those using it for the first time it is new. In other words, what is considered as a new idea in one setting is viewed as old and worn in another. It is a matter of perception. In a sense, innovation, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

This reminds me of the early 1990s when I visited the interior of Guyana, the only English-speaking country on the South American continent. I was doing workshops with teachers and principals with a team from the National Centre for Educational Resource Development (NCERD). The workshops were held in a place called Kato, surrounded by the Pakaraima mountains, and inhabited largely by Amerindians —the indigenous population. Here, transport was mainly by foot.  One day as we were walking up a steep hill, I noted that the stones at my feet were rather unusual. Some were hard, jagged edged and a deep red in colour; others very dark brown, a deep grey, a white-almost transparent. I was so fascinated by them that I picked up some small pieces and put them in my bag. By the end of the journey I had quite a collection.  Not only the Amerindians (who apparently could not stop laughing at me) but also my colleagues thought I was rather crazy and wanted to know what I was going to do with “those pieces of rock.” “They’ll make good paper weights,” I said.

On my return to  the capital city, Georgetown, I  discovered  some time later  from a geologist  that these were not ordinary  stones, but semi-precious ones and was advised to take them to the Ministry of Gold and  Diamond Mining which  had a lapidary where I could  get them cut and polished. I had most of them cut into different shapes and sizes and subsequently made into jewellery of red and brown jasper, rose quartz and granite. What my colleagues had dismissed as useless pieces of rock, I had seen as value. Indeed, I had seen beauty in them. Innovations are like this, too. It is often difficult to trace their origins. We see them as jasper, but don’t know that they began their life as a little piece of jagged red stone which would have gone unnoticed if someone with a perceptive eye who detected some value in them had not come by them. And having seen value in it, the innovation is then taken through a process and, like the stones being cut and polished, it is   invariably adapted and changed sometimes beyond recognition. Just as the success with the cut and polish of the stone, depends on the knowledge and skill of the lapidary, so the success of the innovation will depend on the knowledge and skill of its implementers, as well as on those who manage the implementation process. But each one of us looking at the finished stone will judge the success of the cut and polish differently. Some would prefer a rougher cut; others a smoother finish. We use different standards, depending on the standpoint from which we are looking at it. The success of innovations is judged in a similar way.

Stephen Heyneman  in 1984  in a discussion of what has been learnt about the impact of innovations in Third World education systems, asked ”Where is the Entebbe Mathematics now?” He concluded at the time, that “the result has been new curricula and new techniques for teaching, but classrooms left unchanged” (ibid., p. 296). In 1992, Larry Cuban asked a similar question about the platoon system, “a Progressive innovation begun in Gary Indiana, schools in 1906 that had elementary school pupils change classes for specialized instruction in academic, practical arts, and physical education rather than have them stay the entire day in self-contained classes” (p 169). Cuban then  proceeded  to  show how the  kindergarten , an innovation which began as an attempt to alter the relationship between schools and  communities  was introduced  in the United States in 1906 and  was still surviving   a century later but had been adapted  and altered over time to becoming  schools for preparing five year –olds for first grade.

Standards for judging success

There are many innovations that have been introduced into Caribbean education systems about which we could ask the same question as of the Entebbe Mathematics, or the platoon system– where are they now?  Implied in this question is the sense that if we do not know where they are, then they have not survived and therefore have failed. Survival over time is an indicator of an innovation’s success. But how much time? Cuban (1998) identifies ‘longevity’ as the single most common used indicator of reform success and adds that this is ‘not a mere year or two, or a decade, but a quarter or half century of survival” (p167). But what criterion is used to assess the success of an innovation depends on who is making the judgement. As Cuban (ibid) contends, there are certain innovations that capture the imagination of the people, spread rapidly, and have strong popular appeal (e.g. use of desktop computers). Popularity then becomes another important standard.   Policy makers, the media, administrators and researchers use the effectiveness standard which is essentially concerned with the extent to which intended goals have been achieved. The latter is usually   determined by students’ test scores and performance at external examinations. Policy makers and administrators also use the fidelity standard to assess   the success of an innovation. Success, in their view, is determined by the extent to which the innovation is implemented just as the initiators had intended. In other words, that it has remained faithful to the blueprint.  But those who have to implement innovations –teachers and principals –are invariably told not to use an innovation (e.g. a new curriculum guide) as a blueprint, but to feel free to adapt it to suit their particular situation. Thus the more adaptable the innovation, the more the implementers find it compatible with their needs and the better for them. To implementers of innovations, therefore, adaptability is the most important measure of an innovation’s success.

Aims of the Paper

The main aim of this paper is to examine why certain innovations introduced into Caribbean education systems have been successful, while others have not. In so doing I will firstly give a background to the education systems in the Anglophone Caribbean with a view to showing why these innovations became necessary. The main goals of the innovations will be highlighted and then I will discuss the extent to which the innovations conform to the standards of longevity, popularity, effectiveness, fidelity and adaptability as measures of success.  As the fate of an innovation is in large measure determined by the effectiveness of its implementation, I will also explore the extent to which planners took into consideration the main factors that research has identified as affecting implementation (i.e. the process of putting into practice an idea, programme or set of activities new to the people attempting or expected to change) (Fullan, 1982:54). Finally, I will discuss some   implications of the analysis.

The innovations selected for this paper are (i) a mathematics project for the primary level in Guyana (GMP); (ii) the Project for the Improved Management of Educational Resources (PRIMER) which was tried out in five rural All-Age schools (i.e. schools with intake of pupils from 6 to 15 years of age) in Jamaica.  This  project  was funded  by Canada’s International Development   Research  Centre (IDRC): (iii) the Primary Education Project(PEP)  funded by the University of the West Indies (UWI) and the United States Agency for International Development  (USAID); (iv) the Grade 10/11   programme in Jamaica; (v) the Resource and   Technology (R&T) curriculum in the Reform of Secondary Education (ROSE)  programme  in Jamaica; and (vi) The Caribbean Examinations Council  Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC). They are all innovative because at the time of their initiation they involved the use of ideas, or practices, which were perceived as new by their users and which were designed to bring about desirable changes. ‘Innovation’ is often used interchangeably with ‘change’.  Miles (1964) defines innovation as a deliberate novel, specific change which is thought to be more efficacious in accomplishing the goals of a system. ‘Reform’ and ‘change’ are also sometimes used interchangeably. For example, Cuban (1992) refers to fundamental reforms which seek to transform “to alter permanently … a complete overhaul, not renovations…fundamental changes” (p170). The changes explored in this paper are those that seek to bring about fundamental changes including new goals, structures and roles in schools, changes in organization of curricula, examination systems, etc. The main goals of the projects with which we are concerned give evidence of such desired changes. These are set out in Table 1 together with evidence for their success or failure drawn mostly from published research, evaluation studies and higher degree dissertation. 

Background to the education systems of the Anglophone Caribbean: Main Goals of the Innovations

The innovations addressed in this paper have been carried out in some 16 Caribbean countries listed in Table 1. Most of these have been designated small states (Bray & Packer 1993), characterized by isolation and economic dependency on the developed world. Many also suffer from a scarcity of human resources which necessitates education officials having to perform multiple roles, stretching some of them beyond their capability. Sometimes specialists with needed technical skills are not available locally thereby making it necessary to utilize expatriate expertise which invariably is   tied in with international funding for projects.

The countries in Table 1 all have in common ties with Britain as ex-colonies which have left the mark of the British on their education systems. For example, they all have primary schools which offer 6 years of education which culminates in the Common Entrance or 11+ Examination. This determines who enters the prestigious general secondary or high schools which are not unlike the British grammar-type schools, pursuing a predominantly academic curriculum designed for entry into colleges and universities or into the more prestigious jobs in the society. Children not selected for these schools go to schools which offer technical-vocational programmes geared to the world of work, or remain in the All-Age schools. These institutions are widely regarded as second-rate ‘schools for failures’.

Of the problems in education that all these countries have in common, three have particular relevance for this paper.  The first has to do with the fact that the wealth of most of these countries lies in the land, particularly in agriculture, and yet in most of these countries, negative attitudes towards agriculture and rural living persist. Youngsters who have been trained in agriculture opt for other types of jobs on leaving school (Jennings-Wray, 1982). Few wish to remain in rural areas and drift towards the towns and cities invariably to join the long queues of the unemployed. The education system has been partially blamed for this problem on the grounds that its ‘irrelevant ‘Western style curriculum nurtures in the youth both negative attitudes towards agricultural work and  unrealistic job  expectations. To counteract such irrelevance, many Caribbean countries in the 1970s diversified the curricula in their secondary schools by introducing vocational subjects and work experience programmes and by giving more emphasis to agriculture in schools. The Grade 10/11 Programme in Jamaica is one such example. This programme generally was designed to achieve goals of access and equality of opportunity – all central features of the democratic socialist ideology of the Jamaican government of the day (Manley, 1974).  Other major objectives of the latter programme were: introducing self-instructional materials in Jamaican education, encouraging independence in learning, and the development of self-reliance on the part of the learners.  Worth noting is the fact that the issue of relevance to the needs of the Caribbean region particularly with regard to  the  external examination  system  was high on the agenda for action of governments in the Caribbean in the  early 1970s. The Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) was established in 1972, to offer its own Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) to replace the London and Cambridge General Certificate of Education (GCE) Ordinary level.

While the Grade 10-11 programme was taking hold in the Jamaican secondary system, an influential report was published by UNESCO in 1983. It was titled Jamaica: Development of Secondary Education.  The report outlined major problems in the education system, which included the variety of   types of secondary schools, the differences in the quality of their curricular offering and their terminal examinations, and the general unpreparedness of the graduates for the world of work.  The All Age Schools, whose curricula were more aligned to the primary than to the secondary schools, were the most disadvantaged in every respect (quality of school plant and facilities, teacher qualification, resources, etc.), even though they represented the largest group of schools offering secondary education in grades 7-9.  In 1993, Jamaica had 486 All Age Schools, 12 Comprehensive High, 58 New Secondary, and 56 Traditional High Schools. Based on the findings of the UNESCO report and with funds from the World Bank, the Government of Jamaica launched a major reform effort to rationalise the secondary education situation. The Reform of Secondary Education (ROSE) centred around the introduction of a common curriculum designed to improve access to, equity in, and the quality of educational offering at the lower secondary level (grades 7-9), as well as to improve the productivity of the graduates. The new curriculum for ROSE is centred around five core subjects: mathematics, language arts, social studies, integrated science, and “resource and technology” (R&T), with career education infused into all these areas.  In this paper, most emphasis will be on the R&T.

The GMP was also linked with the achievement of goals for transforming the Guyanese society. Two of the values considered relevant to the Guyanese society which were used as a basis for the re-organisation of education in Guyana during the 1970s were: 'collective work and responsibility' and 'cooperative economics'.  The former referred to the thrust of the Guyanese to build and maintain their communities and their nation 'through collective efforts and to solve common problems cooperatively' (Baird, 1972:8). In the same paper Baird makes the important point that the achievement of any national goal "is largely dependent upon the extent to which outcomes of a particular education programme supports these goals (my emphasis)' (ibid:3). The ‘working togetherness’ and the solving of common problems cooperatively were seen as outcomes of a methodology that continually emphasised the need for pupils to work together in groups. The belief was that if an independent Guyana was to be able to solve its own problems, its people needed to become self-reliant and well endowed with new ways of thinking that would enable them to solve common problems cooperatively. It is not insignificant that the chief consultant to the GMP should make this observation about group work: “Pupils would become more self-reliant, would have opportunities for use of initiative and to show originality and would work in cooperation –a basic tenet of the Cooperative republic of Guyana. Thus, the basis for these group methods is both psychological and ideological” (Broomes, 1975:8).

The theme of 'working together to solve common problems cooperatively', if not explicit in the PEP, was certainly implicit. But to appreciate this, one has to see the PEP in the context of attempts to promote cooperation amongst members of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and ultimately to achieve regional integration. At the inaugural meeting of the Standing Committee of Ministers Responsible for Education (SCME) in 1975, the Ministers called for collaborative action at the regional and sub-regional levels in the promotion of educational development within CARICOM. The PEP, initiated in 1979, has to be seen as a response to the call for   such collaboration. 

The second problem relates to the fact that most of the countries have fallen short in meeting  two major objectives of primary education: namely, to produce a literate and  numerate population   and to provide a sound foundation on which further education can build. The World Bank country study on the Caribbean region concluded that the quality of primary education was low throughout the region,’ particularly in the areas of reading, writing and numeracy’ (World Bank, 1993:68). At the secondary level, the World Bank report noted the inadequate amount of time devoted in the timetable to mathematics and English and the low pass rates in these subjects in the CSEC.  But the problem has its root at the primary level where over the years performance in mathematics has consistently been weak. Guyana was one of the first countries to make a concerted effort to improve the teaching of mathematics at the primary level while at the same time addressing the issue of ‘relevance ‘to the country’s needs.  The cooperative approach to learning, which was a strong feature of the Mathematics, was considered consistent with the Cooperative Socialism ideology of Guyana. Worthy of note is the fact that both Project PRIMER and the UWI/USAID Primary Education Project sought to address the problem of literacy and numeracy.

The third problem relates to the content of the lower secondary curriculum.  While the CSEC exerts a strong influence on what is taught at the upper levels of the secondary system, traditionally schools have been given more leeway in determining the content of the lower secondary curriculum (grades 7-9). More and more countries, however, have been introducing a common curriculum at this level. But with the rapid advance of technology   and with the expansion of knowledge which has accompanied this technological advancement, Caribbean countries have been anxious   not to be left far behind the developed countries. What should be the content of the lower secondary curriculum has become quite an issue. How should technical-vocational subjects be treated? How can technology be incorporated into the curriculum and how can the Arts which have traditionally been neglected in the secondary curriculum (Tucker, 2002) be made an integral part of the education of all children? In addition to these concerns there is   also the question of how this content should be organized.  Given  that the grades 7-9 curricula should provide a sound  base for  the  subjects that  the students would  choose to take for CSEC,   the  question  has arisen  whether  it should be  subject-based  like the curriculum in the  prestigious high schools   or whether   it should  be integrated. Brain research which  has underscored   how  authentic learning is  facilitated  when content  is   presented in a more holistic  way (Caine and Caine)  has   given integrated curricula an added significance This paper presents   an   example of  how one   country-Jamaica- has dealt with these issues through its ROSE and in particular the R&T curriculum.

The evidence in Table 1 suggests that of the innovations at the primary level, the most successful has been the Mathematics project in Guyana, while Project PRIMER in Jamaica has been an outright failure. At the secondary level, by far the most successful innovation has been the CSEC, with both the Grade 10/11 Programme and the Resource and Technology curriculum being somewhat successful.

How do we account for such differential outcomes?  And by what standards are they being judged?

Factors that affect implementation

Fullan & Stiegelbauer (1991) categorize factors affecting implementation of an innovation in terms of characteristics pertaining to: (i) the characteristics of the innovation itself; (ii) local/school characteristics; and (iii) external factors. They  identify 15 factors which they maintain form a system of  variables that interact over time to determine success or failure; the more factors support  implementation, the more change in practice is likely to be accomplished while the  process becomes less effective if more factors work against implementation. Research in the Caribbean has identified additional factors that affect implementation, influenced by the fact that education systems in the Anglophone Caribbean are, for the most part, centralised, with ministries of education exercising control over the primary curriculum in the public schools.  As pointed out earlier, the upper secondary curriculum is largely determined by the syllabuses for the CSEC. Table 2 identifies 21 factors including those from Fullan. In the discussion that follows where a particular factor applies at more than one level (e.g. local and national), both levels will be discussed simultaneously.

Characteristics of the innovation

As can be seen from Table 2 there was clearly a need for the innovations which were also considered relevant to societal needs.  For example, in the case of the GMP, the methodology of teaching mathematics, in fact, was linked to the achievement of wider developmental goals of Guyana.   The project was described as being geared to "develop certain personality traits such as self-reliance" and "to encourage a cooperative approach to learning in schools” (Ministry of Education, Social Development and Culture 1977:10).  The PEP was introduced in response to the need to improve the curriculum of primary schools in the Caribbean, and both the G10/11 and CSEC were seen as responding to societal needs. Teachers, principals and students felt that R&T was essential for developing the skills needed for living in a technological society, for developing problem-solving skills and for promoting an holistic and student-centred approach to education (Jennings 1998). Differences in perceptions of need are evident in the case of PRIMER. From the perspective of educational planners PRIMER was relevant to the needs of Jamaican primary education as set out in the Five Year Education Plan (1978-83).For example it was observed in the plan that ‘approximately 53% of the children aged 11 years are not achieving at acceptable standards in literacy and numeracy” (Ministry of Education, Jamaica, 1977:32) and so an innovation like PRIMER was seen as helping to address this problem. However, from the perspective of the teachers in the PRIMER pilot schools, the project failed to respond to their personal needs.  They were disappointed in not having received any recognition for the extra work they had done, while the principals of the schools felt that the project had not ‘put their schools on the map’, as it should have done (Jennings1993:532).

In terms of compatibility to their values and needs, the teachers felt that the use of self instructional materials (SIM) in PRIMER fostered the development of independent study skills which they valued, but they felt insecure in the new role they were expected to adopt as facilitators of learning. Some teachers expressed the view that the SIM were of more use to them as textbooks than to the pupils. The Grade 10 -11 Programme was introduced into the Jamaican Secondary school system in an era when stated educational goals referred to "the creation of an egalitarian society based on the twin pillars of social justice and equality of opportunity" (Ministry of Education, Jamaica 1977:5) but it was introduced only into one school type. The thinking was that if students graduating from the New Secondary schools had been exposed to a curriculum that    gave them skills for the world of work and also had work experience, this would make them  more competitive  since their peers from the prestigious high schools would  have academic qualifications but no work experience. But in the eyes of employers, these academic qualifications still gave the high school graduate the competitive edge. The R&T also suffered from different perceptions of its value. The newly upgraded high schools (formerly New  Secondary schools) and the Junior High Schools (formerly All –Age) valued ROSE highly not only because they had  benefited from a change in name and status but also, for the first time, they  were given curriculum guides, textbooks, and curriculum materials, and received some supervision from the Ministry of Education (Evans 1997).  The Traditional High Schools, on the other hand, considered they had little to gain from the introduction of ROSE, and questioned the value of a common curriculum for all types of secondary school.   For one thing, the teachers felt it was an erosion of their social status and traditional academic standards for a common curriculum to put them on par with the former New Secondary and All Age Schools. Most traditional high schools either ignored the R&T or relegated its use for the low achievers.

Clarity about goals and means and complexity are related. Complexity refers to “the difficulty and extent of change required of the individuals responsible for implementation” (Fullan & Stiegelbauer, 1991:71). Simple changes can be made clear easily   while the means for achieving goals of more complex changes may not be so easily communicated. The CXC, for example, has over the years organized training for teachers to ensure that they became clear about how to use the techniques of assessment related to the CSEC. Indeed, this was a major objective of the Secondary Curriculum Development Project funded by the USAID (Griffith 1981), but the use of school based assessment continues to pose difficulties for teachers particularly in terms of its demand on their time and the clarity of means of assessment. In the case of PRIMER there was a general lack of clarity as to what the project was supposed to achieve and how it was supposed to do so. Teachers perceived the use of SIM as complex largely because they were too advanced for the pupils for whom they were written on account of their low reading ability. A  serious problem, furthermore, was the fact that members of the project team were not altogether clear in their own minds about the use of SIM and they w ere unable to conceptualize the new behaviour required  of the teachers and communicate this to them (Minott, 1988). The difficulties experienced with the Grade 10/11 Programme stemmed from the remarkable speed of the change process. From May throughout the summer of 1974, the curriculum development and diffusion process proceeded at an unprecedented pace.  What had originally been slated to take place in one year was squashed into a period of less than six months.  Because an individualised instructional format was being used for the first time with these curricula, it was necessary to initiate both students and teachers into the skills and techniques involved in using these materials effectively.  Again this was accomplished with remarkable speed, largely through the use of the media.  'Model' classes were selected to demonstrate the new methods on television and radio.  This was hardly the ideal way of giving users the on-going support needed during implementation of an innovation.

Difficulties were experienced in implementing the methodology of the GMP. The technique involved the teacher asking each pupil a lot of questions and   to explain their answers or their thinking process. Being questioned was an unusual experience for most of the pupils. Cumberbatch (1972) also underscored the inhibition of Guyanese children and pointed out the difficulty that teachers experienced in drawing out the child, either because of the child's self-consciousness, feelings of inferiority or “unenlightened teacher reaction to  his indigenous language forms " (ibid., p.5), which make him passive. Such passivity is not conducive to situations in which “pupils direct questions not only at the teacher but also at one another". Most schools experienced difficulty in implementing all five elements of R&T and invariably they only managed two or three. This was largely due to lack of adequate physical and material resources as well as the teachers capable of teaching the areas. The mini-enterprises have also proven very difficult to implement.

With regard to quality and practicality, Doyle and Ponder (1977/78) refer to the ‘practicality ethic’ of teachers, underscoring the fact that teachers are very practical in their orientation. Consequently, innovations that involve use of curriculum materials need to ensure that they are practical in the sense that they fit well with the teachers’ situation and that they are of good quality. CSEC scores high marks in this regard. The case of integrated science is a good example. This subject was piloted for 5years in 30 schools in 7 participating countries and feedback from this project led to substantial revisions (Jennings 1994). CSEC has also triggered a virtual revolution in the writing of textbooks in the Caribbean, most of which are of a high quality and published by international publishing houses. The textbooks and other materials written for the GMP were developed by two leading mathematics educators in the region at the time and the fact that they have served as models for primary math texts produced in later years is testimony to their recognized quality. This cannot be said of the other innovations. While the teachers’ guides for R&T were of good quality, the teachers expressed reservations over the quality of the workbooks for the students.  The materials developed by the PRIMER writers were poor in quality and impracticable. This is evident from the fact that some 89% of the fourth form pupils for whom they were intended were found to be reading below the grade 2 level (Jennings, 1994). The speed with which the G10/11 was developed militated against the production of materials of good quality. One researcher described the production of Grade 10 materials in Language Arts as a ‘high-pressurised operation’.  Units were late in production. Great emphasis was placed on getting materials into the hands of students since the individualised format was being utilised. Consequently, the teacher's guides accompanying the students' materials usually went out late, and would reach the teachers after the students had covered the materials in their booklets (Miller, 1981).  Furthermore, the units had to be sent to the Ministry before their revision was completed.  This meant that improvements to draft units were sometimes not incorporated into the finished product, because of the pressure to meet deadlines. Such pressures did not allow for testing the materials in the schools and writers had to rely on feedback in the form of odd comments from students and teachers.

Characteristics at the School level

The strategy used for introducing innovation into school systems can impact positively or negatively on the implementation process. The  power-coercive or ‘top-down’ approach has been particularly  influential in developing countries since the 1960s.A repeated criticism of this approach, however, is that despite massive investment in centrally developed innovations, invariably the result has had  little, if any impact at all at the classroom  level. Since the 970s there has been strong advocacy for a ‘bottom-up’ approach wherein teachers are accorded greater participation in decision-making processes (e.g. whether they should participate in the project or not, or be involved in the curriculum development process) on the grounds that this would not only generate more realistic and relevant curricula but would enable more effective implementation of the latter.

As is evident from Table 2, the  ’top-down’ strategy for change was used for all the innovations, but in some provision was made for  teacher participation. In the CSEC, for example, teacher participation was facilitated through the use of subject panels. These consist of six members of the education systems of the participating countries, three of which must be practicing teachers of the subject at the level of the examination. These panels are appointed by the School Examination Committee to develop syllabuses, recommend methods of testing, receive criticisms and suggestions from teachers and consider examiners’ reports. In the case of the PEP the strategy used involved the commissioning of subject specialists in each of the four core areas of the primary curriculum. These specialists came from the UWI or the Ministries of Education in the region.  Each subject specialist collected syllabi, teachers' manuals and pupil materials from the participating territories and, from an in-depth study of these, drafted revised syllabi. These syllabi were then reviewed by teachers at workshops held at the regional, territorial and local levels. Each participating territory selected two subject leaders who were drawn from among curriculum officers in the Ministry of Education, lecturers in the Teacher Training Colleges, primary school principals or teachers.  These subject leaders served as participants in regional workshops and as resource persons and organizers of territorial and local workshops. The principals and teachers in the PRIMER schools were not involved in any of the decision-making processes.  They felt that the decision to   participate in the project was thrust upon them. Three principals expressed surprise that their schools were selected for the project, while another was not at all sure why his school was chosen (Minott, 1988).  Teacher participation was not a feature of the G10/11 either. Lecturers from the UWI and officers in the Ministry of Education were commissioned to develop curricula in Language Arts, Social Studies, Mathematics, Science and Life Skills.

The leadership role played by the principal is critical to the success of any innovation and of particular importance is on-going support necessary for teachers during implementation. The leadership role that principals play has to be founded on a sound knowledge of the process of change. They need to be sensitive to the fact that an innovation deskills teachers in that it makes redundant all the wealth of knowledge and skills that they have for dealing with problems that may arise when they are using practices with which they have become comfortable. While principals were generally supportive in the case of the CSEC and PEP, the PRIMER team described the principals in the project schools as unsupportive; that they only paid ‘lip-service’ to the project (Jennings, 1994:317) and that they failed to give the teachers the help they needed and so the teachers were unprepared to get to grips with the innovative ideas of the project.  However, the leadership at the project level had its weaknesses, as is evident from the failure to ensure that the students’ reading levels were ascertained before the writing of the self-instructional modules began.

This unpreparedness on the part of the teachers in PRIMER has to be seen in light of their level of training. Most of them were either untrained or were going through a process of initial training which was not completed till after the termination of the project. While all the principals were trained teachers, none had training in educational administration. The training of both the projects schools’ staff and the PRIMER team was inadequate both in terms of duration and content. There is some discrepancy in the record of how much training was done.  McKinley (1981) reported that the teachers were given five weeks in-service training, while according to Cummings (1986) the teachers received ten days training in the use of SIM. In any case, it appears that the training never really gave the teachers the real help they needed. They reported that they would have liked the PRIMER team to give them demonstrations in the use of SIM which would have shown them specifically how to take on the new role required (Minott, 1988).

 Training to implement an innovation really needs to be on-going at the school level in order to be effective, but as Table 2 indicates provision needs to be made for training at the national level. This takes the form of training   organized by the Ministry of Education, often becoming an integral part of pre-service training at the Teachers Colleges. In 1975, in the G10/11, seven Implementation Officers were selected from amongst classroom teachers who were judged to have achieved success with the programme during the previous year.  They were used to help classroom teachers with any problems that they encountered in the programme but they could hardly be considered adequate support for teachers in over sixty schools. In the G10/11 also the lack of training of teachers was a major cause of the eventual demise of the Life Skills curriculum while in the R&T, while the Teachers Colleges have staff designated for training for the ROSE programme, research has highlighted weaknesses in the training in the methodology for R&T (Brown et al., 1998). As mentioned earlier, CXC has put much emphasis on the training of teachers, but at the same time expects individual countries to undertake initiatives that would help their teachers to implement innovative ideas. Some territories have organized training workshop successfully and the Curriculum Development Unit of the Ministry of Education in Trinidad and Tobago has produced a handbook on school-based assessment (SBA) in physics, using the expertise of its graduate teachers. Schools of Education and other departments at the UWI also organize training workshops for CSEC.

The two consultants and the Mathematics specialists in the Curriculum Development Centre in Guyana held Mathematics teaching laboratories across Guyana in an effort to introduce the teachers to the use of the new methodology in the GMP Between May and June in 1975, for example, the team held three teaching laboratories in different educational districts.  Apart from giving practice in the use of the teaching   strategies, these laboratories were designed to allow teachers to practice the skills that were needed to support the materials developed; for example, use of objectives in teaching, thinking of evaluation as a way of making decisions about teaching, and for providing teachers with the necessary mathematical background for teaching the content of the curriculum guide (Ministry of Education, 1975:4).

The PEP materials were implemented in schools in the participating territories and the general practice was for teachers to adapt the materials to suit the particular circumstances in the territories.  Following the close of the project, subject leaders and teachers in the project schools were expected to visit schools and give any necessary guidance to teachers in the wider school system that were using the materials. However, the evaluators of the project reported that some of the subject leaders were unsuitably qualified and that "most were inexperienced in curriculum development" (Massanari and Miller, 1985:52) and had to learn by doing.  There were even cases where subject leaders left the project and were never replaced.  The evaluators further describe the rate of  turnover of subject leaders, principals and teachers as "a major constraint on project implementation" (ibid., p.53) in some territories. In addition, the level of training of teachers in the pilot schools was low, as the evaluators observed: "Several countries had teaching forces of which nearly two-thirds were unqualified.  Some teachers not only lacked professional training but also basic academic competence-displaying serious gaps in knowledge of content" (Massanari and Miller, 1985:52).

When teachers attend training workshops especially during term time, they usually need the support of other colleagues in overseeing   their classes during their absence. The support received is variable and generally depends on the climate of support set by the leadership in the schools. In my discussions with teachers of R&T and those familiar with the G10/11 the ones who received support from colleagues are those whose principals encourage supportive relationships amongst their teachers. Invariably, however, one hears criticisms of teachers who attend workshops in posh hotels where their main concern is with the menu and on their return to schools are unwilling to share the knowledge gained with their colleagues. At the same time there are cases where the climate of the school is of such that the colleagues are not receptive to the new ideas that the teacher is willing to share from the workshop. All of this relates back to the nature of the leadership in the schools. Training workshops for CSEC tend to be organized during week ends or holiday periods at times when classes are not affected.

For the work of the school to succeed, whether the school is involved in an innovative effort or not, the support of the community is very important. More and more schools in the Caribbean area looking to their communities for support in terms of providing material resources and  equipment which their budgetary allocation cannot cover, and to assist in fund-raising  drives. The schools also rely on members of their communities with the required skills to assist the schools from time to time with their labour in improving the school premises or assisting the teachers in the classrooms. This is the sort of help that PRIMER had envisaged from the communities in which the project was located.   It did not materialize, however, because after some initial support in terms of cleaning up and painting school buildings, interest on the part of the community waned after it became clear that the government was not making nay effort to construct new buildings or refurbish old ones as promised.  Although it was surrounded with much scepticism in its early years, the communities in which the schools are located are supportive of CSEC, and over the years the initial anxieties over the international acceptability of the examination have been allayed. Most importantly, CSEC has received the support of governments in the Region.

A final factor to be considered at the school level is the location of the school. While there is no research evidence on this with respect to the other innovations, in the case of PRIMER this proved to be an important factor. The PRIMER schools were generally inaccessible. Public transport was not available in the area and they had to be approached on foot over rough and rocky roads. This proved problematic in the monitoring of the schools by the PRIMER project team. Distances between the schools exacerbated the problem. The project schools were some 60 miles from Kingston, the headquarters of the PRIMER team, while each school was between 5 and 15 miles from the headquarters from which the project was coordinated in Mandeville, the nearest town.

Characteristics at the national level and external to national system

The relationship between the PRIMER team and the teachers in the project schools deteriorated over time. The teachers perceived the team as highly critical of them, bent on assessing rather than helping and making them feel inadequate and incompetent. They felt threatened, pressurized by ‘too many changes coming too quickly’ and they expressed fear of failure both on their own and their pupils’ part. A member of the PRIMER team likened the situation to a ‘battle being waged’, with the teachers employing various strategies to prevent the team from observing them (Jennings, 1993). In the case  of the G10/11 the problematic relationship was   between the  Ministry of Education officials and the Government (i.e. Office of the  Prime  Minister), Ministry of Education officials were asked by the Government to design and develop the  curricula  as quickly as possible.  It appears, however, that these officials resented Government manipulation in this way and action was very slow.  Dissatisfied with this inertia, the Government intervened. There was a 'shake-up' of top Ministry of Education officials and, in April 1974, the Grade 10 -11 Programme was made a 'special project' in the Prime Minister's office with its own budget and specially recruited staff.  This enabled the curriculum development process to proceed at a remarkable pace.

One of the most critical determinants of thee fate of an innovation is “the continuity and commitment of those individuals responsible for its development and their immediate successors” (Cummings, 1986:20). In terms of staff to support the innovation PRIMER suffered miserably. The team never had its full complement of staff. During the second year of the project half the writing staff left. During the lifetime of the project over one-third of the original teachers left the schools. There was no editor for the materials developed and use of persons on a part time basis to edit proved counterproductive. Members of the PRIMER team found themselves ‘doubling up’ and operating in areas beyond their competence. The Project Director, for example, had to double up as a curriculum analyst. In the case of CSEC lack of staff in certain subjects has resulted in a reduction in the number of students taking the examination (e.g. physics, geography) and there are cases of schools having to cease offering subjects (e.g. French) on account of the same problem.

The importance of materials being of good quality and practical has already been discussed. Adequate lead time is needed for such materials to be developed and it usually requires a process whereby the draft materials are field-tested and evaluated and revisions or modifications made on the basis of the feedback from the evaluation before they are finally produced for system-wide dissemination. The PRIMER team took about one year to write the self instructional materials  for  language arts, but they did this before they had the  results of a  diagnostic test of the  students’ reading ability .Their time was wasted as the materials were way above the students’ level of ability. In  their effort to modify the materials in time for the new school year, the PRIMER team  had to work under so much pressure that it never had the time to do anything well. Interestingly, in Malaysia  which had a  similar project to PRIMER called INSPIRE (Integrated  System of Programmed Instruction for Rural Environments) the project staff also had to work under pressure to meet deadlines but  in the end produced materials  of good quality. Apart from excellent editing, time was taken to try out the materials in laboratory schools and final revisions were made before they were put into the schools (Cummings, 1986). CXC allots reasonable time for the development of subject syllabuses. For example, two years (1975-77) were taken up with the development of subject syllabuses in the five subjects that were first offered for examination in 1979.

The miraculous speed with which materials were developed for theG10/11 has already been mentioned. Although it has long been recognised that there were some serious weaknesses in the units of certain subject areas, for example, the Social Studies and the “Life skills” curricula, these remained unmodified for many years. Certain Social Studies units, for example, were criticised for the 'anti-imperialist' propaganda projected by the writers, and for their blatant attempt to indoctrinate students into socialist ideology.  There was, at one time, an outcry from some sections of the public against the images of violence in the illustrations of the Language Arts materials. The lack of revision, however, was due in no small measure to the lack of funds triggered by a deepening of the economic crisis in Jamaica in 1978.  Financial constraints also necessitated the withdrawal of the Implementation Officers, - which in turn resulted in the breakdown of communication with the classroom teachers.  This also brought to an end the feedback from these teachers, on which the modification of curricula was based.

Funding cuts or losses is one of the ‘environmental turbulences’ (Miles, 1983) which threaten the institutionalization of innovations. The larger the external resource, the less likely the effort will be continued since governments, already under financial pressure, are unlikely to be able to add the cost to their regular budgets. PRIMER fell victim to this threat. Once the IDRC funds had ceased there was no attempt to secure alternative sources of funding for the innovation. Since 1972 CXC has survived many changes of government in its participating countries and the examining body relies on those countries for financial support. Examination fees are an important source of funds, but CXC has been able to attract funds from donor agencies for special training or curriculum development projects.  Financial constraints were also at the root of the demise of the PEP. While advising against each territory producing its own set of materials, Massanari and Miller (1985) foresaw the costliness of commercial publishing.  Although there was much discussion about it at one time, the commercial publishing of the PEP materials was never realised. A major reason for this was the fact that the materials produced were not camera-ready and needed extensive editing in order to serve all territories in common.  Neither the individual territories nor the proposed publisher was prepared to bear the cost of this exercise. As long as the G10/11 remained as a special project in the Office of the Prime Minister, it was assured of adequate funds. However these halcyon days lasted for only two years. After that the programme was relocated into the Core Curriculum Unit of the Ministry of Education where it vied for its share of whatever funds were available. Once funding for the first phase of the ROSE programme had ended, there were no special funds from the Government for the R&T. The fate of R&T rested squarely on the shoulders of the principals and teachers in the schools.

Then there is the matter of foreign technical assistance. As table 2 shows, of the innovations studied, only one tried to ‘go it alone’. The team that negotiated for PRIMER with the IDRC convinced the funding agency that Jamaica had a cadre of well-qualified educators who were capable of managing the project without any outside help. And yet experience elsewhere has underscored the importance of such help. PRIMER was modelled on ideas in Project IMPACT in the Philippines And apart from PRIMER there were four other IMPACT-related projects in Indonesia, Malaysia Bangladesh and Liberia. All of these benefited from foreign technical assistance and all achieved varying degrees of success. That such assistance can be beneficial to recipients, is further underscored by McGinn et al. (1979) who argue that a major reason for the success of educational reform efforts in Chile and El Salvador in the 1960s was the fact that these countries “had more than ordinary amounts of  fiscal and human resources available through international technical assistance” (McGinn et al., 1979:222).

Provision for research and evaluation in the innovations was variable. Workshops conducted in the GMP were evaluated, but there was no summative evaluation of the GMP as a project. The PEP, however, had summative evaluators. In its design, PRIMER attached a great deal of importance to both research and evaluation. Five All- Age schools with similar characteristics to the project schools and which were located in the same geographical area were designated control schools. A pre-post test experimental design was envisaged and there were plans to conduct formative evaluations to provide information on the outcomes of the instructional strategies used. These, however, did not materialize because after the evaluator appointed at the commencement of the project resigned, there was no replacement. Evaluation of CSEC is provided for through a system of annual reports on the performance of students in each subject in each participating country and regular meetings to assess the conduct of the examinations, using foreign technical assistance when necessary.

Some Implications

In the preceding section I examined the extent to which those responsible for managing the implementation of the innovations planned for implementation by taking into consideration the factors that affect the process.  Of the 21 factors, 19 were present in CSEC, the most successful (see Table 2) while only 2 were present in PRIMER which has to be deemed a failure. This suggests that while the implementation of the former was well planned, PRIMER was poorly planned. The other innovations studied succeeded to some extent.  But by what standards are they being judged? There are three main points that I would wish to make in addressing this question?

(i) The success of an innovation has to be judged by more than one standard

Firstly, as Table 1 shows, the success of an innovation cannot be judged by one standard alone. Of the innovations studied, the most successful has been the CSEC. It is the only one whose success can be judged by the standard of longevity   based on the quarter century criterion of Cuban mentioned earlier. The CXC itself was established in 1972, but its initiation can be traced as far back as 1948 in Eric Williams’ book -The Making of the British West Indies which was published in 1948 - in which he called for the setting up of the University of the West Indies and an examination system relevant to the Caribbean. Eric Williams was the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago at the time that the CXC was established. Indeed CSEC could not have been introduced without the support of most of the Governments in the English-speaking Caribbean.  While many may be critical of the top-down strategy for change, CSEC is clearly one where it worked because with the support from the governments, there were numerous platforms   from which to persuade the general public of the need, relevance and value of  the Caribbean’s own examination  system. It is by such advocacy that popular appeal is won. But it is not only by the longevity and popularity standard that CSEC can be judged successful but also by the standard of adaptability. It was pointed out earlier that secondary schools have for years exercised the freedom to determine their lower secondary curriculum. What most of these schools actually did was to adapt the CXC syllabuses to suit the needs of their grades 7-9. The CSEC is also strong on the fidelity standard. Core features of CSEC have remained faithful to what the originators intended; for example, how syllabuses are developed, the operation of Subject Panels, etc. So, few schools have been able to implement all five elements of R&T that it fails miserably on the fidelity standard.

(ii) Performance on the effectiveness standard

Secondly what is evident from the discussion in this paper is that if the effectiveness standard is applied, most of the innovations would fail miserably. This applies even to the CSEC   which fares so well when judged by the other standards.  While  the CXC has been successful  in introducing exams to replace the GCE ‘O’ Level and in developing syllabuses relevant to the region,  it is widely recognized that the CSEC does not test a wide ability range,  even   though   this was the  original intention  in offering the examination at  two levels :the  general proficiency (GP)  level  for those  students who   were preparing  for further study  at college or university  and the basic proficiency (BP) level for the   less academically  able who  did not want to go on  to  further study. The BP proved unattractive to students   as well as to prospective employers who tended to opt for applicants with qualifications at the GP level. The latter were largely those from the traditional high schools.  CSEC in fact tests between 20% to 45% of the relevant age cohort at the secondary level in countries like Jamaica, Barbados and Trinidad, with the larger percentages being in the latter two countries. In Jamaica   ‘mock exams’ are used   in some schools as  a selection device to weed out those students  likely to reduce their pass rate  and jeopardize their ranking  on the league table for CSEC passes.

Some of the innovations fare badly on the effectiveness standard because the goals  they  set out to achieve were far too grandiose and unrealistic to achieve within the  life of a project  and educational planners have been remiss in not  thinking through how  specially funded projects become integrated into the  normal operations of  Ministries of Education  so as to  contribute towards the achievement of  national educational goals. The G10/11 is a case to point. By the mid-1980s the self instructional materials had either disappeared completely from the classrooms of a number of New Secondary schools or, where they were available in small quantities, the students had to share them or the teachers used them as textbooks (Jennings-Wray et al., 1985).  By then the rationale for their use appeared to have been forgotten because the dominance of the teachers in the classrooms was much in evidence as the UNESCO Report (1983) noted that most of them dictated or had students copy notes.  Not only did the use of the self-instructional materials not result in the development of self-reliance and the independent approach to learning that the government had hoped, but the objective of tackling the unemployment problem was not realised either. Research has consistently shown that New Secondary School graduates experience difficulty in finding jobs after leaving school.  In their investigation of the first graduates of the Grade 10 -11 programme, Lowe and Mahy (1978) found that those who specialised in Business Education and Industrial Arts were likely to find jobs, but those who did Agriculture tended to opt for jobs in areas outside their field of specialisation.  Later research has shown that while some students got jobs in the places where they did their work experience, many of them were unemployed (Jennings-Wray and Teape 1982).

In the case of the ROSE  programme, the study by  Evans (1998) showed that the teachers varied in their ability to implement student-centred teaching.  Some showed little understanding of group work and while they placed students in groups they used the group activity for individual reading.  Others made little attempt to alter their teaching method; and they relied on expository teaching or lecturing, and written work on the chalkboard for students to copy in their notebooks Rainford (1998) conducted research on the science curriculum in the ROSE programme, which included an examination of the knowledge of science content and the acquisition of process skills according to school type.  Her findings showed that students from the Traditional High Schools outperformed the Junior High Schools on their knowledge of science content. Rainford concluded that students exposed to the science curriculum in the ROSE programme were not learning as much as they should in science, and that “although all types of schools have access to the same curriculum, it seems that the quality of education is not the same among them” (Ibid., p. 87). The Junior High school students remain just as much at a disadvantage as before, on account of teacher quality, school facilities and the ability of their students. Thus, ROSE’s attempt to change pedagogy as a means of improving educational quality and equity had floundered.

Research on R&T raises questions as to whether it is in fact maintaining its focus on using technology to provide solutions to problems.  The physical and material resources (including relevant textbooks) and equipment needed by the schools are not adequately provided for.  In fact, a survey by Brown (et al., 1998) revealed that, of the schools in the survey, none had all the recommended items for teaching all the elements, and for those elements being offered, some schools had none of the equipment.  There is also clear evidence that teachers and students from the Traditional High Schools are not taking to R&T in the same way as their counterparts in the Junior High and Comprehensive High Schools. Their attitude to R&T is negative (Jennings, 1998).  Furthermore, while many teachers thought the integrated approach to teaching R&T was appropriate, as it enabled the students to see the linkage between subjects, many were not effectively using the thematic approach to teaching, and so the integration of the elements of R&T was not taking place.  Training for integration as well as time in school for team planning to effect integration, difficulty in addressing themes and in covering the content of the syllabus adequately, the low proficiency and literacy levels of students were other difficulties apparent in the schools.  Evidence suggests that affective goals relating to the achievement of cooperation, peer appreciation and tolerance through group work are also not being achieved; and many teachers were of the view that instruction in the different elements in R&T was inadequate in laying the foundation for the CSEC syllabus which the students need to cover in the upper grades (Brown et al., 1998).

If the ideas in the GMP were implemented effectively, one would expect to see this reflected in performance at the Secondary School Entrance Examination (SSEE) which is taken by children  of   age  11 + for  entry to secondary schools.  From an examination of the SSEE Mathematics results for the whole of Guyana over a ten year period (1981-1991), Goolsarran (1992) reported that, where the maximum score was 60, the mean score in this examination ranged from as low as 13.16 in 1984 to 19.70 in 1988. The more visionary goals of the project such as   developing self reliance, a cooperative approach to  problem –solving were not achieved, one reason being  certain cultural characteristics rooted in the society such  as the inhibition of Guyanese  discussed earlier. And so in classrooms where we should have been seeing problem –solving through cooperative learning, recall of information remained the dominant way of learning. 

In discussing the impact of the PEP, Massanari and Miller described it as "a watershed in Caribbean Education" (ibid., p153, and as an "outstanding success" (ibid., p. 206).  The Social Studies curriculum, they claimed, revolutionised the teaching of Social studies in the participating territories, while the Primary Science curriculum succeeded in demystifying Science as the preserve of the academically brilliant. But the true measure of the impact of a curriculum project, however, lies in the use of the products in classrooms in ways that make a real difference to teaching and learning.  Massanari and Miller's evaluation of the PEP did not provide any evidence of this. That the PEP succeeded in getting some CARICOM Member States to develop supplementary materials for use in their own schools, underscores the positive outgrowth of collaborative action in the region. On the other hand, the fact that the project did not achieve the desired goal of commercial publication was not just a matter of cost.  It can also be seen as the persistence of individual territories to guard their own identities by ensuring that whatever goes into their education systems bears their own stamp.  The absence of a strong regional identity and the concern of individual territories to forge their own national identities, bolster national sentiments, instead of a regional consciousness which would have supported the use of common curricula in the primary systems of the region.

From the preceding, it is evident that although Cuban (1998) maintains that the effectiveness standard is the primary one used by most policy makers, media editors, etc, in judging the success of an innovation it is not an easy standard to measure. This is not only because the use of test results is inadequate but also because innovations usually have more than one goal and not all can be measured quantifiably. The results of the SSEE for the GMP tell us nothing about the achievement of the more affective goals.

(iii) Forgotten but not gone: infusion of core ideas

The third observation brings me back to where I started in this paper. When I look at my red jasper pendant, what I see is a beautiful semi-precious  stone. And yet I always remember that once it was a jagged piece of red rock that I picked up at my feet in the Kato area of Guyana. But who will remember these years from now when my pendant survives me and ends up at an antique auction perhaps? 

The fate of some innovations is not far different from this. We don’t hear about the G10/11 today. In its heyday,  it had the most  potent advocate of all-Prime Minister Michael Manley, one of the most popular and charismatic leaders that Jamaica has had since its  independence. The G10/11 benefited from his popularity. The Budget Debate Speech in 1973 when the decision to initiate the Grade 10 -11 Programme was announced was the first one of Manley’s Democratic Socialist Government that had been elected to office the previous year.  The G10/11 was like a keeping of a promise to faithful voters who had brought the party to power.  But with its removal from the Prime Minister’s office, the programme lost its popular appeal. Much of what was associated with it, for example the Life Skills Curriculum (which in later years was dubbed ‘the Dead Skills’ curriculum) we  would prefer not to remember and yet there are certain core elements of the G10/11,  like ‘life skills’ itself  and  the work experience programme which have become mainstream  features of secondary  education. Ideas from the Guyana Maths Project were infused into the Skills Reinforcement Guides developed by the National Centre for Educational Resource Development in Guyana in the early 1990s (Jennings 1993) and the cooperative approach to learning and the development of problem solving skills are core elements in the teaching of mathematics and numeracy in the primary curriculum in most if not all Caribbean countries today. The PEP has long since been washed out to sea by unrelenting currents, but  it too has left its mark in that it served as a stimulus to  the reform of existing syllabuses  in some participating territories.  For example, with financial assistance from the Organisation for Cooperation in Overseas Development (OCOD), Mathematics resource teachers in St. Kitts and Nevis, under the guidance of Mathematics tutors from the Teachers College, prepared a curriculum guide to supplement the PEP materials developed for Mathematics.  This guide provided, inter alia, an outline of the scope and sequence of the Primary Mathematics curriculum for St. Kitts/Nevis (Jennings, 2002).It can therefore be said that the G10/11, the GMP, the PEP are like the red jagged pieces of rock which were shaped into semi-precious stones, because something of them have survived in the new initiatives that followed them. Cuban (1998) made a similar observation about the Platoon schools. They are largely forgotten  today , he says, “yet the core notions of using buildings fully; offering a diversified curriculum combining academic subjects, practical tasks, and play… have become mainstream features of elementary schooling” (p 454).

(iv) Adaptability is common to all successful innovations

The fourth observation evident from table 1 is that adaptability is common to all the innovations that succeeded, even to some extent. Indeed, their adaptability was highlighted explicitly by their developers. For example, to ensure that cultural concerns unique to a particular territory were addressed, the developers of the PEP materials advised teachers to adapt the materials, as is evident from this statement from the Social Studies team: “Although this programme is structured, there is flexibility in both content and activities to permit a teacher to adapt to local and pupils' needs and to the availability of instructional materials (PEP Social Studies Curriculum Outline, 1985:2).

Usually innovations go through a process of mutual adaptation (Mclaughlin, 1976) wherein the innovation is adapted and the user adapts his /her situation to accommodate the innovation.  Based on his experience with a literacy project designed to promote leisure reading among reluctant readers in secondary schools in a Caribbean country, Warrican (2006) wrote: ‘if teachers can see that they can adapt a solution to fit their circumstances….. they are more likely to  adopt a change  and see it  as their own” (p12).

The R&T is implemented differently in each school, depending on the resources available. Very few schools are able to implement the Visual Arts element   due to a shortage of teachers trained in that area.  All involved in R&T have had to adapt in some way or other. Because the schools   do not have the resources, the onus has been put on students to provide materials needed for making products. Teachers of R&T have had to become accustomed to doing many things differently.  For example, they have had to adapt themselves to a team approach to planning and doing this planning during school time.  This same cooperative endeavour they have also had to encourage in the students, particularly through group work.  The teachers have also had to adopt a more student-centred and integrated approach to teaching, new assessment procedures, improved record keeping and they have had to learn to be resourceful. For example, one teacher commented on ‘having to teach keyboarding skills to a group of 51 with only 10 typewriters’ (Jennings, 1998:42).

There is an absence of local research on how teachers adapt curricula and how mutual adaptation actually takes place.  The research by Drake et al (2006) in the UK which found that teachers had different ‘models of curriculum use’ as they adapted a mathematics reform –based curriculum is illuminating in this regard. In the Caribbean there is a tendency to think that although teachers are encouraged to adapt curricula, they often use the curriculum guide as a blueprint since the curriculum is presented to them as a package. In the PEP Social Studies curriculum, for example, each   lesson outline begins with a statement of the theme, the topic based on the theme, organising concepts and generalizations, main ideas and the skills to be developed.  This is followed by a statement of behavioural objectives, content outline and suggested activities.  In some cases, there are even suggestions on 'Teacher Preparation', i.e. what the teacher should do to ensure adequate preparation for the lesson. Sample questions are also given together with background information on the topic and some evaluation exercises. While the teachers are advised to modify the outlines to suit their individual situations, the outlines are so detailed as to leave little to the imagination and inventiveness of the teachers.  Many are indeed reduced to 'passive consumers' (Jennings 2002).

Conclusion

To judge an educational innovation or change   as either a success or a failure is to misrepresent reality. They succeed to varying degrees and, rather like rocks which the relentless currents wear away over the years and shape into stones of different hue and form, these innovations are also worn away over time but  something of them endures in  initiatives that come after them. Change and durability are to rocks and stones as they are to educational innovations. It is the rare one, however, that seemingly vanishes without a trace, like the stone worn away by the currents over the years until it disintegrates to grains in a white-sanded Caribbean beach.  This paper has provided one example. PRIMER was closed down following the original experiment (and half a million Canadian dollars added to Jamaica’s national debt) and not surprisingly, since an IDRC official on a visit to the project schools observed ‘one has to look very hard to detect the innovation in use within Project PRIMER’ (Stromquist, 1982:7).  But Table 2 shows how relentless the currents wore away the fabric needed to sustain the innovation. The  supports  that were needed for it to be  implemented successfully were just  not there: the users being  convinced  of its need and relevance,  provision of good quality materials, participation  in decision-making on  the part of those responsible for implementing the ideas, lead time  for materials development, provision for evaluation, principals’ support for the teachers, support from the community. CSEC had all of these stacked in its favour.

But there are some educational innovations which seem born to die. Educational planners in developing countries can do much to rescue their countries from some indebtedness, if they only heed the signs. For PRIMER there were two signs early in its life which showed the writing on the wall. Firstly, soon after the proposal for PRIMER was accepted, the IDRC changed its priorities from involvement in high-cost development projects such as PRIMER to research (Cummings, 1986).Because the funding agency lost interest in PRIMER it did nothing to intervene when there were clear signs even in the early days of the project that things were not going well. Its lack of intervention has been attributed to the funding agency’s policy of not being overly directive but simply getting its officers to visit project sites and to “share their reflections with project staff and generally avoid.. …offering unsolicited advice” (Cummings, 1986, p.13).  Secondly, the government that negotiated the funding of PRIMER by the IDRC was defeated in the General Elections of October 1980.This was just about one year after the project was initiated.  Every one of influence who could have served as an advocate for PRIMER was removed from office. The new government, while giving verbal support to PRIMER, watched as it drowned when funding from the donor agency ceased. PRIMER failed to achieve its objectives and so was ineffective.  It was never implemented as originally conceived. It left nothing to be adapted, and its life was nipped in the bud.

So what have we learnt from all of this?  I would hope that we have a better understanding of how critical effective implementation is to the success of an innovation and that judgments about the success of an innovation should take these factors into consideration. Using particular criteria to evaluate success is a complex undertaking because innovations have multiple goals the achievement of which has to be judged by different standards. Some goals are achieved, others are not.  We have also learnt that most innovations do not die as their core ideas are taken up by initiatives that succeed them; that adaptability is a characteristic common to all the innovations that succeed.

 That all of this gives   a sense of continuity  and durability in the change process  may serve as some solace to those of us who are concerned  about the  project –driven nature of  our education systems in the Caribbean:   a new project replaces the old  in five year cycles and we seemingly  continue to step in the same river twice. But I would hope that it has also struck pangs of conscience in the hearts of initiators of projects such as PRIMER. The fact that evaluation and research tend not to be built into such projects has the effect of absolving such persons from accountability. Yet no project leaves the schools in which it is implemented unscathed. What happened to the teachers and principals in the PRIMER schools during and after its termination? Were their relationships affected? Most importantly how did the project’s failure impact on the children in those schools? Did we stand by and watch as they too drowned with the project? We should have answers to these questions. We should be more accountable for what happens in all our schools, but even more so in schools where innovations fail.

Tables

Factors affecting the implementation of selected educational innovations in the Caribbean

Key √ =present  X =absent # =present to some extent

 

A.  Characteristics of the innovation

                                      G10/11 R&T         CSEC       PMR        PEP        GMP

(1) Need and Relevance   Innovation is perceived as  relevant to community/societal needs

#

(2) Compatibility Innovation is perceived as compatible to values, existing practices,  etc.

#

#

#

(3) Complexity  Innovation  is perceived as  difficult to   understand and use

#

(4)  Clarity  Innovation goals are clear to users  and means of implementation made explicit

X

#

X

#

(5)  Quality and Practicality Programme materials are of  good quality and practicable

X

#

X

X

 

B. Characteristics at the school   level

                                      G10/11  R&T         CSEC       PMR      PEP       GMP

(6) Participation   Change strategy involves participation by teachers and principals

X

X

X

X

(7)Leadership  Principals offer good leadership

#

#

X

NE

(8) Training Adequate and appropriate training of teachers and principals

X

X

X

(9)  Relationships   Staff relationships are healthy and supportive

#

#

X

NE

NE

(10)Community support   The  community is involved and supportive

#

#

X

NE

NE

(11)School location Accessible and allows easy communication with /by project team

NE

NE

NE

X

NE

NE

 

C. Characteristics at the national   level

                           G10/11  R&T         CSEC       PMR      PEP         GMP

(12) Model of Change   Change strategy power  coercive/top-down

(13)  Relationships good relations between  school /Ministry of  Education staff and project team /Government

#

NE

X

NE

NE

(14) Leadership  Sound leadership by project director

X

(15)  Staffing    Adequate supply of staff in  project  team

X

(16) Evaluation & Research Provision for continuous monitoring and evaluation

X

X

X

#

(17) Government  Support  Continuing government  support

X

X

X

(18) Training Provision for ongoing teacher training /staff development

#

X

X

X

(19)  Lead Time for materials development   Realistic time  span for materials development

X

X

 

D. Characteristics external to the national system

                                     G10/11  R&T          CSEC     PMR      PEP         GMP

(20) Funding by donor agency   Realistic time span for funding

X

X

X

X

NE

(21)  Technical assistance  provision of international /local technical assistance

X

 

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Dealing with the Historical Paradoxes of a Globalized Educationalisation
a way to write the “New” Cultural History of Education?

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven-Kortrijk, Belgium

Marc.Depaepe@kuleuven-kortrijk.be

 

I am convinced that if we are not able to appreciate the relativity of the categories we use, we run the risk of not gaining anything, and of losing everything” (Eco, 1990, p. 111).

 

Every scientific discipline is continuously subject to change. This truism applies both to the knowledge generated within a particular field of research and to its educational translation into a teaching subject. When the subject of “history of pedagogy” (conceived as a history of educational thought) entered the curriculum of European universities in the 19th century, the legislators had completely different objectives and content in mind than the ones so-called “new cultural historians of education” proclaim today (see, e.g., Compère 1995). That we ourselves prefer to speak of “educational historiography” manifests this and illustrates the historicity (and also relativity) of the developments in the history of the “history of education” as a specific field of knowledge. Not only because such an outcome is partly itself the result of historical processes, but also and in particular because the process of knowing as such always takes place in a perspectivist (and, therefore, to a certain degree also in a “presentistic”, e.g. a time-bound) manner. Our observation of “reality” is made literally on the basis of a particular (biological, historical, social, cultural, ideological) “point of view” in time and space, while knowledge of (and therefore thinking, speaking and writing about) this “reality” is always shaped via the reductionist incision of the concrete word. Knowledge – and certainly knowledge of the past - comes about via time-bound linguistic concepts, the significance of which is predominantly dependent on the specificity of cultures in which such concepts are used and therefore continuously varies in relation to the present.

Epistemological step-up to a “new cultural history of education”

In general historiography, L. von Ranke is regarded as one of the founders of historicism. In the context of this intellectual movement, attention was already being drawn to the necessary historical content of phenomena. History had to be seen in relation to the norms each age brought with it. They were thought of as being an immanent part of the historical reality. They were active principles that gave the past itself shape. The intervention of the historian was regarded as that of a passive, photographic plate. His language was, as it were, a mirror of the historical reality, without autonomy.

During the course of the 20th century, however, it was realised that things are not as straightforward as they appeared in the perspective of 19th-century historicism. The historical reality is, to paraphrase the Dutch historian F.R. Ankersmit (1990, 1996), not a reality specified a priori but a reality that is only created in the interpretation, thus, a posteriori. The historian constructs the past within the contours of the applicable historiographic tradition. By means of an historical story, a context in the past is created that the past itself did not know. Every historical researcher inevitably starts out from an artificially created collection of data that are grouped (and regrouped) into a text, and this text, in the view of M. de Certeau (1978), through its own structure and construction carries within it an unité de sens. Language is thus not an autonomous mirror or a photographic plate. It is, in fact, not a mirror at all; it represents the expression of ourselves and of what structures our thoughts. Only in historical discussion, in conversation with other researchers, does it articulate historical knowledge. The forming of historical knowledge is, therefore, not to be sought in the past itself but in the interpretative traditions of the “historiographic operation”, which is related to the way in which the historical “evidence” is produced by historians. It assumes a distance in time, which makes possible the projection, the subjective historicity with which the researcher discovers and constructs the “different” in and the “being different” of the past. Such historical intervention, although it is never entirely “certain” of itself, is, however, not necessarily pure fiction. To the extent that the manufacturing of the past, in consultation with the usual practices of the present-day “historiographic operation” is able to distinguish the false from the falsifiable, it can undoubtedly lay claim to being scientific. The exercise of history – and here de Certeau follows P. Ricoeur (2004, p.180), who sees the past as something that is not but that has been – operates as critical hermeneutics. It arises from the break with the myth and rhetoric that previous historiographers have left behind and consequently results in something midway between “fiction” and “science”.

The thought that all our knowledge must be viewed as a conversation (and not as a correspondence between knowledge and reality) has been developed in particular by the American philosopher R. Rorty, who has also pointed to the significance of hermeneutics in the debate on the theory of knowledge (Boomkens, 1992). According to Rorty there is no neutral language of observation to which all scientific theories (and more particularly what T.S. Kuhn has referred to as “paradigms”) can be reduced, so that they can be compared with one another on the basis of their relative plausibility. Knowledge presupposes the language in which it is formulated, hence the epistemological need for interpretation and interpretative skills. Within the scheme of contemporary time a bygone culture can only be understood by engaging in a conversation with it, that it to say by acquiring experience of it (through texts) and developing new concepts. Only in such dialogue will we gradually be able to “seize” the past, which necessarily presupposes a change in our own categories and standpoints. Meanwhile, this blurred the distinction between philosophical argument and literary story-telling (or narrative) and the distinction between the purity and certainty of the avowed “objectivity” and the impurity and uncertainty of the ubiquitous “subjectivity”. Rorty (1982) emerged as a supporter of a pluralistic society, in which the novel, the literary story-telling, formed the core.

This “linguistic turn” led in historiography to the strict division between historical science and language also being overturned. For some, the blurring is so great that that there is virtually no longer any difference between the historiographic novels of historians and the novelised history of literary producers. However that may be, the history business, as a result of the linguistic turn, has gained more and more attention for the role of language, discursive practices, and the narrative structures in historical story. “If the linguistic turn teaches us anything, it teaches us to read differently, we must begin to write differently. There is no single correct approach to reading a historical text; there are only ways of reading. Different reading strategies will constitute a historical text in different ways. The linguistic turn forces us to reconsider what kind of act the writing of history is, what our forms of emplotment permits or constraints, what kind of story we want to tell, and what kind of story we actually do tell”, Cohen (1999, p. 81 f.) argues. The grand theory of post-structuralists plays a decisive role in this new cultural history of education, of which S. Cohen is only one exponent. There is agreement with Foucault that it is not the unique human individual who is the author of the text and the intentions contained in it, but the desubjectified “exposition”: the principle of the grouping of words, as a unit and origin of the meanings contained in it, and as a collecting point for the relationship that exists between them (Ankersmit, 1996, p. 122 f.). Instead of dealing with texts naively (as transparent windows onto the past), the new cultural historians of education draw attention to “textual silences” and “blind spots”. Such signals betray, as it were, the unconscious aspect of a text. Texts do not refer unproblematically to what exists outside the text, but are, as has been said, the material externalisation of structures and processes that have made the production possible. The new cultural educational historian therefore tries to understand how language and culture give intentionality to our deeds through their own logic. He tries to grasp the sphere of discursive orders, symbolic practices and media techniques that structure the involvement of the individual in society. “Our interest is in a historical imagination in the study of schooling that focuses on knowledge as a field of cultural practice and cultural production. It is to historicize what previously was subservient to a philosophical ‘unconsciousness,’ that is, the objects that stood as the monuments that projected its moral imperatives and salvation stories. This historicizing does not reject commitments but considers how commitments are interned and enclosed through the making of objects of interpretation, reflection, and possibility(Popkewitz et al., 2001, p. 15).

Focusing on the history of education, the linguistic turn therefore implies the re-orientation of a number of basic assumptions of modernism, which are related to the Enlightenment Project. First, the generalised progress thought was brought down. More specifically, a purely linear and teleological view of history was dismissed. In such a view, it is not only assumed that the “makeable” person and society can become “better” through development, but that this aim is at the same time revealed in the inherent dynamics of history. Second, the role of the subject as actor in history is rendered greatly problematical. Rather than on the impulses to educational innovation and improvement that would have been based on the individual, the focus now is on the discursive space which structures the educational field. One examined how the discursive space comes about, how it develops, how it constructs subjects and social activities (such as upbringing, training and education) and what forms of power and suppression are consequently produced and organised. In this way, the new cultural history aims to distance itself clearly from the paradigms that preceded it. Ultimately these are, according to T. Popkewitz et al. (2001, p. 13 ff.), still rooted too much in historicism. This historical tradition finds it difficult to live with the thought of an absent subject in history. The philosophy of awareness of the Enlightenment brought forth the idea of a self-aware actor, a creative and a priori subject that could be emancipated via universal knowledge and could consequently steer history in the direction of more humanity. Linked to the conceptions of liberalism and the modern state (which was thought of as the emancipation of a collective will), this provided stories of progress on the blessings of upbringing and education and the good life of children, educators and society. The irony of this historicism was, however, that, by positing a supra-historical idea of progress, it wiped out history – history was, as it were, made blind to the way in which historical conditions determined the finality and direction of stories on history. This “irony” of historicism has been described by W. Benjamin as the emptying of history by history.

In order to puncture the “false” historical awareness to which historicism has given rise, use can be made of the techniques of “deconstruction” (a concept taken from Derrida). This means that the “track” of the linguistic “drive” that such an historical awareness has brought forth must be exposed, or formulated differently, that the foundations of the linguistic code that structure and construct this exposition must be made visible. Following Foucault, it is assumed that history of human knowledge and science comes down to the unravelling of the hidden regime and the general policy of “truth” that is active in it. On the basis of the awareness of this Sisyphean task, we have, in the context of educational historiography, repeatedly argued for a demythologising perspective (Depaepe, 1997). Demythologising is – in the sense that Rorty has attributed to it – a “cartographic” activity: mapping the field of discussion. In view of doing this, it is far from unnecessary to consider here what have been the dominant “paradigms” among historians of education, and to look for the “narratives” these more or less generally accepted approaches to the educational past have given rise.

Paradigmatic developments towards the “new cultural history of education”

Kuhn (1979) used the term paradigm in the sense of a model approach, a “disciplinary matrix” of coherent entities of laws, theories, applications and instruments that belong to the consensus of a particular group of scientists. Paradigms are pivots around which the “revolutions” in the physical sciences turn. Kuhn emphasises in particular in these revolutions the discontinuity with what preceded them. The transition from one paradigm to another, he argues, ushers in a crisis state from which a new form of “normal” science can flourish. This transition in his view is not a cumulative process. It is more an “envelope” in which the points of departure for the redefinition of the specialist field become visible. With regard to writing history of education, the argument of successive paradigms to some extent holds true, but in relation to the context of radical breaks in which that would happen we have considerable reservation. We conceive the development in the history of science of the discipline of history of education far more as a continuum (see, e.g., Depaepe, 2004). This continuum presents itself as richly chequered process of intersecting outcomes. The break lines, to which Kuhn has alluded in the context of his analysis of the natural sciences, are, with regard to educational historiography, principally breaks in “self-discourse”. The aim was to demonstrate via methodological, theoretical or historiographical reflections on research how revolutionarily different the “new” approach was, so the category of “discontinuity” was obviously needed more for this than was “continuity”.

It is easy on the basis of self-discourse in an international perspective to distinguish three to four phases in the post-war development of the history of education as a field of research. The preference for the new cultural history of education, which gained ground particularly during the course of the 1990s, was preceded by the (new) social history of education. This “paradigm shift” in the direction of a more socially or sociologically substantiated educational historiography is said to have taken place chiefly in the 1960s and 1970s. The new social history of education, according to the internal conceptualisation in the field, replaced the “outdated” history of ideas of the great educational thinkers, which is said to have taken root particularly in the 1950s, partly in the context of teacher training. Following the 19th-century tradition, a “canonising” encounter with one’s own past, directed towards opening up the educationally valuable in the heritage of the history of ideas, offered a good platform for legitimising contemporary educational action. From the point of view of the history of the history of education, such an approach based on the history of ideas in turn contrasted with the antiquarian and chronologically constructed acts-and-facts history, which was often encountered in the context of institutional educational history. Such “school history”, although it was not devoid of the modernist belief in progress, had, all things considered, turned out to be less functional in the context of teacher training.

However, anyone who on the basis of actual publications of educational history wishes to investigate the specific evolutions and revolutions in the specialist field will soon come to the conclusion that the development of the research reality has been far more complex than these broad generalisations of the self-image of the discipline suggest. To begin with, the paradigms cited here intersect far more than is usually assumed. Social and cultural historiography on education is certainly not an invention of the late 20th century. In the wake of German historicism, attention was already paid to the study of the organic growth that could be established in the relatively autonomous cultural field of education. This study naturally had a different appearance than the present-day profiles of social and cultural educational historiography, but this does not deny that outpourings have continued to occur to the present to give the discipline a professional and educationally relevant appearance. To an extent, sedimentations of previous paradigmatic layers are still active. In addition, the heterogeneity of “new” impulses for both social and cultural historiography on education cannot be ignored. Far from having been a monolithic paradigm, the preference for social educational history was (and is) borne by a sturdy methodological debate on the role of history in theory-forming, in which diametrically opposed positions are often adopted: from empirical source description of social  ties to education through the integration of sociological models and theories – an anything but flat contours of schools and directions of research, which we cannot examine in detail here owing a lack of space.

With a view to a better understanding of contemporary educational historiography, we merely point out that complicated sociological models are at the basis in part of what is known as the world system analysis, which is currently much in vogue in the framework of comparative approaches. Studies of the “neo-institutionalist school” – which argues for a more sophisticated form of the traditional functionalism in sociology and with which the names of J.W. Meyer, F.O. Ramirez, and J. Boli are associated – demonstrate that the educational institutions and the education system as such have been of decisive significance for the consolidation of the “modern” nation state and the positioning of the individual in it. In “modern” times, the “nation state” has gradually taken over the task of intermediate bodies, such as classes and guilds, as well as of cosmo-politically-oriented churches of traditional society. Education became the secularised version of the ecclesiastical message of salvation: as an outstanding rite of initiation, the school promised progress and deliverance for individual and nation (Caruso & Roldán Vera, 2005). Despite the political and social characteristics of various states, the build-up of education for the masses in the western world followed a similar route. There is discussion in this context of a “symptomatic isomorphism”. National and cultural unity, to a significant degree, was acquired through the school. It propagated and incarnated as an institution values such as the manipulability of the individual and society, the associated belief in progress, as well as the scientific rationality of this modernistic dream which gradually took on a transnational, universal and universalistic appearance - certainly after the Second World War, when the school and the associated ideology of redemption had gained worldwide support (Schriewer, 2004). According to neo-institutionalist thinking, the school as an institute for the masses first integrated various population groups in dominant “nationalities”. This process took place principally in the 19th century, although the impetus for it had clearly been given in the 18th century (see Pereira de Sousa, et al., 2005). The core of this process was based on the formation of the notion of “citizenship”– the ethically constructive attitude that was expected of every individual as a member of the society with respect to the state. The idea of citizenship gradually developed to that of “world citizenship”- the ethical loyalty with respect to the imaginary culture of the global community, to which people were bound as a result of the transnational modernisation processes that were taking place.

As a result of globalisation thinking, great social movements such as secularisation, the rise of industrial capitalism, the intensification of international contacts through trade and industry can be relatively easily described and understood, including for parts of the world that do not belong to the centre of western society. But it is obvious that the practical details of such vastly conceived paradigms can vary widely depending on the historical contexts to which it is de facto directed. Mutatis mutandis, the same applies to the disciplinisation thinking that without doubt occupies the most significant place as a grand theory within the new cultural history of education.

Narratives of civilisation, disciplinisation, normalisation, globalisation, colonisation, educationalisation and feminisation: traces of paradoxes of “post-modern” educational historiography?

As is well known, the western process of civilisation is in essence traced back by Elias (1969R) to making people ever “neater” and “tamer” by means of complex forms of social and mental influence. Imitation of social reference groups plays a great role in this. One imposes on oneself the pattern of others, which gives rise, as it were, to a spiral of civilising work. As lower groupings try to take over the more refined forms of social intercourse and the living and behaviour standards of the upper social layers, these upper layers themselves, desiring to be distinct, then impose on themselves even stricter behaviour control, which then evokes an urge to imitate among these others, and so on. Insofar as the process of civilisation is disciplinisation and/or drill, Elias's theory can easily be linked to the normalisation thinking of Foucault, who focussed just as much on history for the development of his ideas. Both made use of the “genealogical” method, aimed at understanding the social changes on the basis of themselves. Both studied long-term social processes; they examined the rules whereby these processes are structured, what is inherited from the past, and what is manifested as innovation. They both arrived at an internal dynamic, based on relations of power and dominance, that is constitutive for the occurrence of a particular (modern or western) form of society, just as much as for the occurrence of particular types of knowledge as for the process of subjectivisation (Varela, 2001). Foucault searched for knowledge incorporated into the complex institutional system and arrived at the discursive practice of power. This power permeates the whole of society and is manifestly present at all its levels. It cannot be localised but is expressed as a chain of events in which supervising, punishing and controlling are permanently present as a common motif (Foucault, 2004R, p. 215). The ultimate aim of this disciplinary strategy (which was manifested from the 16th and 17th centuries on through the “great interment” of the poor, the mentally ill, the prostitutes, and so on) is to “normalise” people, that is to say to transform their bodies into obedient machines with good health, a “correct” mentality, and an appropriate (that is to say, socially desirable) needs structure. What is normal is ultimately determined by the production of the knowledge and science itself, which, principally from the Enlightenment on, has come to play an essential role as part of a more perfected technology of power. As disciplinary exercise of power becomes invisible, the subject has come more to the fore as the object of science. As power comes to function more anonymously, individualisation over those on whom the power is exercised arises: each individual is articulated as an object of science and control.

The integration of normalisation thinking à la Foucault has without doubt enriched educational historiography. Examples are legion, certainly in the field of “special” education, which has made itself available as an excellent field of application for a cultural offensive with all kinds of normalising effects – albeit that this cultural compulsion often takes a unilaterally negative colouring, in the sense that little attention has been paid to the emancipating effects that this cultural compulsion could possibly have had (Dekker, 2001). From this point of view, the question remains to what extent normalisation thinking, despite its instructive value for the direction that educationalisation has taken as a process, is capable of spanning the entire set of effects relating to the promotion of personal, social and cultural welfare. Such effects cannot be viewed in isolation from the perception of individual people, and – insofar as educational historiography has given a definite answer – it appears that this cannot be pushed without qualification into the straitjacket of one or other disciplinary “master plan”.

Indeed, Foucault he himself has not exclusively nor primarily defined disciplinisation negatively. Thus, possibly “person-promoting” outcomes of this process certainly need not be regarded as unintentional side-effects (whether or not thought of as resistance from the lower classes). Like Elias, Foucault appreciated just as much the productive aspects of the exercise of power (Varela, 2001). It is precisely social compulsion, which through inner normalisation becomes self-compulsion that, according to him, produces the person, the individual. Only that individual does not exist as a being in which unity or a free will can be detected. People are merely combinations of positions in diverging structures, which function according to their regularities, and the ideology of the free and creative unit subject – itself a product of discipline – entails a limitation of human capabilities. Foucault, therefore, refused to accept in history a kind of centre or subject from which a network of causal relations might originate. It was not without irony that he pointed out that freedom could not be equated with the overthrow or denial of the existing order. Freedom was not the opposite of power or compulsion, but was, like the lack of freedom, associated with it in a complex manner. The educational task of humanity was therefore not “liberation” – the great dream of Enlightenment and modernity – but “living in freedom” – a notion also expressed before him by A. Gramsci (Boomkens, 2004). Gramsci, who wrote many of his works in prison under the Mussolini regime, pointed out before the Second World War that the idea of “revolution”, a single battle against a bastion of corrupted power, had been overtaken by such things by the democratisation of politics, the increased influence of economic power with ramifications around the world, and the growing significance of public opinion in Europe as well as in the United States. In highly developed, complex and sharply differentiated societies, “the” authority and “the” power had many kinds of faces and effects. In connection with the generalisation of public education imposed from above, for example, Gramsci stated that this could remove the lower classes from ignorance. The school enabled them to rise above the folklore, superstition, fear, and magic of the traditional view of the world (Simon, 1987).

Therefore, there are difficulties with the image of unilateral control of the individual to which, rather than the normalisation thinking of Foucault himself, the derivations from it – including in the educational history – have given rise. In the view of de Certeau, what is more applicable here is the conclusion that people, despite the existence of tenacious and compulsive structures in society, try constantly to escape this imposed compulsion and eventually also succeed. Instead of an ordered whole, “the” society emerges as a well-nigh ungovernable swarm of individuals who are moved by individual emotions, insights and experiences, on which the controlling interventions of planners, sociologists, psychologists, educationalists, and the like, all things considered, have only modest influence. It is difficult to think of processes such as “normalisation” and “civilising” as linear, modernistic stories of progress. Rather than as single and simple narratives, they point to the complexity and multiplicity of the final result of the “civilisation” – a theme that resonates all the more strongly in the present-day “stories of globalisation”: “For the first time in its long linear and cumulative history, civilisation is not described just in terms of increased transparency, increased freedom or increased diversity but principally in terms of increased chaos, indefiniteness, ambiguity, doubt. That this is possible – and not just possible but also fruitful – can become apparent only if we are prepared not so much to drop the concept of civilisation, or the whole idea of the Enlightenment or modernisation, as to show how such processes are the result of more than one source or authority” (Boomkens, 2004, p. 6).

The outcome of globalisation cannot be interpreted univocally any more than the result of disciplinisation can. Some call them “hybridisation”, “creolisation” and such things (attention being invariably drawn to the occurrence of new differences within globalisation that is thought of all too homogeneously); others speak of “glocalisation”, by which is meant that globalisation at the same time also signifies localisation and delocalisation. Civilisation does not emerge from one centre but is the complex result of multiple influences and practices, which, despite the general tendencies present in it, can produce differentiated results in the short and long term. No internationalisation without indigenisation, as J. Schriewer (2004) recently wrote. But this does not alter the fact that the generalised dependency on the global economy, bringing in its wake accelerated despatialisation via the Internet, “assaults” us as a fate hardly to be averted. Just as in civilisation and normalisation processes, the paradoxical nature of globalisation appears to consist in creating “freedom in dependence” or perhaps better still “freedom as dependence”. In the same way that advancing institutionalisation, structuring, and isolation of the world in which children and young people live in the name of “emancipation” through upbringing, training, and education appears to encourage increasing patronisation, it is a paradoxical observation that the “liberal”, “democratic” market society, in the name of free circulation of people and goods, is not just increasingly regulating itself but is also ruling out any alternative for society – which easily continues to arouse fears among “different-globalists” and “anti-globalists” of standardisation, “coca-colonisation”, “McDonalisation” and all manner of other ironic terms.

To the extent that such a “progressive” heritage keeps open other paths for society, it probably also has a historic mission. Not to harness history before the cart of its ideology, but to demonstrate that the slogan of those, who considered it necessary to proclaim the end of history on the basis of globalisation, ultimately holds little water. As the Gramsci-inspired educational historian B. Simon once remarked, history (and that of education in particular) leads to the “liberating” insight that things have not always been the way they are now and therefore neither do they need to remain the way they are now. Or, to put it in the more contemporary terms of the sociologists and educationalists who, on the basis of the world-system theory described above, propagate a symbolic “world culture” of universal human rights: “There was nothing inevitable about Western ascendancy nor is there any reason to believe that this is a permanent world condition” (Ramirez, 2003, p. 10). The generalisation of education by the systematic institutionalisation of the school may well be responsible for homogenisation and universalisation of society in the direction of the neo-capitalist and neo-liberal model; the isomorphic educational regime of globalising society also lies at the basis of the broadening of the awareness of the individual: “schooling has too many amphetamine-like effects to serve as opiate for the masses” (Ramirez, 2003, p. 11). This once again leads to another, albeit intriguing paradox, namely that the universalistic aspirations (aroused by education) for finding of identity, like the need (also aroused by education) to substantiate this rationally will perhaps lead to a “dewesternisation” rather than a “westernisation” of world culture...

Indeed, as far as our research on the history of education in the former Belgian Congo has indicated (e.g. Depaepe & Van Rompaey, 1995), the study of the colonial educational past, more even than that of the Western history in general, revealed the systemic faults and the pedagogical paradoxes of the 'modern' educational project. One of them certainly encompasses the discrepancy between the educational objectives and the educational effects. The colonization of the area, which was accompanied largely by the destruction of the existing culture, set off educational processes in the autochthons that, in the long term, turned out to be incompatible with the points of departure of the colonization, casu quo, evangelization. Far from adopting the stereotypical, leftist-revisionist coloured discourse of the missionary as the stooge of a lobby lusting for economic gain the thesis of an ambitiously orchestrated educational plot against the blacks does not hold true as such it still cannot be denied that the colonial education did not give directly evidence of much emancipatory power. In our opinion, there is enough evidence to argue that the Belgian civilizers, including the missionaries, played the tutelage card for too long. It is true that the Church in the second half of the 1950s increasingly lined up behind the Congolese people, but the heritage of the past weighed heavily. At the time of independence in 1960, the Congo did not have the necessary functionaries and know-how to govern the country effectively. Instead of striving to broaden awareness, the missionaries as well as the colonists tried as best they could to socialize the pupils entrusted to them to become docile helpers of the colonial system. Insofar as critical thinking was still promoted, it appeared all in all to be little more than an undesired side effect. In any case, one was aware and this was the fundamental paradox the educational agents saw themselves confronted with that the success of the colonial adventure required a certain introduction to “modern” (Western?) critical thought and cultural pattern, particularly for the 'elite', but one also knew all too clearly that too much education could lead to the destabilization of the autochthon life. The question of 'how far can/must we go' thus hovered constantly in the background of the quasi-exponential expansion of primary education for the masses.

The fact that resistance regularly arose against the all too stringent disciplining from above illustrated, however, as did the relatively high dropout rate, that the Western educational machine ran anything but smoothly (see also Depaepe, 1998). The dysfunctioning of agricultural education, which was intended to halt the flight from the land and the accompanying loss of control over the masses, constituted perhaps the best example of this. But also the increasing dissatisfaction of the évolués, who had been able to push through to the scarce forms of continued and higher education, points, all in all, in the same direction. According to the educational dream of the Belgian policy makers in the Congo, the autochthons should be prepared for independence slowly but surely. This was done by paternalistically preaching the development of a harmonious cooperation model so that the Belgian interests in the area could be assured. It is true that the African identity had to be strengthened by means of education, but the Western civilization model continued to be directive. The internal dynamics of the Western civilizing process produced among the autochthons a repugnance for manual labour and caused social disintegration by emigration to the city and the penchant for a job in governmental administration. In the countryside, elementary education after Independence headed for catastrophe, and in the urban centres, too, the double-tracked nature of education manifested itself ever more painfully. In addition to an increasing group of excluded people, education delivered an elite, who were saddled with inferiority complexes who could give vent to their frustrations on subordinates with impunity.

Without wanting to ascribe the bankruptcy of present education in Congo completely to a failing colonial system, we must admit that some of the present problems go back to the Belgian educational past. Together with the educational structures from the colonial era, the authoritarian-hierarchical viewpoint of the whites was “appropriated” by several Congolese leaders with little if any hesitation. Belgian education in the Congo resembled not a successful enterprise but a runaway locomotive that, in spite of all the good intentions, inevitably raced to its own destruction.

Probably, an interesting parallelism is still to be discovered here (see, in this respect, Depaepe, Briffaerts, Kita Kyankenge Masandi & Vinck, 2003) between the postcolonial “appropriation” of modern (i.c. western, neo-liberal) educational standards in developing countries at the one hand and the neo-liberal “transformation” of the progressive educational heritage in the “modern” world at the other hand. In “old” Europe as well as in “new” world of North America, the reception of “progressive” educational thought did not occur according to a linear logic of one or another idea-historical chain but according to the dynamic and capricious principles of imputation and appropriation. If the leading educational philosophers and great thinkers (see De Coster, Depaepe, Simon & Van Gorp, 2005; Popkewitz, 2005) were read at all by educators, they projected into their writings what they ultimately wanted to read or see or what they simply felt. The so often cheered pedagogical reception history must, in our opinion, then at least be complemented by a pedagogical “perception history” in which instinctive, psychological processes such as perception, empathy – Be-eindrücking, as is said so well in German – are considered at least as important as the receptive rational. The romantic, theological-pastoral discourse of the elevation of the people of God (formulated by Pestalozzi among others) was, for example, adapted, in our opinion, not so much in function of one’s own pedagogical, political, and social considerations and implications as in function of its servitude to various political, pedagogical, social, and economic agendas of the “consumers” – agendas of the moment that, possibly, can be embraced in larger-scale modernisation processes, such as nation formation, secularisation, pedagogisation or educationalisation, professionalisation, and so on. Such ideologisations, rationalisations, and legitimations, which are generally the result of historical filtering processes, transformations, and appropriations of pedagogical concepts constitute in any event, as “working history”, an essential component of the modern historiography of education. They bring the story of the history of educational thought within a culture-historical line that Michel Foucault and others have drawn by conceiving history as a discourse about discourses (see also Depaepe 1992 & 2006).

However, the discursive story line of pedagogical ideas does not stand alone within the “new” cultural history of education. It is constantly brought into relation with what the concrete pedagogical practice yields as its own exposition structures. In contrast to what the classic history of ideas paradigm accepts in line with philosophical idealism, the relation between “theory” and “practice”, or, if you will, between “idea” and “action”, is conceived here not as a one-way street from the one to the other. The historical dynamic (dialectic?) that occurs between the two poles (sometimes conceived as a somewhat more complex tension curve across a broad middle field of “mentalities”) is, in my opinion, much more complex than what a simple “top-to-bottom” relation of theory and practice would lead one to assume. As has emerged from our own research, this dynamic must be conceived rather circularly: pedagogical practice does not simply endure the terror of theory; it itself also transforms theory in function of the legitimation of its own actions. What remained in the concrete practice of the progressive-pedagogical, also within the most progressive educational circles, was, considered from this perspective, often little more than slogan language, separated from and even opposed to the original intentions. In relation to the implementation of educational innovations, the dynamic between what we have elsewhere called higher and lower pedagogy (Depaepe et al 2000) exposes precisely one of the fundamental causes of why pedagogical-didactic reforms proceed so slowly. Paraphrasing Larry Cuban (1993), we can state that educational reform movements – including their theoretical backgrounds and starting points – change not so much the school and education themselves than, inversely, are controlled by the “grammar of schooling” active in it.

We shall return to this “grammar” immediately, but let us first point out that this does not, however, alter the fact that the idea of globalisation of the educational space, including in the Foucauldian sense, can be critically questioned at its discursive level. It forms part of a continued liberal administrative regime in which the social democratic ideology and strategy of the active welfare state is no longer experienced as a problem of social inequality but as one of inclusion and exclusion. For Popkewitz (2004), the criterion of this exclusion forms the manufactured concept of “lifelong learner”, which at the same time serves as the impetus for a new type of cosmopolitanism, by which the spirit is “made” and the self is “managed”. Masschelein and Simons (2003, p. 76 ff.) see the emergence of this new globalism as an economisation of the social. On the one hand, it fits in which the propaganda for the usable, “managing self” and on the other it gives the “experts” (therapists, psychologists, educationalists etc.) the opportunity to “sell” their expertise, which in our view presupposes educationalisation in a dual manner. However that may be, the invitation to conceive social relations as the enterprising choice of an autonomous, independent subject with individual motives meanwhile provides the ironic paradox with discursive anonymity itself.

Quite apart from this critique of the contemporary orientation of the trend towards globalisation, with and without a cultural history colouring, there is obviously also the question to what extent the story of globalisation in itself offers an adequate impetus for the construction of educational historiography. With regard to the neo-institutionalist research tradition, in any event, this large-scale approach risks surveying educational development too hastily, too superficially and too linearly (Caruso & Roldán Vera, 2005). In addition, there is a danger that this “school” of research, which situates the educational “isomorphism” of globalisation principally at the macro- and meso-level of educational action (Schriewer 2004) also merely gazes at those levels (de Sousa et al, 2005), while the quasi-uniform patterns of action at the micro-level have presumably worked just as strongly in a “homogenising” and “globalising” way. The latter meanwhile appears to be the outcome of studies on the grammar of schooling, first undertaken by American educational historians like L. Cuban, D. Tyack and W. Tobin (Cuban, 1993²). The archetype of this grammar of schooling can be easily found in museums of “education”, all over the world. That these education museums breathe the same spirit almost everywhere proves how universal the “text” of this school grammar is – even though the social and cultural “context” over the various periods has brought with it important differences of nuance. And it proves just as much how deeply the grammar of the school is interwoven with the process of modernisation, globalisation and educationalisation. In various languages and against the background of different cultures, the same “educational regime” became established almost everywhere in the “civilised” world: a similar complex of actions with the aim of training the students (for later) by disciplining them. This is evidenced not just by the educational behaviour and how children are dealt with didactically but also by the determinants of the school culture.

School culture, which to a great degree structures the content and outlook of the disciplinary “educational regime”, was studied in particular by the French school of history, educational and otherwise. School culture can be defined in this tradition as the entire set of norms that determines the directions of education and determines the practices to obtain the desired knowledge contents and social behaviour from the students (Nóvoa, 2001). Significant research in this connection is also being done in the Spanish-speaking world. Educational historians are searching for what is known as the Arqueología de la escuela (Viñao, 2001). The “archaeology” of teaching and the associated rituals of school life cannot be seen, however, in isolation from the “educational” significance of running a school. It is only on the basis of the “basic semantics” of educational theory (e.g. Oelkers, 1991) that the American concept of grammar of schooling can be fully interpreted. In our view, the “grammar of educationalisation” (or “educationalising”) is therefore an unavoidable complement to the “grammar of schooling” (Depaepe et al., 2000).

The polarity between schooling and educationalising, alongside the irony of educational innovation, reveals the more fundamental educational paradox from which the process of educationalisation can best be interpreted. Better education, according to the “enlightened” ideal of the late 18th century, was to result in more mature people, but this did not prevent this “emancipative” objective invariably presupposing an asymmetric educational relationship as a means. Training was dependent on the subjection and obedience of apprentices to the authority of the “master”. The latter was in charge of an educational adventure that increasingly made use of a specified curriculum. He knew the path that had to be followed and the techniques that could be employed for this purpose. The proclaimed ideal of self-development could be founded on unbridled freedom as little as it could on blind obedience. The school, as the prediction and at the same time reduction of real life, required a compromise between freedom and bondage. Children had to be able to develop under the invisible – as far as possible because the ideal of punitive sobriety applied with regard to punishment – yet firm hand of the leader. More pedagogy and pedagogics, therefore, did not necessarily result in more autonomy for the child but could, conversely, also culminate in prolonged dependence (infantilisation). It was essential to this, however, that the brutalising elements of physical violence through the “sweet smile” and a “forced atmosphere of harmony and contentment” were “professionally” altered to mental threats and emotional blackmail.

Such educational flair came ever close to the vicinity of the ideal, considered to be female, of gentleness, which in turn touches on another educational paradox, that of “feminisation” versus “feminism”– a movement that as such aims for emancipation of women (and not stereotyping of women in function of one or another occupational group). Our hypothesis is that it is difficult to view the feminisation of the teaching profession in isolation from the professionalisation of the sector. Women are, as it were, trained in sensitivity for the educational outlook. The educationally correct “outlook” as it were became the trademark of the purported “femininity” of women and consequently legitimised the traditional division of roles between men and women (hard sector versus soft sector). Hence, as the influence of education increased, the feminisation of the teaching profession and of training also increased – a phenomenon not even brought to a halt by the undeniable “emancipation of women” in recent decades. It is notable, however, that this paradox until now has received little attention in the feminist-inspired historical writing on education. This historiography, nevertheless, has brought about significant adjustments in the usually “male short-sightedness” of traditional educational historiography (cf. Lowe, 2000). J. Herbst (1999) even welcomed it as the most significant innovation in a field in which he otherwise saw little evolution since the heyday of American revisionism in the 1970s: one more reason to see, in the unravelling of the subtle paradoxes to which the process narratives of disciplinisation, normalisation, globalisation, educationalisation, feminisation and so on have given rise, one of the great challenges of “contemporary” educational historiography. By way of conclusion, therefore, the question arises of the extent to which the study of these paradoxes is compatible with the conceptualisation of the new cultural history of education. In other words:

Is this truly “new cultural” educational historiography? 

Ultimately, the answer to this probably adds little. To the extent that the educational paradoxes relate to the epistemological condition of perspectivism (with which people as cultural and biological beings necessary look at the past), they are also applicable to the labels people have wanted to attach to the history of education. As C. Barros (2004), among others, has noted with respect to the methodological debate in general history writing, it is mostly a matter of overcoming the dichotomies prompted by characterisations as “old” and “new” by striving for new syntheses through a mixing of historical genres and lines of research. And this has consequences not only for the theoretical positioning in the historiographical debate but also for of the concrete research “design” (the elaboration of research questions, the selection of source materials, the collection of data, the construction of the text as the “result” of the research, and so on). The study of educational paradoxes does not in any way exclude a fuite en arrière (although the great return to the traditional empirical and/or “modern” social history, referred to by Barros, 2004, as the positivist turn, in our view must be radicalised and made absolute as little as the linguistic turn, which is said to have ushered in post-modernism). In the context of feminisation research, for example, a rigid statistical substructure – a kind of quantitative prosopography – is a conditio sine qua non that must precede any new-fashioned interpretation. Figures are, therefore, by no means a bad thing; on the contrary, they can help to prick “educational” myths.

What is needed, all things considered, is a “mix” of approaches, of “ways of seeing” – a plurality of insights. As a result of being able to change perspective, we become better armed to deal with the heterogeneity of linguistic games and expositions from the educational past – as well as with the ensuing irony. Educational life, like political life (see Ankersmit, 1990, who points out that the serious, radical French revolutionaries who strove for a society free of injustice and brute force achieved the precise opposite – a society in which anyone suspected could end up on the guillotine) is not intrinsically ironic, but it only becomes so through historical insight. This irony takes place through the realisation that the results of education and training can differ dramatically from what the educational activity had initially intended, just as the outcomes of politics can differ greatly from the objectives on which it is based. In this sense, we plead with Barros et al. (2004, p. 43) neither for purely objectivistic historiography in the manner of von Ranke nor for the purely subjectivist approach of post-modernism: “We propose a Science with a human subject that discovers the past as people construct it” – which at the same time contains an awareness of one’s own relativity (and the associated modesty). Indeed, if we are not able to appreciate the relativity of the categories we use, we run the danger of not gaining anything and of losing everything...

 

References and/or complementary bibliography

 

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Ankersmit, F.R. (1996). De spiegel van het verleden. Exploraties I: geschiedtheorie. Kampen/Kapellen: Kok Agora/Pelckmans.

Barros, C. & .McCranck, L.J. (eds.), History Under Debate. International Reflection on the Discipline. New York, etc.: The Haworth Press.

Boomkens, R. (red.) (1992). De asceet, de tolk en de verteller. Richard Rorty en het denken van het Westen. Amsterdam: Stichting voor Filosofies Onderzoek.

Boomkens, R. (2004). Smeulende kwesties. De mythe van de globalisering. [KU Leuven: Instituut voor Culturele Studies] URL: http//: www.culturelestudies.be/onderzoek/smeul_reneboomkens.htm

Caruso, M. & Roldán Vera, E. (2005). Pluralizing Meanings: the Monitorial System of Education in Latin America in the Early Nineteenth Century, Paedagogica Historica, vol. 41, in press.

Cohen, S. (1999). Challenging Orthodoxies. Toward a New Cultural History of Education. New York, etc.: Peter Lang.

Compère, M.-M. (1995). L’Histoire de l’éducation en Europe. Essai comparatif sur la Façon dont elle s’écrit.  Berne, etc./Paris: Lang/INRP.

Cuban, L. (1993²). How Teachers Taught: Constancy and Change in American Classrooms, 1880-1990. New York: Longman. 

De Certeau, M. (1978). L’écriture de l’histoire. Paris: Gallimard.

De Coster, T., Depaepe, M. & Simon, F. (2005). Dewey in Belgium: A Libation for Modernity? In: Thomas S. Popkewitz (Ed.): Inventing the Modern Self and John Dewey Modernities and the Traveling of Pragmatism in Education. New York: Palgrave, p. 86-109.

Dekker, J. (2001). The Will to Change the Child. Re-education Homes for Children at Risk in Nineteenth Century Western Europe. Frankfurt a.M, etc: Peter Lang.

Depaepe, M. (1992). History of Education anno 1992: ‘a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing’? Presidential Address ISCHE XV, History of Education, vol. 22, p. 1-10.

Depaepe, M. (1997). Demythologizing the Educational Past: An Endless Task in History of Education, Historical Studies in Education/Revue d'histoire de l'éducation, vol. 9, pp. 208-223.

Depaepe, M. (1998). ‘Rien ne va plus…’. The Collapse of the Colonial Educational Structures in Zaïre (1960-1995), Education and Society, vol. 16, p. 37-53.

Depaepe, M. (2004). How should history of education be written? Some reflections about the nature of the discipline from the perspective of the reception of our work, Studies in Philosophy and Education, vol. 23, pp. 333-345.

Depaepe, M. (2006). Jenseits der Grenzen einer “neuen” Kulturgeschichte der Erziehung? Über die Paradoxien der Pädagogisierung. In: R. Casale, D. Tröhler & J. Oelkers (Ed.): Historiographische Probleme der Bildungsforschung. Methode und Probleme. Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag, in press.

Depaepe, M. & Van Rompaey, L. (1995). In het teken van de bevoogding. De educatieve actie in Belgisch-Kongo (1908-1960). Leuven/Apeldoorn: Garant.

Depaepe, M., Briffaerts, J., Kita Kyankenge Masandi, P. & Vinck, H. (2003). Manuels et Chansons Scolaires au Congo Belge. Leuven: Presses Universitaires de Louvain.  

Depaepe, M. et al. (2000). Order in Progress. Everyday Educational Practice in Primary Schools: Belgium, 1880-1970. Leuven: Leuven University Press.

Eco, U. (1985). Wat spiegels betreft. Essays. Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Bert Bakker.

Elias, N. (1969R). Über den Prozess der Zivilisation. Soziogenetische und psychogenetische Untersuchungen. II: Wandlungen der Gesellschaft. Entwurf zu einer Theorie der Zivilisation. Bern/München: Francke (first: 1939).

Foucault, M. (2004R). Surveiller et punir. Naissance de la prison. Paris: Gallimard (first: 1975).

Herbst, J. (1999). The History of Education: State of the Art at the Turn of the Century, Paedagogica Historica, vol. 35, pp. 737-747.

Kuhn, T.S. (1979³) De structuur van wetenschappelijke revoluties. Meppel/Amsterdam: Boom (first 1962).

Lowe, R. (ed.) (2000). History of Education. Major Themes. 4 vols. Londen/New York: RoutledgeFalmer.

Masschelein, J. & Simons, M. (2003). Immune globaliteit. Een kleine cartografie van de Europese ruimte voor onderwijs. Leuven/Leusden: Acco.

Nóvoa, A. (2001). Texts, Images, and Memories: Writing “New” Histories of Education, In: T.S. Popkewitz, B.M. Franklin & M. Pereyra (eds.), Cultural History and Education. Critical Essays on Knowledge and Schooling. New York/London: RoutledgeFalmer pp. 45-66.

Oelkers, J. (1991). Erziehung als Paradoxie der Moderne. Aufsätze zur Kulturpolitik. Weinheim: Deutscher Studien Verlag.

Pereira de Sousa, C. et al. (2005). School and Modernity: Knowledge, Institutions and Practices, Paedagogica Historica, vol. 41,  pp. 1-8.

Popkewitz, T.S. (2004). Cosmopolitanism and the Inclusive “Reason” as Exclusion: Making the “Mind” Modern and Governing the “Self” (Lecture, CHP, Leuven, 29th Septembre 2004).

Popkewitz, T.S. (2005). Inventing the Modern Self and John Dewey: Modernities and the Traveling of Pragmatism in Education – An Introduction. In: T.S. Popkewitz (Ed.): Inventing the Modern Self and John Dewey. Modernities and the Traveling of Pragmatism in Education. New York: Palgrave, p. 3-36.

Popkewitz, T.S., Franklin, B.M. &  Pereyra M. (2001). History, the Problem of Knowledge and the New Cultural History of Schooling, in: Idem (eds.), Cultural History and Education. Critical Essays on Knowledge and Schooling. New York/London: RoutledgeFalmer, pp. 3-42.

Ramirez, F.O. (2003). Toward a Cultural Anthropology of the World? In: K. Anderson-Levitt (ed.), Local Meanings/Global Cultures: Anthropology and World Culture Theory. New York: Palgrave (12 pp. offprint).

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Schriewer, J. (2004). Multiple Internationalities: The Emergence of a World-Level Ideology and the Persistence of Idiosyncratic World-Views. In: Ch. Charle, J. Schriewer & P. Wagner, Transnational Intellectual Networks. Forms of Academic Knowledge and the Search for Cultural Identities. Frankfurt a.M./New York: Campus, pp. 473-533.

Simon, B. (1987). Schooling Society: The Care of an Elite for the Masses in the 19th and 20th Centuries, Pedagogisch Tijdschrift, vol. 12, pp. 133-140.

Varela, J. (2001). Genealogy of Education: Some Models of Analysis. In: T.S. Popkewitz, B.M. Franklin & M. Pereyra (eds.), Cultural History and Education. Critical Essays on Knowledge and Schooling. New York/Londen: RoutledgeFalmer, pp. 107-124.

Viñao, A. (2001). History of Education and Cultural History: Possibilities, Problems, Questions. In: T.S. Popkewitz, B.M. Franklin & M. Pereyra (eds.), Cultural History and Education. Critical Essays on Knowledge and Schooling. New York: RoutledgeFalmer, pp. 125-150.

 

                                           


Keep the heaps together! 
Diversity, citizenship and education: St. Martin as a Caribbean immigration metropolis, lessons from Amsterdam and vice versa

Open University of the Netherlands, the Netherlands

iwan@sewandono.com

 

1. Introduction: a conceptual framework

In this paper I develop a conceptual framework for integrated debate and deliberation on policymaking that goes beyond economic bipartitions and controversies between state and market, demand and supply, or individualism and collectivism. For effective policymaking these antagonist approaches produce mainly sterile and fruitless visions.

I was triggered directly by one of the proposed themes for this conference: diversity, citizenship and education. My work includes advising the Amsterdam government on diversity and integration. Some reflections lead me to perspectives and theses that I shall elaborate on in this lecture.

Of course the scale of government in Amsterdam and St. Martin is different. This will not be an academic exercise in making a comparison between apples and pears. I shall stick to issues and questions relevant to policy. The lessons we produce maybe more about omissions (what is not done) than about existing policy (what do we do). I claim that both governments have some important traits in common and can probably learn from each others experiences.

Like St. Martin, Amsterdam is a global metropolis to which people from other areas migrate. Metropolis refers to a geographic centre that attracts people from more peripheral regions. This results in an immigration surplus. In Amsterdam, the last decades, new migrants originate mainly from Morocco, Turkey, Surinam, and the Dutch Antilles. Together, they constitute the greater part of youth, which means that the demographic future of Amsterdam is coloured and diverse. Effective and inclusive policymaking for all Amsterdam people, with or without a personal history in the city, can be considered as the hardcore of good governance in the Dutch capital.

This is far from easy; the citizens experience a great many discomforting events again and again, especially regarding safety. Not everybody feels safe in the Amsterdam metropolis. Therefore, the Mayor of Amsterdam, Job Cohen, made this his personal and administrative mission: No matter how difficult, we are keeping the heaps together!

In St. Martin, the demographic situation is not fully clear. Figures are non-existing or unreliable. Essentially, here we meet three broad groups: 1) people born on the island, 2) people who came from overseas and have a formal status on the island, and 3) migrants without formal status and therefore nearly invisible for the government. As a result, members of the third demographic group stay outside the direct reach of medical care, education, and security. As a matter of fact, these undocumented inhabitants have no full human rights. Even rough estimations of their number are hard to get. It appears very much a political question. I noticed that those who are actually working with undocumented migrants tend to give much higher rates than those who prefer to ignore them. The percentages which I have heard range from 10 to 30, which makes quite a difference!

It appears to me that neither of the island’s governments [i.e. the French and Dutch Antillean] can allow itself the luxury to leave immigrants, with or without formal status, outside the reach of their policy making.

This group may not be ignored, not only for the sake of human rights, but also for the future economic growth of the island. These people are part of the workforce, and you may need them badly when economy booms. Also for the sake of security and safety since this part of the Caribbean has a great strategic importance.

The foregoing considerations bring me to three theses that have relevance for this conference and will be supported in the following reasoning, concerning both St. Martin and Amsterdam:

-         Diversity is a fact and

-         Citizenship is a challenge.

-         In policymaking on greater issues, education on itself is an insufficient solitary tool and needs to be supported with well directed flanking approaches.

2. Diversity: a fact

The concept of diversity refers to the existence within a metropolis of a variety of ethnical and cultural backgrounds among the inhabitants. There are two possible visions: one in terms of vicious circles and another in terms of positive circles.

In terms of negative or vicious circles, diversity is an exclusive concept. The characteristics of a negative view on diversity are threefold and, unfortunately, ubiquitous. First, there exists a great and inconsolable grief that traditional bonds between integrated groups (in-groups) are breaking up, which results in the crumbling of the social texture. Many people do no longer participate in the Civil Society. Secondly, there is a great deal of sad complaining about the steadily growing segmentation in society. The existing social groups do not fit together anymore: they become inward-looking, turn their backs on each other, and hold on to their own disconnected lifestyles.

Thirdly, there is fear of unbridled growth (proliferation) of intractable new out-groups. They might create new lifestyles, unknown so far, outside the existing order. They may also have an inclination to alien and unsocial values and norms. Therefore, they are considered as a threat for the political, economic, and social system as a whole.

This easily leads to foolish governance —with politics like raising war on terror and other intangible evils. That means mopping the floor while the tap is left open. It would be much wiser to direct policy towards the causes of the problems than to their outward symptoms. I do not reject a strong security policy by any means, but good governance requires that this be flanked and supported by more structural policy approaches —right into the heart and causes of the problems!

Contrary to this negative vision, there is an inclusive view. This is embedded in positive circles. Its characteristics are twofold. Firstly, a positive and inclusive policy considers diversity as a broad base for new innovative creativity and inspiration in society. Secondly, an inclusive view is directed to the formation of new social capital. Later in this paper, I shall go such an inclusive view based on positive circles in more detail.

3. Citizenship: a challenge

I would now like to change the subject to citizenship. Citizenship refers to the political and structural integration within the framework of the nation state. Citizens take a crucial position in a democratic nation state. They certainly do belong. They count. And they live up to their rights and obligations. They are the integrative power base of the nation state, the basic social bond.

Citizenship does not come into existence by decree. All of you are citizens of St. Martin by next Monday! That does not work! Citizenship must first be generated. Where it already exists, it must be herded, watched and guarded carefully since it is a great good for society. Let me be very clear: the formation of citizenship is a basic assignment for government or, even more, a challenge.

The shrinking of citizenship is commonly seen as an intractable problem for the administration. However, for the sake of good governance it would be an agonizing idea that people in diversified societies like Amsterdam and St. Martin no longer are interconnected. Three intangible developments are now challenging government in Amsterdam and may also do so in St. Martin.

First, there is the notion that some well-established voluntary associations and other traditional bonds in the civil society which legitimate and back the nation states are breaking down. The research presented in Robert Putnam’s book entitled “Bowling alone” is a good foundation for this challenge. Secondly, many leading politicians fear that new emerging out-groups are easily mobilized by political one-issue parties that disintegrate the traditional concept of parliamentary democracy. Thirdly, good citizenship implies rights and obligations. But who is going to take civic responsibilities in a consumer society of calculating citizens who consider themselves only as clients of the government?

My view on the concept of citizenship fits in with my vision of diversity: for the sake of good governance, I prefer to consider citizenship as a resource for future-oriented policymaking. Therefore, I coin two approaches at the same time. First, focus on newly emerging citizen initiatives. Secondly, scout, recognize, support and facilitate these new citizen initiatives and provide them with empowerment by all means.

In St. Martin, the design of a new constitutional structure provides a window of opportunity for explicit new roles of the civil servants in strengthening citizenship. The challenge will be not to start this top down, in the sense that the department designs the goals, targets, and approaches for an integrated cultural policy. It will be more feasible to scout new hallmarks and stepping-stones for strengthening the civic culture of the island. This requires participatory methods in policymaking that must be learnt and trained. New interactive forms of governance may be learnt and carried out. Civil servants need to learn to listen and watch, to recognize and respect what citizens already do and what they can do.

4. Education needs flanking approaches

It is not my aim to produce here an academic exercise on education. I shall stick to my profession as a scholar of policymaking. Moreover, education is only partly a goal in itself. I see education as an indispensable vehicle for reaching goals and targets in general policymaking on important societal questions.

However, in practice, both in Amsterdam and St. Martin, education is too much of an autonomous field of policymaking. I see education as a complex but solitary tool, steered and managed by politicians, civil servants, and school boards who act autonomously, with few regards to other policy fields like economics, fine arts, health, and security/safety. This relative independence of the activities in education easily leads to a sterile policy that can never reach societal goals on its own and for its own sake.  Education therefore must keep track with the great challenges of our time.

Scholars of education in the Caribbean, please follow our economists in their call for a stronger workforce in the young generation, both at high and lower levels. And, follow me in my urgent call to strengthen the social bond in St. Martin. As lecturer in Public Administration on the island, I try to contribute to the professional strengthening of a few leading officials in your civil service. We work on extending their expertise and sharpening their feeling for ethics, and we tickle their professional attitudes. You will need very good bureaucrats to challenge your politicians. Meek civil servants make weak politicians. And that goes at the cost of good citizenship.

We also need civil servants with adequate education in lower brackets of bureaucracy. Examples are reliable policemen in the streets, friendly servicemen behind the public office counters, and capable garbage collectors, as well as welcoming and hospitable personnel in the hotels.

Do realize that education must also provide skilled labourers for the near future. Think about bricklaying, roof thatching, bench fitting. And who will drive buses and do our bookkeeping?

We must distinguish between education in the sense of schooling and education in the sense of upbringing at home. About the lifestyles at home: Who sets examples as a significant role model for children, who stimulates and supports children in fatherless families, and who prepares healthy family meals? However important family life and the upbringing at home may be, I shall focus on the politics of schooling.

A challenge for education both in Amsterdam and St. Martin is that too many people have an insufficient education and do not fully develop their talents. This becomes a trans-generational problem as it often will be transferred from mother to daughter. This results in unfavourable effects on the economy, workforce, security/safety, and on the citizenship in our societies. That is too bad for these youngsters themselves, and also for Amsterdam that needs skilled youth for the workforce, and for St. Martin suffering a great lack of skilled labourers for the booming building projects all over the island. One observes clearly a considerable drain of skilled labourers from one Caribbean island to another. Is this a temporary phenomenon or are they really migrating with or without their families?

Three facts about the position of the Amsterdam youth:

-         The greater part of Amsterdam youth has its family roots in Morocco, Turkey, Surinam, the Dutch Antilles and Aruba.

-         Most migrant youth live in ghetto-like city parts of Amsterdam New-West and South-East. In many cases, they hardly ever leave their neighbourhood; they do not even know other parts of their city!

-         Most young migrants attend the lowest level of education, which unfortunately does not prepare people for the minimal job qualifications needed in Dutch society.

The debate on education appears to have lost track! There is so much debate on structural, organizational, and specialized educational issues, as seen in the educational practice of the last decades, that the origins of the discussions on education are blurred or even out of sight. I select two prominent themes from a stance on diversity, citizenship, and survival of the metropolis:

I shall leave the formation of basic skills to economists and others.[1] I shall finish this lecture by throwing some light on a few issues in policymaking that may have a constructive meaning in the field of education in St. Martin. The first issue concerns how education may serve the metropolis as a centre and breeding ground for creativity and creative industries. The second refers to the contribution of education to the formation of social capital. Finally, I shall treat the shortcomings of an exclusive and one-line historical view on creolization as cultural matrix for education on St. Martin.

5. The metropolis as centre and breeding ground for creativity: an issue in education

How important is culture, especially how important are fine arts for the social bond in the metropolis? Let me start with but a few observations.

In the eight wars that in the nineties destroyed the Yugoslavian state, the Serbs deliberately destroyed the cultural heritage of Croats, Albanians, and Kosovars. Why? What was the deeper meaning of this targeting the cultural heritage? Why was the centuries-old heart of the Croat city of Dubrovnik destroyed by the Serbs?

In Afghanistan, the Taliban-regime destroyed centuries-old Buddha sculptures. Why?

The famous Buddhist temple Borobudur near Yogyakarta on Java, in Indonesia, is one of the seven world wonders. It has been target of a few Muslim onslaughts. Why does the Indonesian government keep this secret? What would happen if this had been made public? The old country Sri Lanka is governed by Buddhist Singhalese, who are challenged by the Hindu Tamil Tigers. The story goes that government keeps secret that the oldest findings of archaeologists are no Buddhist artefacts, but Hindu temples. Why keep that secret?

Why all this destruction of historical artefacts and why keeping it a secret? The answer is that culture and local and regional fine arts probably have great meaning for policymaking in international metropolises. They are effective vehicles for social binding, for connecting, even for bridging contrasts and controversies among the citizens.

I shall not defend blind chauvinism. But a mild form of metropolitan chauvinism provides a strong binding factor. Identification with one’s own metropolis appears to be even stronger than with one’s country as a whole. In Amsterdam, this counts for the older inhabitants as well as for the newer citizens. During World War II, white labourers in Amsterdam went on strike against the German occupation under the slogan: The bloody Germans must keep their bloody hands off our bloody own Jews.[2] As long as the enemy is situated outside, they feel as one. Amsterdam will always back the football club Ajax.

In St. Martin, a still unpublished discussion paper on culture policy reads:

“A cultural policy is the catalyst of creativity and the means to preserve the national heritage, which consists of both the tangible and intangible heritage. A cultural policy must create conditions, conducive to the production and dissemination of diversified cultural goods and services through cultural industries, organizations, institutions and individuals that have the means to assert themselves at the local and global level.” 

These are complicated formulations. I agree with the committee concerned only if they implement this stance in such a way that the culture policy on the island will not impede further development of folk culture and both lowbrow and highbrow expressions of any artistic value. Production and consumption of culture and artefacts take place in practice, far from any government intervention. There can be no direct governance lead in culture politics. Culture policy should work with the energy of the grassroots and the professional arts alike. Here the task of civil servants is to scout, recognize and facilitate authentic cultural expressions from grassroots breeding grounds to elite levels. 

How important is a generous culture policy for a metropolis? To set an example, Amsterdam considers itself an important international marketplace for creative services, museums, orchestras, entertainment, ICT, and New Multi Media arts. More than 25 percent of all creative jobs in the country are situated in Amsterdam City, where this makes for about 7 percents of all worksites. If we also reckon the much greater volume of directly connected worksites in the fields of hospitality, transport, commercial services, etc., we may even come to 20 percent! The international melting pot of young high tech professionals makes the city very lively and attractive for other knowledge professionals. Their free and open lifestyle is an important economic asset for Amsterdam. 

The city government develops an ambitious so-called Program Creative Industry 2007-2010. This aims at bringing together people, ideas, and money for realizing a series of concrete projects: the connection of education and creative industry, making use of the cultural diversity (e.g. the hip hop scene), stimulation and empowerment of creative entrepreneurs, enhancing joint enterprises where culture media and ICT meet, recognizing and supporting existing and newly emerging accommodations for creative industry, and the promotion of Amsterdam as breeding ground and marketplace for joint creative industries.

A second campaign of the city government is Amsterdam Topstad [Top City]. The new city government sees great opportunities for Amsterdam as internationally attractive centre for the development of new creative industries and invests 70 million Euros in extremely ambitious new plans, concepts, and ideas. These activities keep pace with a few private campaigns started by employers’ organizations aiming at a deliberate Human Relations policy targeting young migrants.

Culture politics of mobilization and vitalization may become a success formula for any metropolis as international centre and breeding ground for creativity. I raise the question: what can education contribute with here?

6. Social capital, an issue in education

Recently serious warnings were presented to the city government of Amsterdam. The film director and publicist Theo van Gogh, icon of absolute freedom of public speech, was brutally murdered by a frustrated radical Islamist in Amsterdam. In the banlieue of Paris young migrants without prospects for the future took over the nightly power in the streets.

Researchers collected appalling figures about the lack of communication between different ethnic groups in the city.[3] Not only the inter group are interactions feeble, the reciprocal images are also negative. Only some weeks ago Amsterdam citizens of Moroccan and Surinamese origin engaged in a street fight after some tragic murder incident resulted from a conflict about a parking lot.

This became the upbeat for a continuous campaign to strengthen the reciprocal trust among the various ethnic and cultural groups in the metropolis. This triggered, as said before, the Mayor of Amsterdam for his mission statement: Keep the heaps together.

The city government now seeks both categorical and integrative solutions for migrant groups of youngsters, women, the elderly, those who are in and out of work, etc.

In the formation of social capital, the city government sees substantial communication in co-productions as a possibly effective way to break through negative conflict dynamics. But before they participate in public affairs, even for their own sake, people must feel safe, trusted, and respected in their own circles. The establishment or revitalization of social bonds inside groups may be primary conditions for the establishment of social bonds outside these groups. This refers especially to groups that differ ethnically and culturally.

Various initiatives, activities, and neighbourhood campaigns have been started and endorsed by the city government of Amsterdam. It is now policy to strengthen the identification of young migrants with the city of Amsterdam and to stimulate them in following the behaviour of the few young migrants who play significant roles in Amsterdam and Dutch society. We find these role models in football, entertainment and in professional life.

One step further is that the city district governments (since sixteen years government in Amsterdam has been decentralized) enable and stimulate co-production as a supreme act in citizens’ initiatives. This demands the development and apt implementation of adequate strategies for empowerment. That means scouting, recognition, facilitation, and support for initiatives and activities that rise and develop bottom up.

Now, co-production means long time cooperation. A Dutch saying goes that bureaucratic mills work slowly. Co-production with mobilized and activated groups in society may work even more slowly! But there is no quick fix for empowerment either.  Fortunately there are plenty of opportunities in Amsterdam. For a few years I researched the citizens’ self-organizations in Amsterdam-West and New-West. Especially around the big scale renovation projects, there are new opportunities and a widely felt sense of urgency among people of different classes and origins. Here we find already organized clusters of people who have a record of cooperation and reciprocal trust (be it often experienced in cooperation against the government!). The question arises again: What can education contribute with to the formation of social capital?

7. Creolization as social bond

What is the cultural matrix for education in St. Martin? Colleagues I met in visits to the Caribbean for teaching and conferences have widely differing backgrounds. Students in my Master course on the island are well informed high ranking civil servants of various departments. Their first hand information is valuable.

There apparently exists an overt feeling of insecurity about the cultural identity which provides the core of the social bond on the island. Recognizing ones weaknesses is an honourable intellectual act and stepping-stone for strengthening every development.

In St. Martin, one cannot avoid the concept of creolization or the creolization-process, a matter of both the development of language and culture. It strikes me that creolization on the island (the Simaartn language and culture), as explained to me, is essentially based on the English language and culture, enriched with a great many other influences.

The concept is rather exclusive and local. French-based and Spanish-based creolization on the island are commonly considered as different processes, developing on their own and disconnectedly. Dutch cultural influences on creolization usually tend to be marginalized in debates on everyday life and behaviour on the island. Even to such a degree that Dutch orientations and practices have become nearly neutral external standards that St. Martiners now can use at free will (!) as technical resources in strengthening their organizational and institutional life. This paradox contains a smart pragmatic use of old colonial capital.

How sustainable is creolization as a cultural orientation for St. Martin as East-Caribbean metropolis? Anyway, this does not do justice to the many French- and Spanish-speaking St. Martiners (from Haiti, Colombia, and the Dominican Republic) who soon may outnumber those who commit themselves to the English-based creolization process. Not to forget the fast growing numbers of residents of Indian, Chinese, and Lebanese/Syrian origin. People from these groups are here to stay! Before they engage in integrative activities and interaction, they need recognition and a sense of security.

8. Quo vadis St. Martin?

Reasoning from a geo-political angle, it may be expected that Cuba soon will become the main metropolis and St. Martin the secondary metropolis in the North-East Caribbean. When Cuba really opens up, within a few years, St. Martiners who do not speak Spanish will be considered as illiterate on their own island.

Fortunately, Caribbean people have a flair for spoken languages. And, apparently, among St. Martin intellectuals there is a high level of poetic literacy, and their commitment to the written language of their choice is great. So, individually, St. Martiners may cope very well. One may, however, fear the effects of exclusive, parochial, and backward looking orientations in processes of creolization, especially if they guide politics on the lower levels of education.

This parallels my concern in the foregoing paragraphs dealing with exclusiveness of the political and administrative practices on the island. An open, inclusive, and inviting culture provides the best means for sustainable development of St. Martin as a metropolis. Favourable conditions for peaceful and prosperous future development of St. Martin as a Caribbean metropolis may be found in a combination of a careful and realistic interpretation of the island culture, full acceptance of existing broad-based diversity, a deliberate policy on citizenship (also for the numerous undocumented inhabitants), and the formation of social capital by educational policy. Now, education is at stake.

 



Pedagogy, identity, and politics
Educating in an identity (ethnic) crisis context:
A study of the French West Indies case

University of Martinique, French West Indies

max.belaise@martinique.univ-ag.fr

 

Introduction

The French islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique bear some specificities that single them out in the Caribbean Sea region. First of all, because of their specific political status, they are full members of the European Union and constitute what is usually called the “tropical Europe”. For many observers, such as political analyst Fred Reno[4], a research professor from the Université des Antilles—Guyane, this adhesion is more motivated by economical interests more than cultural ones.

In such a peculiar context, one could wonder what education means in the Francophone Caribbean. This paper will not deal with -but just mention- the Haitian case because it would imply another philosophical approach. The case of the French Overseas Departments (the official denomination for Guadeloupe and Martinique) needs a real debate. Indeed, these territories share a common history with the languages of the other islands: they derive from the plantation society, yet they have to cope with deep dilemmas, such as the European concept of assimilation or the search for a specific identity. Different concepts have been expressed: the “négritude” (Negritude) of Aimé Césaire, Edouard Glissant’s notion of “antillanité” (Caribbeanness), and the concept of “creolité” (Creoleness) as developed by Raphaël Confiant, Patrick Chamoiseau and Jean Bernabé.

For the French West Indians, what does it mean to be educated in a context that runs the risk of dispossessing them of their personality? According to François Flahault, a French philosopher, Europeans are “convinced that they hold the universal message”[5]. How to protest in front of the European epistemological posture that posits that: “we hold the universal message, but the others do not”.

In his essay Black Skin, White Masks, Frantz Fanon[6] wondered if the “school inspectors and the headmasters are aware of their role in the colonies. During twenty years, with their school programs, they endeavour to turn the Negro into a White man. At the end, they release him and then say: you have for sure a dependence complex towards the White man”.

Is Fanon’s paradigm “out of date”? Was his way of thinking too revolutionary? This paper will show that Fanon’s thought is still topical. For instance, Edouard Glissant assimilates pedagogy to demagogy. For him, the system is perverted: it does not meet the needs of the Martinican people.

Many analysts share this point of view. Yet the situation is not easy because, as Césaire said in a recent interview: “We [the Martinican people] are complex people, we are this and yet we also that. What matters is not to cut ourselves off from ourselves.”[7]

In the educational field we find the same complexity. According to Jean-Marie Theodore, a research worker in education sciences: “Il faut admettre que pendant que les intellectuels et les idéologues contestaient la domination coloniale par divers moyens, ils continuaient à perpétuer en reproduisant de manière mimétique son enseignement.”[8]

So, how to educate in such a context? How to promote men and women if we can define an appropriate philosophy of education which could reconcile all the different options in these islands, and how to allow them to be really in tune with their immediate environment? What is to educate in a Creole world and/or a global world?

One can assume that the fundamental cause is the acculturation of the education in a context of identity crisis. By the same token, it may be said that an ontological collapse is the main cause of crisis of education. Furthermore, how to deal with the political centralism of France? 

Our aim in this paper is first to elaborate on the contradictions present in reality, trying to show how a real philosophical thought based on the Socratic posture: “Know yourself” will be a way to cope with those difficulties. Our second step will be to debate what an authentic identity as result of a correct education would entail. At a third moment, before concluding, we shall focus on the fanonian man, the one he dreamed for our area and whose emergence would result from authentic education.  

1. The political context and the paradoxical education endeavour

Ever since the French revolution, since 1788, French people are convinced of one thing: their culture is a universal one. So, seen from this principle, it appears as normal to civilize others, if necessary by imposing “civilization” on them. Such a universal culture was adopted by those who were colonized as they gave up their own.

In the West Indies, the African slaves experienced such postulate by alienating themselves, which means that they had to renounce their habits, their gods, their traditional way of education. Little by little a strange idea inhabited their consciousnesses: to look like the masters and to acquire their culture—the sovereign one because of its universality. In a word, this is the Caliban complex about which many Caribbean philosophers have spoken—the Antiguan Henry Paget, the Martinican Aimé Césaire, etc.

Today things have not changed for those two actors in the Caribbean. The French continue to believe in the superiority of their culture. The descendants of the African slaves, most of them, are aspiring to this open sesame for a place in this world. This is the reality that one can appreciate. However, what is the matter with it?

The French consideration of its universal culture is contested today by many native research workers; furthermore, some important anthropological works confirm that no one culture is more important than another. Nevertheless, such feeling is today insidious in the French national education system. It has been revealed recently by the arrivals of millions of migrants in Voltaire’s country and by riots in the suburbs of the main towns. Following those events, sociologists, historians, and other scientists have examined the problem. According to them, the problem depends on this atavistic character that the rejection of any multiculturalism hides. Thus, in his analysis, Alain Touraine, a French sociologist considers that: “Le républicanisme français s’identifie à l’universalisme, ce qui entraîne le plus souvent le rejet ou l’infériorisation de ceux qui sont ‘différents’. Ces obstacles à l’intégration ont des causes profondes […] Nous sommes marqués par une tradition coloniale.”[9]

The researcher is virulent concerning such a posture: it cannot survive any longer—which he intends when he declares:  “Il n’est plus acceptable de penser et d’agir comme si la France était le dépositaire des valeurs universelles, et avait le droit de, au nom de cette mission, de traiter comme inférieures ceux qui ne correspondent pas à ce moi idéal. La fausse conscience des Français quand ils parlent d’eux-mêmes explique la faible ouverture aux sciences sociales.”[10]

This strong criticism is becoming more and more common among the intellectuals and the scientists of education because of a rainbow pupil and student population, because education has an important role: to break away from the wrong idea that “School has to transmit a universal and complete education.” For Esther Benbassa[11], this purpose which the mathematician and philosopher Condorcet assigned to the school institution during the century of the Enlightenment is no longer adequate.

In fact, what is defended is a new purpose for what is called the republican school. However, what does this concept mean? One hears the pleas for a school whose aim is no longer to deliver ethnocentric teachings. In other words and in terms of the present, it should be a school which crystallizes the new rainbow configuration of the nation and the fact of multiculturalism, instead of considering this reality as a threat.

However, the enlightenment weltanschauung, or worldview, did not and does still not leave any room for the overseas cultures. The Caribbean islands which belong to France must forget their culture to adopt the French one. About such an assimilation, a politician from Guadeloupe has stated: “La République accepte une décentralisation technique. Vous allez gérer les routes, le tourisme, la formation, l’artisanat et que sais-je encore! Mais vous ne gérer pas le symbolique. Vous ne gérez pas la langue, la culture, votre âme, votre avenir.”[12]

Really is it possible to live such alienation by assimilation without damaging the essence of the West Indian communities? The question is not easy to answer. But we must remember Césaire’s appreciation: we are complex people; a way to say we do not know what we want and we are divided ontologically. The foundation of this argument is that historically in the two French departments in Caribbean, only one thing motivates people: to get the same rights as all other French citizen. As Césaire gives us to understand, the political leaders had no choice: it was no time to philosophize[13].

Today, many political tendencies are noticeable among the people: the autonomist, the independentist, the departmentalist. To the latter belong those who do not want any new political status except the status of French department.

We may not forget Fanon’s dialectics concerning those who are victim of what he called the lactification. Complex. According to him, “The Martinican is a French-man, he wants to remain part of the French, he asks one thing, he wants the idiots and the exploiters to give him a chance to live like a human being.”[14]

This will implies a counterpart, so the price of such (material) welfare is an abandonment of one’s identity, a master element in the educational endeavour. Furthermore, all the benefits of the anthropological philosophy of education are left unconsidered.

2. Identity phenomenology due to an authentic educative act

The main negative consequence of assimilation is the lack of development of one’s identity. There are several arguments in support of this not surprising result. Particularly when we know that to be accomplished it is necessary to dialogue with other cultures, to learn from the genius of others. Today more than yesterday, in a globalized world, we can measure what such a dialogue means so that we may be sure that one culture cannot take advantage of the others. Believing the contrary proceeds from pretentiousness, as Alice L. Conklin[15] pointed out. So, everyone can claim—as current research on ethno-anthropology of education does—that “Chaque culture a son ethos propre qui donne une coloration particulière, intellectuelle morale et affective à l’éducation dispensée en son sein.”[16]

One could object that the French West Indians cannot complain because they receive an education in direct link with their Frenchness. In the words of Césaire, Glissant and other writter-pedagogists (most of whom are ancient teachers, active teachers, educators), this is not the case. We find this remark in Césaire’s last book (an interview with a political analyst of London University): “L’éducation que nous avons reçue et la conception du monde qui en découle sont responsables de notre irresponsabilité.”[17]

It seems that this education is the main cause of our ontological collapse. Glissant who is a radical maintains that the education received is a demagogy. Nevertheless, he agrees that the system respects its own logic: the total insertion of the Martinican in the European community and of the European in Martinique, concedes the Martinican philosopher[18].

In short, the system is not in tune with the island(s). Despite the great number of physicians, druggists, scientists, and other high qualified specialists the education given does not respect the Martinican and the Guadeloupean in what they feel deeply. It is worth stressing the same reaction in Haiti. An article in a daily paper brings to light the sufferance of this people under the cultural influence of France: “La plupart des ouvrages que nous avons ne correspondent pas aux réalités du pays. Les manuels, jusqu’à date, reproduisent le modèle français, même quand ils sont conçus et produits en Haïti.”[19]

P. Chamoiseau, an important writer of Martinique, expresses some objections about the concept of universality, about which he energetically protests. His criticism is severe when he draws our attention: “L’Universel était un bouclier, un désinfectant, une religion, un espoir, un acte de poésie suprême. L’Universel était un ordre.”[20]

There is no doubt that on the islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique (mainly in the latter), everyone is glossing over the identity problem in connection with education. For sure, the pain has been identified: it is this political and philosophical doctrine of which Césaire[21] says that it tends to hide away the particularities of a person and to kill its personality, namely assimilation. But we are responsible for a situation that seems impossible to accept. Consequently, some observers suggest to get rid of any attitude of self-denigration in order to believe in us[22].  Some medications have been prescribed. To many of us, they consist only of rhetoric: we have to do this, we must do that. Thus, everyone agrees that “we must integrate our area [the Caribbean basin] but at the same time, we develop a discourse of withdrawal into oneself”, replies Jean-Pierre Sainton[23] a historian of the Université des Antilles-Guyane. Some of us would talk of Caribbean phobia!

This paradoxical posture is not surprising. We know the solutions for our difficulties: to educate from our point of view and conception of the world, not getting rid of our symbolic production, what we have been doing up to now without a real transformation of the school programme, of our methods of teaching, etc. Is this a declaration of principles?

So, faced by this disaster, we must ask ourselves: What must we do to promote ourselves—to be proud of our culture (proverbs, sayings, dance, etc.) and to develop pedagogy of pride as encouraged by Pierre Erny, a French ethnologist of education? This researcher, who has spent a long time overseas in Africa, is sensitive to these questions and concludes: “A human group which ignores itself and which is not proud to be itself is socially ill. Sometimes pedagogy may play a cathartic role.”[24]

We can no longer accept to walk in the direction we have been going till now, ignoring our culture and not being able to add our humanity to the younger generations (the basis of a philosophy of education). By the way, is this not the definition suggested by the Spanish philosopher Fernando Savater, who said that “L’éducation est la marque concrète de l’humain apposée là où ce dernier n’était que virtuel[25]?

We must fabricate this new man using endogenous cultural materials in order to operate the mutation. It is to surpass our handicaps, to realize our idiosyncrasies according to Kant’s anthropology[26]. It is significant that we have never done that seriously and not jokingly. An anecdotic pedagogic production is not enough.

3. The new man’s ontological development

Fanon reminds us that in a colonized and civilized society, people suffer because “all ontology is unrealizable.”[27] The psychiatrist and philosopher advocate for the sudden appearance of the new man, one whose ontological development is not disturbed. However, despite the success of education in these islands (too many graduates), may we honestly consider that their education has meant the blossoming of those educated? They are split in their inner being/life. Undoubtedly, Fanon was prophetic in his thoughts.

The fanonian aspiration to invent this new being means that the opposite course must be taken. We can exemplify this by referring to the development of the Creole language. It has been a long battle for the teaching of it to be authorized by the French government. It is true that we were not the only region, on the national territory, which suffered such discrimination. In this connection, France did not accept to validate European law concerning the regional languages in Europe. Most certainly our linguistic situation is not the same as in Haiti. But most of the French West Indians are creolophone—it is the common language. As Fanon said, “Practising a language is to assume a world, to inhabit a culture,”[28] or, said otherwise, it is to possess a tool to access to our essence and existence.

In our islands, we are used to taking the posture of consumers. We consume all that has been produced outside our territory, even the concepts made in Europe. The French West Indian subject is under this dictatorship condition. Our own experience in Haiti close to some teachers gave us the impression that most of the schools were dependent on old books out of recent programmes that they received from Guadeloupe, Martinique, and France. They were unable to cogitate and elaborate their own reflections, to apprehend their universe and to make dialectics. Have they mastered Descartes’ aphorism, “I think, therefore I exist.”

Practising this advice is the guarantee to place one’s life under the logic of self-surpassing. It is also a mean to liberate one’s creativity and to allow a choice of life. In fact, to assume our life on this earth –if we follow Augustine’s dialectics of the two cities, here on earth and in the celestial one. According to Jean-Paul Sartre, “L’homme est non seulement tel qu’il se conçoit, mais tel qu’il se veut.”[29]

Conclusion

Kant’s opening to his essay On education reminds his readers of this fundamental postulate: “man is the only being who needs education. For by education, he added, we must understand nurture […] discipline, and scholar […].”[30] In a word, the act of educating is the duty of each generation in each culture.

The Greeks thought about the way of practicing this important act of life. Socrates, the conceiver of philosophy, separated himself from his colleagues the Sophists and did not follow their teachings. By his ethics, he initiated another method of teaching based on the idea that the Athens needed some well‑prepared politicians. In this sense, Plato testifies to his master’s purpose in his dialogues.

About our Caribbean area, we know the intellectual effervescence to apprehend our reality. The recent constitution of a Caribbean philosophical Association (CPA) is a sign of this will.

It is true that till recently the French islands were isolated. But the ideas go beyond the natural border that separates us to know, the Caribbean Sea. So, more and more, our thoughts are spreading from island to island. Aimé Césaire, Frantz Fanon, Édouard Glissant, Chamoiseau, Confiant are increasingly being read in the Caribbean and more decision-makers are beginning to understand us.

Education has to take advice from anthropological research, even despite the politicians whose posture relies on the postulate that “The republican school despises all cultural singularities.”[31] According to this discipline, which is necessary for the philosopher,[32] “L’éducation des êtres humains s’inscrit donc dans un milieu spécifique qu’il faut caractériser à travers les conditions extérieures qui vont l’influencer, tel que l’environnement physique, social et culturel. Il s’agit de repérer les caractéristiques de la société dans lesquelles l’éducation s’inscrit, tant du point de vue de son système économique, idéologique que du point de vue social et culturel.”[33]

This postulate is accurate and fitting to our archipelago. The problem for its French compound is that it shares its history and destiny with a European nation. So, it does not have the same opportunities as Jamaica or other islands of the Caribbean basin, a creolized archipelago. Despite everything, we can share with the others what gathers us: our common African, Indian, and/or European past.

 

References and/or complementary bibliography

Benbassa, E; .Bancel, N, “Le passé colonial de la France: Un écueil historique,” in Le Monde de l’éducation, no 338, juillet-août 2005, p. 90-93.

Cegarra, M., “Vers une anthropologie de l’éducation : entre attirance et réserve,” in Spirale, no 11, 203, p. 19-25.

Césaire, A., Nègre je suis, nègre je resterai, Paris, A. Michel, 2005, 136 p.

Césaire, A., Discours à la maison du peuple, Fort-de-France, Editions : PPM/SLND, p. 25-58.

Chamoiseau, P., Une enfance créole II/ Chemin-d’école, Paris, Gallimard, 1996, 202 p.

Descola, Ph., “Offrir ce magnifique moteur qu’est la curiosité,” in Le Monde de l’éducation, no 349, Juillet-Août 2006.

Dorwling-Carter, G., “A quoi sert l’éducation donnée à nos enfants?,” in Antilla, 10 mai 2006, p. 5.

Erny, P., Essai sur l’éducation en Afrique noire, Paris, L’Harmattan, 2001, 345 p.

Fanon, F., Peau noire, masques blancs, Paris, Seuil, 1952.

Flahault, F., Le paradoxe de Robinson, Paris, Mille et une nuits, 2003.

Glissant, Le discours antillais, Paris, Seuil, 1997, 803 p.

Kant, E., Anthropologie d’un point de vue pragmatique, Paris, Vrin, 1991, 170 p.

Kant, On education (Ueber Paedagogik) The Online Library of liberty.htm, 91 p.

Legrand, J.-L., “Place de l’anthropologie dans les sciences de l’éducation,” in Spirale, no 11, 203, p. 4-17.

Léotin, M.-H., “Agir pour l’éducation,” in Cahiers de l’UGTM-éducation, no spécial, octobre 2002, p. 29-31.

Maldonado-Torres, N., “Frantz fanon and C.L.R. James on intellectualism and enlightened rationality,” in Caribbean Studies, vol. 33, no 2, July-December 2005, p. 149-190.

Reno, F., “L’Europe tropicale,” in La Tribune des Antilles, no 43, p. 22-23.

Sainton, J.-P., “La caraïbe qui nous unit: construire une socio-histoire,” in Cahiers de l’UGTM-éducation, no spécial, novembre 2003, p. 22-23.

Sartre, J.-P., L’existentialisme est un humanisme, Paris, Gallimard, 1996, 78 p.

Savater, F., Pour l’éducation, Paris, Rivages poche, 1998, 222 p.

Theodore, J.-M., “La production d’outils pédagogiques,” in Cahiers de l’UGTM-éducation, no spécial, octobre 2002, p. 25.

Touraine, A., “Les Français piégés par leur moi national,” in Le Monde, no 18907, 8 novembre 2005, p. 37.

Yvan-Augustin, A., “L’école haïtienne, une immense machine en panne,” in Le Nouvelliste, no 37407, 13 Juin 2006, p. 33-35.

 

***



The American University of the Caribbean:
Montserrat’s Loss, St. Marteen’s Gain

University of West Indies, Montserrat

gracelyn.cassell@candw.ms

 

Background

Montserrat, a tiny, 39.6 sq miles or 102 sq km, British Overseas Territory, is located in the Eastern Caribbean chain of islands.  Antigua lies approximately 25 miles to the North East while Guadeloupe is around 30 miles to the South West.  Like many other island microstates, Montserrat suffers from having a small open economy, a small population and as a consequence, a small local market. The island has always had to depend on exports and foreign direct investment for foreign exchange earnings.  Economic development thrusts are further exacerbated by the high cost of transportation and a poor resource base. 

Prior to July 1995, Montserrat could be described as “a middle-income country with admirable sturdy housing stock, little unemployment and an economy that was in fair shape.” (Young, 2000)  Since then, the island has been in the throes of a volcanic crisis that has had a major impact on all aspects of life.  Two-thirds of the island, including, the capital Plymouth, the seaport, Bramble’s airport in the east, and a significant portion of the tourism plant of historic sites and accommodation in the southern part of the island have been destroyed by pyroclastic flows. The population which for more than 100 years was constant at slightly under 12,000 dwindled to 3,500 once the British Government in 1997 provided an assisted evacuation package for those who found living with an active volcano too difficult.  Many persons relocated to neighbouring Caribbean islands, to the United States under a programme offering Temporary Protected Status, while the majority relocated to the United Kingdom. 

In 1978, the final year of the Progressive Democratic Party (PDP)’s tenure in government with P. Austin Bramble as Chief Minister, several projects were introduced in an attempt to chart a path to sustainable economic development.  One of these projects was the American University of the Caribbean (A.U.C.).  In the late 1970s, Paul S. Tien approached the Government with the idea of setting up an offshore medical school offering pre-clinical training for students recruited mostly from North America.  Not everyone in the government supported the idea, but discussions were eventually concluded with the government granting a license for the start of the school.  As outlined in the PDP’s 1978 Manifesto, it was expected that “the recently registered Medical School” would “provide many job opportunities and generate significant income and revenues for Montserrat.” (p6)   This was all part of an effort to create full employment on the island.  Bramble recognized that having the School on Montserrat would stimulate the economy in a number of ways as well as create linkages with the tourism industry.  He saw the direct benefits for the commercial sector and the construction industry.

A.U.C., the first offshore medical school on Montserrat, was the second school of its kind to be established in the English-speaking Caribbean.  In 1977, St. Georges in Grenada started its programme and Ross University in Dominica opened its doors for business in 1979.  By the 1980s, there were three more schools operating in the Commonwealth Caribbean, Spartan Health Sciences University in St. Lucia (1980), Ross University School of Veterinary Medicine in St. Kitts (1982) and the University of Health Sciences in Antigua (1983). These for-profit medical schools responded to an unsatisfied demand for graduate medical education and a shortage of doctors in North America.  Johnson, Hagopian, Veninga, Fordyce, & Hart explain: “Beginning in the 1950s, increasing numbers of Americans trained abroad, either as a first choice or because they failed to obtain entrance into U. S. schools.  Between the 1950s and the mid-1970s, U. S. medical school admission became more restrictive and numbers of slots declined relative to residency program opportunities.  Competition in the United States, coupled with the ability to return there for residency training made overseas medical education attractive for U. S. students, especially in Italy, Belgium, Spain, France, and Switzerland.  In response to the rising demand for medical education from their own citizens, European schools placed restrictions on admissions of American students.  Schools in Mexico … responded by increasing recruitment of U. S. students.  Additionally, new “offshore” foreign schools opened during the late 1970s and the early 1980s.”  (p3)

A.U.C.’s Early Days

In addition to getting an investment package which included a 15 year tax holiday and duty-free importation of materials and equipment, Tien had negotiated for assistance with the acquisition of land on which he would construct a Campus.  The Bramble government asked that Tien put some EC$250,000 in escrow for construction of the campus. Tien also wanted the government to get the school listed in the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) Directory of Medical Schools.  The request for WHO Listing, coming as it was from a British Colony and not a member of WHO, was not accepted and Chief Minister Bramble, accompanied by Tien, went to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London to present their case for the British Government to make the request on Montserrat’s behalf.  According to Bramble, (personal communication, September 27, 2006) the British Government was concerned that by recommending the listing it would be accountable for something over which it had no control.  It needed reassurance that the School would not bring its name into ill-repute.  It was only when Tien agreed to finance an internationally recognized review team to assess the school’s academic programme for the maintenance of standards that the British Government agreed to make the application for WHO listing.  This listing enables students to apply for federal grants/loans for their medical education.

The island’s weekly newspaper, the Montserrat Mirror, (New Caribbean School Holds First Classes on Cincinnati Campus, 1978) using an excerpt from the American Medical News (1978, September 1), reported as follows: “A new British West Indies-chartered medical school began its classes in Cincinnati, Ohio, last week because the school’s $3-million campus on Montserrat island wasn’t ready for occupancy. The American U. of the Caribbean, School of Medicine (A.U.C.) which bills itself as “the closest foreign medical school to the continental United States offering an MD program in English,” has rented space for its 107 first-year students on the Cincinnati campus of the College of Mt. St. Joseph.  A.U.C. has rented classrooms, labs, and office space for one year. The new school, which offers a 33-month curriculum, has attracted mostly American students.  Tuition is $2,500 per trimester plus a $500 registration fee. A.U.C. officials say the school has been certified by the United Kingdom and will be listed in the World Directory of Medical Schools, published by the World Health Organization. The article went on to explain that the new medical school was founded by Paul S. Tien, Ph.D., listed as the institution’s chief executive and administrative officer and that he was a former President of Belmont Technical College in St. Clairsville, Ohio, a two-year state school and a former chairman of engineering technologies at Cincinnati Technical College.  (p5)

A.U.C.’s early days in Ohio were not without problems and Tien has to be given credit for not abandoning the project at that point.   According to Lawrence, who refers to Tien as a China - born electrical engineer claiming to have a Ph.D. in educational administration from the Union Graduate School, “One of the newest of the Caribbean medical schools that have sprung up to cater to U.S. Students unable to gain admission to schools here is still operating -- in Cincinnati, Ohio—despite more than six months of legal and administrative battles with Ohio educational authorities… Although Ohio authorities have been arguing since before A.U.C. opened that it cannot hold classes within the state without being certified by one of Ohio’s two educational boards, the school claims it is exempt from state regulations because it is a foreign institution, incorporated on the tiny British dependency of Montserrat…and it is only in Ohio temporarily.”  (153-4)

Lawrence goes on to describe further legal complications affecting A.U.C.  Two former A.U.C. students had filed a lawsuit against the school charging it with fraudulent misrepresentation in several areas.  They wanted their money back in addition to $100,000 in punitive damages.  They also asked that “for the class of all students, former students, and future students of A.U.C., a permanent injunction prohibiting defendants from soliciting students and promoting A.U.C. in a false and fraudulent manner, and compensatory damages of $1,500,000.”

At the same time Lawrence’s report shows that the student population ranging in age from 22 to 62, had increased to 210 with 90% of the student body American and 10% from other countries but with US resident status.  The faculty of three had been increased to 6.

Almost a year later, it was finally reported (A.U.C. Ready to Break Ground, 1979) that tenders were to be awarded to local contractors with fourteen of them bidding for a slice of the 72,000 square foot structure.  Dr. Tien was still optimistic that the buildings would be completed in time for an early January move of students from temporary quarters in Ohio. However, there were several delays that affected the construction process including delays with procuring materials and delays caused by bad weather.  But by the end of the year the school had long outstayed its welcome in Ohio and Tien had little choice but to move to Montserrat in January of 1980.  The resulting unhappy state of affairs that led to students walking the streets of Plymouth with their beds and mattresses in protest over conditions in the dormitories (Three Weeks of Classes at A.U.C., 1980) was eventually resolved once the dormitories were completed.  When the Campus itself was completed, it became a tourist attraction on Montserrat.  As Model says: “The Campus at A.U.C. is an impressive purpose built brick complex consisting of an administrative block, two teaching blocks containing large lecture rooms (one with closed-circuit television along the aisles), laboratories, and a library, and dormitory blocks containing 160 large two-bedded rooms each with bathroom. In addition, there is a recreation room and a restaurant open to the Caribbean.”  (p. 952)

Model gives us an idea of the costs involved for the student attending the A.U.C. in the 80s.  “Tuition fees are about $10,000 a year, and the students tell me that board and food cost a further $4,000.  The Montserrat course thus costs about $42,000 to which must be added the cost of fares back and forth to the USA.  Hospitals that accept students from A.U.C. for clinical training are paid $2,000 a year for each student.  (p. 952)

The impact of the presence of the School on Montserrat was significant.  By 1984, it was reported in the Montserrat Times that a World Bank report credited A.U.C. with the economic boom on the island.  “Because of its small size, the economy of Montserrat tends to be extremely sensitive to major investment projects.”  The report attributes the 14.5% growth in GDP during 1979 and the first half of 1980 to construction of the college and to the arrival of 450 students. Almost two years later, when the Montserrat Times reported (Brandt Represents A.U.C) that Government had threatened to close the off-shore medical school by January 3, 1986 for non-payment of license fees, the question was asked “What will happen if A.U.C. is forced out of Montserrat next January?  Over sixty Montserratians will be thrown out of work, many persons would lose rental income on which they have been depending, taxi men would suffer and shopkeepers will lose their business.” 

During the 1980s, the school faced several challenges while on Montserrat.  The People’s Liberation Movement (PLM) government which got into power in 1978, replacing the Bramble regime, immediately set about extracting direct benefits from the presence of the school on island.  The PLM government introduced the The Universities and Colleges (Licensing and Control) Ordinance in 1980 and also introduced a student permit fee of US$500.  A license fee for the school was also introduced, which according, to a report in the Opposition newspaper, (How Osborne’s PLM has Harassed the A.U.C., 1983) moved from EC$60,000 in 1981 to EC$120,000 annually thereafter.  Tien saw this as a breach of the agreement arrived at with the PDP government and took the PLM Government to court arguing that the license fee was a violation of the School’s 15 year tax holiday.

On December 17, 1985, Tien received a letter from Attorney General Odel Adams (A.U.C. Pays Up, 1986) indicating that “With effect from the 3rd day of January 1986, no further issue of work permits will be made to the academic staff of your institution and all existing work permits shall be reviewed.  Secondly, no person shall be allowed admission to Montserrat either as an existing or prospective student of the A.U.C.  Finally it is Government’s intention to withdraw its support for the inclusion of your medical school in the sixth edition of the WHO’s listing of medical schools now in the preparatory stages of publication.” The Montserrat Chamber of Commerce had to intervene to settle the problem and Tien paid EC$240,000 which he claimed was a gesture of goodwill.

Tien was also embroiled in an industrial dispute with the Montserrat Allied workers Union in 1982.  It seems (MAWU Sets Out its Case Against A.U.C., 1982) that the Union attempted to have dialogue with Tien once the school started operating in Montserrat but Tien refused to meet with Union Delegates and asked instead for a list of members working at A.U.C.  In February 1982, a shop steward was fired and the following day, there was a sick out by all Union members and picketing the day after that.  Locals were concerned about the signals being sent to potential investors. Tien finally agreed to meet with Union officials and an agreement was signed on February 18.  However, Tien threatened on the following day to close the cafeteria and to outsource janitorial services actions that would have affected 14 and 20 workers respectively.  Students and faculty indicated their displeasure over the disruption of classes by what they regarded as “industrial foolishness.” (Our Readers Say, 1982)

Despite his rocky relations with the Government, Tien did not avoid opportunities to demonstrate that he was a good corporate citizen.  As early as 1980, he donated all of the fencing for the western and northern sides of Sturge Park and provided financial assistance to the various sporting associations on the island. (A.U.C. to Help Sturge Park, 1984).  The community was allowed to use the facilities for sports including tennis and volley ball courts at the College and it was only in the 1990s that a fee was charged for the use of the tennis courts.

The students also played a part in building bridges of friendship. The A.U.C. against the Montserrat Amateur Athletic Association meet was regarded as an opportunity to further improve the “bonds of friendship between A.U.C.[‘s] students and the local community.” (A.U.C. and M.A.A.A. Compete, 1981). The first A.U.C. Tennis Tournament that was held had involvement and participation from the Montserrat community. (A.U.C. Tennis Tourney: An Outstanding Success, 1985). 

Threats in the Environment

In addition to difficulties with the government and the Union, Tien also had internal problems and external forces creating threats to the survival of his school. In 1982, he fired Dr. DiVirgilio who was the first Dean of the Faculty of Medicine.  According to the report (A.U.C. Threatened, 1982), DiVirgilio was involved in the formation of a new school in Antigua, a school that was trying to lure faculty and students away from A.U.C.  The report goes on to say: “There has been much talk within the student body of late, concerning problems at A.U.C.  It is alleged also that some faculty members have not been terribly happy with the conditions under which they have been operating.  Whereas they enjoy Montserrat and like teaching, some faculty members have complained about the School’s administration. Tien placed the blame for the problems on the fact that the supply of students had been steadily falling with only 250 expected to attend A.U.C. the following semester as opposed to 320 the previous semester.  “Dr. Tien blames the economic conditions in the United States for this poor showing.  In addition new offshore schools are springing up in different places and drawing some of the students who would otherwise come to A.U.C..”

Not long after, Tien dismissed another member of faculty, Dr. Ranjit S. Nagi, Associate Dean of Medical Studies and expelled Mr. Nelson Bolagi Akande, a second semester student, and Miss Bosede Kufodu Uboh, a third semester student who were accused of being (New Medical School, 1982) “guilty of subversion in that they were actively involved with the formation of a new medical school in Antigua and carried out a campaign to recruit A.U.C. students for the Antigua School.”  (Antigua School No Threat, 1982)

Then in 1984, (Tricks Pulled on A.U.C.) it seems that staff from St. Georges University were on the A.U.C. campus attempting to “recruit students and staff members from A.U.C.”  According to Tien, “Our students were offered one free semester and told that they could be assured of good clinical rotation.  They were even offered a free flight to Grenada and our faculty members were told that they would get higher salaries.”  By April, Tien took action again St. Georges University (A.U.C. Files Writ Against Grenada’s Medical School, 1984) taking out an injunction against all of the defendants to restrain them from carrying out similar acts against A.U.C. in the future. 

Yet another threat reared its head on the horizon. It would seem (What’s A.U.C.’s fate, 1986) that the U.S. Senate was considering a bill “that could mean the death of A.U.C. and the 4 other off-shore medical schools presently operating in the Caribbean.  The bill states, that in order for U.S. students attending off-shore schools to be eligible for student grants, the schools must have an enrolment of at least 60 per cent nationals.”  But “students, graduates and parents, have written to their congressmen in support of the school, asking that the senate bill be thrown out.”  It would seem that their efforts were successful.

In the wake of the 1984 closure of the University of St. Lucia School of Medicine (USLSM) which started in 1983, Tien claims (A.U.C. Takes Stand on The Issue Of Academic Excellence, 1984) that the success of his school was as a result of placing priority on high standards of medical education and having a first rate faculty.  According to Tien, of the fifty students from USLSM that were interviewed by A.U.C. representatives who had flown to St. Lucia, only five met A.U.C.’s entrance requirements.

There is evidence that efforts were made over the years to ensure that the medical programme at A.U.C. was regularly assessed.  In 1983, a team (New York State Looks at A.U.C., 1983) visited the school to evaluate the pre-clinical programme and also visited the hospitals in New York where students would be placed for the clinical programme.  One year later (California Officials expected at A.U.C. Next Week, 1985), representatives of the California Legislature Senate Committee on Business and Professions, the California Medical Association and the California Dental Association were reported as being expected to review Medical and Dental schools in the Caribbean for accreditation and licensure.  These reviews would have been costly to A.U.C. but necessary since student placements in US hospitals were and still are dependent on positive reports on the school.  This is supported by a Sounding Board report. “Several States have developed mechanisms to permit students at certain foreign medical schools to take part in clerkships within the states’ jurisdiction…New York State Board of Medicine jointly grants approval to certain foreign medical schools that want to place students in New York-based clinical clerkships.  Such approvals have been given to St. George’s University School of Medicine on the island of Grenada, Ross University School of Medicine on Dominica, the American University of the Caribbean on St. Maarten, Netherlands Antilles (formerly Montserrat)...  p. 1603

Having overcome various man-made challenges, the School continued its operations in Montserrat until faced with the fury of nature in the form of Hurricane Hugo which battered the island on September 17, and left the Campus in shambles.  Tien found a new home for the School at the Wayland Baptist Church in Plainview, Texas, while plans were in place for rebuilding the Campus.  Keynote speaker at the 1991 graduation, Kenneth Cassell, Kenny Cassell remarked: “This event is important for the A.U.C. because it exploded the myth, popular at least for a brief while, that Dr. Tien and his associates would take the opportunity to close down their operations here and perhaps permanently relocate to another country.”

The fact that Dr. Tien and his associates achieved their target of restarting classes here just one year after the massive damages to the campus by Hugo, is testimony to their continued interest in the island, but more so to their dedication and determination to succeed in whatever they undertake.” (p. 13)

The Move to St. Maarten

Once the volcanic crisis started, there was not only an exodus of persons but an exodus of several businesses from the island, among them the A.U.C.  Tien’s contingency plan was for the school to relocate to St. Maarten.  As reported in Campus Connection: “After the Soufrière Hills volcano began erupting on Montserrat in July 1995, American University of the Caribbean found a new home about 100 miles southeast on the island of St. Maarten. Today A.U.C. students find themselves on a beautiful, contemporary campus specifically designed to meet a medical student’s needs. The academic facilities offer future doctors the tools for earning a high-quality medical education including fully equipped gross anatomy, histology and microbiology laboratories, and clinical patient examination room. The four lecture halls on campus feature the latest audio/visual technology, and the extensive library subscribes to more than 100 medical and scientific journals. It would seem that St. Maarten has seen some benefits from having the School on its shores. The Daily Herald (A.U.C. Expanding Third Phase Soon, 2003) reports that “Wescott-Williams, who is also Second Lt. Governor, described A.U.C.'s 25th anniversary as a milestone.  A.U.C. has committed itself to St. Maarten and stuck to this commitment since 1996," she said. She alluded to the school's Department of Community Services, which contributes significantly to the community. Similar sentiments were expressed by Commissioners Laveist, Heyliger and other speakers.”

Conclusion

It has been recognized that the lower cost of providing medical education in the Caribbean, (offshore medical schools run an accelerated programme which eliminates holidays and they also avoid the costs associated with research and a teaching hospital) along with investment incentives including tax holidays and other concessions dangled by Caribbean Governments, have made the region an attractive environment for offshore medical schools.   Indeed, it is now being suggested that offshore medical education could very well be a niche market for Caribbean countries.

“Offshore education, and, in particular, medical schools, represent a small but growing services sector that has responded to a growing (and unfulfilled) demand for physicians in the United States. St. George's University School of Medicine in Grenada and Ross University School of Medicine in Dominica are two of 23 primarily offshore medical schools in the region, whose graduates together account for close to 70 percent of the international medical graduates entering the US. Demographic trends suggest continued demand for international physicians in the US, suggesting a significant opportunity for continued growth of this sector. To continue to meet this demand, and deepen the economic impact of the sector, the region should focus on creating a robust investment climate by raising accreditation standards, supporting regional accreditation agencies, and moving towards a harmonized and transparent investment regime, including encouraging FDI in the higher education sector.” (xxix) 

Politicians in Montserrat are regarding the newly registered British International University with investors from Dubai, as a reincarnation of an A.U.C. project.   The School was registered in April of this year and has already approached the Caribbean Accreditation Authority for Education in Medicine and other Health Professions (CAAM) for the review process to start. This is an important step if the British Government is to make the request for WHO listing. The search is also in progress for temporary accommodation before their Campus is built. 

This project has the potential for a positive impact on Montserrat’s economy unlike those schools licensed in previous years. The St. John’s University of Medicine that was registered in 2003 was the brainchild of Dr. Daniel Harrington who once taught at A.U.C.  The School rented accommodation for a short period and had to face various legal battles including infringement of copyright. (New Offshore Medical School Hopes to Open in Early 2004, 2003).  The University of Science Arts and Technology was incorporated when the Government of Montserrat and the Medical School of London signed an agreement. (Medical School of London Signs Accord to Start Here, 2003).  To date, this School which has bought property and converted it into a Campus, has not yet received WHO Listing which affects its ability to recruit students.  The Atlanta Seoul University was licensed in 2003, rented space and for a short period used local talent for delivering its teaching programme. The School currently has no presence on island.

The A.U.C. story suggests that it is necessary to plan with contingencies in place for the unforeseen.  Entrepreneurs wanting to get into the now highly competitive offshore education business need venture capital and a commitment to maintaining standards. The student recruitment process, the teaching programme, faculty and facilities should be able to stand up to scrutiny.   At the same time, the Government of Montserrat needs to give serious consideration to the types and numbers of institutions that can feasibly operate on the island.  Projects without a significant investment component will hardly attract the kind of benefits that were realized with A.U.C.  Each application should be considered carefully and taken through a rigorous due diligence exercise, the danger is there that the Government could, as happened with the offshore banking industry, be held liable for activities undertaken by schools that it has allowed to operate on the island.  This calls for proper monitoring mechanisms, policies and procedures for the efficient management of the offshore education sector.  Untenable delays on the part of Government affect the investor negatively.  In the absence of a national accreditation authority, the Government would do well to maintain links with reputable accreditation institutions to ensure that standards are maintained in the schools that operate on island.  It is understandable that governments are eager for any economic activity which will result in growth. However, it is important that these activities and their possible impact on the society are thoroughly assessed before they are implemented.

 

References and/or complementary bibliography

A.U.C. and M.A.A.A. compete.  (1981, July 21).  Montserrat Times, p. 9.

A.U.C. expanding, third phase soon. (2003, August 15).  The Daily Herald. Retrieved on September 30, 2006, from http://thedailyherald.com/news/daily/g76/auc76.html

A.U.C. files writ against Grenada’s Medical School.  (1984, April 19)  Montserrat Times, p.10

A.U.C. pays up. (1986, January 10)  Montserrat Reporter, p.8

A.U.C. ready to break ground. (1979, June 23) The Montserrat Mirror, p. 12.

A.U.C. to help Sturge Park.  (1984, February 3).  Montserrat Times, p. 11

A.U.C. takes stand on the issue of academic excellence.  (1984, March 23) p. 8.

A.U.C. tennis tourney: An outstanding success. (1985, December 13) Montserrat Times, p. 9.

A.U.C. threatened. (1982, April 23) The Montserrat Mirror, p. 1.

Antigua School No Threat.   (1982, August 20)  Montserrat Mirror, p. 10.

Brandt Represents A.U.C.  (1985, December). The Montserrat Times, 5(34), p. 1.

Campus connection: Welcome to the St. Maarten campus. (2006).  AUC Connections, 1. Retrieved on October 7, 2006 from: http://www.aucmed.edu/aucconnections/Archive/WinterSpring06/campuswelcome.htm

Cassell, K.  Greater co-operation between Government and A.U.C. needed. (1991, April 5). Montserrat Reporter, p. 13, 18.

Former U.S. A.G. to speak at A.U.C. graduation. (1984, January 20). The Montserrat Times, p. 1.

How Osborne’s PLM has harassed the A.U.C.  (1983, February 11).  Montserrat Times, p. 10.

Johnson, K.E., Hagopian, A., Veninga, C.,  Fordyce, M.A. & Hart, L.G. (2005).  The changing geography of Americans graduating from foreign medical schools (Working Paper No. 96.  Washington: University of Washington, Department of Family Medicine. WWAMI Center for Health Workforce Studies.

Latin America and the Caribbean Region.  Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Unit. Caribbean Country Management Unit. (2005). A time to choose: Caribbean development in the 21st century.  (Confidential Report No. 31725-LAC). Washington, D.C.: World Bank.  Retrieved on January 30, 2006 from:

http://wbln0018.worldbank.org/LAC/lacinfoclient.nsf/8d6661f6799ea8a48525673900537f95/fe9533fb44ff524185256ff0004d98b3/$FILE/Time%20to%20choose_report.pdf

Lawrence, Susan V. (1979, March 10).  A moveable med school. Science News, 115 (10) 153-155.

MAWU sets out its case against A.U.C.  (1982, March 5)  Montserrat Times, p. 6.

Model, D. G. (1984, April 28). Montserrat: An offshore medical school. Lancet, 1(8383):    952-953.

New Caribbean school holds first classes on Cincinnati Campus. (1978, September 23) Montserrat Mirror, p. 5.

New medical school.  (1982, May 7)  The Montserrat Mirror, p. 1.

New medical school enmeshed in fight over accreditation. (1978, August 25). The Washington Post, p. A11.

New Offshore Medical School Hopes to Open in Early 2004. (2003, August 15). The Montserrat Reporter, p. 2.

New York State looks at A.U.C.  (1983, March 25).  Montserrat Times, p. 10.

Our readers say. (1982, February 26).  Montserrat Times, p. 4-5.

Progressive Democratic Party Manifesto 1978:  A Charter for Continued Progress. (1978). St. Johns, Antigua: Antigua  Printing & Publishing Ltd.

Sounding board: Nonaccredited medical education in the United States.  (2000) The New England Journal of Medicine, 342(21): 1602-5.

Three weeks of classes at A.U.C. (1980, February 2).  Montserrat Mirror, p. 12.

Tricks Pulled on A.U.C. (1984, March 30).  Montserrat Times, p. 10.

What’s A.U.C.’s fate.  (1986, September 19). The Montserrat Reporter, p.1. 

Young, I. J. (2000).  Montserrat: Post volcano reconstruction and rehabilitation – A case Study. Montserrat: Department for International Development. Retrieved on January  30, 2006 from http://www.corporate.coventry.ac.uk/content/1/c6/01/02/90/MONTSERRAT%20POST%20VOLCANO%20RECONSTRUCTION%20AND%20REHABILITATION.pdf#search=%22ian%20jardine%20young%20montserrat%22

 

 


The General Agreement on Trade in Services
and Education in the Caribbean:
Three Case Studies

PhD candidate, University of the West Indies, Barbados

mecwbar@hotmail.com

 

Introduction

In this article “Caribbean” refers to The Commonwealth Caribbean. This term describes the archipelago of islands, which form the eastern boundary of the Caribbean Basin. It includes as well the mainland nations of Belize (British Honduras) and Guyana (formerly British Guiana): these and most of the islands – Barbados, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Dominica, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada; St. Kitts  and Nevis, Antigua and Barbuda, are independent nations. Anguilla, Montserrat, the British Virgin Islands, the Northern islands (the Cayman Islands, the Turks and Caicos Islands) are British dependencies or territories. The Commonwealth of the Bahamas, geographically part of the Northern islands, is also independent. 

The impact of globalisation on national education systems is very significant for the Caribbean. Much of Caribbean education planning, historically and presently, has been based on the concept that it is by national education that societies can be transformed to move them from the Third to the First World. The emphasis on education as a key to upward economic mobility can be considered successful strategy: The region is relatively poor, with an average per capita income of less than US$3000 (about a tenth of the average for OECD countries). All of the Caribbean countries are categorised as “developing” and have managed to survive significant economic pressures. It has been a difficult balancing act to preserve political stability in the midst of difficult social and financial pressures and the threat posed from drug trafficking.

As predominantly small island states, the Caribbean faces similar challenges to those in the South Pacific and Mediterranean regions.  The World Bank has described them as being mostly small, very open and limited in their export base as well as being very vulnerable to natural disasters. According to the World Bank World Development Indicators 2006, except for Guyana (lower middle), Caribbean economies may be classified as upper middle income by using per capita income measures, although much less advanced than others such as Brazil, Argentine, Chile and Mexico. The importance of education has grown because of the necessity to train workers for a technologically advanced economy locally and in terms of job opportunities abroad.

Education in the Caribbean

Much as in Great Britain and Europe, Caribbean public education was initially conceived in the 1800’s as a force to produce workers and as a tool for social control (through discipline and religion) in the colonies. In the 20th century, until the 70’s, education was used to promote nation building and representative democracy with the change to internal self-government. In the post-independence era, educational provision was expanded and there were determined efforts to address equity in access and to promote the development of a national and Caribbean identity. There were also major investments to improve and expand quality educational provisions at all levels, including teacher training, examinations and educational research. 

The University of the West Indies was founded in 1948 at the Mona campus in Jamaica, as a University College in a special relationship with the University of London. In 1962 the University achieved independent status In addition to the three main campuses (Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and Barbados) the University has centres in all of its non-campus Caribbean countries and has a distance education programme. The courses and examinations for general degrees of the University are common to all three campuses. Of the professional faculties, agriculture and engineering are located at St. Augustine, law at Cave Hill, and medical sciences at Mona. There are schools of medicine, dentistry and veterinary science at the St. Augustine campus. All the contributing territories have policies of subsidising students up to tertiary level.

Most Caribbean countries spend a significant amount of their government budget on education. Since the late 1990’s, education has been driven by essentially economic ends- material progress, the impetus of consumerism (especially driven by location within the American hegemony); the need to ensure technology sophistication and fit into the global marketplace by exploiting whatever “comparative advantage” is available. Issues of global competitiveness are of paramount importance given that the area is, on its own, a small market, and cannot compete as a low wage business environment. Caribbean people are convinced of the close correlation between expenditure on education and education and economic performance.  This is borne out by Table 3, which compares Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados.

In 1997, Commonwealth Caribbean Heads of Government committed themselves to the implementation of specific measures related to education. They agreed on a number of goals for priority implementation including universal quality secondary education and 15 per cent enrolment of the post-secondary group in tertiary-level education by the year 2005. This is still far below the level of post-secondary enrolment of developed countries and some countries in the region itself. Heads of Government recognised that knowledge is now the central factor of competitiveness. They emphasised the importance of lifelong learning and the need to develop and apply science and technology to the production of goods and services. They agreed to enlist the active participation of the private sector in policy development, planning, implementation and financing for relevant education and training towards the development of creative and adaptive individuals as well as skilled labour for the key economic sectors of industry, agriculture and services, in particular tourism.

For the Caribbean, tertiary education (i.e., education beyond secondary education), includes degree courses taken for college or university credits or non-degree courses undertaken for personal edification or pleasure to upgrade work-related skills. Post-secondary education in the Caribbean is very varied. The base of publicly funded institutions has traditionally been supplemented by private institutions sometimes with government subsidies.  In several states, overseas campuses, mostly of American institutions, and franchising arrangements have been multiplying. 

Globalisation

The United Nations Development Programme has defined globalisation as: “the widening and deepening of international flows of trade, finance and information in a single, integrated global market.”

Much of the impetus of globalisation arises from the impact of trade agreements such as GATT (the General agreement on Trade and Tariffs) and more recently GATS (the General Agreement on Trade in Services) under the aegis of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) (see Appendix 1).

The GATS, the General Agreement on Trade in Services, is the first multilateral agreement for trade in services. It aims to liberalise international trade in services which now has greater growth potential than international trade in goods: even in less-developed countries about 50% of GDP comes from non-government service industries and the proportion is much greater and increasing even more rapidly in developed countries (World Development Report 2006).

A commitment under GATS is a formal agreement to liberalise trade in particular services with or without limitations. Although there is no compulsion to liberalise trade immediately, according to GATS, all countries that are signatories to the agreement are committed to future steps of liberalisation. In education, commitments can be made under 5 sub-sectors – primary, secondary, higher, adult and other education services. Limitations may be made dealing with nationality requirements, restrictions on foreign teachers, subsidies to national establishments, qualifications and accreditation etc. Formerly government controlled services, such as health and education, are vulnerable to being used as pawns in WTO negotiations to secure advantages in other areas.

Globalisation and Education

UNDP’s John Ohhoierhan said in an article in Co- op South (1995):“Countries of the South… need to come to terms fully with globalisation in order to make the appropriate changes in their development agenda and strategies.” (p.2)

The Caribbean has relied heavily on education for social and economic development. In some cases the movement from the Third to the First World has been physical with emigrants attractive to their destination societies because of their competencies and skills. Education has also enabled Caribbean governments to attract foreign investment, whether for setting up offshore factories or and banks or onshore hotels and businesses. In other words the infrastructural progress made has been based on the use of education as a vehicle of national development, especially in latter years, from an agriculture-based economy to industrialisation and now global economic competitiveness.

State planning and implementation have had a pivotal role in expanding mass education and ensuring that investment in schooling is profitable to the nation. The implications of globalisation for national education are enormous. What control should, could or would the state have? What characteristics in terms of a national public and collective identity would education have? What would be the philosophy and emphases in order to prepare students for not only national but also international or global labour markets? How does trade liberalisation affect the capacity and strength of local and regional education strategies to respond to local and regional needs and even to survive competition? There are many concerns about the infringement by global institutions and agreements and by transnational corporations on the power of the state. States in a globalised world must inform, equip and empower themselves with appropriate strategies.

Traditional education institutions all over the world have had to rethink their place in wider society to respond to changing expectations. Certainly, in the British tradition, which predominates in the Caribbean, education is not traditionally regarded as a commodity. Yet, the liberalisation of international trade in education, as fuelled by the activities of the WTO and the operation of the General Agreement in Trades and Services (GATS), has produced a rapid growth in an alternative education market. Internationalisation has meant the growth of borderless education and considerable commercialisation. Also, developing countries, in striving to provide mass education at all levels, have been experimenting with distance learning and Open and Virtual universities. Corporate Universities have been established to provide transnational and other corporations with employees who have the requisite common skills across boundaries and to facilitate optimal deployment globally. The alternative education market in the United States has grown and focused on the demand for provision of opportunities for life-long learning. Fast-paced private branches of foreign colleges and institutions could be considered the thin edge of the wedge in terms of the impact of globalisation on education in the Caribbean: tertiary institutions have geared up to export testing and tuition services at highly competitive rates.

There are also practical social issues – culture and cohesion, the digital divide, equity and equality in education provisions, planning, sourcing and financing of education. There are issues relating to the privatisation of educational services which may be detrimental to public access to the best educational provisions. Apart from the economic considerations, for example, the return on investments in personnel training, there are other intangible issues such as cultural penetration and the maintenance of appropriate standards.

The University of the West Indies is one of the most successful regional universities in terms of its standard, service and contribution to social and economic progress and is increasingly attractive to international students. However, its future role and expansion has to be considered in the context of globalisation, both in terms of the provision of expanded and relevant higher education programmes and offering new services as well as meeting the challenge of competition. The testing services of the Caribbean Examination Council at all levels will be challenged by extra-regional competition. As the private sector recognises market opportunities it will seek to provide products which can compete.  The Association of Caribbean Tertiary (Level)  Institutions, whose members include community colleges has recognised the need for a development of Quality Assurance and accreditation strategies. The removal of trade barriers and the increased availability of foreign exchange dramatically improved opportunities to study for foreign qualifications to get comparative advantage in most national regional and international labour markets. It may even be cheaper to study in OVC’s (overseas campuses) than local and further more traditional subsidies and development strategies may put Caribbean states at risk in terms of the GATS anti-protectionism regulations.

Trends in globalisation issues related to education, especially higher education, have generated considerable debate and action amongst stakeholders and their organisations particularly in developed countries. Amongst developed countries, both individual and regional governments are making plans for their education systems.  The UK government has formally declared itself committed to liberalising trade in services. Some developed countries, e.g. Canada and the EU, have voluntarily announced that they will not deal with education in their trade offers. In the Asian-Pacific region, countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Korea have clearly developed and implemented strategies regarding education services.

In order to compete locally and globally developing country higher education institutions face financing challenges. In general, the financing of educational provisions is a major consideration influenced by structural and administrative consequences of partnerships between educational and business institutions. The role of government in financing and determining curricula with regard to national strategic planning has different implications in developing and developed countries.

Becoming a Member of WTO involves two types of commitments and a web of complex trade rules (see Appendix I). Not joining in the GATS means risking exclusion from equal access to markets and losing favourable access to important export areas. A critical aspect of the GATS is non-reciprocity. In other words, a Member is not obliged to open up to another Member even when its proposals have been accepted. The USA is particularly adamant in reserving untouchable areas of its education policies whilst demanding that other countries remove ‘restrictions’ or ‘barriers’. 

Two major issues that arise from dealing with education in terms of the trading in a service.  The WTO and some of its members talk about an Education Market - as a global market opportunity. This is in stark contrast to the gut feeling of most educators and trade unionists, and, indeed the general public especially in the Caribbean, that education is a public good, which should not be traded as a commodity particularly if this interferes with the responsibility of states to provide equitable education to their citizens. Both sides can define types of barriers except that they are on opposite sides of the fence:

Barriers to trade in services in the GATS context. These trade-restrictive practices are considered impediments to one of the fundamental goals of the WTO- free trade—opening up of markets – trade liberalization. These are usually defined by the developed countries in their request documents as they strive to ensure clear passage for their institutions into the developing countries .It should be noted that developing country providers face similar barriers if they attempt to break into developed markets. For example, there are non-recognition of qualifications, visa and immigration restrictions for students and professionals, considerable barriers to the establishment of commercial or professional presence such as accreditation, financial barriers, needs tests and other barriers to the movement of natural persons. Liberalisation holds no promise of reciprocity.

Barriers to the delivery by national governments of social services to their citizens – with goals of removing social inequality and stratification based on class and finance and directed towards developing genuine democracy and economic viability. Certainly for developing countries these goals require the development and maintenance of public quality education systems as a normal and necessary part of their development strategy. Utilising the available resources often means supporting students’ education at private institutions.

Of the members of WTO only 44 member states including 3 Caribbean states – Haiti, Trinidad and Jamaica – have made commitments to trade in Education Services (see Appendix Table 2). Only 21(15 developing and 6 transition) countries  have included commitments in higher education and among those making unconditional commitments in higher education are the Congo, Sierra Leone, Lesotho, and Jamaica. The European Union made some commitments but with limitations on all modes. The USA, New Zealand, Australia and Japan all of whom submitted negotiating proposals have limitations on some if not all modes and sectors. Canada remains uncommitted in public education.  Some commentators have suggested that those developing countries, which have liberalised their education sectors, have done so partly through incomplete understanding of the implications and in the hope of receiving much needed assistance. The strongest opposition to what is termed the commodification of education has come from North American and European education unions and associations – the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada, the American Council on Education (USA), The European University Association, the Council of Higher Education Accreditation, the Association of Universities and the National Association of Teachers in Higher Education (UK) and the global union, Education International. The developing countries which are now committed might have acted otherwise had there been more consultation and openness with their education unions about decision making. In a resolution published in the 1998 entitled World Declaration on Higher Education for the Twenty-first Century, Vision and Action, UNESCO advised its member institutions to refrain from making commitments in higher education and if already committed, to make no further commitments.

Those countries which have already made commitments could opt for progressive Liberation (Article XIX) and possibly request modification to a Schedule of commitment (XXI). This has been the advice given to the Jamaican government in the Jamaican National Council on Education (NACE) report.

The Regional Negotiating Machinery (RNM) Report on “International Supply of Tertiary Education and Services Trade Negotiations: Implications for Caricom” (2004) warned: “States that have not made any commitments in their tertiary education sector must proceed cautiously and only make commitments that will serve their best interests. The complexity of the trade negotiations warrants the need for technical assistance on behalf of the developing countries. “ (p.ii) and, with respect to the US: “ as the leading provider of services in TLE (Tertiary Level Education) and as a member of the WTO, the US has sought (from all other Members) ‘full commitments for market access and national treatment in modes 1,2 and 3 for higher education and training services, for adult education, and for ‘other’ education…. Given …non-reciprocity, CARICOM States would be well advised not to accede to this request … (since) developed countries are much more competitive in this sector and Caribbean domestic providers are not ready yet for an open, market driven environment." (p. iii)

In Jamaica, and generally in the Caribbean, it is at the tertiary level that ill-advised commitment has the most costly and serious implications.  The GATS documents appear to use the terms ‘higher’ and ‘tertiary’ interchangeably when referring to education. The GATS defines higher education thus: “(it) includes two distinct groups: one relates to the teaching of practical skills in post-secondary, sub-degree technical and vocational education institutions and the other details with more theoretical educational services provided by universities, colleges and specialized professional schools”.  In the Caribbean, the second group is more frequently described as tertiary level education/ institutions (TLE’s or TLI’s).

The RNM Report says that for Caribbean TLI’s, the environment is one where individual countries are at different levels in terms of legislation, policy and procedure with respect to access to their TLE markets, but they have traditionally allowed foreign providers on a case-by- case basis. The criteria applied examining how each provider fits into government education policies and requirements, and has the capacity to fulfil governments’ development strategies. There are many examples of various foreign provider arrangements such as twinning, partnerships and branch institutions. Each Caricom state has a different reality in both needs and policies, which makes it difficult but not impossible to negotiate jointly. However negotiating separately especially against the large, well-endowed and experienced negotiating machineries of the developed countries is not a winning option. Under the GATS market forces not social and environmental or local human resource development considerations will be the guiding criteria.

In signing the GATS agreements, many developing countries thought they would attract foreign providers to assist in building sustainable education for the future. This has not happened: for example in the Philippines, Senegal and Jamaica, foreign providers are undercutting local universities and colleges. The GATS ignores equity concerns between rich and poor countries or within countries for example in negotiating procedures. There are concerns that the education sector like education could be traded off to break a deadlock in other sectors.  Regional/bilateral Free trade agreements are more ambitious and far reaching than may be immediately apparent. The pros and cons of making offers in tertiary education in an effort to improve the quality of tertiary education have to be carefully evaluated including the risks that national protection regulations may be challenged as falling foul of  the GATS rules  Most people agree that education is a public good but that there must be a nuanced position on role of the private sector. Developing states need strategies to put appropriate regulation in place and to manage liberalisation. Several articles and speeches have recommended a co-ordinated Southern response to globalisation. Concerns have been expressed about the weakness of developing countries in international fora with regard to fair participation in decision making and enjoyment of benefits. The contrasting experiences of Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados support the urgent need to share concerns and negotiating strategies and strengths.

The Jamaica Experience

“Jamaica is part of the global village of this century of open borders, easy travel, mass migration and easy access to information and technology. We are no longer educating our people to live in Jamaica. We are preparing them for a borderless world. Times have changed and we too must change. We must critically examine the product, and together as a nation, make the necessary changes that are called for.”

Jamaica Prime Minister, PJ Patterson, in his speech to launch the Education Transformation process in February 2004: “Public Education is a central pillar of democratic society and public institutions, from primary school to university, ideally prepare students to be loyal citizens who play a role in shaping their societies. The reality is that most if not all public education systems offer some service on a basis of payment or in competition with a private education provider. In this regard, Jamaica is no exception.”

Jamaica National Council on Education (2004)

Jamaica is the largest island of the Commonwealth Caribbean with over two and a half million people in an area of about 11000 km2. Since 1973 Jamaica has been a member of the Caribbean Community and Common Market (Caricom) and since January 2006 the Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME). Regional ties are very important   because of the potential to facilitate sharing of information, develop a common policy and strengthen negotiating power in WTO meetings.  Jamaica joined WTO in March 1995. Its commitments in education under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) have some unforeseen and potentially negative implications for the Jamaican government and the Caribbean region with respect to provision of education services in the Caribbean.

The Jamaican Government’s commitment to education is typical for the region. The statistics cited are from the Jamaican National Council on Education document “The GATS: Higher Education & The Implications for National Economies (Jamaica)“ (2003). The budget expenditure in 2000 on education is about 15% with 17% of that for higher education. Students’ fees for higher education used to be totally covered by the government. Now they contribute to the economic cost 10% at non-degree level and about 18% at the degree level for the Jamaica University of Technology and the University of the West Indies. The government is the single largest provider of higher  (including post-secondary) education. Dealing with approximately 800,000 students primary to tertiary level, the government spends in its budget JA$30billion with households spending about JA $19 billion; these are supplemented by additional government expenditure through deferred financing for school building and funding from the Jamaica Investment Fund as well as further substantial expenditure from institutions especially the church. This was all part of a cost-sharing programme where students and families bear part of the costs of education. It was envisaged that school fees would be frozen at 2003/4 levels and removed by 2005-06.

In Jamaica at all levels there is national or transnational private education and  institutions must be registered with the University Council of Jamaica, which accredits courses and awards degrees on behalf of institutions that do not have the power to do so. There are number of foreign providers with accredited programmes offering these through local branch campuses, local partners, franchise or distance education. There are a number of private locally owned institutions at all tertiary levels.  In order to increase and upgrade its teaching staff and facilities it has been projected that Jamaica needs to spend an additional JA$219 billion over the next 10 years. According to the National Council on Education, the government would find it very difficult to significantly increase the education budget particularly at the tertiary level. Yet, with the “no limitations” on Mode 3, the Jamaican government could be required to fund a potentially large market of foreign suppliers, who are providing education to Jamaican nationals. Any financial support by governments for students or institutions may be considered as subsidies with respect to GATS rules. This support is present in the Caribbean region since the TLI’s could not provide on their own supply services at a affordable price. Moreover according to GATS rules any part of an educational institution which functions on a profit-making basis would bring the institution under the GATS rules for national treatment since then it would not be considered as totally financed by government but be in competition with private providers.

The country’s National Council on Education in 2003 gave as its opinion that government higher education services in Jamaica could be regarded a trade in services since they are offered “in competition” with private provisions such as Northern Caribbean University (locally owned and administered) and the Florida International University (foreign owned and operated). Furthermore the government provides the operating costs of several high schools owned by Denominations and Trusts; i.e. it subsidises private institutions at the secondary level too.

In general Jamaica’s horizontal commitments are only restrained by the country’s immigration laws with respect to residency, work permits and taxation. From Table 2 Jamaica has made Market Access undertakings for modes 1, and 2, and even in 3 but for required local certification, registration and licensing – meaning that the government will not limit the number of providers, the number of students they may enrol, the legal form of new entrants or limit the level of foreign ownership. The real issues here will be the government’s ability respond equally to demands under National Treatment for financial support in terms of boarding grants, student loans or any other financial support i.e. subsidies for students attending local or foreign (i.e. Consumption Abroad), public or private colleges and universities. So a student at Florida International, or UT Jamaica or indeed any of the three UWI campuses (Jamaica, Trinidad, Barbados) may require and expect parity of financial support.  Otherwise, the practical effect would be a non-level playing field in favour of local providers. Where services are unbound in Mode 4 it means that service providers, local or foreign can be limited by needs tests or quotas. However the implications of the Most Favored Nation (MFN) principle that is a fundamental commitment for all members could be tested in relation to these cases.

The commitments made by Jamaica on joining the WTO were not particularly at odds with the then current situation. What was different were the long term implications of their formalisation within the GATS system. NACE has recommended  “a holistic assessment of GATS on all levels of the education sector with a view to determine the socio-cultural implications of a liberalized system” (NACE, 2004 p.26). Nor was or is there any significant difference from regional norms. Williams 2004 is quoted in the RNM Report as saying that there are over 150 institutions (in the Caribbean) of which 60% are public, 30% private and the remaining 10% exist with some government support’. All present and future institutions are tools in the drive to increase the enrolment of post secondary cohorts in tertiary level institutions that must be a strategic imperative in the development of the region. Regional governments would be hard-pressed if forced to apply the GATS rules regarding Market Access and National Treatment across the board. However the vulnerability of developing countries is highlighted by reference to the comment of the Australian Department of Foreign Trade as quoted in Zigoura, McBurnie and Reinke (2003): “Australian commitments entered in during the Uruguay Round were structured so that we have the ability to discriminate between foreign and domestic private institutions (e.g. in relation to subsidies), should this ever be an issue”.

The local tertiary sector understandably has concerns about quality and accreditation issues. They are concerned about inferior and irrelevant programmes being offered by providers for whom the profit motive is paramount. Comments have been made that foreign providers focus on areas where the necessary infrastructure and staffing is minimal and leave local providers i.e. governments to finance the more expensive and less immediately popular areas. For example setting up arrangements for short business courses or computer courses is cheaper and easier than dealing with laboratory sciences. According to the RNM Report “[except for Jamaica] compared to developed countries, CARICOM member states have only recently started to establish the regulatory and infrastructural framework for the accreditation and quality assurance of the tertiary education sector.” (p.8)

There are several existing and planned linkages between UWI and other universities in the member states of CARICOM and the recently instituted Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME). The Caribbean Knowledge and Learning Network (CKLN) is expected to provide the infrastructure to support e-learning. CARICOM is committed to funding and supporting the development of the regional UWI and national TLI’s since it is recognized that these are best suited for and have an intrinsic commitment to local societal interests and culture. However if these are burdened by the responsibility of providing the costliest programmes against competition from private, for- profit institutions with comparatively vast resources and budgets their task is almost impossible. For instance, with the foreign private sector able to attract quality staff with higher wages and conditions of service there is the risk under- staffing and under-resourcing public institutions which will reduce quality and destroy reputations and public confidence as has happened in some Asian jurisdictions. Then, education and consequently the society will be even more stratified. The competitive strength afforded to private-for- profit TLI by their capacity to offer flexible programmes especially to the adult working population boosted by strength in ICTs which facilitate reduced student costs and increased profits should not be underestimated. ICTs have been the drivers of the growth of cross-border tertiary education and training over the Internet.

UWI itself  has a number of extra-regional linkages with other universities. These facilitate student exchanges with universities in Japan, Suriname, Canada, the UK, and the USA. At both ends students are required to pay the full fees of the institutions. Of course, fees at UWI, which, at present, makes no distinction between regional and extra-regional origin are much cheaper. Consequently the University may lobby for scholarships and parents may arrange loans, but these are always on an individual basis.

Besides its on-campus offerings, UWI also has a Distance Education Programme (UWIDEC) and which delivers courses to the non-campus territories. There has been considerable investment in this to upgrade and expand especially in the area of computer technology and telecommunications infrastructure. The Caribbean Examination Council (CXC) provides testing services throughout the region. Its viability is dependent on its market. They are therefore vulnerable to competition in particular from distance education and testing services in the USA especially since these are backed by the attraction of the US colleges whose requirements they have years of experience of satisfying. Another fear expressed is concern less the commitments enable Jamaica to be used as an insertion point for foreign educational materials to be allowed into the region.

Summary

Commitments made under the GATS involves a country in a web of complex rules and punitive measures even when the government is instituting measures to ensure its citizens equitable access to quality education as a necessary pre-requisite for development. The Jamaican experience is a cautionary tale for developing countries.

The Trinidad and Tobago Experience

Trinidad and Tobago is a twin-island republic, is also part of the Commonwealth Caribbean It has a population of over 1.3 million people in an area of 5128 km2 (World Bank,2005). Like Jamaica and Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago has been a member of the Caribbean Community and Common Market (Caricom) since 1973 and of the Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME) that was formalised in 2006.  Trinidad joined the WTO in 1995. It has commitments in education under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). These are tabled in the sub-sectors Adult and Other with full commitments (“none”) in Modes 1 and 2, unbound in Mode 3, and Limitations in Mode 4 (see Appendix).

Full commitments mean complete liberalisation, whilst in the unbound mode the government reserves the right to impose limitations in the future. The limitations in Mode 4, the Movement of Natural Persons, in this case lecturers and specialist teachers, refer to Immigration laws and regulations relating to certification, registration and licensing.

Like other Caribbean countries, the Trinidad & Tobago government has pursued as a goal the development of a well educated and trained labour force which might act as an incentive for foreign direct investment towards the social and economic development of the country. The education system is based on the British model. Public education at both the primary and secondary level is free. There is now universal access to secondary education. The Secondary Entrance Examination is used as a filtering process to allocate students.  From kindergarten to post-secondary there are a number of private education institutions that cater for a range of social and economic statuses. Government or government-assisted secondary schools are generally considered to be of a higher standard than purely private secondary schools although all prepare students for the Caribbean Examination Council Examinations. There are two international schools in Port of Spain with curricula based respectively on the Canadian and USA systems.

There are also a number of tertiary level institutions in the country, including Government Technical Colleges and the Trinidad and Tobago Institute of Technology (which offers certificate and degree programmes based on the North American Technology Institute model). There is a government Institute of Languages and the French and Venezuelan embassies support language schools as they do in other islands. Continuing education programmes are available at a number of institutions.  The University of the West Indies has a campus at St. Augustine (others are at Mona in Jamaica and at Cave Hill in Barbados) with a Faculty of Agriculture (now the Eastern Caribbean Institute of Agriculture and Forestry, ECIAF), a Faculty of Engineering, a College of Arts and Science and an active Extra Mural Department which provides evening classes, summer seminars and lectures for adults. The University of the West Indies School of Continuing Studies offers courses in a number of areas both academic and non-academic. The former Caribbean Union College now the University of the Southern Caribbean is another tertiary institution.

The government spends annually about 4.3% of GDP on education with largest allocation for tertiary education. The government aims to have a 20% tertiary enrolment by 2010 and pays full fees for Bachelor Degrees and 50% for Masters including up to 50% or a maximum of TT $5000 at accredited private institutions.  There has been a significant increase in public-private partnership for education in Trinidad and Tobago. For example British Petroleum has recently made a US $10 million dollar investment in the government’s University of Trinidad & Tobago. According to its Group Chief Executive, Lord Browne of Madingley, Group Chief Executive (2005): “An open and meritocratic education system is fundamental to establishing the standards of society – promoting and rewarding individual effort and commitment. It is the key to unleashing creativity, for which this country is famous, and the key to accessing the full potential of your people ... I also believe that we should make a leading contribution to support the development of the new University of Trinidad & Tobago and, in particular, to support the planned development of high-quality research in science and technology.”

The investment takes a number of forms: Brighter Prospects, the bpTT (British Petroleum Trinidad & Tobago) Scholarship Award programme for Mayaro district, provides scholarships to students who possess the ability to pursue academic and technical/vocational training, for those who may lack the means to do so.  It creates incentives for students from pre-school to primary, through to secondary and on to tertiary and technical/vocational training. bpTT has partnered several educational institutions including the University of the West Indies and the Trinidad & Tobago Institute of Technology under this programme. The programme also provides for new entrepreneurs in the community, who qualify, to access the facilities offered in the Mayaro Initiative and Private Enterprise Development.

A partnership between bpTT and the Geological Society of Trinidad & Tobago made the bold and progressive step to develop an accredited Petroleum Geoscience programme at the University of the West Indies. Members of bpTT’s staff have lectured full semester courses, served as guest lecturers in specialized areas and also coached and mentored students during summer internships and final year projects.

bpTT provides 10 bursaries annually with a total value of TT$100,000 to students attending the University of the West Indies. These bursaries are awarded in the disciplines of Engineering and the Social Sciences.

bpTT partnered the British High Commission and the British Council to award scholarships to potential young local leaders and decision-makers for study in countries with established economic relations with the United Kingdom. Preference for this scholarship is usually given to nationals already established in a career within Trinidad and Tobago.

bpTT also supports the Fulbright Scholarship Programme and has sponsored one Fulbright scholar per year over the last four years.

Other bpTT educational initiatives include:

-         Internships

-         Math Olympiad

-         Lectures by BP experts

-         Mentorship programmes with secondary and tertiary level institutions

-         Schools Energy Education (SEE) programme

-         Primary and secondary schools educational programmes

-         Secondary Entrance Assessment (SEA) Awards to the top 100 students in Trinidad and Tobago.

Besides these opportunities for tertiary education, there is anew programme, H.E.L.P (Higher Education Loan Programme)., which provides access to funding. The loans incur a small interest repayable on completion of study and beginning of employment.

All of this is in keeping with Prime Minister Patrick Manning’s mandate for his country to develop the infrastructure to promote advances in health and education as part of of his plan “Vision 2020” to move forward the country’s economy. Hence, the University of Trinidad and Tobago (UTT) was founded in 2004 through a partnership of the government, the private sector and the national community. UTT is a not-for-profit entrepreneurial university that the government has directed to take a leading role in developing state-of-the-art tertiary education and research. Then, in 2005 the Trinidad and Tobago Health Sciences Initiative (TTHSI) was formed to advance the health sciences and education sectors through the establishment of a long-term strategic collaboration between University of Trinidad and Tobago, Johns Hopkins Medicine International, the Trinidad Ministry of Health and the Trinidad and Tobago Ministry of Science, Technology and Tertiary Education. This unique, three-pronged collaboration in consulting, educational and advisory services is destined to exceed other Johns Hopkins Medicine International's global partnerships. To successfully implement a project of this scope and size, Johns Hopkins Medicine International brought together Johns Hopkins experts in medicine, public health, public policy and management to advise, train and manage the range of services. Some activities resulting from this initiative include the planning and evaluation for development and expansion of clinical health facilities, public health education programs, clinical research and herbal research programs.

Summary

The Trinidad & Tobago has identified the areas in which it can best profit by liberalisation but has retained the options to impose and maintain regulation. This has enabled it to handle the pressure for education provisions and manipulate the available FDI largely on its own terms.

The Barbados Experience

Barbados has already made a commitment to liberalise all of its sectors within the creation of the Single Market and Economy. Restrictions will continue to apply in those areas reserved by the Crown and those that amount to non-discriminatory regulation.”  Barbados Ministry of Economic Development re Trade in Services (2002).

“One of the basic benefits of liberalisation in services is that it increases the variety and amount of education services available to WTO members. These are vital to all countries, including the emerging economies, which are in need of technology-savvy, well-trained workforces that are able to compete in the global economy. This acts as a spur to foreign investment and further transfer of important technologies. The growth of education services also raises demand for a wide range of important technologies. The growth of education services also raises a demand for arrange of related goods and services, including production and sale of educational and training material an equipment.

The above is taken from a brief on Educational Services prepared by the Barbados Ministry of Economic Development for Consultations in June 2002 with a number of education stakeholders including the Ministry of Education, education unions, and the University of the West Indies (Cave Hill campus) and. The document talks about the crucial role of education in fostering economic growth, personal and social development and reducing inequality by providing skills to facilitate effective participation in the workforce that is, reducing unemployment.

Barbados is a small island of the Commonwealth Caribbean, heavily populated with about 260 thousand people in an area of 431 km2. Like Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago Barbados has been a member of the Caribbean Community and Common Market (Caricom) since 2003 and has been a prime mover in the formation of the Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME) that was formalised in January 2006. Barbados became a member of the WTO in 1995. It has no commitments in education under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS).

As in many countries, Barbadian governments have based their education planning on a national presumption that education is a public good or, as the brief puts it, ‘a “public consumption” item’ to be provided free or ‘at prices not reflecting the costs of producing it’.  Education has traditionally been mainly government funded and since 1960 not only primary but secondary education has been free in government schools. There is a system of government assisting secondary schools with grants to cover salaries of some teachers particularly in the sciences, subventions to include specialised subjects in the curriculum and bursaries to assist some students. In government-approved secondary schools, students get books under a Textbook Loan Scheme with a small fee to cover administrative expenses. At the tertiary level the economic cost of Barbadian students at the University of the West Indies is paid for a first degree and post –graduate studies may be supported. Scholarships are awarded annually to the best students at Advanced Level -Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examinations under the aegis of the Caribbean Examinations Council or the Barbados Community College Associate Degree examinations. These Scholarships can be used to study in approved areas at overseas universities and most students go to the UK, Canada or the USA. Exhibitions are also awarded annually for study at the University of the West Indies. There are also Government funded Student Loans available. Annual Education expenditure is about 18% of the budget allocation 8% of GDP: post secondary /tertiary education is about one-quarter of the education budget and for 200/01 was estimated to be US$45 million up from US$24milion in 1990/91. Given the public- private mix of education finance for students or institutions, it is possible that under rules of the GATS, education services may be deemed as not entirely supplied in the “ exercise of governmental authority (neither on a commercial basis nor in competition)” (GATS), and be considered as subsidies with respect to GATS rules. The Barbados Community College and the Samuel Jackman Prescod Polytechnic for example, although essentially government institutions have some sections which may be defined as functioning on a profit-making basis which would bring the institutions under the GATS rules for national treatment i.e. not totally financed by government but in competition with private providers. This is also true for primary and secondary schools and post-secondary training institutions.

There are no Overseas Colleges in Barbados but a number of institutions offer courses and tests under franchising arrangements with overseas institutions mostly from the UK. There are an increasing number of students who are doing post –graduate studies using Information Communications Technology for distance education. The Cave Hill campus for UWI is heavily involved in the UWIDEC programme by which courses are offered to students in the non-campus territories. The Barbados Community College has also franchised some of its programmes to other islands and also facilitates the examinations of overseas universities. Particularly at the Tertiary level there are a number of proposals for changes in the education system that might be affected by the GATS rules. For example, the Barbados Community College has just expanded its offerings in language education with the aid of EU funds; the Barbados Government plans to merge the Community College, the Polytechnic and Erdiston Teacher Training College into a University College of Barbados. At the stakeholder meeting on services it was the perceptive warning of a senior civil servant with considerable experience both internationally and in the education sector which really alerted the group to the potential danger of commitment of the education sector to the GATS. Liberalisation of education services may be detrimental to the success of this project.

Barbadian teachers and educational institutions at all levels have been very involved in regional activities. There has been a considerable increase in activities closely related to education and supportive of the systems and processes of education directed towards national and regional development. These include testing services, services for students locally and regionally in exchange programmes and the expansion of ICT systems to support a growing demand for diverse training and adult and other education services. Curricula which take into account local and regional culture are considered important in maintaining a cultural and national identity. However there is a relatively limited market and it would be difficult to support several of these services in an open market. Some government subsidisation is essential to maintain equitable opportunities and reduce stratification and social divisions and the National Treatment regimes of the GATS could impose impossible financial burdens. On the other hand some local and regional educational services are marketable outside the region.

Summary

The advice contained in the Regional Negotiating Machinery (RNM) Report on “International Supply of Tertiary Education and Services Trade Negotiations: Implications for Caricom” (2004) is important. It is very easy to be seduced in thinking that the GATS rules are reasonable and user friendly and offer opportunities for developing countries to access much needed Foreign Direct investment to improve education provisions towards national and regional strategic developmental goals. However the long-term implications of MFN and National Treatment and Market Access regulations and the impact of commitment to liberalisation on strategies governments employ to protect and encourage home industries and service providers. There is also the important fact that mutual recognition agreements and reciprocity are not imbedded in the GATS. This means that issues related to professional services such as immigration laws and accreditation processes should be scrutinised. Any government seeking to ensure that post-secondary education serves its community’s goals and aspirations must analyse the restrictions or limitations trade liberalisation imposes.

To date Barbados has made no commitments with respect to educational services relating to the four modes of supply. This has enabled it to maintain maximum flexibility in planning and implementing its own trade liberalisation programme in a sensitive area without fear of charges and penalties.

 

References and/or complementary bibliography

Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (2003). The GATS and Higher Education in Canada: An Update on Canada’s Position and Implications for Canadian Universities, Ottawa

Barbados Ministry of Economic Development  (2002) Consultation on Trade in Services: Brief on Educational Services

Barbados Ministry of Economic Development  (2002) Consultation on Trade in Services: Brief on Educational Services

Barbados Ministry of Education, Youth Affairs and Sports (2001) Education in Barbados Information Handbook

Barbados Ministry of Education, Youth Affairs and Sports (2002) Economic And Social Report 2001

Hosein.R, Chen.T, Singh.R (2004) The International Supply of Tertiary Education and Services Trade Negotiations: Implications for CARICOM. UWI, St.Augustine, Trinidad & Tobago

National Council on Education (2003) The General Agreement on Trade in Services Higher Education & The Implications for National Economies (Jamaica). Kingston, Jamaica

Rikowski,Glenn (2002) The Great GATS Buy. www.libr.org/ISC/articles/16- G.Rikowki.html   

Rikowski, Glenn (2003) Schools and the GATS Enigma, Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies, Vol. 1, Number 1 available www.jceps.com

Task Force on National Reform (2004) JAMAICA: A TRANSFORMED EDUCATION SYSTEM – Final Report, Kingston Jamaica

The University of the West Indies Strategic Committee (2003) Strategic Plan II 2002-2007 UWI Mona, Jamaica

World Bank (2006) World Development Report 2006 Washington

Ziguras C., McBurnie G. & Reinke L. (2003) Implications of the GATS: are foreign universities entitled to Australian funding?  Paper presented at 17th IDP Australian International Education Conference, Melbourne

 

Appendices

I. The WTO and GATS

The General Agreement on Trade in Services is a multilateral legally enforceable agreement covering international trade in services and is administered by the World Trade Organisation has 149 member countries. The GATS focuses exclusively on trade in services. , Services being defined as service in any sector except (Article 1.3b) services engaged upon “in the exercise of Governmental Authority”. The GATS agreement defines “a service supplied in the exercise of governmental authority” as any service that is supplied neither on a commercial basis nor in competition with one or more service suppliers (Article 1.3c).  Educational Services is listed amongst the 12 service sectors covered by the agreement. The education sector is further subdivided into five sub-sectors: primary, secondary, tertiary, adult and ‘other’ education services. 

Trade in Services is defined in the GATS by identifying 4 supply modes:

Mode 1 – Cross-Border supply – “from the territory of one Member into the territory of any other Member” i.e. the service travels (as a good might), producers and consumers remain at home and communicate by post, fax, and the Internet.

Examples: transnational distance education, virtual education institutions (like Phoenix University),

Education software, ICT delivered corporate training.

Mode 2 - Consumption abroad – supply “in the territory of one Member to the service consumer of any other Member” i.e. the consumer travels to the country of the service supply. This is comparable to tourism or business travel: students travel to study (and live) in another country.

Mode 3 - Commercial presence - supply “by a service supplier of one Member, through commercial presence in the territory of another Member” i.e. foreign direct investment (FDI)

Transnational education, possibly involving local partnerships: locally established universities or satellite/branch campuses, language training companies, private training companies

Mode 4 –Movement of natural persons – supplies “by a service supplier of one member, through presence of natural persons of a Member in the territory of any other Member”. This is comparable to temporary emigration or business travel by the service provider.

Examples: teachers, researchers, lecturers working abroad on a temporary basis.

Becoming a Member of WTO involves two types of commitments:

General Obligations for Most Favored Nation Treatment (MFN) and Transparency apply automatically

Specific Commitments where Members can decide and negotiate the extent to which a service sector is covered under GATS rules. They refer to a government’s undertaking to provide Market Access and National Treatment for a service activity on the terms and conditions specified in the schedule. The entries on a Member’s schedule of specific commitments are legally binding.

Specific commitments are either: Horizontal – applying to all sectors on the Member’s list of commitments usually with respect to modes of supply often 3 and 4.

It refers to describing the level of commitment of a specific sector as: NONE where the Member imposes no limitation on Market Access or National Treatment or BOUND unless otherwise specified. Then, if the Member wants to be free to introduce or maintain regulatory measures inconsistent with Market Access and National Treatment, the Member indicates ‘UNBOUND’. 

 


TABLE 1:   MODES OF SUPPLY OF EDUCATION SERVICES

Mode of Supply

According to GATS

GATS Definition +

Explanation

Examples in Education

Size, Potential of market

And major advantages/ impediments

Caribbean concerns

Cross-border supply

 

The supply of a service “ from the territory of one member into the territory of any other Member” –

The service travels, both provider (exporter) and consumer  (importer)

remain home,

c.f. the export of a good

e.g. banking, data processing, legal or architectural services, tele-medical consultations

Distance education

E-learning

Virtual education institutions e.g. Phoenix U

Education software

Corporate training through ICT delivery

Currently relatively

       small but rapidly 

       growing market

Seen to have much potential through the use of ICT’s and the Internet

Cheaper since infrastructural requirements are smaller

Speedy delivery

Accreditation

Quality assurance

Content re local curricula and culture

Acculturation

Competition for local services

 

Consumption Abroad

 

The supply of a service “in the territory of one member to the service consumer of any other Member” –

c.f. tourism, health care, ship or aircraft maintenance or business travel by the consumer or

Students travel to other countries to do courses of study/degree programmes

Currently represents the largest share of the global market for education services especially in post-secondary education.

 

N.B. GATS commitments are of little significance given general lack of restrictions and relative to non-GATS issues such as student visas and funding.

GATS may help re  greater recognition of degrees by home-country institutions

Cost

Encouragement of brain/skill drain

Impact on aid/scholarship provisions

Future remittances from migrants

Mode of Supply

According to GATS

GATS Definition +

Explanation

Examples in Education

Size, Potential of market

And major advantages/ impediments

Caribbean concerns

Commercial Presence

 

The supply of a service  “by a service supplier of one member, through the commercial presence in the territory of any other Member” –

i.e. foreign direct investment (FDI) e.g. into hotel or manufacturing industries, banking, insurance, health clinics

Overseas schools/ colleges/universities (OVC’s)

Language training companies

Private training companies e.g. Fujisutsu,

Twinning partnerships, franchising arrangements with local institutions

Examination and testing services

 

-Growing interest and strong potential for future growth. But there is significant reluctance to make binding commitments: Few WTO members have made full commitments for HE under this mode.

Cost – finance leakage but also savings on living and travel expenses

Accreditation

Quality assurance

Competition – difficulties in building indigenous institutions

Competition for staff

Loss of quality and staus for local institutions

Curriculum, culture

 access and equity issues

extension of government subsidies

Issues re national treatment 

Technology transfer

Efficiency transfer

Increased commercialisation

Mode of Supply

According to GATS

GATS Definition +

Explanation

Examples in Education

Size, Potential of market

And major advantages/ impediments

Caribbean concerns

Movement of Natural                                      Persons

The supply of a service      “by a service supplier of one Member, through presence of natural persons of a Member in the territory of any other Member”  -

c.f. temporary emigration or business travel by the service supplier e.g. nurses, doctors, consulting engineers/lawyers/account-ants

Teachers, lecturers, researchers working abroad on a temporary basis

Potentially a strong market given the emphasis on/increasing demands for the mobility of highly skilled professionals.

Generally more politically sensitive than other modes

Generally less commercially significant than other modes

Most WTO members maintain horizontal commitments (e.g. immigration rules applying to all service sectors)

Academics encounter little difficulty- mobility is demand driven; special skills

Although the GATS agreement is quite specific that this relates only to temporary movement, this inevitably favours the migration of skilled professionals to countries where pay and conditions are superior.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

 


TABLE 2: COMMONWEALTH CARIBBEAN COMMITMENTS & EXEMPTIONS IN EDUCATION SERVICES

 

Modes of Supply: (1) Cross-Border Supply, (2) Consumption Supply, (3) Commercial Presence (4) Presence of Natural Persons

(i) Horizontal Commitments Limitations – None in Modes 1 & 2

Countries

Limitation on Market access (Art.XVI)

Limitations on National Treatment (Art. XVII)

Jamaica

 

All sectors included in this schedule

Mode 3: Branches of companies incorporated outside Jamaica are required to register their instruments of incorporation with the Registrar of Companies before they may carry on business. Section X of the Jamaica Companies Act states their legal and administrative responsibilities

Mode 4: Work permits and visas are normal requirements for entry. Licensing may be a pre-requisite for practising in certain specified professional categories. The Work Permit Review Board must be satisfied that the skills to be employed are unavailable locally. Foreign natural persons who are mangers and executives are exempted from work permits for 30 days; experts and specialist are exempt for 14 days.

Mode 3: Foreigners may own land. However purchases of large areas should be for specific investment purposes

Mode 4: Unbound except for measures concerning the categories of natural persons referred to under market access.

Trinidad & Tobago

 

All sectors included in this schedule

 

Mode 3: Licenses are required for-

- the acquisition of land, of area exceeding 5 acres for trade or business or one acre for residential purposes

- the acquisition of shares in a local public company where the holding of such shares directly or indirectly results in 30% or more of the total cumulative shareholding of the company being held by foreign investors.

-A foreign investor wishing to invest in T & T must register with the Registrar of Companies.

 

Mode 4: The entry and residence of foreign natural persons is subject o the Immigration laws of T & T. The employment of foreign natural persons in excess of 30 days is subject to obtaining a work permit, which is granted on a case by case basis. Foreign natural persons shall be employed only as managers, executives, specialists and experts…

 

 

 

 

Mode 3: None

Mode 4: None

Barbados  no commitments

 

 

 

 

Modes of Supply: (1) Cross-Border Supply, (2) Consumption Supply, (3) Commercial Presence (4) Presence of Natural Persons

(ii) Sector-Specific Commitments i.e. re the Education Sector

Sector or Sub-sector

Limitations on Market Access (Art. XVI)

Limitations on National Treatment (Art. XVII)

Notes

 

Jamaica

A. Primary and

B. Secondary and

C. Higher Education Services (CPC 923)

 

Mode 1: None

Mode 2: None

Mode 3: None. Local certification, registration, licensing required

Mode 4: Unbound except as re horizontal commitments above

 

Mode 1: None

Mode 2: None

Mode 3: None.

 

 

Mode 4: Unbound except as re horizontal commitments above

 

 

Trinidad & Tobago

D. Adult and

E. Other

Lecturers (CPC 9239)

 

Specialist Teachers

(CPC 9290)

 

Mode 1: None

Mode 2: None

Mode 3: Unbound

Mode 4: None. Local certification, registration, licensing required

 

Mode 1: None

Mode 2: None

Mode 3: Unbound

Mode 4: None

 

 

Barbados   no commitments

 

 

 

 

Source: WTO, Jamaica NACE 2003,CRNM 2004

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

N.B. Haiti is not part of the Commonwealth Caribbean but is a member of Caricom. Haiti’s commitments, whilst restricted to Adult Education Training Centres, have no limitations on market access and on national treatment in all four modes.


TABLE 3: Expenditure per student in US$ for 2000

 

Country

Primary

Secondary

Tertiary

GDP per capita

Literacy Rate

Jamaica

323

 

500

1703

3,561

86.4

Trinidad & Tobago

816

734

N/A

8,176

93.5

Barbados

1871

 

2432

5634

14,553

97.0

Source:     (Jamaica National Council on Education,2004)

 

 

 


The Evolution of Science Curricula in Developing Countries
and the Issue of Relevance

University of the West Indies, Trinidad & Tobago

junemgeorge@yahoo.com or jgeorge@fhe.uwi.tt

 

Introduction

Many developing countries today are ex-colonies of super powers and there are some countries that are still under colonial rule. Colonial dominance by superpowers such as France, Great Britain, Germany, and the United States of America (USA) can be detected in the nature and functioning of the education system in several developing countries. In the post-independence period there have been some attempts by developing countries to reshape the school curriculum to meet local needs and conditions. For example, in the 1980s, Nigeria changed the structure of its school system from the British model to a 3-year Junior Secondary and a 3-year Senior Secondary system. In Mozambique, the post-colonial government moved to replace the test-centred Portuguese system with a less authoritarian system. In Mali, adjustments were made to the structure of the school calendar to cater for the fact that school children were involved in the rural economy (Woolman, 2001). In addition, particularly in post-independent African countries, there has been some focus on producing science curricula that are vocationally relevant (Lewin, 1992). Despite these efforts, though, the problem of re-designing an education system to cater for specific local economic and cultural issues still persists. In this paper, the focus is on the continuing influence of colonial systems of education on science education in developing countries. It is argued that the onus is on local science educators to ensure that the distinctive characteristics of the local setting are catered for in the school science curriculum so that students would come to see the relevance of science to their personal life, their immediate community, and the national community.

The Evolution of Science Curricula in Developing Countries

Great Britain provides a good example of how a mother country influenced the education system in the developing world. At some point in history, Britain colonized places such as India, several countries in the Caribbean, several countries in Africa, Cyprus, Hong Kong, and so on. The education system that it introduced in these colonies was designed to meet its own needs, including the provision of educational opportunities for the children of British personnel working in the colonies, and the education of clerks to ensure the smooth running of its overseas operations. When the British first introduced science into the education system in the colonies, it sometimes took the form of agricultural education as that was an area of immediate concern. Over time, the separate science subjects of biology, chemistry, and physics were introduced. The impact of the British influence is perhaps more readily appreciated through a consideration of the nature of the examinations that Britain introduced to the colonies. These examinations were set by British Examination Boards, notably those run by the Universities of London, and Cambridge, and were designed to determine the achievement level of students after five years and seven years of secondary schooling respectively, that is, of students in the fifth and sixth forms of secondary schools.

By the 1950s, secondary education in Britain was selective. The syllabi for the then national examinations for fifth and sixth form students, termed the General Certificate of Education Ordinary level (GCE O-level) and Advanced level (GCE A-level) examinations respectively, served to prepare students for the intense competition of gaining university places in science. The science curriculum was traditional, with conventional topics such as Electricity and magnetism; Heat, light and sound; and so on. The examination placed strong emphasis on the recall of factual information and the solving of routine problems. The questions were typically traditional and the overall tone of the examination was positivistic. The science curriculum at the lower end of the secondary school at that time was diverse since there were no national examinations at this level (Jenkins, 2004, pp.33-34). This scenario was mirrored in many of the British colonies at that time. Secondary education was available only to a select few and the secondary school curriculum, including that for science, was patterned after the British model. Students in the colonies also sat GCE O-level and A-level examinations.

 

As the colonies gained independence, beginning around the 1960s, new developments in education began to take place. Strikingly, some of these developments occurred at the lower secondary level and they were also influenced by developments in Britain itself. For example, in the period 1968-1969, the West Indies Science Curriculum Innovation Project (WISCIP) was developed for use in the lower secondary sector in Trinidad and Tobago to meet the needs of students in the soon-to-be- established junior secondary schools. This curriculum, designed mainly by teachers in existing grammar-type schools, drew on recommendations contained in Curriculum Paper No. 7: Science in General Education, which guided the development of the Scottish Integrated Science Curriculum (Reay, n.d.) The Scottish Integrated Science Curriculum, in turn, influenced science curricula in places such as Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Nigeria. WISCIP itself influenced the development of science curricula in Swaziland.

This move towards the teaching of integrated science in Britain was innovative in more than one way. Science was to be taught in an integrated fashion, with no specific focus on any one of the separate sciences. In addition, the new integrated science curricula broadened the scope of the science curriculum to include overarching themes such as “science for citizenship,” “science for the enquiring mind,” and “science for action.” Teachers in developing countries who were required to deliver this type of curriculum faced several challenges. Many of them had been trained in one or two of the separate science subjects only and typically from very positivistic perspectives. What has evolved over the years is that, although the term “integrated science” is still used to describe the offering at the lower secondary level, what is often offered is a programme that has elements of physics, chemistry and biology (and possibly earth science), with biology constituting the largest component. One explanation for this distribution of subject matter is that more lower secondary science teachers in developing countries are likely to have been trained in biology than in any other science discipline.

In the mid sixties, there were also winds of change at the upper secondary level in Britain. In 1965, the Certificate of Secondary Education (CSE) was introduced for fifth form students, primarily to facilitate students in the newly established modern secondary schools. These schools catered for students at the lower end of the ability range and the format of the examinations allowed for a considerable amount of teacher input through the design of syllabi and assessment of student learning through project work and oral presentations. In the early 1970s, The Nuffield Foundation of the United Kingdom donated a large sum of money for use in school science and mathematics curriculum reform, with an emphasis on investigative work in science. This had a domino effect on the organization and delivery of the science curriculum generally, and eventually led to the revision of the GCE O-level and A-level syllabi. By the 1980s, the CSE had been incorporated into the GCE examinations in the creation of the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) programme. One hallmark of the scoring of GCSE examinations is that it is criterion-referenced as opposed to the norm-referenced nature of the GCE examinations (Jenkins, 2004).

Even before the creation of the GCSE, winds of change were also blowing in the Commonwealth Caribbean. The Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) was established in 1972 by an agreement among 15 English speaking Commonwealth Caribbean countries. It offered its first set of examinations for fifth form students in 1979 and integrated science was the only science offering. Fifth form students continued to write the Cambridge GCE O-level examinations in biology, chemistry and physics, until 1985 when the first CXC examinations in these subjects were offered. From its inception, CXC examinations, including those in science, have had a strong school-based component. In 1999, CXC began offering examinations equivalent to the GCE A-level examinations. Examination Boards such as the West Africa Examinations Council, Nigeria Examinations Council, Matriculation and the Secondary Education Certificate Examinations Board of Malta, were established in other former colonies to replace the GCE system of examinations. One goal of these examination bodies is to produce examinations of a high standard that are more relevant to the local context than the GCE examinations.

Science education reform activity was also taking place at the primary level, but at a later date. The impetus for some of this work in developing countries was provided by developments in the 1960s in both the UK and the USA. Harlen (1987) outlines that three primary science projects in the USA (Elementary Science Study, the Science Curriculum Improvement Study, and Science – A Process Approach), as well as three projects in the UK (the Oxford Science Project, the Nuffield Junior Science Project and Science 5-13) greatly influenced the development of primary science curricula in former colonies such as Nigeria, India and New Zealand, beginning in the 1970s. Decades later, the influence of American and British primary science curricula is still prominent in countries such as Cyprus (Zembylas, 2002). Developing countries have had to struggle with issues such as the role of science process skills in primary science education – issues which originated in the materials from the developed countries and which the developed countries were able to sort through much more efficiently. The net result is that years after the heavy reliance on science process skills was abandoned in the USA, the focus was still prominent in primary science curricula in some developing countries.

What Science? The Issue of Relevance

During colonial times, the local context into which these science curricula from developed countries were being imported was seldom ever considered. As mentioned above, some attempt has been made in some countries in the post-colonial period to shape education to fit local needs. This is an on-going struggle as several obstacles are faced. There are economic and human resource factors that impact on any such attempts. There must be the appropriate human resource base and sufficient funding to change curricula that have existed over years, and which carry a certain amount of prestige because of their association with the developed world. There must also be a desire to change. Opposition to change comes from many quarters, including school personnel and, most significantly, parents. Some of those in positions of power are likely to have been educated in the colonial mode and may find it difficult to understand why that which has “worked” in the past should be changed. Furthermore, it is sometimes argued that we live in a global society and our students should be prepared to function in a global world by following curricula that are similar to those followed in developed countries.

These kinds of issues lead us to take a consideration of the question of relevance of the curriculum. Aikenhead (2006) cautions us that there is some ambiguity in meaning associated with the term “relevance.” The questions “relevant for whom?” and “relevant for what?” are often asked. In the context of developing countries, with their push toward economic development, the tendency is often to focus on producing science graduates at the secondary school level who can pursue further studies in science and technology at tertiary institutions to augment the country’s human resource capacity in this area. The fear in developing countries is that, in the absence of a pool of citizens qualified in the areas of science and technology, they would be “left behind” in this era of globalization. Such thinking reflects a focus on science curricula that are relevant to the needs of the country. This is a legitimate concern that cannot be ignored. However, what is often not discussed is that in order to have students who are motivated enough to study science through the secondary level to the tertiary sector, we must cater for the needs of those students so that their interest in the subject would be piqued and so that they would be more inclined to see the study of science as serving not only the country’s needs, but also their needs as well. The personal needs of science students in developing countries need to be brought centre stage.

From a review of research studies on the relevance of science, Van Aalsvoort (2004) provides a three-part categorization of relevance that clearly focuses on the student – personal relevance, professional relevance, and social relevance. Personal relevance is achieved when education in science “makes connections with pupils’ lives” (p. 1152). Science education is said to have professional relevance when it leads students to see how their studies can result in possible membership in various professions. Thirdly, Van Aalsvoort suggests that science education that has social relevance will help students to clarify human and social issues. This classification provides a useful scheme for considering the relevance of science curricula in developing countries. This is not to suggest that one should only consider the welfare of the student when planning the science curriculum. However, it is necessary to meet the needs of students even as attempts are made to meet other legitimate needs.

The connection that the science curriculum can make with students’ lives is not a straightforward issue as students in developing countries are sometimes exposed to a mix of influences – those that have emerged out of the local culture, and those that have been more recently imported from industrialised settings, particularly the USA. So, for example, some students in developing countries (even some in rural areas) have access to the latest technological devices including the computer and the internet, videogames, MP3 players, cell phones, and so on. A science curriculum with personal relevance for such students might involve the use of some of the technology in the teaching/learning process, the study of the functioning of some of the devices, and the study of the impact that they have on society. Often, this is the approach that is taken in developing countries in the quest for more relevant science curricula (for example, the Integrated Science curriculum of the Caribbean Examinations Council). While this general approach serves a need, it does not deal with the whole spectrum of students’ lives. A missing component is the portion of the students’ lives that is governed by those traditional practices and beliefs that have been generated in their community over many years and which are typically passed on orally from one generation to the next. Three likely areas of influence of such beliefs and practices are discussed here.

It is a well-known maxim that children do not come to the classroom with empty minds. They bring with them a lot that they have learnt prior to formal instruction. Even though children in developing countries may not have learnt formal science before entering the science classroom, they bring with them ideas about content areas that are covered in the formal school curriculum. For example, they would have learnt (and will continue to learn) traditional practices and beliefs pertaining to health care, food preparation, agricultural practices, the care of infants, and so on. Sometimes, such traditional knowledge can be explained by conventional science, but many times, it bears no relationship to conventional science (for a fuller account, see for example, George, 1995; George & Glasgow, 1988, 1999). If science as taught in schools is to have personal relevance to students, then it is essential that connections be made between the school science and the traditional knowledge that students may draw on in their daily lives. If this is not done, then students are likely to practise “cognitive apartheid” (Cobern, 1996) by keeping their everyday knowledge completely isolated from the school science knowledge and resorting to school science only when they need to as, for example, when they have to write school examinations.

Secondly, in addition to ideas about content areas covered in school science, students in developing countries bring to the science class their own basic assumptions of how the world functions (their worldview) that may not be in accord with the science-related worldview. For example, the desire to exploit and manipulate nature has been a characteristic of conventional science for some time. This orientation has been fuelled by technological advancements over the years. Although there is some concern now in conventional science circles about the degradation of the environment, there is still much evidence of exploitation. In contrast, in some developing countries, there exists the view that nature provides everything that one needs for one’s survival and it must be treated with respect. Consequently, one should manage one’s interaction with nature in order to reap maximum benefits (George, 1999). A science curriculum that has personal relevance for students would make connections to students’ worldview and would encourage discussions about the similarities and differences between what students bring to the classroom and what school science has to offer.

Thirdly, there is the arena of communication. In science, there are very formal mechanisms for communicating and, typically, some of these are transmitted in the school science curriculum. This mode of communicating is likely to be at variance with the ways in which students in developing countries communicate in their everyday lives. Such students often recount their experiences by telling stories. Indeed, they would have learnt much of the traditional knowledge in their community through stories. But, there are usually no stories in science classes (even though there are some great stories in the history of science) and, further, the story-telling mode is not considered acceptable in formal communication in science. Then, there is the question of how one structures one’s argument. Explanations in conventional science rely heavily on formal logic. On the other hand, claims made in everyday conversations in a developing country context are likely to be supported by warrants consisting of personal experiences and the authority of elders (George, 1995). Another communication issue is likely to be the difference in the language used in formal science instruction vis-à-vis everyday life. To what extent is language a barrier to students in developing countries in their attempt to understand the scientific concepts and principles that are taught to them? To what extent is traditional knowledge being eroded because the language of instruction in schools is different from the everyday language of the owners of the traditional knowledge? McKinley (2005) advocates that for the survival of traditional ecological knowledge, programmes should be taught through indigenous languages so that the dialectal relationship between language and traditional knowledge is maintained. In an era of globalization where official government policy is likely to be towards mastery of globally used languages, this may be seen as a difficult proposition. Yet, the fact remains that if efforts are not made to tackle issues of communication in the science class, school science may be lacking in personal relevance for students in developing countries.

Although the discourse above has focused on students in developing countries, some of it may also apply to students in industrialised settings who may be operating outside of a science-related world view.

Science curricula in developing countries typically do not meet the criterion of personal relevance with a cultural slant as described above. Although there have been many projects aimed at making the science curriculum more relevant to the local context, the cultural context of the learner has hardly been considered. Given that many of these science curricula in developing countries often started off as some variation of the colonial ones, it is not difficult to see that there was no pattern of cultural integration that was there to be used as the template. This presents science educators in developing countries with the unique opportunity to invent and create, but this seldom happens. The really large-scale science curriculum projects that focus on the local culture are to be found in developed countries such as Canada (e.g. Aikenhead, 2000; Sutherland, 2005 ) and New Zealand (e.g. McKinley, 2005) and these are designed for the First Nation and Aboriginal people in those settings. The work by Lubben and others in Southern Africa (e.g. Lubben et al., 1996) comes closest to this with their focus on the use of contextualised science resource materials. Such contextualised materials focus on the students’ everyday experiences and may or may not be culturally based.

There is perhaps less difficulty in presenting school science in developing countries in a way that depicts professional relevance. Science-related professions such as medicine and engineering are usually held in high esteem in such contexts. Because of the absence of the cultural component of the science curriculum, however, some potential science-related professions are not highlighted. For example, a great deal of the bush medicines has not been researched, some indigenous technologies have not been studied and re-vamped to make them more efficient, traditional techniques for sustainable development have not been showcased as effective and worthy of further study, and so on. One cannot help but speculate about the likely benefits to developing countries if the science curriculum were made more culture sensitive.

Finally, the science curriculum can only help to clarify social and human values if these values are thoroughly understood in context. While some values are universal, others are not. It is therefore important that the local culture be understood as a first step toward considering how school science might help students to clarify social and human values. It is also important that there be no hidden agenda in the science curriculum that seeks to impose values from the developed world on students in developing countries without careful consideration of their welfare and well-being.

A Paradigm Shift?

The approach to science education in developing countries that is suggested in this paper requires a paradigm shift from what currently obtains. This shift must be initiated by science educators in developing countries who understand their cultural context and the specific cultural characteristics of their students. There is no pattern from the developed world that can be adopted or adapted – the creation must come from within. Hopefully, with such a shift, more students from developing countries would be excited about science and would see the relevance of science to their own lives and to life in their community and country.

 

References and/or complementary bibliography

Aikenhead, G. (2000) Rekindling traditions: Cross-cultural science and technology units. Retrieved December 4, 2000, from http://capes.usask.ca/ccstu.

Aikenhead, G. (2006). Science education for everyday life: evidence-based practice. New York: Teachers’ College Press.

Cobern, W. (1996). Worldview theory and conceptual change in science education. Science Education, 80(5), 579-610.

George, J. (1995). An analysis of traditional practices and beliefs in a Trinidadian village to assess the implications for science education. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, The University of the West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago.

George, J. (1999). Worldview analysis of knowledge in a rural village:  Implications for science education. Science Education, 83(1), 77-95.

George, J., & Glasgow, J. (1988).  Street science and conventional science in the West Indies. Studies in Science Education, 15, 109-118.

George, J., & Glasgow, J. (1999). The boundaries between Caribbean beliefs and  practices and conventional science. Kingston, Jamaica: Office of the UNESCO Representative in the Caribbean, 1999. ix, 42p. (EFA in the Caribbean: Assessment 2000. Monograph Series; No. 10.

Harlen, W. (1987). Primary science: the foundation of science education. Physics Education, 22, 56-62.

Jenkins, E. (2004). From option to compulsion: school science teaching, 1954-2004. School  Science Review, 85(313), 33-40.

Lewin, K. (1992). Science education in developing counties: Issues and perspectives for planners. UNESCO, Paris: International Institute for Educational Planning.

Lubben, F., Campbell, B., & Dlamini, B. (1996). Contextualised science teaching in Swaziland; some student reactions. International Journal of Science Education, 18(3), 311-320.

Mc. Kinley, E. (2005). Locating the global: culture, language and science education for indigenous students. International Journal of Science Education, 27(2), 227-241.

Sutherland, D. L. (2005). Resiliency and collateral learning in science in some students of Cree ancestry. Science Education, 89, 595-613.

Reay, J. (n.d.). School science education in Trinidad and Tobago. St. Augustine, Trinidad: The University of the West Indies, Faculty of Education.

Van Aalsvoort, J. (2004). Logical positivism as a tool to analyse the problem of chemistry’s lack of relevance in secondary school chemical education. International Journal of Science Education, 26(9), 1151-1168.

Woolman, D. C. (2001). Educational reconstruction and post-colonial curriculum development: A comparative study of four African countries. International Education Journal, 2(5), 27-46.

Zembylas, M. (2002). The global, the local, and the science curriculum: a struggle for balance in Cyprus. International Journal of Science Education, 24(5), 499-519.

 

 


Letting the voiceless tell their stories
Using oral sources for Caribbean history writing:
yet more biased accounts?

PhD candidate, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium

milgeorge@yahoo.com

 

1. Writing history

How do we write history? Furthermore, what is history? History can refer to different things. At a personal level, it is a construction of the mind: the way people remember and reconstruct past events.  It can also be a collective enterprise whereby a group recalls things gone by. In academic circles, it refers mostly to the (Western) discipline which records facts that took place in time and space and offers interpretations about the more or less intentional links between them, for example, in terms of causal relationships and/or correlations.

Events that make up human life have meaning because they are understood and explained as being part of unfolding stories. The past is past, and of itself it has no voice. We are the ones who knit the traces of the past into a tapestry of stories, placing individual events within general frameworks, suggesting causes, effects, and correlations. History is something that we do. We tell stories and write histories.

Whichever way history is understood, it has to do with past events and the way they are used and explained. Different peoples have told and retold their past in a myriad of ways. Communities that have privileged the spoken word have used oral narrations as the channel of their historical consciousness. Others that give priority to the written word have favoured written documents and sources. However, history writers, as much as story tellers, have been selective in whatever and whomever they considered worth being remembered.

When attempting to write the history of education, one always runs the risk of giving the false impression that historians always have access to how things were. History writing always remains storytelling and, as such, it cannot escape being perspectival. There is not merely one story to be told or history to be written, but many.

Given that whatever we write or tell depends on our vantage point, it is necessary while writing history for academic purposes that we provide others the tools to assess and critique our story. We need a methodology aimed at transparency.

History and historiography are not identical. While the former is about telling a story about the past or letting the past tell some of its stories, the latter has to do with the history of history writing. Historiography is often used to cover the history of historical knowledge and interpretation, surrounding non-written accounts of the past and the broader issues of methodology. Higman speaks of a focus on the written products of historical thinking but with constant reference to the larger sphere of social memory and the way in which knowledge of the past has changed over time, the social recognition and status of historians, changes in subject matter and source materials, the philosophies and assumptions of historians, and the ever-changing relationship between historical interpretation and contemporary social and political contexts (Higman, 1999:1).

For Higman, methodology is therefore concerned with the technical concerns of historians and the theoretical frameworks they employ to interpret and communicate their findings. The technical concerns relate to the means by which historians identify and access historical evidence, the means they use to interrogate these data, and the tools applied to analyze them (Higman, 1999: 1).

2. Postcolonial history writing

Is our writing history or thinking about history western-styled or Eurocentric, or neither? Chakrabarty states that it is insofar as the academic discourse of history – that is, “history” as a discourse produced in universities – is concerned, “Europe” remains the sovereign, theoretical subject of all histories, including the ones we call “Indian,” “Chinese,” “Kenyan,” and so on (Chakrabarty, 2000: 27).

If the perspective of the writer conditions the result of his or her findings, we may ask: What elements of the European “analytical criteria” can and must be adapted to the St. Maarten reality? Must the way European history of education has been written be taken as the standard for writing St. Maarten educational history in “academically acceptable” ways? Would the globalization of the European historiographical method not amount to a case of intellectual colonialism insofar as “Europe” would pretend to tell us what is academically acceptable and what not?

It is not uncommon for citizens of “postcolonial” countries to accuse North Americans and Europeans of practicing a form of neo-colonialism, criticizing the claim that their ways of writing history are normative.[34] However, if all writing and narrating is done from the point of view of the writer and/or narrator, then post-colonial history writing will also have its own bias. In such a case, academic acceptability will lie much more in the degree to which scholars can justify their method, i.e. the ways in which their data were collected, pieced together, and interpreted. The methodological question thus becomes of paramount importance.

3. Written and Oral histories

As said above, some communities have favoured the written transmission of data and stories about history over the oral one. Alleyne views the written modality as corresponding with “European,” “modern,” “urban,” and the latter to “African,” “folk,” “rural” (Alleyne, 1988:20). This duality has important implications for Caribbean history writing.

The written and the oral traditions are well developed and used in the Caribbean. Yet, while the written tradition or the evidence/documentation theory based on written documents providing the exclusive source of knowledge of the past can be arguably described as having ignored the lives and institutions of the average people, the oral modality has not been granted its due importance.

Given that most of the written documentation was under the control or supervision of the colonial masters, the Caribbean written tradition can be seen as a “history from above.” This history was more often than not written from the perspective of outsiders, or at least of people who had problems identifying themselves completely with their geo-social surroundings. The colonized peoples had their stories, poems, and songs by means of which they voiced their own outlook on their historical predicament. This was an oral history, a “history from below.”

4. Use of oral sources for writing histories

So-called “oral history” refers to the history writer’s search for and tapping into the spoken word as source of relevant information for historical reconstruction. The historian can use:

-         culturally-sanctioned oral traditions,

-         more or less rehearsed interviews, and

-         printed compilations of stories told about the past.

Oral sources of information are sought not only to fill in the lacunae in the written sources, but also to arrive at knowledge which would otherwise not be available. Information may or may not be available due to the state of the written sources or their nature. It can therefore not be expected of official school archives, for instance, that they should provide researchers into the history of education with information about the thoughts and feelings of the students while they were seated in their classroom during a lesson of Maths. For a history writer wanting to reconstruct the unofficial story of colonial classroom practice, oral interviews of people whose stories have not made it into the written archives can open new vistas.[35]

However, oral interviews are not free of problems. Michael Frisch has criticized the overvaluation of oral history as “Anti-History.” He views “oral historical evidence because of its immediacy and emotional resonance, as something almost beyond interpretation or accountability, as a direct window on the feelings and (...) on the meaning of past experience” (Frisch, 1990). Furthermore, it seems that people seem to remember different aspects of the past. Tonkin has pointed out that one cannot detach the oral representation of pastness from the relationship of narrator and audience in which it was occasioned (Tonkin 1992:2).

History writers using oral sources must therefore never relinquish the onus of critical analysis. They need to assess the reliability of the narrator and of their narration. It is at this point that the researchers must resort to triangulation to limit the arbitrariness and possible biases contained in the account of their informant(s). Thus, it will be necessary not only to interview someone who possesses relevant knowledge, but also to interview more than one person. Furthermore, the interviewees should ideally be people who represent different angles of the story.

The above means that the researchers into oral history face the question how to choose whom to listen to. History has meaning for people and that is why history still exists today. As underlined by Thompson, the voice of the past matters to the present. But whose voice – or voices- are to be heard? (Thompson, 1988:viii) On whose authority is the interviewees’ (re-)construction of the past based? Whom is it intended for? And which of the voices interviewed fairly conveys “the voice of the past” (especially considering that the past has many voices)?

Thus, the issue of objectivity and subjectivity enters the stage. In the case of oral history, the most subjective accounts could be described as objective source if and when we are interested in a person’s feelings, evaluation, or reflection of past events. However, even when the informants are being interviewed about the more factual components of an event, their subjective retellings of it will presuppose a certain degree of objectivity. Dates and places are relative; they depend on the measures being used. Events are not dated, nor are they mapped. As Kant indicated, things and events have an existence in themselves which escapes us. However, we understand them and assign them their place according to our human frame of mind. Still, within the realm of human subjectivity, dates and places can be in ascertained in ways which are relatively “objective” to us humans, for instance, by agreeing on a dating or measuring system. By using this conventional measuring systems, we can assess whether the information which our informants hold about past events are only “true for them” or also “true for others.”

In short, it is the research question that will determine whether the researcher employing oral sources must zoom in on the more subjective content (“true for him/her”) or whether he or she ought to navigate between the subjective lines and go in search of the more objective details that may transpire out of the accounts (“true for him/her and true for others”).

Much of history writing is based on interpretations of data. This is particularly true when oral sources are used. Not only does the history writer interpret what he or she hears, the oral informants do, too. The role of memory in the act of looking back and retelling the past can never be stressed enough (Hodgson, 1975:5; Trillin, 1977:85; Cliff, 1997:594; Portellie, 1991:2). For Portellie, the telling of a story preserves the teller from oblivion (Portellie, 1981:162). The tale itself creates a special time, “a time outside time” (Tonkin 1992:3). The characteristic of narrations is that the narrators need to connect with their own memories and with their audiences, and both of them have to tap into the structure of the narration.

Oral accounts are therefore not merely an information-giving exercise, but also an interpretive account during which the informants try to recall the past as much as they attempt to explain how they were involved in it. During his or her research, the history writer using oral sources will therefore have to ask questions such as the following:

-         Were the different interviewees differently situated in relationship to the events under discussion?

-         Might they have different agendas, leading them to tell different versions of the same story?

-         Might intervening events —for example, ideological shifts between the time of the events under discussion and the time of the interview, or subsequent popular cultural accounts of these events— have influenced later memories?[36]

5. Writing histories of education

Our interest is not only in history writing, but more specifically in writing the history of primary education in St. Maarten, with special reference to the unwritten stories of those involved. When researching the “history of education,” phenomena and processes of education and schooling are being studied in their historical dimension. While the methodology used is that of “history writing” as a scientific discipline, the contents of the research are fairly diverse and relate to all fields of education (e.g. history of family education and child abuse, history of school realities and innovation processes, history of youth care and special institutions for handicapped children, history of Educational Sciences, etc.).

In most cases, the research focus is limited to the understanding of the evolution of the educational mentality and practice, and does not intend to contribute to new theoretical-pedagogical insights, let alone the construction of a new pedagogical theory. However, the history of education can indirectly give direction to and be critical of the research being conducted in other educational areas; it can explain and change phenomena. History shows, for instance, that things do not necessarily have to be the way they are, simply because people are always keeping and changing things. Progress has its continuities, as well as its discontinuities. True historical research can indirectly offer liberating insights for educational theory and praxis.

Following the international trends in the field, the history of education is understood as part of the “new” social and cultural history. Historical events are envisaged as cultural phenomena within a long duration of time. The history writer, too, finds him or herself within cultural processes which colour his or her analysis, for instance, by imposing present concerns and preoccupations upon the past.

Caribbean history and historiography are very complex. Caribbean societies are generally multi-ethnic and multicultural, although the African- and European-derived modalities predominate in most cases (Alleyne, 1988:19). This means that the various segments of the population often harbour their own separate concerns. Each social layer making up the Caribbean has received a different appraisal from the old colonial masters and continues polarizing society in different ways and at different levels.

It is against the backdrop of these developments that I must raise the following methodological questions: For whom is my history of education on St. Maarten being written? Whose concerns am I serving? Will St. Maarteners recognize their past experiences in my account and analysis of the past development of education on St. Maarten? Furthermore, will they accept my explanation of the links between the events, especially considering that “I wasn’t born there”?

 

6. Suggestion for future research

In order to give an example of how the use of oral sources could nuance the input obtained from written sources, I shall now present a hypothetical research project which could be conducted in St. Maarten.

6.1. The official written story

The Methodist Agogic Center (MAC) was established in 1976 by a letter from the Lt. Governor on behalf of the Executive Council granting permission for the start of three Kindergartens and four first grade classes.[37] Currently, there are two campuses and one main office with early stimulation classes.

The Mission Statement of the MAC of 1976 states that it is the school’s aim “to develop and implement a programme of Foundation Education that will provide for the Total Development of any child in St. Maarten, creating a learning environment with many opportunities for self-fulfillment by means of instruction in the Mother Tongue.” “Mother tongue” means English as language of instruction.

6.2. The unofficial oral stories

If future history writers took the MAC’s Mission Statement of 1976 at face value and combined it with current official and unofficial written information about instruction, they might conclude that the school’s presupposition that the pupils’ mother tongue is English was still accurate in, say, 2000. After all, St. Maarten is an English-speaking territory.

However, if our hypothetical researchers wrote a history “from below” (an oral history), paying heed to the voice of the parents, they would certainly be in a better position to reconstruct what is actually happening in the field. They would be made aware that in today’s St. Maarten, “mother tongue” can refer to more than one language (e.g. Spanish and Haitian Patois). Conclusions of this type would also direct the researchers’ attention to other issues related to the language of instruction, such as classroom climate, teaching effectiveness, social prejudices, the polarization of citizenship and nationhood in terms of “St. Maarteners” and “foreigners,” etc. In this hypothetical case, the use of oral sources would show that the responses of the parents interviewed would have nuanced the impression given by the official written sources that English was every pupil’s “mother tongue.”

7. Conclusion

If the writing of Caribbean history —better still— histories is based solely on the “word” of written primary and/or secondary sources, we might be misrepresenting the context within which the events under study took place. By doing this, we might end up reducing some segments of reality to muteness, while we attribute to others more representativeness than they actually had. Used critically and methodically, oral sources can lend a voice to the countless voiceless protagonists of our local and regional Caribbean histories.

 

References and/or complementary bibliography

Alleyne (1988). “Linguistics and the oral tradition,” in B.W. Higman (ed.) (1999), General History of the Caribbean. Vol. VI: Methodology and Historiography of the Caribbean, pp. 19-45. Unesco Publishing/Macmillan Education Ltd., London.

Chakrabarty (2000). Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

Frisch, Michael (1990). A Shared Authority: Essays on the Craft and Meaning of Oral and Public History, pp. 159-160. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Higman (ed.) (1999),General History of the Caribbean Vol. VI: Methodology and Historiography of the Caribbean. London: Unesco Publishing/Macmillan Education Ltd.

Hodgson, Godfrey (1976). America in Our Time. New York: Random House.

Kuhn, Cliff (1997). “There’s a Footnote to History!’ Memory and the History of Martin Luther King’s October 1960 Arrest and Its Aftermath,” in Journal of American History 84:2 (September).

Portellie, Alessandro (1981). “The time of my life: functions of time in oral history,” in International Journal of Oral History 2.3, pp. 162-180.

Portellie, Alessandro (1991). “The Death of Luigi Trastulli: Memory and the Event,” in The Death of Luigi Trastulli and Other Stories, pp. 1-26. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Thompson, Paul (1988). The voice of the past: Oral history. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Tonkin, Elizabeth (1992). Narrating our pasts: The social construction of oral history. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Trillin, Calvin (1977). “Remembrance of Moderate Past,” in New Yorker (March 21).

 

 


What the Tamarind tree whispers:
Notes on a pedagogy of tragedy

University of St. Martin, the Netherlands Antilles

fguadeloupe@diasporainternational.org

 

“This is the miracle: that a fragment of the world, human consciousness, arrogates to itself the privilege of being its mirror. But this will never produce an objective truth, since the mirror is part of the object it reflects.”

Jean Baudrillard.[38]

 

“After gaining their freedom the enslaved Africans on Saint Martin & Sint Maarten (SXM) were blinded and deafened by the radiance and the music of flamboyant tree; the tree of absolute sovereignty. They lost touch with the world; with the Dionysian forces that should always counterbalance those guided by Apollo; with Exu that constantly troubles the static civilisational aspirations of Ogun. And we, we the neglected trees on the island gave them back the gift of sight, smell, sound, and taste. Through us they understood that all of life is an infinite rehearsal.”

This is what the tamarind trees whisper in their silence as they touched me when an old-timer remarked something to the effect of “don’t get catch under the tamon tree after dark because jumbies goin’ haunt you.” The old-timer spoke through the voice of a young educated professional, who prided himself with his masters’ degree earned at a fancy North American university. Most saw in him a man of the world, a saga boy, ‘one of the girl’s them sugar,’ as the reggae superstar Beenieman would put it, a well-groomed professional who drove around in an air-conditioned car, and who saw it as one of his tasks to shuttle his less educated countrymen into the 21st century.

This is what I usually saw in him too. But not today. Today as I heard the whispers of the tamarind trees, when the old-timer spoke through him, I saw him for what he is, for what I am, for what we all are on this island, for what all human beings are, and that is living/dead. There is nothing strange about this. We the living, are the mouthpieces of the dead. We inherit their tongue and their works. We suckle on the breasts of those who suckled on their breast, who in turn suckled on others’ breast, ad infinitum. We, carry the dead within us. Without the dead we could not be. Hence, we are living/dead.

From the whispers of the tamarind tree I discerned that this is just the most superficial level of existence. For, after they had revealed to me that the dead speak through us, the trees cynically asked who can truly know the dead? And for that matter, the living? In that questioning I understood what the Greek poet-philosopher Lucretius meant when he wrote that “by protracting life, we do not deduct one jot from the duration of death.” Life is coterminous with death. And both of these terms, life and death, only conceal a more fundamental Nothingness (which is not an Idea about the absence of an Idea). From this Nothingness, this unknowable, this non-thought that both founds and demolishes thought, emerge all partial Somethings, including our concepts of life and death, which in the end could be nothing but mere illusion.

But that was a too farfetched and frightening a thought to entertain. I could not entertain it. I answered the trees in a tongue similar to theirs, the tongue of silence that speaks through the imagination and bawled, “who me, a nothing? What the world, pure illusion? Boy what pipe you smoke? We, we human beings, are God’s creations made in his image and after his likeness. Imago Dei. You all, you all damn trees with all you bittersweet fruits, contradicting yourselves. You all are vestigium as Thomas Aquinas put it. If Nothing is fundamental, then you all don’t exist either. I don’t want to hear anymore of you all heresy. Leave me alone, cause I have to write a paper on teaching social studies in the primary schools on the island.”

The tamarind trees laughed. It was a shrieking laugh that made all the hairs on my body stand up straight, a powerful feat since the hairs on my body are tightly curled. There is even a folktale which I grew up hearing about a poor black woman who cheated the Devil out of snatching her soul. She dared him to iron all her tiny corkscrew curls straight. The Devil lost. Such a feat could only be accomplished by using Dark & Lovely in the hands of a Dominican hairdresser. I thought to myself these trees are more powerful than the Devil himself. I had better go easy on these trees.

The trees noticed my fear. They sought to calm me.  They said, “you shouldn’t fear us, for we are all connected. The living/dead landscapes, riverscapes, oceanscapes, and skyscapes, together with those we support and nurture, your kind, could be nothing but mere illusion. The problem with your kind is that you don’t listen. We did not say that you are an illusion, that the world is an illusion. We said it could be nothing but mere illusion. It was conjecture. Surely a man of your talents must know what a conjecture is. Like you, we too are enigmas to ourselves. If you don’t believe us, then heed the words of one of your sages Ceronetti who once wrote ‘when I think “human condition,” I lose any notion of happiness or misfortune – the night carries it away, all that remains is a hopeless puzzle.’[39] You, like us are vestigium. You represent as another one of your sages Nancy put it ‘only the causality of the cause, but not its form,’[40] which for all intents and purposes can be a formless Nothing.

When the oldtimer spoke about the jumbies under our tree it was to make you aware that reality as you think it is, is not really Reality. The reality of Phillipsburg with its beach bars, hotels and casinos is not Reality. The beautiful women in their SUVs and their French manicures that you drool about are not Reality. The dude boys with their degrees and verbal acrobatics are not Reality. The discourses of the rabble-rousers who claim SXM is losing its identity, on the account of all the newcomers, is not Reality. SXM being shackled by Curaçao and the Netherlands is not Reality.

Reality, if Reality it is, is Nothingness. It is unknowable. It is God without the name and the theologies and rituals you adorn it/her/him with. Reality is a ? We are mediums, we trees, living/dead like your kind. Why you can hear us we don’t know but we conjecture that Nothingness (which again is not the Idea of an absence of an Idea) sent us to assist you in writing your paper for the conference.” And so I listened. And so I reasoned with the trees. And so I wrote. And so I understood that those who accept reality as Reality are those who stand for a nationalist pedagogy of liberation with a romantic bent.[41] Those who understand that they can never understand Reality, and are content with that realization, stand for a pedagogy of tragedy; a pedagogy that can be the groundwork of a new style of social studies that we offer in primary schools. 

Pedagogies of tragedy begin with the fundamental lesson that human beings exist within two non-resolvable dialectics, namely, that of Dionysus and Apollo, and that of Exu and Ogun. In plain English this means that we are conscripts of plural metaphysical jails. And to really understand these jails, we must creolise these dialectical pairs. Ogun needs to be paired up with Apollo, and the similarities between Exu and Dionysus need to be appreciated. Africa needs to meet ancient Greece, so as to open both their particularities to universality. Ogun is the god of civilisation. Through Ogun humankind received the much needed intuitions on how to tame fire and smelt iron. Apollo is the God of form and order, and he presided over our development of medicine and architecture. Without Ogun and Apollo we would still be running around in caves. Through the combination of these two forces, mankind engages in the making of culture. This engagement, or should I say production of culture, brings with it all the comforts of life. It also brings with it our longing to commemorate the past; to mummify tradition and culture.

How does this translate to teaching social studies to pupils attending SXM’s primary school? I am not a primary school teacher so all I can give is some pointers, leaving the development of such a program in more capable hands. When we touch upon the evolution of mankind in our social studies classes, we ought to make pupils aware of the metaphysical forces of Ogun and Apollo, for it is through these forces that we became the dominant species among all the animals that populate the face of this earth. We tamed the earth, only to end up entrapping ourselves in a manmade objective culture.[42]

We must teach our schoolchildren that their parents and community leaders longing for some prelapsarian age may be nothing more than manifestations of our collective metaphysical-linguistic understanding of the big house of objective culture. Why do I say metaphysical-linguistic? It is simple. We cannot think without language. And language always contains an unknown extra-linguistic source (a metaphysical presence which eludes us).[43] To think even something as self-evident as “I exist,” I need language. I am always in a phrase and to escape this phrase I need another phrase. There is no getting out of phrases. We must teach our pupils to identify this philosophical conundrum with the god Exu.

Exu is the god of communication. He knows all human and extra-human languages. But he is also well versed in the language of Nothingness. It is through Exu that we are aware of the more within our language; that we have a sense of that ever elusive Beingness of being which we term our Self. It is our awareness of Exu that reminds us of Dionysus. For our students we must equate Dionysus with dissent. Dionysus is the force that constantly deconstructs objective culture. That rebels against it. That summons in us the sense and notion that the present should not be the slave and handmaiden of a mummified past (whether these are Romantic-leftist or Romantic-conservative).

After teaching our students about these four forces we must create a synthesis that forever remains incomplete. Thus they must come to understand that Dionysus carries within himself Exu, Apollo, and Ogun, while being part of Exu, Apollo, and Ogun. Together these four forces should remind them that every civilisation they learn about in history classes and every contemporary civilisation is caught up in an infinite rehearsal, which “implies that there is no final performance – a civilisation never arrives at a final performance – the final performance is itself an infinite rehearsal.”[44] A special assignment after they have rationally grasped all this is to have them sit under a tamarind tree and listen to its numinous whispers……………….deconstructing the power of reality (and its Father, discursive rationality).

 

References and/or complementary bibliography

Baudrillard, J. The Intelligence of Evil or the Lucidity Pact. Translated by Chris Turner. New York: Berg, 2005.

Blanchot, M. Faux Pas. translated by Charlotte Mandell. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001.

Harris, W. Selected Essays of Wilson Harris. London: Routledge, 1999.

Lyotard, J.F. The libidinal Economy. Translated by Ian Hamiliton Grant. London: Continuum, 2004.

Lucretius. Titus, Carus. The Way Things Are: The Dererum Natura. Translated by Rolf Humphries. Indiana University Press, 1968.

Nancy, J.L. The Muses. Translated by Peggy Kamuf. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996.

Sekou, L.M. National Symbols: a primer. Phillipsburg: House of Nehesi, 1997.          

 

 

 

 

 


Changing Times — Creating  Inclusive Schools

University of the Virgin Islands, USA

yhabtes@uvi.edu

 

Introduction

World leaders in the dawn of the millennium have agreed to cut poverty around the world in half over the next 10 years. They have also agreed that all boys and girls need to go to school because education is one of the most effective ways that young people and adults can improve their lives. In fact, it is a universal goal to achieve Education for All Children (EFA) by the year 2015.   The EFA movement is, as its name suggests, concerned with ensuring basic education to everyone.  This movement was launched at the World Conference on Education for All in Jomtien, Thailand in 1990 and ended up with the World Declaration on Education for All (the Jomtien Declaration 1990).  This declaration came about due to the following reasons:

Educational opportunities were limited, with too many people having little or no access to education;

Basic education was conceived narrowly in terms of literacy and numeracy, rather than more broadly as a foundation for a lifetime of learning and citizenship; and

Certain marginalized groups- disabled people in most countries, members of ethnic and linguistic minorities, girls and women in some countries, were at particular risk of being excluded from education altogether.

This situation is particularly true all over the world, of one group of young people who are often kept out of school, live out of sight in their own homes, communities, and therefore are more likely to live in poverty than anyone else.  This group of young people are children who are disabled.  Disability is when a person’s physical or mental condition keeps them from being able to function in an expected manner. People can be born disabled, which is called developmental disability or can become disabled during their lifetime as a result of an untreated illness or an accident.  There are different kinds of disabilities: physical, sensory, emotional, hidden or visible disabilities.

The World Education Forum (2000), points out that there are more than 113 million children with no access to primary education and 880 million adults who are illiterate. .In developing countries, the situation is even more devastating.  Few disabled children, and even fewer disabled girls—go to school, even if their disability has nothing to do with their ability to learn. About 98% of them do not go to school because in many poor countries, schools are not built with disabled children in mind. The buildings may be difficult to get to or to get around.  To make things even worse, disabled children are stigmatized and shunned by the community where they live.  Parents often hide their disabled children.  So often, these children are not allowed to play, or do things with their family and peers.  Because many people including some parents think that children with disabilities cannot learn or develop the necessary skills that are prerequisite to productive life, not much is expected from them. When these young children with disabilities grow up, they often must depend on somebody else to care for them.  Disabled people are among the poorest people in the world because they have not been taught the life-skills to support themselves that are extended to people without a disability. When disabled children are allowed and encouraged to learn like everyone else, they can improve their own lives and the lives of people around them rather than being dependent on others. If children with disabilities are given the opportunity, they can be independent, productive and a fully included member of their communities and can live meaningful lives.  Instead of becoming a social burden, they can contribute to the social and economic well-being and development of their families and communities.  Children and people with disabilities are marginalized and excluded because they are denied education and life long learning opportunities. 

The main goal of education must be to ensure that every student gains access to knowledge, skills and information that will prepare him/her to be a productive member of the community and workplace.  This central purpose is extended to ALL students and must accommodate students with diverse backgrounds, abilities and interests.  Unfortunately, in most countries and in particular in the developing countries, a dual system, general education and special education still exist. In most developing countries, the birth of a child, especially the birth of a son is a joyous occasion.  In many of these countries, a child is not born with a mouth only but with two hands as well.  Children are expected to contribute to the economy of the family from early.  Young boys from the age of seven will look after the family’s herds -- be it cattle, camels, sheep or goats.  Young girls, assist their mothers by performing house chores and/ or taking care of their young siblings.  Due to the nature of this subsistence economy where everybody is supposed to contribute to the livelihood of the family; many parents mistakenly, see the birth of a child with a disability, or a child acquiring a disability after birth as a tragedy for the following reasons: 

Many parents think that disabled children need more attention and care as compared to children without a disability.  Unfortunately, some families see such a child as someone who will be taking away from the meager economy of the family instead of adding to it.  As a result, they find it economically irresponsible to invest in a child who is perceived as someone who can neither provide for the family nor be able to support himself/herself.  Ashton, B. (1999), rationalizes the act of such families by saying “Early lack of investment in disabled children is not just a reflection of ignorance.  In situations of poverty, this is a desperate but rational decision” (p. 1).

In countries where resources are meager, children with disabilities are the ones who get the shorter end of the stick.  They are fed and clothed less; and if in the process they get sick, they seldom get treatment.  That is  why Erb and  Harris-White (1999) did not find many children with disabilities in some villages in Tami Nadu, India and assumed either there were no children with disabilities born in these villages or did not survive the ordeal after birth.   It is very probable that the later is true.

Even if children with disabilities survive these ordeals, their parents are less inclined to send them to school for a number of reasons.  Some parents feel that their child might not be able to withstand the teasing and the mocking that they may receive from the other children.  In many countries, young children use the disability form as a nickname to call children with disabilities instead of using their names.  Referring to them as the ‘blind child”, the ‘crippled child” is very common.  Others do not want the neighborhood to know that they have a disabled child and consequently stigmatize the family.   The story of a young girl from the republic of Mauritania drives the point home.  This is taken directly from her testimony. “When I was one year old, as a result of a polio epidemic which ravaged a large number of children, I became disabled. And so, a different life began for me. The life of a girl who is the bearer of shame. So, I had to keep myself away from others, screened from indiscreet eyes. Our society thinks that disabilities are a malediction and persons with a disability are the object of prejudices, which lead to bad treatment and rejection. I was hidden” (Coulibaly,www.portal.unesco.org/education/).  According to Hunt, P. (1966), stigmatizing the family might have a serious repercussion by diminishing the marriage prospects of siblings.  Above all many parents decline to send their children with disabilities to school because they see it as an unwise investment.  In most developing countries, sending a child to school is an investment.  These parents have a choice either to keep the child with them and allow him/her to help by working at the farm or at home and contribute directly to the family’s economy or send him/her away to school (in most cases away from the village) incurring  additional expenses.  This is not an easy decision and it takes a lot of thinking and discussing with the family.    In cases where they have more than one child and cannot afford to send all of them to school, they want to make sure that they send the one who most likely will succeed.  

Having one child does not make it easier either.  Before they send their only child away, they have to make sure that the child is up to it and that he/she guarantees some sort of return on their investment.  Such decisions are only easy when it involves a child with a disability.  Most parents do not see investing in a disabled child as a worthwhile investment and decides to give priority to children without a disability.  This means that having a disability is the single most important factor that keeps children out of school.  It is estimated that out of the 115 million children out of school, 40 million have disabilities.  According to studies commissioned by UNESCO, 98% of children with disabilities in developing countries are denied any formal education (Hegarty, 1998).  If we look closer to numbers in specific countries, it is even more alarming.  In Tanzania, less than 10 % of the children with disabilities attend school (Rajani, R., Bangser, M., Lund-Sorensen, U. & Leach, V. 2001).  Similarly, according to Okidi, J. A. & Mugambe, and G.  K. (2002), in Uganda, in the 1991 Population and Housing National Census, there were 190,345 persons with disabilities; of this more than 50% never attended school.  Looking into the literacy rate between people with disability and people without disability, in Baharin, it was revealed that 27% of the population over 10 years of age were illiterate compared to 77% of disabled people (Elwan, Ann 1999).

It is clear therefore, that for many years, children with disabilities have been locked at the back of their homes or confined to a separate classroom or school where they learn different things in a different way.  This was done under the incorrect assumption that if you are different you will probably learn less and must be taught differently. As a result, children with disabilities in poor countries even if they go to school, they receive inferior education due to the following reasons: 

First and foremost, most of the schools are built without having in mind people with disabilities.  They are inaccessible, and lack basic equipments.  Some children come to school carried by parents or riding a mule or a donkey.   Arriving at school doesn’t make it easier.  At the school they have to contend with high stairs that lead to the schools and within the schools. No one made this condition clear than Diarata the young girl from Mauritania when she said “….Linked to the problem of the behavior of the students were the added difficulties posed by the environment.  It is very difficult to “walk” under a hot sun and at a temperature, which could be as much as 48 degrees C.  The kilometer which separated my house from my school seemed endless under the very hot sun and over the burning sand of Kaedi….The classrooms were not always accessible and public transport was not always adapted to persons with a disability (Coulibaly, www.portal.unesco.org/education/).  The few schools that are built to accommodate people with disabilities are always over -crowded and lack the basic resources to do an average work. 

Such teachers are heard saying that they need “special skills” to teach children with disabilities.  This is not necessarily true; a good teacher can teach children with disabilities and those without disabilities in the same classroom.  Over the years, several good teachers proved that children with disabilities can be taught in the same classroom with non disabled children through the use of well planned teaching approaches which encourage the active participation of all children.  This does not necessarily mean that teachers do not need some technical assistance as how to improve the delivery of their lessons.   Institutions of higher education have contributed immensely to this problem.  Most schools train teachers to teach in regular classrooms and special classrooms.  They call the former, teachers and the latter, special education teachers.  The schools that certify these teachers told them that they cannot teach children with special needs if they come to the regular classroom. Only specially trained teachers are supposed to teach children with disabilities.  The irony is that institutions of higher education talk “inclusion” and practice “exclusion.” 

Another reason for the low achievement is due to the fact that many people have low expectations for children with disabilities, and worse of all they make them develop low expectation of themselves. Children with disabilities are expected to do poor in school because they are not healthy.   This notion of not being healthy is rooted in the belief of some people who consider themselves as moderate and caring, who have suggested along the way that because of their health problems, students with disabilities cannot be placed in regular classrooms and could be placed in a regular classroom only if their health has improved, which means if their disabilities are ‘cured.’ This is wrong. Children with disabilities cannot be cured, and if cure is a prerequisite to inclusion, most persons with disabilities will never be included. Fortunately,   there is a new era; the Era of Inclusion.

As indicated above, although there are many reasons and the reasons could vary from country to country and from one culture to another; the most common barriers towards the education of pupils with disabilities all over the world could be summarized as follows:

-         weak political will,

-         insufficient financial resources and the inefficient use of those available,

-         inadequate attention to the learning needs of the poor and the excluded,

-         a lack of attention to the quality of learning, and

-         an absence of commitment to overcoming gender disparities.

What is inclusion?

The new philosophy of inclusion is built on the belief that people/adults work in inclusive communities, work with people of different races, religions, aspirations, disabilities. In the same vein, children of all ages should learn and grow in environments that resemble the environments that they will eventually work in.  That is why inclusion is defined as the practice of placing children with disabilities in the same (regular) classroom with non-disabled students and providing them with specialized services and/or curriculum.  Ferguson, 1996, describes inclusion as an effort to create schools that meet the needs of all students where children with and without disabilities are educated together in age–appropriate general education classrooms.  It would entail keeping children with disabilities in regular education classrooms and bringing the support services to the child, rather than bringing the child to the support services (Smelter, Rasch, and Yudewitz, 1996). It is very important to note that it is not enough to put children with disabilities in a regular classroom and expect them to learn equally with their peers.  Inclusive education supporters’ advocate that almost all students should begin school with their peers in the age-appropriate general education classroom, and then, depending on their needs, move into environments that are more restrictive or less restrictive. Inclusive education can be thought of as a pendulum clock.  It goes to the right, to the left, and to the right, yet it always comes to the center.  Similarly, children with disabilities should be allowed to go to the special classes for different reasons and services whenever the need arises, yet they must come back to the regular classes and learn with their peers, if that is what is best for the child.  

Education is a right and a privilege    

Children with disabilities have the right to free and appropriate education. This right is embedded in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which passed on December 10, 1948 by the General Assembly of the United Nations.  The 2nd article of this historic declaration is very relevant to the cause of people with disabilities and reads as follows: “Every one is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.   Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation  of Sovereignty (Universal Declaration Of Human Right, 1948, Article 2)”.

Although Article 2, as it is written does not mention the word disability it urges all member states to extend this right, without exception to all people including people with disabilities.

After the passage of the Universal Human right, a giant step towards the improvement of Education of people with disabilities was taken by the United States of America when on May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Brown vs. Board of Education declared that separate education facilities are inherently unequal (Brown vs. Board of Education 1954).  This landmark civil rights case made it clear that segregating students in schools based on race is unconstitutional.  Again, there was no mention of children with disabilities; however, parents of children with disabilities in the United States of America were able to use the refutation of the accepted practices of “separate but equal” as a point of reference in requesting that their children with disabilities receive free and appropriate public education.  This decision signaled the end of all legal segregation in the United States of America.

Another giant step was taken towards the right of all children including children with disabilities when in November of 1959, the General Assembly of the United Nations proclaimed the “Declaration of the Right of the Child by General Assembly resolution 1386 (XIV) 20.  In this declaration, Principle 5, and 7 are very relevant to the child with special needs which reads as follows:

Principle 5:  “The child who is physically, mentally handicapped shall be given the special treatment, education and care required by his particular condition.”

Principle 7: “The child is entitled to receive education, which shall be free and compulsory, at least in the elementary stages.  He shall be given an education which will promote his general culture and enable him.”

Mistakenly, many educators, and other lay persons think that inclusive education is designed to benefit children with disabilities only.  To the contrary, research shows that inclusive education helps the development of all children in different ways.  Wolery, M. and Wilbers, J, (1994), admits that although inclusion is primarily designed to include children with disabilities learn with their peers in the regular classrooms, the benefits are extended to children without disabilities, parents of children without disabilities and by and large the whole community.  Children with more typical development gain higher levels of tolerance for people with differences.  They are provided with opportunities to learn more realistic and accurate views about individuals with disabilities. They are provided with opportunities to develop positive attitudes towards others who are different from themselves, not to mention that they are provided with models of individuals who successfully achieve, despite the challenges.

Investing in inclusive education is a win, win situation.  Students with specific challenges make gains in cognitive and social development as well as physical motor skills.  In addition, children with disabilities are spared the negative effects of being taught in a segregated classroom and all the name-calling, and labeling that comes with it. Under the name of inclusive schools, many schools, many times, do some sort of labeling without even noticing it.  For example, in one school the whole school is divided into teams.   Each team was given a color.  For example, the color for team A is Red and Team B is Yellow.  All of the teams were divided heterogeneously, except that of the special education students.  All of the special education students who were going to that specific school were grouped together, and were given a blue color.  In other words, the background for their identification card was blue.   The teachers as well as the school administrators, who are in charge of a certain team, also exhibit the same color of their teams.  One day one of the students from a different team saw one of the assistant principals exhibiting a blue color since she was in charge of the special education team.  This student came closer and told the administrator “doc, are you” Specie” (Special) too?  All the special education students were referred to as “Specie”.   Regardless of how we do it, grouping or tracking based on abilities,  is a cruel practice and many children with disabilities have suffered over the years immensely from it.  Inclusion is designed to bring these practices to an end.

It is an undeniable fact that when children with disabilities are taught in the same classroom with their peers, they are exposed to competent models that allow them to learn new adaptive skills and/or learn when to use their existing skills through imitation.  Children learn from each other faster than they can learn from anybody else.

In addition, when children with disabilities go to school with their peers, they are afforded the opportunity to interrelate with competent peers with whom to interact and thereby learn new social and/or communicative skills.  Just like children without disabilities admire, and try to emulate other students in their school; children with disabilities will also have a larger pool of young men and women to emulate and learn from.

Finally, in an inclusive classroom, children with disabilities will be provided with opportunities to develop friendships with typically developing peers, and with realistic life experiences that prepare them to live in their communities.  It is only fair to expose young children with disabilities to young men and women without disabilities and hear their dreams and their aspirations.  Instead of confining them in one location under the disguise of alternative schools, it would make much more sense to allow these young men and women with disabilities to sit and talk with the other students, about colleges and universities, about careers  and professions.

Inclusive education has also a profound positive effect on the whole community.  Wolery, M. and Wilbers, J., (1994), label’ communities that support and encourage inclusion as progressive communities, and that as such by supporting inclusion they create a healthy and financially strong community.  Some of the benefits that the community can receive are as follows:

Conserve resources by limiting the need for segregated, specialized programs.

Families of children with disabilities and those without disabilities come together and learn from each other. Families of children with disabilities might learn about typical development; develop relationships with families of typically developing children who can provide them with meaningful support not to mention the fact they may feel less isolated from the remainder of their communities. 

Families of children without disabilities may develop relationships with families who have children with disabilities, and thereby make a contribution to them and their communities. Such encounters will also give them an opportunity to teach their children about individual differences and about accepting individuals who are different.

Features of Inclusive Schools

Effective inclusive schools have certain features, and it is essential that any school that tries to accommodate children with disabilities exhibit some of the following features:

1. A new breed of professionals and paraprofessionals:  All the staff in inclusive schools appreciate and value human diversity, and believe that every child has varied talent and that he/she can learn at high levels, moving at his/her own pace and is committed to the pursuit of individually configured excellence. In developing countries; a one-room schoolhouse that had multi-grades 1-4 and one teacher was common.  Such schools were very effective.  Students in this one-room school were not separated and labeled. They all learned from the one teacher and from one another.    The teacher was expected to teach all kids who entered the class and every child progressed according to his/ her pace.  Then came the era of modernization or as some people call it ‘westernization.  These eras differentiated between regular education teachers and special education teachers and if there are two kinds of teachers, there will be two kinds of students: regular students and students with special needs.  It seems that with the advent of trained teachers came specialization; and with specialization came segregated schooling.   The trend is changing now; this new breed of educators and service providers make students feel valued for their potential as people, and help them learn to value each other.

2. Collaboration: If inclusion is going to be successful there should be collaboration and communication among teachers, families, school administrators, general educators, special educators as well as para-educators. Teachers working together not only create more energy around problem-solving and effective strategies, but they also model people skills for students. As a result, practices such as cooperative learning, peer tutoring, team teaching, parent partnerships and common planning time are very essential.  When there is collaborative teaching arrangements and good communication between the above-mentioned individuals, children with disabilities would get fair and better education.

3. Changing roles and responsibilities:  In an inclusive school, every person in the building is a contributor in the learning process.  Teachers do not say to each other these are my students and those are yours.  No one would claim any student.  All of the participants- specialist, as well as other teachers provide support to each other.  Every participant in the teaching and learning process share their expertise in order to use strategies that assist   all students to successfully participate in class instruction.

4. Access:  Most inclusive schools make all the necessary modification to the building, and have assistive technology devices available, so that students with disabilities may access all aspects of the school.  There will be no inclusion without active participation of children with disabilities in the classroom activities.   This active participation is totally dependent on accessible schools.  Access and participation goes hand in hand together, and one cannot happen without the other.  Inclusive schools apply simple techniques to make schools accessible.  Most buildings are one story buildings with ramps leading inside instead of stairs.  The inside of such buildings are level, avoiding the need for stairs and ramps.  Toilets and latrines are wide enough that a person in a wheel chair can turn around.

5. The use of Assistive Technology: The 21st century is marked by the fast progress in assistive technology devices and services, that is evident among the ever-increasing populations of people with disabilities.  These technological advances have changed the quality of life for many individuals, helping them to be independent and productive.  Assistive technology made it possible for many people with communication, physical, learning and sensory disabilities to gain more control over their lives and environment. There are literally hundreds of assistive technology products. These products have been designed to collectively meet the needs of individuals across a wide-range of disabilities—blindness, learning difficulties, etc. as well as temporary or permanent problems.  These devices vary from computers to speech synthesizers. Others may be less technologically sophisticated.  Simple accommodations such as large print books, preferential seating, or modified desks, can be sufficient for many individuals with severe disabilities to be successfully included. The use of such devices is well discussed (Golden, 1998; Todis & Walker, 1993).  Simply put, if you get children with disabilities on technology as early as possible, they will be able to influence their environment and explore their surroundings, otherwise they will become quite content with doing the minimum themselves and expecting the maximum from others.  Inclusive schools through the use of Assistive Technologies come up with methodologies and strategies to minimize   the effect of the student’s disabilities and help children with disabilities develop a solid foundation in basic skills at lower grades and scientific, analytical and communicative skills at higher levels. In inclusive schools, most educators do realize that the absence of assistive technology devices have a profound,  limiting effect on the life of children with disabilities

6. New Forms of Accountability:  As in the traditional way, inclusive schools do not totally depend on standardized tests to determine if students are progressing. In fact, standardized tests are coming under fire from different angles.  Many contemporary educational leaders and researchers are blaming standardized tests for: 

Encouraging the accumulation and recall of fragmented and decontextualized facts and skills.

Stifling teachers from enriching the curriculum by making them focus on the information, forms and formats required in the tests.

Reinforcing bias in terms of gender, race, ethnicity and social class.

Instead, inclusive schools practice new alternative assessments such as curriculum-based assessment and portfolio assessment that yield meaningful information to parents, teachers, and students.  These new professionals are coming together to develop new assessment instruments and/or accommodations to go along with taking standardized tests.  These make sense, since the pace, style, language and circumstances of learning will never be uniform for all.  Sound practices of full inclusion, always advocate for diverse formal or less formal approaches as long as they ensure sound learning and confer equivalent status.

7. Student –Focused:  Inclusive schools are student -focused (person oriented) while traditional schools are deficit driven.  The traditional schools always forget the person with disability as a person and focus on the child’s disability by saying he/she is autistic; or put emphasis on the person’s deficit by saying “he/she functions at a 12 month level.    To the contrary, inclusive schools use person-centered planning approaches that encourage teachers and other service providers to plan learning activities around the individual’s gifts and capacities instead of his /her disabilities or deficits.  The whole idea of the person-centered approach is designed to encourage teachers to build classroom activities that are individualized and responsive to the individual’s personal needs, experiences, and interests.

8. Continuing Professional Development:  In most inclusive schools, the administration and staff take staff development very seriously.  In most cases, there are committees to determine and design professional development activities that focus on knowledge and skills that they can use to teach all students.

9. A Sense of Community:  A well designed inclusive school is distinguished by valuing and supporting all children and adults and accepting them to participate fully.  In such schools differences are looked at as sources of knowledge and strength from which to build.

10. High standards:  In an inclusive school, all students are supported in the achievement of valued outcomes.  In such schools curriculum for students with disabilities is not watered down, neither students with disabilities are assigned to a separate set of standards. If necessary, however, students with disabilities can receive individualized accommodations to reach the same high standards.

11. Partnership with Parents:  Families have a major contribution to make to children’s education.  This could only happen when educators understand that parents of children with disabilities are experts in their own right.  If there is anyone who knows the most about a child with a disability, it is the parent (s).  As a result, in inclusive schools, parents must be accepted and recognized as partners and brought into the school through various means: committees, volunteers, and guest lecturers.  Building effective partnership between schools and families must be preceded by the following:

Schools must understand and acknowledge children’s right as it is outlined in the UN Convention on the Right of the Child.  This involves recognition of the entitlement to a home, family and membership of the local community as basic rights of the child.  This right allows children to live with their parents while they are receiving proper education.  Taking them away from their families and communities in order to receive proper education is unwarranted.

Similarly, it is important that the schools and the community at large understand that the right to having a family is only meaningful if the child is fully included in the family.  If the ultimate goal is for children with disabilities to be included in society, it is necessary that this begins within their own family.  In some cultures, when families of children with disabilities realize that their child is different, it might create a strenuous relationship.  In such a situation, inclusive schools have a role to play by encouraging open communication between the family and other families and/or between the family and the school in order to relieve stress, rebuild hope, and enable the child to experience family life.

Children can do well in school if learning and development is reinforced at home.  When parents and teachers work together, children will learn more.  Inclusive schools by design are meant to support the child’s learning and development at home, by offering parents appropriate learning experiences to help their children learn and grow.

Parents have a wealth of information about the disability of their child; how their child is developing, and what would be their educational needs.  It is very difficult for teachers and school administrators to acquire this sort of information.  Such information could be made available for educators only and if the school develops a cooperative working relationship between the school and families.  One of the main responsibilities of inclusive schools is to do just that.

Inclusive schools are supposed to make sure that parents have a right to be involved in the decisions that are made about their children.  The era whereby experts come together and make decisions that affect the lives of children and their parents is gone.  This new era of inclusion encourages parents to be present in meetings at school or local and/or state offices of education where the status of their children will be discussed.  Inclusive schools do not require the presence of parents only; but also prepares them to play a meaningful role by inviting them to attend educational seminars and workshops to develop leadership skills.

12. Leadership at the micro and macro level:  There is no question about it, from top to bottom; the leadership must support inclusion for it to be successful. When the leadership at the building level is supportive of inclusion, they will sell the concept of inclusion to their faculty and staff. The Principal in inclusive schools must play a crucial role by supporting teachers’ effort to collaborate, and encourage them to experiment and try new ideas.  Principals in inclusive schools should strive to achieve the following:

Accessible schools:  It doesn’t require a fortune to make schools accessible.  Fortunately in most developing countries, schools are built as a one story building, and it might not take that much to have wide doors and open corridors.  Educational leaders should always be mindful of the fact that it is easier to make schools accessible when you first build them rather than to fix them at a later date.

Collaborative teaching arrangements - teachers working together not only create more energy around problem-solving and effective strategies, but they also model people skills for students.  Principals in inclusive schools always emphasize and reward the spirit of working together.

Flexible school structures - schools need physical arrangements that are adaptable to a variety of student needs as well as instructional approaches. One of the new things that teachers of inclusive education should consider is what is coming to be known as “Block Scheduling”, especially, when a school is made up of buildings that are apart. It might be difficult for children with mobility disability to move faster from one class to the other on time.  Therefore, scheduling classes for a longer period and in the same classroom might be helpful.  Block scheduling is a new concept being practiced in the United States schools.  It might have some relevance with inclusive schools.

Performance-based and alternative assessments - there are many ways to demonstrate learning, and student performance expectations should be as individualized as their instruction.

Cooperative teaching and learning approach

One of the best and the most effective technique is what have been advocated for years in regular classrooms as the cooperative teaching and learning approach.  Here the special educator, the speech therapist, the psychologist and other support personnel co-teach alongside the general education teacher.  This does not necessarily mean that every lesson, every unit throughout the year must be taught in collaboration with the other members of the support staff.  It only means that these individuals work with the regular education teacher whenever it is necessary.  The regular education teacher is in charge of his/her class; and all of the above mentioned specialists are there to assist. Sometimes they could come to the classrooms and teach a lesson, or make a presentation.  Other times, they can take anyone of the students who need special assistance and work with that student separately.

In this model, students could be divided into small groups.  The group is very heterogeneous and is based on anything else but ability.  Students could be grouped based on their interest and work together to achieve group goals.  One of the responsibilities emphasized for such a working group is that the group is responsible to demonstrate that all members have learned something.  The teacher must make it clear to all members of the group that it is important that all members understand the concepts and master the skills to be acquired from the group activity.  All members of the group are made aware that they are responsible to assist other members to ascertain their knowledge of the same content.  This approach is recommended highly for inclusive classrooms since children with disabilities are included as members of the group without much difficulty.

One method of teaching that is particularly associated with the cooperative teaching and learning approach is “Student Teams-Achievement Divisions (STAD) method devised by Salvin and his associates at John Hopkins University.  Here students are assigned to four or five member groups.  Once these assignments are made, a four step cycle is initiated: teach, team study, test and recognition.  Teaching is done in different ways, including the lecture-discussion method.  Once the teacher covers the different materials, group members are instructed to study together.  Teacher made worksheets and answer sheets are distributed to help them study better.  During the study period, students are told that they will have to support one another because the group goal can be achieved only if each member learns the materials being taught.  They are told that the teams are not in competition with one another.   After the study period each student is tested individually and a score for each group is tallied.  Based on the score each group receives certificates that read “GOOD TEAM”, “GREAT TEAM”, “SUPER TEAM” are issued to each group.

Co-teaching

Co-teaching is defined as two educational professionals delivering substantive instruction to a group of heterogeneous students with diverse learning needs.  This collaborative approach allows all students including those with disabilities to remain in the general education classrooms.  Current educational research shows that co-teaching is an appropriate instructional approach to be used in inclusive classrooms and can improve educational programs, and reduces stigmatization for students if planned properly and given the necessary support (Focus on Exceptional Children. Vol. 28 (3), 1995).

A co-teaching relationship may consist of some combination of a general education teacher, special education teacher, and/ or support staff.  The most common team of educators found in co-teaching relationships may include the following:

-         Special education teacher and General education teacher

-         Two general education teachers teaching the same subject vertically or horizontally or teaching different subjects.

-         A paraprofessional and a general education teacher or a special education teacher

-         A regular education teacher or a special education teacher and a school counsellor or a school psychologist.

-         A regular education teacher or a special education teacher and a speech and hearing specialist.

-         A regular education teacher or a special education teacher and a parent.

It is very possible that any on of the above mentioned combinations can be successful in delivering effective instruction provided they are given enough time to know each other and be able to cultivate a collaborative relationship and prepare good lessons together.   Deliberate and ongoing communication among everyone involved is essential (Cook and Friend 2003) Above all co-teaching will only be successful if  it is given support at the micro, mezzo and macro levels of the school system administration.

In his article, Co-teaching: An Effective Approach for Inclusive Education, Donni Stickney (2003) writes that co-teaching can use a variety of techniques depending on the students and the content they are teaching. A few techniques cited by Stickney are as follows:

Interactive Teaching:  Here a general education teacher and a special education teacher teach a lesson together.  One of them introduces the lesson and teaches the main concepts and /or skills while the other teacher directs the guide practice or what is called the “sit work”.  In such an approach teachers can alternate roles of presenting, reviewing, and monitoring instruction at any time.

Station Teaching: Here you divide the students into small groups and allow them to rotate from one station to another.  Each teacher would take a small group while another group of students is using the classroom computer to research a topic.  During the course of the week, all students work at each task/station.

Parallel teaching: This technique requires that students are divided into two small mixed ability groups.  One of the co-teaching partner works with a small group of students while the other co-teaching partner works with another smaller group.  Both groups are taught the same content by two different teachers.

Alternative Teaching:  Here a specialist works with a small group of students on an enrichment project or a special topic.  This small group might be working in an area of interest or an area where special assistance is required.  While the specialist works with the small group, the general education teacher will work with the remainder of the students.

Consultant Model:  The consultant model allows the special education teacher to pull-out the students with special needs and work with them separately as a group or one by one, but also co-teaches within the general education classroom several hours a week.

Integrated teaching approach

For many years many teachers have succeeded in teaching different subjects as separate entities.  Many teachers failed to realize that History and Geography; Chemistry, Physics and Mathematics have a lot in common and cannot be taught in watertight compartments.  The integrated teaching approach brings this to an end.   Integrated teaching is defined as organization of teaching matter to interrelate or unify subjects frequently taught in separate academic courses or departments (Joglekar, S., Bhuiyan, P.S., and Kishore, S.1994).  Shoemaker, B. (1989) defines it as an approach that cuts across subject-matter lines bringing together various aspects of the curriculum into meaningful association.  However, it is Krogh’s (1990) explanation that make it very relevant to be used in inclusive classrooms when he wrote that this approach allows children to learn in a way that is most natural to them.  Teachers can teach units made up of themes of interest to the children.  Such units are designed to be relevant, meaningful and flexible in its application; taking into consideration the diverse learning styles of the students.   Another approach suggested by Lillian Katz and Sylvia Chard (1989), is called the Project Approach.  Here students are asked to select a topic of interest, researching and studying it by forwarding hypothesis, collecting data and suggesting solutions to problems.

The integrated approach can be used horizontally which means that two or more teachers teaching the same subject or different subjects but at the same grade come together and plan a unit.  For example, an English teacher and a History teacher in grade four comes together and they plan a unit.  It could also be used vertically whereby teachers in two different grades come together to plan and teach a unit. A Biology teacher (agriculture) and a Physical Education teacher could come together and plan such a unit.  This approach might be more appropriate at higher educational levels.

The integrated teaching approach can enhance teaching and learning in inclusive classrooms if is applied properly.  Its proper application would require the creation of an environment that encourages active involvement of all students.  In addition all topics and themes chosen must help students relate to real life experiences and be able to transfer such knowledge and apply it in real life.

Conclusion

World leaders reached a consensus to cut poverty in the world in half over the next 10 years. They have also agreed that all boys and girls born in 2005 be able to complete primary schooling by the year 2015.  These goals are noble and timely; but in order to make them a reality we have to include all children –including those with disabilities. You cannot cut poverty while you eliminate the economic contributions of people with disabilities.

One of the many steps that have to be taken to achieve the MDG and EFA goals is that all participating nations must come up with explicit educational policies that foster the inclusion of pupil with disabilities.  When inclusive schools are created and pupil with disabilities are welcomed and valued, research has demonstrated that all students, those who have special needs as well as those considered as typical, benefit. Pupil with disabilities will develop better socially and intellectually, and those without disabilities will become more familiar with the problems that children with disabilities face which would make them more sensitive to the needs of people with disabilities.

When pupils with disabilities are included in the regular classroom in an increasing number, teachers will be forced to come up with lessons that are tailored to the need of a diverse student population. There are some general education teachers who believe that they are neither trained nor experienced to teach children with disabilities.  This is not true.   Cannon, G. (1992) conducted a study on teachers and found out those teachers in general and special education agreed on 82% of essential teaching practices for effective instruction of children with disabilities.  In other words, the teaching methods that are used by special education and general education teachers to teach children with disabilities are the same.  Consequently, any teacher of inclusive classrooms who would care to use the teaching techniques discussed in this manuscript with little adjustment will yield good results. Their success in becoming successful teachers of inclusive classrooms could also be facilitated if they can use technology to individualize instruction and expose their students to adopting assistive technology devices and services...

 

References and/or complementary bibliography

Ashton, B. (1999).  Promoting the Rights of Disabled Children

Cannon, G, (1992).  Educating students with mild handicaps in general classrooms: Essential teaching practices for general and special educators.  Journal of learning disabilities, 25 (5) 300-317

Coulibaly, Diarata.  My Life is a Succession of Battles to Survive. Available from:

http://portal.unesco.org/education/ev.php-URL_8137&url_DO=DO_TOPIC&U

Elwan, Ann.  Poverty and Disability:  A Survey of the Literature - Social Protection Discussion Paper Series. No. 9932.  World Bank, Washington DC: December 1999.

Erb, S., & Harris-White, B.  (2001). The Economic Impact and Developmental Implications of Disability and Incapacity in Adulthood; A Village Study from S. India.  Paper to the Workshop Welfare, Demography and Development, September 11-12, Downing College, Cambridge

Ferguson,D.L. (1996).  Is it Inclusion yet?  Bursting the Bubbles. In M.S. Berres, D.L.Ferguson, and Reewal (PP. 16-37).  New York:  Teachers College Press.

Friend, M., & Cook, L. (2003). Interactions: Collaboration Skills for School Professionals (4th ed.). Boston: Allyn and Baco

Golden, D. (1998).  “Assistive Technology in Special Education:  Policy and Practice”. Council of Administrators of Special Education. Inc., Albuquerque, N.M.

Hegarty, S.  (1998). Review of the Present Situation in Special Education.  Paris: UNESCO.

Hunt.P. (Ed.) (1966).  Stigma, the Experience of Disability.  London: Deoffrey Chapman

Joglekar S., Bhuiyan P.S., and Kishore, S, .Integrated Teaching –Our Experience.  J. Postgard Med.  1994, 40: 231-2

Katz, L., and Chad, S. (1989).   Engaging Children’s Minds:  The Project Approach Scholastic.

Krogh, S. (1990).  The Integrated Early Childhood Curriculum.  New York: McGraw-Hill.

Okidi,J.A.,and Mugambe,G.K. (2002).   An Overview of Chronic Poverty and Development Policy in Uganda.  Chronic Poverty Research Center, Working Paper 11.

Rajani, R., Bangser, M., Lund-Sorensen, U., Leach, V. (2001).   Situation Analysis of Children in Tanzania

Shoemaker, B.  “Integrated Education:  A Curriculum for the Twenty-First Century.” Oregon School Study Council 33/2 (1989).

Smelter, R.W., Rasch, B.W., & Yudewitz, G. J. (1996).  Thinking of Inclusion for all Special Needs Students.  Better think again.  School Board Journal, January/February

Stickney, D. Co-teaching:  An Effective Approach for Inclusive Education. From TTAC Link Lines, November/ December 2003. http://www.wm.edu/ttac/articles/inclusion/coteaching.html

Todias, B. and Walker, H.M. (1993).  “User Perspectives on Assistive Technology in Educational Settings.”  Focus on Exceptional Children, 26 (3), 2-16

Wolery, M., & J. Wilbers, eds. (1994).  Including Children with Special Needs in Preschool Programs: Results and Implications for Practice. Washington, D.C.: National Association for the Education of Young Children.Wolery, R.A., & S.L. Odom. 2000. Administrator’s Guide to Preschool Inclusion. University of North Carolina: Early Childhood Research Institute on Inclusion.

 

 


Does Block Scheduling Decrease Instructional Time?
A Look at St. Croix’s Five Public Secondary Schools
using Four Block Schedule Types

University of the Virgin Islands, USA

jlovern@uvi.edu

 

In 1994, the National Commission on Time and Learning issued a report declaring that the future of education was dependent on the effective use of school time. No one, of course, questioned that. However, they further proposed the idea that block scheduling be used as a means of promoting increased student learning. Block scheduling is defined as a restructuring of the school day into classes that involve longer class periods than the traditional fifty-minute ones (Adams & Salvaterra, 1997).

In 2000, a mere six years after the provocative report, Walker found that more than 40 percent of all secondary schools in the U.S. had adopted some form of block scheduling. In the United States Virgin Islands, block scheduling was implemented in the 1998-99 school year at all five secondary public schools on St. Croix, and just like the rest of the nation, a variety of models were used.

Models in the Literature

DiBiase & Queen (1999) define the 4X4 model as containing classes that are taught for 90 minutes each day with four classes completed each semester. It is called a 4X4 block because students take four classes per semester and they have four classes daily.

Rikard & Banville (2005) define the AB format as a structure in which students attend classes for approximately 95 minutes on alternate days for one academic year. Queen (2000) called this a two-day rotating system and indicated that students complete eight classes over the course of the academic year. With this model, students attend four classes on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday of the first week, and have four different classes on Tuesday and Thursday of the first week and Monday of the next week.

The modified block schedule is another type described by Queen (2000). In a modified block, there are two or three 90-minute blocks (usually two days a week) as well as some split 45-minute classes (usually the other three days of the week). Using this method, classes are scheduled in various combinations. Some schools also use a modified block with four days in the block. In this model, students have classes on Monday and Wednesday, a different set of classes on Tuesday and Thursday, and all classes on Friday. The National Middle School Association (1996) described a rotating schedule as having classes that follow a master schedule of all classes in a particular sequence with classes being held at different times each day. In this scheme, a student might have math in the morning on Mondays, near noon on Wednesdays, and in the afternoon on Fridays. Some schools have adopted this rotating scheduling in a block schedule using either a 5-day or 7-day rotating schedule, with each class being taught in a block.

Models Used on St. Croix

Through interviews with the principals and analysis of the bell schedules for the five secondary schools on St. Croix, the researcher determined that the two high schools use almost identical models, but the three junior high schools use models that are different from the high schools and different from one another.

The first high school, referred to as SCHOOL A, contains students in grades 9-12 and has a population of approximately 1250 students. A second high school, SCHOOL B, also has students in grades 9-12 and has a similar population of approximately 1250 students. Both use the 4X4 block.       

All three junior high schools contain students in grades 7 and 8. The first of the three junior high schools, SCHOOL C, with approximately 600 students, uses a two-day per week modified block. On Mondays, Tuesdays, and Fridays, students attend six classes per day. On Wednesdays, the students have three classes (the classes they had in the morning on the non-block days). On Thursdays, the students have the remaining three classes (the classes they had in the afternoon on the non-block days). SCHOOL D, another junior high with approximately 400 students, also uses a modified two-day block. However, it is very different from SCHOOL C’s schedule. On Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays, students have six classes following a traditional schedule. On Tuesday and Wednesday, three courses have 75-minute blocks and the other three meet for 40 minutes. SCHOOL E, with a student population of approximately 600, uses a modified four-day block in which students have three of their six classes on each of the block days, and all six on Friday.

To sum up, the following table indicates the various block schedule models.

 

BLOCK SCHEDULING MODELS IN THE LITERATURE

Model

Brief Description

St. Croix Usage

4X4 Block

Four classes per day every day for one semester; four different classes in the second semester

SCHOOL A

SCHOOL B

AB

Four classes per day on one day with a different four classes per day on the second day; these two days alternate throughout a full school year

NONE

2-day Modified Block

Fifty-minute class periods on three days per week; longer block periods on the other two days

SCHOOL C

SCHOOL D

4-day Modified Block

Three classes per day on the block days on alternating days; all six classes meet on one day per week

SCHOOL E

 

 

Rotating Block

Four ninety-minute class periods per day;

students take a variety of classes at various times throughout the week on a rotating basis

NONE

 

Minutes Available for Instruction

The researcher looked at the bell schedules for each of the five schools. An analysis for each of the individual schools, as well as an aggregate table, follows.

SCHOOL A begins classes at 7:55 a.m. and dismisses at 3:15 p.m. Thus, the school day includes 440 minutes for a total of 2200 minutes per week. This school follows a 4X4 block every day. It has a five-minute transition time between blocks and a 60-minute lunch. This breakdown is shown in the following table.

 

SCHOOL A MINUTES FOR TRANSITIONS AND LUNCH (EVERY DAY)

Classes convene

Transition to Block 2

Transition to Lunch

Lunch (including transition to Block 3)

Transition to Block 4

Classes conclude

7:55 a.m.

9:30 a.m.-

9:35 a.m.

11:05 a.m.-11:10 a.m.

11:10 a.m.-

12:10 p.m.

1:40 p.m.-

1:45 p.m.

3:15 p.m.

 

5 minutes

5 minutes

60 minutes

5 minutes

 

 

This means that 75 minutes per day (for a total of 375 per week) are allowed for transition and lunch, and that of the 2200 minutes of the school week, students spend 1825 minutes in class.

SCHOOL B also begins classes at 7:55 a.m. and dismisses at 3:15 p.m. with students in school 440 minutes a day and 2200 minutes per week. The school follows a 4X4 block that is similar to SCHOOL A’s, shown in the following table.

 

SCHOOL B MINUTES FOR TRANSITIONS AND LUNCH (EVERY DAY)

Classes convene

Transition to Block 2

Lunch (including transition from Block 2 to lunch)

Transition

to Block 3

Transition to Block 4

Classes conclude

7:55 a.m.

9:30 a.m.-

9:35 a.m.

11:05 a.m.-

12:05 p.m.

12:05 p.m.-

12:10 p.m.

1:40 p.m.-

1:45 p.m.

3:15 p.m.

 

5 minutes

60 minutes

5 minutes

5 minutes

 

 

SCHOOL C is a junior high that begins classes at 7:45 a.m. and dismisses at 2:25 p.m. Thus, the school day includes 400 minutes for a total of 2000 minutes per week. The school follows a two-day modified block with a traditional schedule (with six classes) on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Fridays, and a block schedule (with three classes) on Wednesdays and Thursdays. It has three-minute transition times between classes and 45 minutes for lunch. The breakdown follows.

 

SCHOOL C MINUTES FOR TRANSITIONS AND LUNCH

Traditional Schedule Days (Mondays, Tuesdays, and Fridays)

Classes convene

Transition to Period 2

Transition to Period 3

Lunch (including transition from Per 3)

Transition to Period 5

Transition

to Period 6

Transition to Period 7

Classes conclude

7:45 a.m.

8:50 a.m.-

8:53 a.m.

9:48 a.m.-

9:51 a.m.

10:46 a.m.-

11:31 a.m.

11:31 a.m.- 11:34 a.m.

12:29 p.m.-

12:32  p.m.

1:27 p.m.-

1:30 p.m.

2:25 p.m.

 

3 minutes

3 minutes

45 minutes

3 minutes

3 minutes

3 minutes

 


 

Block Schedule Days (Wednesdays and Thursdays)

Classes convene

With 10-minute

Home-

room

Transition to Block 1

Break and Transition to Block 2

Lunch (including transition from Block 2)

Transition to Block 3

Classes conclude

7:45 a.m.-7:55 a.m.

7:55 a.m.-

8:00 a.m.

9:45 a.m.

-9:55 a.m.

11:40 a.m.-

12:35 p.m.

12:35 p.m.-

12:40 p.m.

2:25 p.m.

 

5 minutes

10 minutes

55 minutes

5 minutes

 

 

Sixty minutes per day are used for transitions/lunch on the traditional days; 75 are used on the block days. In a week’s time, 330 minutes are used for transition and lunch. Thus, of the 2000 minutes of the school week, students spend 1670 minutes in class.

SCHOOL D, the smallest of the junior high schools, begins classes at 7:35 a.m. on Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays (traditional schedule days) and dismisses classes at 2:20 p.m. on those days. On Tuesdays and Wednesdays (block schedule days), classes begin at 7:30 a.m. and are dismissed at 2:25. This means that the school week has a total of 2025 minutes.  The breakdown is shown in the following table.

 

SCHOOL D MINUTES FOR TRANSITIONS AND LUNCH

Traditional Schedule Days (Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays)

Classes convene

(Per 1 with homeroom)

Transition to Period 2

Transition to Period 3

Transition to Period 4

Lunch (including transition from Per 4)

Transition

to Period 6

Transition to Period 7

Classes conclude

7:35 a.m.

8:35 a.m.-

8:38 a.m.

9:33 a.m.-

9:36 a.m.

10:31 a.m.-

10:34 a.m.

11:29a.m.- 12:24 p.m.

12:24 p.m.-

12:27p.m.

1:22 p.m.-

1:25 p.m.

2:20

p.m.

 

3 minutes

3 minutes

3 minutes

55 minutes

3 minutes

3 minutes

 

Block Schedule Day (Tuesdays)

Classes convene

(Per 1 w/no homeroom)

Transition to Period 2

Transition to Period 3

Lunch (including transition from Per 3)

Transition to Period 4

Transition

to Period 6

Transition to Period 7

Classes conclude

7:30 a.m.

8:45 a.m.-

8:48 a.m.

10:03 a.m.-

10:06 a.m.

11:21 a.m.-

12:16 p.m.

12:16p.m.- 12:19 p.m.

12:59 p.m.-

1:02 p.m.

1:42 p.m.-

1:45 p.m.

2:25

p.m.

 

3 minutes

3  minutes

55 minutes

3 minutes

3 minutes

3 minutes

 


 

Block Schedule Day (Wednesdays)

Classes convene

(Per 4 w/no homeroom)

Transition to Period 6

Transition to Period 7

Lunch (including transition from Per 7)

Transition to Period 1

Transition

to Period 2

Transition to Period 3

Classes conclude

7:30 a.m.

8:45 a.m.-

8:48 a.m.

10:03 a.m.-

10:06 a.m.

11:21 a.m.-

12:16 p.m.

12:16p.m.- 12:19 p.m.

12:59 p.m.-

1:02 p.m.

1:42 p.m.-

1:45 p.m.

2:25

p.m.

 

3 minutes

3 minutes

55 minutes

3 minutes

3 minutes

3 minutes

 

 

Seventy minutes per day are used for transitions/lunch, meaning 350 per week. Thus, of the 2025 minutes of the school week, students spend 1675 minutes in class each week.

SCHOOL E, the other large junior high, follows a four-day modified block. It begins classes at 7:50 a.m. and dismisses classes at 2:25 p.m. on the four days of block scheduling (Mondays through Thursdays with three classes per day). On Fridays, school starts five minutes earlier and all six classes occur, meaning that the school day includes 395 minutes on the block days and 400 minutes on Friday for a weekly total of 1980.

On block days, the day convenes with a 25-minute homeroom. There are three-minute transition times between classes, a 15-minute morning break, and 75 minutes for lunch (with three-minute transitions before and after). On Fridays, there is a six-minute homeroom and a 54-minute lunch. The following table displays the breakdown.

 

SCHOOL E MINUTES FOR TRANSITIONS AND LUNCH

Block Schedule Days (Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays)

Classes convene

with 25-minute

Home-

room

Transition to Block 1

Break and Transition to Block 2

Transition to Lunch

Lunch

Transition to Block 3

Classes conclude

7:50 a.m.-8:15 a.m.

8:15 a.m.-

8:18 a.m.

9:48 a.m.-10:09 a.m.

11:39 a.m.-

11:42 p.m.

11:42 a.m.- 12:57 p.m.

12:57 p.m.- 1:00 p.m.

2:25

p.m.

 

3 minutes

21 minutes

3 minutes

75 minutes

3 minutes

 

Traditional Schedule Day (Fridays)

Classes convene

with 6-minute Homeroom

Transi-tion to Period 1

Transi-tion to Period 2

Transi-tion to Period 3

Transi-tion to Lunch

Lunch

Transi- tion to Period 5

Transi- tion to Period 6

Transi-tion to Period 7

Classes con-clude

7:45 a.m.

7:51 a.m.-

7:54 a.m.

8:48 a.m.-

8:51 a.m.

9:45 a.m.-

9:48 a.m.

10:42 a.m.- 10:45 a.m.

10:45 a.m. - 11:39 a.m.

11:39 a.m.-

11:42  a.m.

12:36 p.m.- 12:39 p.m.

1:33 p.m.-

1:36 p.m.

2:25 p.m.

 

3 min

3 min

3 min

3 min

54 min

3 min

3 min

3 min

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The table shows that 105 minutes per day are used for transitions, a morning break, and lunch on the block days, and 75 minutes per day are used for transitions and lunch on Fridays. In a week’s time, 495 minutes are used for transitions, breaks, and lunch. Thus, of the 1980 minutes of the school week, students spend 1485 minutes in class each week.

A compilation of the five schools is shown in the table below.

 

TIME IN CLASS BASED ON BELL SCHEDULES

School

Opening Bell

Closing Bell

Total # of minutes

per week

# of minutes out of class (lunch/breaks/ transitions)

# of minutes in class (time available for instruction)

SCHOOL A

7:55

3:15

2200

375

1825

SCHOOL B

7:55

3:15

2200

375

1825

SCHOOL C

7:45

2:25

2000

330

1670

SCHOOL D

7:35 (M,R,F)

7:30

(T, W)

2:20

(M,R,F)

2:25

(T,W)

2025

350

1675

SCHOOL E

7:50

(M-R)

7:45

(F)

2:25

(All days)

1980

495

1485

 

The table shows that students in the two high schools (SCHOOL A and SCHOOL B) are in class 83.0 percent of the school day. Likewise, SCHOOL C students are in class 83.5 percent of the school day and SCHOOL D students are in class 82.7 percent. In contrast, the SCHOOL E students are in class only 75 percent of the school day. This large difference is caused by the 75-minute lunch period (which, in actuality, is 81 minutes with the before and after transitions) as well as the 21-minute morning break on the block days. SCHOOL E’s school day is also shorter.

Comparison of Actual Schedules with Hypothetical Traditional Schedules

The researcher also compared the actual in-class time for each school with the amount of time that would be spent in class if the schools converted to a traditional schedule and kept the same number of minutes for transitions and lunch. Since the two high schools do not have traditional schedules on any day, the researcher created seven-class hypothetical ones keeping the transition times at five minutes and the lunch (including one transition) at 60 minutes. They are shown below.

 

Hypothetical Traditional Schedules for the Two High Schools

SCHOOL A

Classes convene

 

Transition to

Period 2

Transition to

Period 3

Transition to

 Lunch

Lunch (including transition to

Period 5)

Transition to

Period 6

Transition to

Period 7

Classes conclude

7:55 a.m.

5

minutes

5

minutes

5

minutes

60

minutes

5 minutes

5

minutes

3:15

p.m.

440 minutes per day; 85 minutes per day for transitions/lunch

2200 minutes per week – 425 minutes for transitions/lunch = 1775 minutes in class per week

 

SCHOOL B

Classes convene

 

Transition to

Period 2

Transition to

Period 3

Lunch (including transition from Period 3 to lunch)

Transition to

Period 5

Transition to

Period 6

Transition to

Period 7

Classes conclude

7:55 a.m.

5 minutes

5 minutes

60 minutes

5 minutes

5 minutes

5 minutes

3:15 p.m.

440 minutes per day; 85 minutes for transitions/lunch

2200 minutes per week – 425 minutes for transitions/lunch = 1775 minutes in class per week

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The table reveals that both high schools would have 50 fewer minutes per week in class if they converted to a traditional schedule, and students would complete seven, not eight, classes during the year.

Because each of the three junior high schools does use a traditional schedule at least one day per week, the researcher did a comparison of the minutes per week spent in class if the traditional schedule was followed all five days. That table follows.

 

TRADITIONAL SCHEDULES FOR THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOLS

(Stats done on Hypothetical 5-Day Implementation)

SCHOOL C

Classes convene

Transition to

Period 2

Transition to

Period 3

Lunch (including transition from Period 3)

Transition to

Period 5

Transition

to

Period 6

Transition to

Period 7

Classes conclude

7:45

3 minutes

3 minutes

45 minutes

3 minutes

3 minutes

3 minutes

2:25 p.m.

400 minutes per day; 60 minutes per day for transitions/lunch

2000 minutes per week – 300 minutes for transitions/lunch  = 1700 minutes in class per week

 

SCHOOL D

Classes convene

(Period 1 includes homeroom)

Transition to

Period 2

Transition to

Period 3

Transition to

Period 4

Lunch (including transition from Period 4)

Transition

to Period 6

Transition to Period 7

Classes conclude

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

7:35 a.m.

3 minutes

3 minutes

3 minutes

55 minutes

3 minutes

3 minutes

2:20 p.m.

405 minutes per day; 70 minutes per day for transitions/lunch

2025 minutes per week – 350 minutes for transitions/lunch  = 1675 minutes in class per week


 

SCHOOL E

Classes convene

with 6-minute Homeroom

Transi-tion to Period 1

Transi-tion to Period 2

Transi-tion to Period 3

Transi-tion to Lunch

Lunch

Transi- tion to Period 5

Transi- tion to Period 6

Transi-tion to Period 7

Classes con-clude

7:45 a.m.

3 min

3 min

3 min

3 min

54 min

3 min

3 min

3 min

2:25 p.m.

400 minutes per day; 75 minutes per day for transitions/lunch

2000 minutes per week – 375 minutes for transitions/lunch  = 1625 minutes in class per week

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The table shows that the number of minutes SCHOOL C students would be in class would increase from 1670 minutes per week (with the current block schedule) to 1700 minutes using a totally traditional schedule. The number of in-class minutes for SCHOOL D would remain exactly the same. At SCHOOL E, the number of in-class minutes would increase from 1485 (using the current four-day block) to 1625 using a traditional schedule.

According to Queen (2000), block scheduling has been accused of reducing total instructional time. He, however, disputes this claim because he feels that since block-scheduled classes meet half as many times, the amount of time used for the housekeeping activities (i.e. attendance, collection of homework, announcements) is reduced by half. The researcher interviewed the principals of the five schools on St. Croix for further insight. The principal of SCHOOL A stated that usually about ten minutes was used for housekeeping duties (i.e. roll-taking, collecting homework, passing out materials) at the beginning of each class period and another five minutes was used for exit activities (i.e. assigning homework, reminding students of ongoing projects, giving directions concerning upcoming events). Using Queen's argument and the principal’s approximate time suggestions, the researcher calculated the amount of probable instruction time using the two schedules. Since homerooms can be either housekeeping or instructional in nature, ones lasting less than 15 minutes (10 minutes for housekeeping; five minutes for exit duties) are counted only as non-instructional time. Ones lasting more than 15 minutes are counted in the same manner as other classes. The results are shown in the following table.

 

COMPARISON OF ESTIMATED AMOUNT OF INSTRUCTIONAL TIME USING CURRENT SCHEDULES AND HYPOTHETICAL TRADITIONAL SCHEUDLES

 

SCHOOL A

SCHOOL B

SCHOOL C

SCHOOL D

SCHOOL E

Number of Minutes of In-class Time Per Week

Using Current Block Schedule

1825

1825

1670

1675

1485

Number of Classes Per Week

Using Current Block Schedule

20

20

24

30

18

Approximate Number of Minutes Used for Housekeeping/Exit Activities Per Week

(15 minutes x number of classes)

Using Current Block Schedule

300

300

360

450

270

Calculated Number of Minutes of Actual Instruction Time Per Week Using the Current Block Schedule

1525

1525

1310

1225

1215

 

Number of Minutes of In-class Time Per Week

Using Hypothetical Traditional Schedule

1775

1775

1700

1675

1625

Number of Classes Per Week

Using Hypothetical Traditional Schedule

30

30

30

30

30

Approximate Number of Minutes Used for

Housekeeping/Exit Activities Per Week

(15 minutes x number of classes)

Using Hypothetical Traditional Schedule

450

450

450

450

450

Calculated Number of Minutes of Actual Instruction Time Per Week Using Hypothetical Traditional Schedule

1325

1325

1250

1225

1175

 

The table reveals that in four of the five schools, the amount of time that is estimated to be available for actual instruction is greater in a block schedule. In the fifth school, SCHOOL D, the amount of instructional time stays the same (because under the current block system every class meets every day albeit for longer and shorter periods on the block days).

There is more instructional time available using the block schedule for four of the schools, and one school would have exactly the same number of minutes. SCHOOLS A and B (the high schools) would show the greatest decrease in instructional time if they converted back to a traditional schedule. Using the block schedule, they have 200 extra minutes per week of probable instructional time. Using the block schedule, one junior high, SCHOOL C, has 60 extra minutes per week and SCHOOL E, the other large junior high, has 40 extra minutes. SCHOOL D, in which students meet in every class every day, even on the block days, would have no change.

Conclusion

Overall, the researcher has to conclude that block scheduling increases, or in the one case, does not decrease, the amount of time available for instruction in the five schools she analyzed. With the 4X4 block, over three hours per week is gained. With the four-day modified block, 40 minutes per week are gained. With one version of the two-day modified block, 60 minutes are gained. With the other version of the two-day modified block, no change was shown.

Thus, going back to the claim of the original report of the National Commission on Time and Learning (1994) that block scheduling was a means of promoting student learning, the researcher concurs, but conditionally. It is the other declaration in that report, concerning the effective use of instructional time, that obviously promotes student learning. Block scheduling though does at least provide the teacher with more minutes available for effective use.

 

References and/or complementary bibliography

Adams, D., & Salvaterra, M. (1997). Structural and teacher changes: Necessities for successful block scheduling. High School Journal, 81, 98-106.

Canady, R.L., & Rettig, M.D. (1995). Block scheduling: A catalyst for change in high schools. Princeton, NJ: Eye on Education.

DiBiase, W.J., & Queen, A. (1999). Middle school social studies on the block. The Clearing House, 72, 377-384.

National Commission on Time and Learning. (1994). Prisoners of time. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Education.

National Middle School Association. (1996). NMSA research summary #2: Flexible scheduling. Waterfield, OH.

Queen, J.A. (November 2000). Block scheduling revisited. Phi Delta Kappan, 214-222.

Rikard, G.L., & Banville, D. (2005). High school physical education teacher perceptions of block scheduling. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press.

Walker, G. (2000). The effect of block scheduling on mathematics achievement in high and low SES secondary schools. Ph.D. dis., University of Kansas.

 

 


The concept of good governance
as a practical guide in education for public administration

Linea Partners, Gouda, the Netherlands

BAZN, Academy for Public Administration, the Netherlands

Open University, the Netherlands

r.paulussen@lineapartners.nl

 

Introduction

The concept of ‘good governance’ is on the run. Recent global and national developments make the concept nice to use, for example when we speak of the (changing or disappearing) boundaries between the public and private sector, the integrity of organization, politics and private sector companies. These developments make it obvious that questions of accountability, integrity, control and steering are relevant. More fundamentally, the concept of good governance seems to be an ambitious answer to what Castells states when he writes about the negative consequences of globalization.[45] Facing the disappearing of government control and welfare state and the rise of global organized crime, good governance implies an ambition to re-examine what values we think are important in our (local) society and to translate them in the way we control and manage organizations in the public and private sector.

Although challenging and relevant, the concept is too diffuse and broad to use it in a more practical and ambitious way. The aim of this article is to explore the concept of good governance in a way we can use it as a practical guide in reforming public sector and the political arena[46]. The focus of this article is therefore not limited to the concept of good governance in developing countries, but it reaches also the practice of governing in Western countries. Further on, we will explore good governance by looking at two key elements, namely democracy in practice and accountability.[47]

We will end this article with a reflection on the meaning of good governance for educational programmes in the science of public administration. The conclusions we shall draw will be somewhat of a questionnaire kind: it will provide the focus for further research and practical experiences.

Good governance and democracy

Democracy in practice: making concrete policy choices leading to balancing arguments and political choice

On the global (political) scale, ‘democracy’ sometimes seems to be a formal system of representatives which is an export product that has to be sold throughout the world, disregarding the possible advantages of other formal systems of governance. When I use the concept of ‘democracy’ in relation to the concept of good governance I mean the actual amount of influence that civilians and organizations have on concrete policy choices leading to balancing arguments and political choice.[48] This definition has therefore not much to do with the actual institutional and formal setting of governance. For instance, you can have formally appointed representatives that spend a lot of time discussion and gathering, but not in a way that leads to decision making.

 

Good governance in a democratic perspective: making clear political choices based on contradictory interests in society

Democracy in practice has a lot to do with politicians knowing what happens in society and translating this into political choices placed on the political agenda. ‘Knowing what happens in society’ is not always the case when we look at concrete political decision making processes. I remember a representative in a local city council saying to me: ‘we don’t have to make political choices in our city, everybody agrees on important issues like for instance youth policy and zone planning’. My reaction was a question: ‘If that’s really the case, then you could say we don’t need a city council, local politicians and debate.’ Further inquiries on the examples revealed many political choices and the awareness on the part of the representative that until now it has not been him who had made political decisions, but civil servants. After this conversation he agreed on the argument that in the future civil servants better suggest what political decisions can be made, based on a clear insight of what happens in society (problems) and an overview of related contradictory interests.

Besides knowing what contradictory interests there are in society, democracy in practice has to lead to balancing arguments and interests. For instance, in the state of California a system of direct democracy is introduced by impeachment. This leads to many proposals that suggest further decrease of tax rates and other proposals to increase the budget for public services and policy. As a result of not making any political choice based on the scarcity of means, the State of California is bankrupted. Although formally a democratic system, the system in practice seems undemocratic: there is no balancing and real decision making in the political arena.

 

When we look at actual democracies, we see that formally democratically constituted arenas are not necessarily democratic in practice. It is the concrete decision making process that we will have to study to say something about how democratic practice is. Relevant questions are, for instance: Have groups of civilians that have an interest in youth policy been heard? Was there a concrete question relating to one or more recognizable societal problems at the heart of an open debate and did the political arena really make a choice? Or were they satisfied with saying, for instance, that ‘the youth are the future and they must be the objective of the policies that we want our civil servants to work out’?

The relevance of looking at democracy in practice for the concept of good governance is an argument against those who argue exclusively in terms of ‘running government like businesses.’ Many policy objectives in the public sector are surrounded by conflicting interests in society. This means that the quality of democratic practices, debate, and decision-making take on great importance in regard to the concept of good governance. Neglecting this perspective by, for instance, only looking at internal checks and balances, managerial quality, or customer satisfaction narrows our view of what is good and bad in governance concerning government. The process of balancing arguments and the use of knowledge in political debate are important measurements.

Good governance and accountability

Accountability in practice: internalizing accountability in day-to-day work

Besides democracy in practice, I will also pay some attention to ‘accountability’ as a key element of good governance. Already with the introduction of New Public Management (NPM), ever since the 80s, accountability has become an important phenomenon and a central concept in reforming government. Most authors on good governance use accountability as a central concept of governance; still, some remarks, taken from important lessons learned by implementing elements of NPM, are now in place.

Important to me seems the lesson that accountability, by creating formal systems, procedures, and organizational structures, has only a small effect. Controllers, managers, and politicians in many governmental organizations have constructed an imposing system that should ensure politicians and the public that employees in governmental organizations are accountable for their efforts in formulating and implementing policy; for instance, concerning the construction of planning and control cycles, new organizational structures, and systems of time-writing by civil servants. The constructers of these systems and structures and the controllers of those systems have only partially reached more – and in many cases even less – accountability in their organization.[49] Some important negative side effects of reforming government with NPM in mind can be the cause. For instance, the different worlds of, on the one hand, speaking/writing in terms of the formal system of planning and control towards politicians and managers and, on the other hand, of acting in terms of what should be done considering reality on the work floor.[50] Another example is the single-sided attention for quantitative measurements of policy objectives. In many cases, reaching quantitative objectives does not contribute to a solution of what the public originally thought as being a problem. Reaction of management tends to be refining and examining the system, and again more efforts in controlling and steering the organization by new additional rules, structures and procedures. This results in an overload of formal instruments and rules that have no real value for those who are supposed to be implementing policy, which leaves managers surprised that again reorganization has not met its objectives.[51]

Many authors suggest another approach that I – in the same line as when we spoke of democracy – refer to as ‘accountability in practice.’ Instead of a single formal approach to asking how accountability is embedded and carried out in an organization, managers and researchers should look more to what actually happens in the organization, how efforts to organize accountability fit the reality of the work floor, and how ideas of accountability can be internalized by the members of the organization.[52] This means that civil servants will consider it an important value to be explicit about the quantitative and qualitative objectives of policy. Stimulating the political arena to make political choices (as described in the first section) also contributes to being explicit about objectives because an important cause of the existence of vague policy objectives is the absence of political choice. For instance, a policy objective like ‘our local community must be a safe harbour for all civilians’ is vague and there will not be disagreement in society or even in the political arena on this ‘beautiful’ statement. Consequently, politicians and civil servants are not accountable for its implementation. It would be better to choose between different ideas and interests in society. Does a majority of representatives choose for surveillance-cameras or does the majority feel that this will have too much impact on privacy (‘big brother is watching you’)? These difficult decisions render the policymakers accountable for their efforts.

The use of the normative framework in education

In table 1 I summarize the indicators of good governance that we have described in the previous sections. In this one, I will offer some reflections on the meaning of these indicators for educational programmes for Public Administration. These reflections are still very limited and superficial; further comments on this paper will be used to work them out.

 

Good (government) governance

 

Characteristics

Indicators / criteria

Democracy

An actual amount of influence civilians / societal organizations / ngo’s have on concrete policy choices

 

Making actual political choices by balancing arguments based on contradictionary interests in society

 

Use of knowledge in political debate

 

 

Accountability

Formal systems of accountability more or less fits the reality of the work floor

 

Internalization of accountability by civil servants and politicians

 

Practice of analyzing the political dimension in societal problems

Traditionally, educational programmes relevant for Public Administration (such as law, economics, environmental studies, etc.) concentrate on a law or cost-effectiveness orientation. Professionalism is taught by working with students on analyzing societal problems by following a certain discipline. For instance, considering a new road, the engineer learns what the shortest route between A and B is and the student in environmental studies calculates and chooses the route with the lowest environmental costs. Those analyses are mainly the basic ingredients for advice (do this, or do that). Our section on democracy in practice shows that another orientation is needed. Instead of single-sided advice, good governance includes civil servants that can reveal the political dimension within a societal problem. What are the interests in society and what political choices can be made? This perspective for the analysis of societal problems should be an important ingredient in education for Public Administration.

 

Example: tourism-tax in St. Maarten

In the classroom there were civil servants of different bureaus arguing how tourism should be considered. Should there be taxes for each tourist visiting the Island or not? Arguments were many: ‘it will harm our economy’, or ‘tourism has also negative side effects for which we cannot pay’. We came to the conclusion that the advice of civil servants to politicians on this matter was contradictory and based on different views of different problems. The lecturer asked questions about the precise interests present in society and whether the overview was produced for political decision making before a decision was made—which was not the case.

Everyone concluded that it should not be the debate between civil servants that should lead to a certain decision, but the debate between politicians based on the overview mentioned. And the challenge for civil servants should be to facilitate the decision making process so that politicians be able to use as much relevant knowledge as possible for carefully balancing different interests in society. For most civil servants this was a complete new orientation on their day-to-day practice in advising the political arena.

 

Involvement of politicians

Educational programs aiming at better advice towards the political arena have more success when participants are able to see the other point of view, namely that of politicians. In many educational programmes, politicians and civil servants point their fingers to each other when they are explaining worst-practice in political decision. Institutional boundaries within organizations stimulate this practice of pointing fingers. Educational programmes where representatives of the political arena are involved can break through this mechanism. Understanding each other’s position can be the start of clear thinking about better preparation for political decision-making.

Empowerment and professionalism of civil servants

In many educational programmes, civil servants tend to consider themselves as a victim of their political leaders[53]. Despite their hard work and good arguments, they will find that politicians do not follow their advice. In some cases, the reaction of civil servants is advising exactly what a (political) decision-maker wants to hear. Or worse: an attitude of waiting until the political arena gives them a clear idea of what their advice should be.

In educational programmes, we must pay attention to the professionalism of the advisor: he or she has a fundamentally different role from the (political) decision-maker. Deciding not to follow a piece of advice is as legitimate as deciding to follow it. And taking the freedom to advise to do or not do something contrary to the intention of a decision-maker contributes to good governance. This does not harm the loyalty of a civil servant. Once a decision is made, civil servants can show their loyalty by implementing a decision they would not have made.

Organizing criticism and ideas

Within the normal setting of organization much remains unspoken of. Creating a ‘safe’ environment in the education program (‘nothing you say can and will be used against you’) makes it possible for people to critique the formal system of accountability and, at the same time, develop ideas on how to change the formal system fitting the individual rationality of participants in the programme. Where Aardema (2002) suggests a participative method of doing research, working in educational programmes for Public Administration are also good instruments for knowing what really happens within the organization.

Remaining questions

In this paper I have tried to bring out the relevance of a political orientation in civil servants, thus making the concept of good governance a bit more practical. Therefore, I have presented a normative framework which, if employed, —I believe— could contribute to good governance.

Further research and practical experiences are needed to find more relevant ingredients for educational programmes for Public Administration. Until then, I think the next pertinent questions are important:

·        How can we build a (better) bridge between participants having gained the knowledge about the quality of decision making processes and a lack of knowledge seen in the rest of the organization / political arena?

·        What specific features in educational programmes contribute to critical thinking about the formal system of accountability among civil servants?

·        What specific features in educational programmes contribute to more creative thinking about how to improve the formal system of accountability and the day-to-day reality of (not) being accountable for concrete policy choices?

 

References and/or complementary bibliography

Aardema, H. (2002). Bedrijfsmatige schijnbewegingen, over BBI, verstaffing en waarde-interactionisme. Leusden.

Bossert, J. (2003). Public Governance, Leidraad voor goed bestuur en management. Publication of Universiteit Nijenrode.

Behn, R.D. (2001). Rethinking Democratic Accountability. Brookings Institution Press.

Castells, M. (1997). The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture, Volume II: The Power of Identity. Blackwell Publishers.

Farnetti, F. & T. Bestebreur (2004). Accountability in local governments: trends, initiatives and effects of the implementation of result-oriented accounting, Paper presented at the Annual conference of the European Group of Public Administration, Ljubljana, Slovenia 1-4 September.

Kluvers (2003). Accountability for Performance in Local Government, Australian Journal of Public Administration, 62, 1, pp. 57-69.

Pröpper, I.M.A.M. & Paulussen, R.J.F.  (2004). Dualisme is ingevoerd maar nog geen praktijk, in: Openbaar bestuur (maart).

Pröpper, I.M.A.M., Paulussen, R.J.F. & Steenbeek, D. (2003). Dualisme: een kwestie van doen, eindrapportage Project Duale Provincies. IPO-publicatie, Den Haag.

Wilson, J.Q. (1989). What Government  Agencies Do And Why They Do It. Basic Books.

 

 


Social and Emotional Learning:
Is it the missing piece in our schools?

Caribbean Institute For Research and Professional Education, Ltd., Trinidad and Tobago. 

joyfulplace@yahoo.com

 

Introduction

The education system in the Caribbean is no exception in the global education reform trend. Rising violence in the schools, decreasing motivation of students, delinquency, teacher burn-out are all common issues. Like other parts of the world, the Caribbean countries have been seeking solutions to these problems. These solutions have included changes in the curriculum, improving pedagogical strategies, etc. One piece that is still not receiving enough attention is Social and Emotional Learning (SEL), or what Maurice Elias refers to as the “missing piece” in educational change.

Education is no longer only about the academics and cognitive skills. Social and Emotional Learning skills are becoming as integral a part of education as cognitive skills. Teachers are being asked to create safe environments for learning and to teach SEL skills. However, in order to teach these skills and create this safe environment teachers themselves must have been taught these skills, have had opportunities to practise these skills and have a certain level of attention and emotional well-being themselves.

The majority of teachers in our classrooms have been out of school for more than fifteen years. As students therefore they were not taught SEL skills. Emphasis in our education system was heavily on the academic subjects and training for examinations, such as the Common Entrance, (recently re-named the Secondary Entrance Assessment, SEA in Trinidad and Tobago), School Leaving, G.C.E., CXC, CAPE. As the saying goes, ‘you can’t teach what you didn’t learn”. Therefore before the teacher enters the classroom he should:

This paper looks at the state of SEL in Trinidad and Tobago schools in two main areas a) the emotional well-being and needs of teachers and its effect on their teaching, and b) their preparedness for teaching SEL skills, with the aim of highlighting the need for including SEL in our teaching training programmes.

The development of SEL

Paying attention to the affective domain in education is not a new concept. What may be more recent is the use of the terms Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) Emotional Intelligence and their importance in teaching and learning.

In the 1930s Robert Thorndike wrote about “social intelligence”. He defined it as “the ability to understand and manage men and women, boys and girls- to act wisely in human relations”. (Kaufhold and Johnson, 2005). The concept of social intelligence developed through many phases over the years- through the 1980s with Howard Gardner’s interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligences as part of his theory of Multiple Intelligences. The term “emotional intelligence” was first introduced in the 1990s by Mayer and Salovey. The concept was popularized in Daniel Goleman’s book, “Emotional Intelligence. Why it matters more than IQ”, published in 1995.

Along with this development in the significance of emotional intelligence in the classroom came a greater awareness of the concept of emotions and the role they play in teaching and learning. Hargreaves (1998) states that “emotions are at the heart of teaching”. And Slywester (1995. Quoted in Kovalik and Olsen, 1998) says “emotion drives attention and attention drives learning and memory”. Several reports emphasised the importance of SEL activities in the classroom. (Elias et al, 1997, Payton et al ,2000, Sylwester,1994.). Frey (1999) makes a strong case for SEL’s place in the classroom and presents research to substantiate the following points:

Educational reform efforts have since been heading in the direction of including SEL skills as a very crucial part of the school curriculum. To date there are hundreds of effective programmes designed to teach SEL skills at all levels in the classroom. The Collaborative for the Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (www.casel.org) conducted an extensive review of eighty available programmes in the US and presents guidelines for choosing the most appropriate programme to suit educational needs.

Teachers’ emotional needs

One of the challenges faced by teachers in trying to incorporate SEL into their daily teaching is the feeling of added responsibility and work load. Teachers are already suffering from stress and burn out caused by several common factors. There is additional pressure on teachers to cope with situations that previously were not a routine part of a teacher’s daily life. In addition to the demands in increased academic performance by students, there seems to be an increase in the need for special education services in the general classroom. Teachers are also being called upon to manage more and more behavioural issues in the school. Lack of parental support and responsibility for addressing the ills in society add to the burden of responsibility on teachers.

One hundred percent of the teachers surveyed in this pilot study indicated that they felt stressed (mildly or very) at some time. Only one teacher was not aware of his emotional needs. The most common factors cited as causing stress in the classroom were disruptive students and levels of indiscipline .High levels of noise, difficult parents and unsupportive administrators also appear  to be stress causing. In addition to the stress at school, family responsibilities (household chores, parenting, and maintaining marital harmony) were common additional stressors.

These stressors are having serious effects on teachers including lack of motivation, absenteeism, illness, aggressive behaviour. This was expressed in the following comments:

“ I am not able to prepare my work to the standards I have set for myself as an educator which sometimes leads to feelings of guilt”

“Sometimes I neglect to plan lessons properly”.

“Sometimes I may unfairly vent my frustration on my students”.

“It has caused me to become seriously ill at times”.

“Often don’t feel to work; feel demoralised and burnt out”.

The effects of the stress are also experienced in their personal life:

“I do not have a personal life that I enjoy”.

“I often feel sad, lonely and alone”.

“It puts me in a rut”.

“That has been put on hold. I can’t seem to find time to enjoy myself for a long time”.

 How do teachers deal with their stress?  They talk with a friend (50%) or read books (50 %). Twenty five percent said they had a programme in place but this was not investigated further to determine the type of programmes, the effectiveness etc.

 There is the issue of emotional well-being of teachers to be addressed before they are asked to include SEL in their training and teaching. The issue is more than about stress in the classroom-: it is about preparing the teacher for the emotional demands in the classroom; how to respond to and cope with the emotional needs of the students; how these demands affect the teacher’s own emotional well-being and what is in place for teachers to maintain their own emotional well-being.

Teaching social and emotional skills

In order for SEL to be effective in the classroom, the focus cannot only be on the student. The teacher’s emotional well-being must also be taken into account. Weare (2002) working on a project entitled ‘What works in relation to promoting children’s social and emotional competence’ finds that “one of the strongest themes emerging from our investigation is that it is not sensible to focus only on the students themselves; work on emotional and social competence needs also to focus on teachers and carers if it is to be successful”. She also reports that “large scale reviews of research have consistently shown that approaches to emotional and social competence which include staff development and education are more likely to have an impact on pupil behaviour than those that focus only on the students”.

The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (USA) recommend as one of the standards for teaching competencies: “The teacher is an empathetic person who understands the feelings of students and responds appropriately to those feelings”. (Olson & Wyett, 2000). Training teachers for SEL is therefore necessary, since as Olson & Wyett (2000) state, “it should not be taken for granted that teachers have the affective competencies necessary for good teaching”.

Self-concept of students is one of the priorities of SEL skills, so too should self-concept of teachers be a priority. The increasing emotional demands on teachers and the resulting stress are eroding the self-concept of teachers. LoVette (1997) proposes that educational reform efforts should change the focus to the self-concept of teachers, since “in order to build positive self-concept in others, one must possess this attribute”. He also advocates for “teacher training institutions to give special emphasis to preparing new teachers who can provide positive learning environments for children, while focusing on the esteem needs of future teachers”.

Teacher training has to include not just how to teach SEL skills to students, but perhaps more importantly pre-service and on-going programmes for teachers to develop and maintain their own social and emotional well-being. Elias, in an interview with the George Lucas Educational Foundation (2005) remarks that it is a “mystery why it is not part of what teachers have to get before they go into the classroom”. He contends that a major reason why teachers leave teaching is because they don’t know how to manage the social and emotional needs of the students. Elias et al. (1997) reported that administrators they had talked to expressed a need for better pre-service training for teachers in the SEL. According to the administrators, “most teachers have received neither systematic training in these skills when they were students themselves nor extensive training in these methods in their teacher preparation program”.

The results of this pilot study indicate this need for training of our teachers. Eighty five percent (85%) of the teachers have been teaching for more than ten years and fifty percent (50%) have a Teachers’ Diploma. Yet only thirteen percent (13%) have indicated some training in SEL- one had more than 30 contact hours, one less than thirty contact hours, two attended 2-day workshops. Thirty three percent (33%) said that they had learned about SEL by reading books.

Despite the lack of training, sixty percent (60%) are teaching SEL in their classrooms, with fifty percent (50%) incorporating it into their daily activities. One of the most interesting results was that forty percent (40%) of those who are teaching SEL answered that they had heard about SEL but were not sure what it means. Further, fifty two percent (52%) of the respondents were confident of their competence in teaching SEL. One said that she was very confident but had also answered that she had heard about SEL but was not sure what it meant.

In the absence of structured training as a teacher of SEL, the learning opportunities offered by Life Skills and associated programmes can be an asset in teaching SEL. However, only thirty six percent (36%) have attended Life Skills/ Morals and Ethics/ Health and Family Life classes in secondary school where they may have been exposed to some aspects of SEL.

Conclusions and reccommendations

The progress of including SEL in the classroom in many education systems and the results of this pilot study lead to the following conclusions and implications for improving teacher training in the Caribbean.

  1. The teachers in our education system suffer appreciable levels of stress not only in the classroom, but also in their personal lives and have not had the resources to deal adequately with their own emotional needs.
  2. Teachers in our education system have not been exposed to enough teaching in areas such as Life Skills, Morals and Ethics, Health and Family Life in order to be able to teach these in the classroom.
  3. Teachers’ understanding of the term SEL and how to incorporate it into the curriculum and their daily teaching is woefully inadequate. There is a danger of them thinking that they are doing it without adequate training.
  4. There is an urgent need to examine the teacher training programmes to ensure that SEL is fully included in the programme. There needs to be a full semester course on SEL in addition to a practical course of application. This must be followed by on-going professional development through-out the teacher’s life.
  5. The development of teachers in SEL training takes time, more than one year and on-going support and training. There is a great learning curve to be accomplished. And we must be patient as the effects of successful implementation of SEL in our schools may not be completely obvious for another 5- 10 years.

Further research

Teacher training is an on-going process. So too is educational reform. These must keep up with the technological and other advances in the society. Research must be continuous to provide awareness of how emotional stress affects teaching and how teachers are dealing with their stress. There is additional work to be done to improve teachers’ understanding of the connection between emotions and teaching, and to ensure that Social and Emotional Learning is at all times effectively included in the curriculum.

 

References and/or complementary bibliography

Elias, M.J. et al. (1997). Promoting Social and Emotional learning. Guidelines for Educators. ASCD Alexandria. Va.

Elias, M.J. et al (1997). How to launch a Social and Emotional Learning Programme. Educational Leadership. Vol. 54. pp.15-19

Frey, K. (1999). Social and Emotional Learning: A foundation for academic success. Committee for Children Prevention Update. 1-3.

George Lucas Educational Foundation (2005). Maurice Elias on Emotional Intelligence and the Family.  An Interview. World Wide Web http://www.edutopia.org/php/interview.php?id=Art_701

Hargreaves, A. (1998). The emotional practice of teaching.  Teaching and Teacher Education. Vol.14. pp.835-854.

Kaufhold, J.A. & Johnson, L.R. (2005). The analysis of emotional intelligence skills and potential problem areas of elementary educators. Education. Vol. 125. pp.615-627.

Kovalik, S. & Olson, K.D. (1998). How emotions run us, our Students, and our classrooms. NASSP Bulletin. Vol. 82. pp.29-37.

LoVette, O.K. (1997). To achieve social reform education leaders must focus on teacher self-concept. Education. Vol. 118. pp.303-307.

Olson, C.O. & Wyett. J.L. (2000). Teachers need affective competencies. Education. Vol.120. pp.741-744.

Payton, J.W. et al (2000). Social and Emotional learning: A framework for promoting mental health and reducing risk behaviour in children and youth. Journal of School health. Vol. 70.  p.179.

Slywester, R. (1994). How emotions affect learning. Educational leadership. Vol. 52. pp.60-65.

Weare, K. (2002). Don’t shoot the piano player: Why we need to do more to promote the mental health and emotional and social competence of teachers. Health Education. Vol. 102. pp. 269-270.

 


 


Understanding Linguistic Diversity in Caribbean Classrooms:
Ethnographic Methods for Teachers

Christopher Newport University, USA

peter.snow@cnu.edu

 

Children’s intellectual development cannot be understood without reference to the social milieu in which the children are embedded.

 

 

Turtle Haul, Old Bank, Panama

 

I.  Introduction

Early in the morning, in the pre-dawn darkness, you can hear the outboard motors starting up. Punctuated by shouts and barking dogs and the occasional burst of laughter, the boats slowly cross the cove. The sound of the motors fades as the boats head out and around the point through the breaking waves and towards the open sea. When the boats return they are running low in the water. The men tie up at docks around the cove where they are met by groups of young boys and the same barking dogs.  The men heave the turtles up onto the dock and flip them over in one fluid motion.  Ropes are attached behind the turtles’ flapping fins and the boys help the men drag them down the dock and through the yards to a shady place where they can be butchered.  As word gets out that the men have returned, women and girls with buckets and basins make their way to the mango tree where machetes are used to carve up the meat.  A scale is hung from a branch and the turtles’ innards are weighed out and sold.  Soon, the only thing that remains of the turtles are the shells and even these are stripped clean by the dogs before getting tossed back into the sea.

II. What are Ethnographic Methods?

Duranti (1997: 84-85) defines ethnographic methods as data-collection techniques and analytical procedures utilized by anthropologists to document and describe the social organization, symbolic and material resources, and interpretive practices characteristic of a particular group of people. Such a description is typically produced by prolonged and direct participation in the social life of a community and implies two apparently contradictory qualities: (1) an ability to step back and distance oneself from one’s own culturally biased reactions so as to achieve an acceptable degree of ‘objectivity,’ and (2) the propensity to achieve sufficient empathy for the members of the group in order to provide an insider’s (‘emic’) perspective.

The cornerstone of ethnography and the ethnographic method most relevant to the present discussion is participant-observation. Participant-observation refers to a method of data collection that requires researchers to participate in the activities they are observing, to be with others and observe them at the same time. Through community participant-observation, teachers can learn how to think ethnographically - to suspend judgment so that they can 1. learn how to see learning in the actions of participants, 2. acquire insider knowledge of teaching and learning processes in linguistically diverse classrooms, and 3. act in professionally competent ways.

III. What is Activity Theory?

Activity theory is a unit of analysis that enables researchers to analyze and understand interactions, relationships, and goal-driven action.  Activity theory allows researchers to systematically analyze children’s participation in various types of learning activities.

According to Vygotsky (1978), a child’s individual mental functioning develops through experience with cultural tools in joint problem solving with more skilled partners. In addition, cognitive development occurs during - and is situated within - socioculturally organized activities in which children are active in learning and in managing their social partners, and their partners are active in structuring situations that provide children with access to observe and participate in culturally valued skills and perspectives.

According to the apprenticeship model (see Rogoff 1990), children should be viewed as active learners in a community of people who support, challenge, and guide them as they increasingly participate in skilled, valued socio-cultural activity.

The application of activity theory to children’s language socialization experiences both outside of school and in school suggests that some children are socialized outside of school to participate in certain types of learning activities (e.g. apprenticeship learning) using certain language varieties (e.g. Creole) and that the structure of these activities and languages do not match up with school expectations (e.g. rote learning in Spanish).  This mismatch between home socialization activities/language varieties and school socialization activities/language varieties frequently results in failure for these students.

IV. How can educators use ethnographic methods to understand the sociocultural context of language use and cognitive activity?

Old Bank is a Panamanian village on the southwest coast of the island of Bastimentos in the Western Caribbean Sea. The vast majority (perhaps 96 percent) of the approximately 950 residents of Old Bank are Creole English-speaking Afro-Panamanians of West Indian descent. The official national language in Panama is Spanish, however, and all schooling is conducted in Spanish as if it were the children’s first language. Ethnographic observation suggests that the community is diglossic.  In other words, language use in the community is compartmentalized by function/activity and the level of formality/informality of the various activities (see Snow 2000).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table 1. A comparison of language varieties and activities

Activity/Domain                          Language Variety

School (formal)

Spanish

Government (formal)

Spanish

Literacy (formal)

Spanish

Community (informal)

Creole English

Home (informal)

Creole English

 

                  

 

 

 

 

By observing activities ethnographically, it becomes quite clear that in Old Bank children participate in informal/Creole/apprenticeship-learning activities that are valued by the community outside of school and in formal/Spanish/rote-learning activities that are not valued by the community in school.

V. How can educators apply ethnographic understandings of language and learning to classroom activities?

In Old Bank, the home/school mismatch between 1. the structure of learning activities and 2. the language varieties used during learning activities is setting children up for failure.

Teachers can employ ethnographic observation to:

         1. Observe learning activities and language varieties in school and community

         2. Interpret the meaning and value of activities /languages in the lives of their students

         3. Build bridges between communities and classrooms

The cognitive and social benefits of thinking ethnographically include: improved enthusiasm and motivation for schoolwork, increased parental involvement, improved self image (especially for boys), and an increased diversity of opportunities for displaying knowledge and skills.

                                              

References and/or complementary bibliography

Duranti, A. (1997).  Linguistic anthropology.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Rogoff, B.  (1990).  Apprenticeship in thinking.  New York: Oxford University Press.

Snow, P. (2000). The case for diglossia on the Panamanian island of Bastimentos. Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages, 15: 165-169.

Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes, ed. Cole, M., V. John-Steiner, S. Scribner, & E. Souberman. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.


 

 


Decolonizing the Educational System on St. Martin,
or How to Teach Globalization
under the Flamboyant Tree

University of St. Martin, Netherlands Antilles

educonsult@caribserve.net

 

I'm just a red nigger who love the sea,
I had a sound colonial education
I have Dutch, nigger, and English in me,
and either I'm nobody, or I'm a nation.

Derek Walcott, The Schooner Flight

 

Introduction

Education has a dual function. Throughout history its purpose has been, and still is today, to help maintain the status quo. At the same time the liberating function of education has been acknowledged by many. In her book “Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice to Freedom” (1994), bell hooks speaks of what I personally consider the ideal rationale for education: a liberating praxis that encourages learners to challenge and change the world, instead of uncritically adapt themselves to it. In one of the essays hooks mentions the emphasis placed on education by black people “. . . as necessary for liberation in slavery . . .[54] Though she is speaking about the United States the same applies to the Caribbean. In the Pre-emancipation period many free coloureds as well as their fellow enslaved Africans were looking for education as a means to improve their lives and their status in society. The plantocracy, however, did everything within their power to prevent the enslaved from receiving any kind of education for fear of uprisings and the realisation “that reading provokes thinking and this was dangerous in a slave society.[55]  Liberating the minds of the oppressed by the plantation system would lead to subversion, destabilisation and rebellion.

With the approach of Emancipation many colonial administrations opted for the introduction of some form of education. The British allowed the Moravians and the London Missionary Society (LMS) to establish educational facilities throughout the Lesser Antilles and Guiana since the end of the 18th century. Four years after the abolition of slavery, in 1867, the Dutch introduced compulsory education in Suriname. Deeming its other possessions in the Caribbean region inconsequential, the compulsory aspect was never enforced in “Curaçao and its dependencies”.[56] The Netherlands itself had to wait until 1901 before compulsory education was introduced there. This begs the question as to why the colonial powers deemed it necessary to change their mind about the usefulness of education for the former slave population. Once slavery was abolished it became essential to control the ‘freed’ women and men with new methods. Where before, education had been considered a threat to the plantation system, it was now considered a tool – together with religion – for social stability. From now on racial inferiority would no longer be “proven to the inferior with a whip, but with a textbook.”[57]  Education became an intellectual and ideological control mechanism aimed at educating people into dependency, glorifying the superior status of white culture. It created “white wo(men) in black skins”, or “black makamba’s” as they are called on St. Maarten and “roasted breadfruit (black on the outside and white on the inside) in Jamaica.

This paper is an attempt to address the legacy of colonial education on St. Maarten and how it continues to influence – the educator and the educated – by holding “the soul prisoner” (as Ngugi Wa Thiong’o calls the mind control of subjugated peoples). How has it coloured our image of the world? Of ourselves? I say our, because this paper is written from multiple perspectives and identities. As its author I will speak with many different voices: as historian and researcher, as educator, as insider, and as outsider. 

After presenting a short overview of schooling on St. Maarten, its legacy will be analysed in connection to feelings of identity and belonging and I will conclude with some suggestions on how to “emancipate from mental slavery”.

Schooling and education on St. Maarten

By 1841, the Methodist and Catholic Church had established schools on the Windward Islands of St. Maarten, St. Eustatius and Saba. The primary objective was to spread “Christian civilization” and the Dutch language.[58]

In 1850, the first government teacher was sent to St. Maarten. Five years later a private school was opened by the widow Kolff and within a year she had more paying students than the government school. After Emancipation three more government schools were opened on 1 January 1864, in Cul de Sac, Princess Quarter and Simpson Bay. In general school visit was irregular and the level of schooling was considered “primitive” and “abominable”.[59] Knowledge of the Dutch language was rudimentary and colonial officials visiting the island often complained about the lack of it.[60] Being a small nation the Dutch had never been interested in establishing colonial settlements. Their possessions overseas were mainly geared towards trade. On St. Maarten this resulted in the settlement of more British than Dutch nationals, and as a consequence the language of communication was English for both the Dutch and French side. Until 1932, English was the language of instruction and Dutch was taught as a foreign language from form four and up. From 1933 onwards Dutch language classes were introduced in all forms and from the fourth form upward instruction would be mainly in Dutch. In the fourth form new concepts would be introduced in English followed by a Dutch translation. According to Hartog all students would receive one hour of instruction daily in the English language. In all catholic schools religious instruction would be in English only.[61]

Throughout the 19th century the Catholics and Methodists had been vying with each others for members. When St. Maarten came back under Dutch rule after the Napoleonic Era, in 1816, many members of the Catholic Church had gone over to the Methodists.[62] The main reason might have been that the Methodists had already established free education for the children of slaves and the free coloureds. The 3R’s, reading, writing and arithmetic were taught in English. This led to the strange situation that many young slaves could read and write while the majority of white youngsters remained illiterate. According to Hartog most of the Catholics flocked back after Emancipation, because contrary to the practices of the Methodists and Anglicans the Catholics allowed marriages between persons of “unequal skin colour.”[63]  To counteract the growing influence of the Methodists, the Catholic Church felt compelled to send its own missionaries to the Windward Islands. This endeavour became very successful with the arrival of the Dominican Sisters of Voorschoten in May 1890.

Today, at the elementary education level, St. Maarten has five different institutions: Catholic, Methodist, Seven Day Adventists, Christian Reformed and a public one. At secondary level there are three mixed private/public institutions. The fact that the organizational structure of education has been in the hands of both private and public institutions has, according to a UNESCO report of 1976, contributed to “extraordinarily complicated decision-making processes.” The consequence of this situation has also been that “responsibility for making decisions is divided in such a way that no body, governmental or non-governmental, is fully responsible for any sort of school.”[64] 

The legacy of colonial education

Analysing the history of education on St. Maarten it becomes clear that the pattern of pillarisation (verzuiling),[65] which has been a feature of Dutch culture and society throughout the first part of the 20th century, has also become a part of St. Maarten’s educational praxis. Besides the pillarisation of education the Netherlands Antilles has adapted an educational system mirrored on the Dutch system. The combination of the two creates the potentially dangerous situation of a future division into ‘clear-skinned/ good/Dutch/ private’ schools and ‘dark-skinned/bad/English/public’ schools, which division can be witnessed increasingly today in the Netherlands. It needs to be remarked here that the preference by many parents for Dutch language education has its roots in the fact that their children are eligible for study financing when studying in the Netherlands. Furthermore, Dutch tertiary education is not that expensive – yet! – as in the United States.

In following the Dutch educational system, the Netherlands Antilles have adopted streaming into academic and vocational education at an early age. The current innovations in education try to address the negative consequences of this phenomenon. However, one wonders why Dutch development aid is made available for elementary and secondary vocational education, but neither for secondary academic nor tertiary education. Over the past eight years the number of students in secondary vocational education has surpassed those in the academic section. Uncontrolled immigration practices might be credited for this, yet again one speculates about the dominant pedagogical practices. Since tourism is the main industry of St. Maarten are we therefore educating this nation to be the best service station in the world? Do we want ‘drawers of water and hewers of wood” or do we want independent, critical thinkers, ready to challenge the colonial heritage and determined to construct their own future?

Another problematic issue that is part of the colonial legacy is the language question. As indicated before the Dutch language has always been a language imposed from above by the colonizer. The fact that a foreign language functioned and in certain institutions still functions as the medium of instruction has its own problems that have been studied extensively. Instruction in the mother tongue no longer needs to be defended; however, the question for St. Maarten has now become “whose mother tongue?”  I do not want to elaborate here on the advantages and disadvantages of Dutch versus English, or any other language, as language of instruction. I want to look at language as a tool of empowerment or disempowerment and its influence on the formation of identity.

Identity and belonging

In the introduction of “Anti-Colonialism and Education: the Politics of Resistance” (2006) George Sefa Dei asserts that: “Language is very important not only in the process of identity formation, but also in the process of learning and for the psychological, spiritual, mental, and cognitive development of the self. Language is also very central when it comes to notions of exclusions.  . . . Language is the substantive technology through which social exclusion is built around power and hegemony. It operates to silence certain histories, experiences and identities.”[66]        

Back in the 1960s Frantz Fanon argued that “the mastery of language affords remarkable power.[67] If one loses one’s language – or is not encouraged to look upon it as a suitable means of communicating – then one looses a way of life and one’s cultural identity. Much of the cultural, spiritual, and intellectual life of a people is experienced through language. This ranges from prayers, myths, ceremonies, poetry, oratory, and technical vocabulary, to everyday greetings, leave-takings, conversational styles, humor, ways of speaking to children, and unique terms for habits, behavior, and emotions. 

A recent publication by Valdemar Marcha and Paul Verweel – supported by the University of the Netherlands Antilles (UNA) – talks about the ‘culture of fear’ (de cultuur van angst). The subtitle reads “paradoxical chains of fear and silence on Curaçao.” In the introduction ‘culture of fear’ is explained as “lack of self-confidence to function adequately” or “uncertainty about own performance or identity”.[68] Religion, the educational system and historic forces, such as slavery and colonialism, are identified as the main sources for this fear. In their conclusion the authors assert that the fear of not performing well depends on the language that is being used. When speaking Papiamentu instead of Dutch, Curaçaolaneans speak out more and dare to voice their opinions among each other. When confronted with the Dutch, or forced to speak in Dutch they retreat into silence.[69] 

St. Maarten is more solidly rooted and geographically situated in an English-speaking region. Contrary to the Papiamentu language spoken on Curaçao both Dutch and English are originally languages of the colonizer. Although the English on St. Maarten is creolized, and today is still considered “bad or broken English” by many of its speakers, I have never experienced the extent of the “silence and fear” as described by Marcha and Verweel.[70] However, a large percentage of all the persons on St. Maarten, in positions of power and responsibility, have been shaped and fashioned in the image of the colonizer. Although they are bi- and multilingual, their main analytical and conceptual frames of reference are Eurocentric, which makes them subject to the either/or complex. As a matter of fact most of us, trained and educated in Western Europe or North America, are affected by this complex which creates a world of binaries and falsely demarcated boundaries. Because of this, language remains a tool of power. But also a tool of exclusion or “duality of existence” as expressed by Austin Clarke in Growing Up Stupid Under the Union Jack.

One afternoon I tried out my new language on my mother. She had just told me, “Boy, come and drink this little warm chocolate-tea before it get cold. I put some flour drops in it to help cloid you. Times still hard boy. The war on. But where there’s a will, there’s a way, praise God.”

   “I would prefer a cuppa toy, Ma” I told her

   “Boy, you gone mad?”

   I preferred a cuppa toy, for I was a Combermere boy, trained to be a snob, coached to be discriminating. A cuppa toy was better than a cup of rich chocolate. England drank toy, and little England should too.[71]

Globalization under the flamboyant tree or how to de-colonize the mind

Various scholars and writers[72] today are using the concept of creolisation within a global context, meaning: a mutual exchange or cultural interchange and adaptation. Creolisation in the Caribbean region can be traced back to the 16th century when persons from the Americas, Europe and Africa collided.[73] Out of this collision the plantation society was born. A society that, according to C.L.R. James and Eric Williams, had the most advanced industrial formations in the world at the onset of the Industrial Revolution.[74] A society that was creolized, and thus globalized, before the rest of the world took cognition of the concept and made it their own (the www suggests Ulf Hannerz, a Swedish anthropologist, as the inventor of the concept).

On the verge of constitutional change, St. Maarten needs to realize that it is part of the Caribbean region and as such privy to its legacy. We need to resist and challenge the Eurocentric norms and formulate our own guiding principles for education. We need to find authentic and viable solutions to our own problems. Others do not know, nor understand, us better than we understand ourselves. What is needed is a Caribbean Renaissance that will assist us in changing our attitudes from dependency to self-dependence, from feelings of inferiority to self-pride. We have to leave behind bad faith and false consciousness and recognize the intellectual debt to those ancestors that sat under the flamboyant tree.[75]

The Caribbean has a rich history and culture; we only need to chant, dance, paint, rap, sculpt, sing, weave, wrap and write it according to our own images and likeness.[76]  Championing the flamboyant tree – native to Madagascar – as a symbol of freedom and resistance, Lasana Sekou set the tone in 1990 with National Symbols of St. Martin.[77] Since then many publications have followed. They all need to be incorporated into our educational canon so that the future citizens of St. Martin[78] will develop a true self-knowledge that is grounded in its own historical context. Only by knowing our own culture and history will we be able to recognize our common humanity with all other persons. And only by recognizing our common humanity will we be able to adopt a philosophy of universal inclusion or a new global civilization.

 

References and/or complementary bibliography

Bacchus, Kassion M. (1991). “Education in the Pre-emancipation Period (With Special Reference to the Colonies who later became British Guiana)”, in: Barrow, Christine & Rhoda Reddock, eds. Caribbean Sociology: Introductory Reader. Kingston: Ian Randle Publishers, 2001.

Bor, W. van den (1981). Island Adrift. The Social Organization of a small Caribbean Community: The Case of St. Eustatius. The Hague, n.p.

Crane, Julia G. (1971). Educated to Emigrate, the Social Organization of Saba. Assen: Van Gorcum & Comp.N.V.

Fanon, Frantz (1952, translated 1967).  Black Skins, White Masks. New York: Grove Press.

George, Milton (2004). Trans-Planting Catholic Education On Sint Maarten Soil. A research into The educational work of the Dominican Sisters of Voorschoten on the Island of Sint Maarten, The Dutch Antilles. Unpublished M.A. thesis at the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.

Hartog, Johan (1964). De Bovenwindse Eilanden. Sint Maarten, Saba, Sint Eustatius. Aruba: De Wit N.V.

hooks, bell (1994). Teaching to Trangress. Education as the Practice of Freedom.  New York: Routledge.

Kempf, Arlo (2006). “Anti-Colonial Historiography: Interrogating colonial education”, in: Sefa Dei, G.J. & A.Kempf, eds. Anti-Colonial Education: The Politics of Resistance. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.

Marcha, Valdemar & Paul Verweel (2003). De cultuur van angst. Paradoxale ketenen van angst en zwijgen op Curaçao.  Amsterdam: B.V Uitgeverij SWP.

Menkman, W.R. (1942). De Nederlanders in het Caribische Zeegebied, waarin vervat de Geschiedenis der Nederlandsche Antillen. Amsterdam: P.N. van Kampen & Zoon N.V.

Richards, Dona (1979). “The Ideology of European Dominance”, in: Présence Africaine, no.111, pp.3-18.

Sefa Dei, George J. (2006). “Introduction: Mapping the terrain – Towards a new politics of Resistance”, in: Sefa Dei, G.J. & A.Kempf, eds. Anti-Colonial Education: The Politics of Resistance. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.

Sekou, Lasana, ed.(1990). National Symbols of St. Martin. A Primer. House of Nehesi Publishers: Philipsburg, St. Maarten.

Wa Thiong’o, Ngugi (1986). Decolonising the mind. Heinemann.

Walcott, Derek (1986). “The Schooner Flight”, in: Collected Poems 1948-84, New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux Inc., lines 40-43.

 


 

 

 

 

 

St. Martin Studies

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2006

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


                                                                         

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Papers on Education and/or the Caribbean

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Maria Cijntje-Van Enckevort
Milton A. George
Silvio Sergio Scatolini Apóstolo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

 


Progressive Education: an alternative or an illusion?
About the implementation of educational innovations in Belgium and elsewhere

(PowerPoint Presentation)

 

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven-Kortrijk, Belgium

Marc.Depaepe@kuleuven-kortrijk.be

 

 

See: http://ppw.kuleuven.be/histped/mdpubl.doc

 

 

 


Planning and Leading Change:
Creating a New Change Model for the implementation of a Teacher Education Program on St. Maarten

University of St. Martin, Netherlands Antilles

usmdirector@sintmaarten.net

        

The Ministry of Education of the Netherlands Antilles launched a new Teacher Education Program (TEP), which will be adopted by the University of St. Martin (USM) and the University of the Netherlands Antilles (UNA) in 2006. For many years teacher education programs have been challenged by the lack of renewal and reform and yet it is expected that teachers perform miracles in classrooms. This is no longer the case for USM and UNA. Both universities have implemented new approaches to teaching and learning. This innovation and reform is a major change in approach to teaching for beginning teachers and teachers in the field who will be certified.

In this paper, I will design an innovative model for the implementation of the TEP, and describe the challenges this change effort caused, the steps and strategies utilized in dealing with the process, the implementation plan, an evaluation plan that will sustain its effectiveness, and conclude with strategies for future successes and implications of the change efforts.

Describing the change

In a document entitled Fundamentals of Foundation Based Education, the Ministry of Education stated, “One of the most important objectives of Foundation Based Education is to lay a foundation for all Antillean children in education so that they can fully participate in a modern Antillean, Caribbean, and global society. To achieve this, a change process has been initiated which will eventually change the traditional curriculum oriented education into a developmental, child-centered education” (p.3).

Foundation Based Education (FBE) is not a new idea, but it is a new approach in education for the Netherlands Antilles. It is known as the three cycle process in education, which has its roots in compulsory education, ensuring that children go to school from 4-15 years and within that period they receive adequate education. The first cycle is for children 4-8 years old, the second cycle is from 8-12 years, and the third cycle is from 12-15 years. This is also known as early childhood, primary school and middle school in the United States. The Teacher Education Program used to prepare Kindergarten teachers, Elementary school teachers and Secondary school teachers. The Kindergarten teacher was prepared for children ages 4-6, the elementary teacher dealt with 6-12 year olds and the Secondary school teachers specialized in a particular subject area.

 It is evident that in the TEP new model there are some structural changes to be made. Teachers will be trained to master two of the three cycles, or if they wish all three cycles. This will allow them to be more flexible. In addition the old curriculum has been changed and includes eight domains aimed at a broader and more integral development of the child. It is the intention that not only the cognitive areas, but also the emotional, physical, and cultural, artistic areas will be developed. In the new system teachers play a vital and different role. Upgrading the Teacher Education Program is the intervention that is going to be made, in order to give teachers the preparation necessary to function competently as Foundation Based Education teachers

Imposing change and meeting resistance

A few months ago the government informed the universities that they needed to launch the TEP program in August 2006. This caused an uproar, because of the unpreparedness of both institutions, the University of the Netherlands Antilles and the University of St. Martin. The most important reason for the concern was funding of the project. Although there was funding available, the monies were not released so that preparation for this innovation could take place prior to the announcement that the TEP should start in August 2006. The preparation entailed so much, which included sharing the vision and good communication plan, the building of class rooms, the preparation of professors, the writing of the curriculum, the recruitment of teachers, the hiring of staff.  There were lots of loose ends and much work needed to be done prior to the commencement of the program.

Of course there was resistance from the staff, teachers and also the dean, as the quality of the TEP was at stake as well. Resistance has been unavoidable and understandable. Although everyone understands the need for change, it was an unexpected call from the ministry of education to get the TEP started in August. According to Henry (1997), “Resistance to change is not just inevitable, it’s a natural reaction to unsettling changes in the status quo. Remember that everyone, even the most forward thinking person, has some difficulty handling change. Because resistance is natural, expect it and don’t be intimidated by it. Provide clarity, time, support, and stability of a persistent message” (p. 149). Bolman and Deal (1999) confirmed that “Changing invariably creates conflict… from a political perspective, conflicts are natural” (p. 8).  “Change is a part of life…change has become synonymous with upheaval and chaos…it has become critical for companies to understand how to better manage and cope with change” (Szamosi and Duxbury, 2002, p. 1). So must the University of St. Martin collect its energies to support a very much needed program for St. Maarten Teachers. Getting the right people in the right places means finding leaders who can energize the workforce and win some commitment to change (Stern, 2005). 

Designing  an innovative model for implementing change

Models for practice, work or activity have in their make up ideas, beliefs, knowledge and other less tangible building blocks. A model provides direction for practice, work or activity and forms the framework through which change may be managed and evaluated. If a model is used to guide change, consistency in approach can be achieved, with the model serving to direct, guide and make sense of the change process (Pearson et al. 1996).

The innovative model for the change process for the TEP is modeled after the five building components of Carney’s Change management model to which one component is added. The principal components of the model are: critical success factors for change; the communication process; acceptance or resistance to change; the implementation process, the evaluation process, and the integration of lessons learned.

Component I: Critical success factors of change

Critical success factors are factors that must be in place before any successes can be guaranteed. The success factors identified as critical are: commitment levels amongst managers and staff involved in the change process: level of understanding of the need for change demonstrated by the staff; use of professional judgment in decision making throughout the process; level of understanding of the need for change demonstrated by staff; identifiable communication skills, and the recognition of the need for high quality outcome of the change. Sharing the vision is a major part in the communication process.

 It is during this period that the leaders will try to persuade the constituents of the vision. It is during this communication period that participants will be convinced to buy in to the vision and the change idea will become part of those who choose to become advocates of the change. The change leader and team will show their passion for the change by modeling it and living it.

Component II: the communication process

The components include the importance of consultation, education, and participation during the processes; the needs of staff and students are recognized through assertiveness; negotiation with no evidence of coercion taking place; an understanding that the change dynamics exists, and democratic decision making to assist in managing the change process. According to Moran & Brightman (2001), “The whole organization must be pulling in the same direction to achieve the change initiative goals it has set”(p. 3). People don’t change unless they have ownership in the change

Component III: Acceptance or resistance to change

The key variables are: the level of acceptance to the change, the involvement and understanding of the need for change; the likely impact of the proposed change on the social and cultural lives of the individuals concerned; a project team to assist with the change process. Resistance to change is caused by many factors including anxiety, uncertainty, and feelings of loss of control in relation to direction and pace of the change process. Therefore, it is important that leaders of change are grounded in “management skills necessary for understanding the theories and processes of change management (Post 1989). While change must be well managed - it must be planned, organized, directed and controlled - it also requires effective leadership to introduce change successfully: it is leadership that makes the difference (Gill, 2003).

Component IV: The implementation Process

The key variables  are: the need for prior research, with a team interacting and working well together; the use of the process tools such as strategy development and planning with clear inputs and outputs identified; recognition and management of the transition state, with provision of the required education programs for staff to facilitate successful implementation.

The implementation plan will include specific goals and provide detailed and clear responsibilities for strategists, implementers and recipients. A proper balance will be evident between specificity and flexibility, which is key. Too much specificity can lead to a plan that does not mesh well with evolving organizational needs. The plan will be tailored to the approach of the frame of reference of the participants. A change requires the efforts of people at many levels in the organization. Listening to and actively seeking their involvement in the change will prove fruitful in performing many steps in the process. Getting participants to see a future return on their personal investment is a successful method in getting our teachers to buy-in to the change effort (Mento et al.2002).

Component V: The Evaluation process.

The evaluation process is one of final elements in the model and it includes recognition of the need to evaluate the process at various stages, and take necessary action; the provision of feedback and recognition and acknowledgement of the contribution of staff.

Component VI: Integrating lessons learned.

Generating the lessons learned through reflection is a crucial aspect of the change process. This section is often omitted or taken for granted. At the root of lessons learned is reflection. Reflection is the personal cognitive activity that requires stepping back from an experience to think carefully and persistently about its meaning through the creation of inferences (Baird et al, 1997; Kleinert and Roth, 1997; Seibert, 1999). Reflection brings to light insights and learning themes by directing and guiding change strategists and implementers to think actively about the learning that is going on during the change process. Reflection is an extremely powerful way to learn from experience. It is the major component of individual learning, and individual learning is the building block for organizational learning. During the change process the reflection on the development lines and progress of teachers will be very critical. Change agents and Team should be granted ample time for reflection before, during and after the program for the integration of lessons learned.

Evaluation plan

Change progress needs to be measured at all stages of the program, and not merely at the end. The TEP will be evaluated through a quality assurance plan. This plan is important for ongoing evaluation at all levels of performance.

The evaluation will include both quantitative and qualitative methodologies to provide information for both formative and summative purposes. The overall goals of the evaluation will be to (1) determine project accountability by assessing progress whether or not  goals and objectives identified by the project were met, (2) measure perceptions about the effectiveness of the implementation of the vision, (3) measure the impact of the implementation on stakeholder groups and policies, (4) determine the organizational factors and policies that hinder and/or enhance success of the project, and (5) identify the unanticipated outcomes of the project.

Implications for future change efforts

·        Provide space for reflection and dialogue despite pressure crisis.

·        Rely on one’s strength in dealing with the change.

·        There is intensive personal learning by the management.

·        Be the manager of the denominator and the numerator. Create sustaining binds with different stakeholders.

·        Change processes need to be supported by solid performance management systems

·        Do not forget the platform for emotional mobilization and reflection of action. (Butler Scott, and Edwards, 2003).

Conclusion

At the center of many processes of organizational change is the key role of change agents, which are the individuals or teams that are going to initiate, lead, and direct in order to make things happen. “Understanding the complexity of change, and the agents’ roles within the organizations and finding new ways of managing change processes in an integrated and coherent manner to affect successful and lasting change” count (Caldwell, 2003, p. 141).

An innovative change model was designed for the implementation of the TEP and a description provided of the challenges this change effort could cause, the steps and strategies utilized in dealing with the process, the implementation and an evaluation plan discussed that will sustain its effectiveness, and a final description of the strategies for future successes and implications of the change efforts have been provided..

 

References and/or complementary bibliography

Baird, L. Henderson, J. and Watts, S. (1997). Learning from action: An Analysis of the Center for the Army Lessons learned. Human Resources management, 36(4), 385-395.

Bolman, L. G. & Deal, T. E. (1999, May/June). 4 steps to keeping change efforts heading in the right direction. Journal for Quality & Participation, 22(3), 6-11.

Bruch, H. & Sattelberger, T. (2001, June). The turnaround at Lufthansa: Learning from the change process. Journal of Change Management, 1(4), 344.363.

Gill, R. (2003, May). Change management or change leadership? Journal of Change Management. 3(4), 307-319.

Henry, P. K. (1997, October). Overcoming resistance to organizational change. Journal Dietetic Association, 97(10), 145-149.

Kleinert, A. & Roth, G.(1997). How to Make Experience your Company’s Best Teacher. Harvard Business Review, 75(5), Reprint No. 97506.

Mento, A. J., Jones, R. M., & Dirndorfer, W. (2002, August). A change management process: grounded in both Theory and practice. Journal of Change Management, 3(1), 45-59.

Moran, J. W. & Brightman, B. K. (2001). Leading organizational change. Career Development International, 6(2/3), 111.

Pearson, A., Vaughn, B. & Fitzgerald, M. (1996). Nursing models for Practice. (2nd ed.). UK: Butterworth Heinemann.

Post, N. (1989). Managing human energy: an ancient tool for change experts. Managing change: the leadership challenge of the 1999s. Seminars for Nurse Managers, 2, 203-208

Sebert, K. W. (19999). The role of Reflection in Managerial Learning: Theory, Research, Practice. London: Quorum.

Stern, S. (2005, February). Forever changing. Management Today, 40-43.

Szamosi, L. T. & Duxbury, L. (2002). Development of a measure to assess organizational change. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 15(2), 184-202.

 

 

Getting the Job done! Let the Sisters speak
Historical development of Catholic Education on Sint Maarten (1890-1990): an oral history account

Phd candidate, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium

milgeorge@yahoo.com

 

This article aims to offer a bird’s eye view of the history of Catholic education on the Dutch Caribbean island territory of Sint Maarten, the Netherlands Antilles. Given that “Catholic Education” on Sint Maarten is essentially related to the presence of the Dominican Sisters of Voorschoten on the Island, we shall take their arrival (1890) and departure (1990) as the parameters for our article. Our account is based on the interview that we held with two Dominican Sisters of Voorschoten, Sr. Marie Laurence Teeuwen and Sr. Costance Gödden, on 10th December 2003, the answers to questionnaires sent to Henri Brookson (a former Sint Maarten’s Deputy Minister Plenipotentiary), and Harry Schaminee and Peggy Plet (former teachers on the Island), as well as on written primary and secondary sources. We shall approach the issue from a strictly historical viewpoint.

Sint Maarten in context

The current Caribbean societies essentially resulted from the 15th century European expansion movement (one of the many precursors of today’s globalization). This explains their similarities, as well as their lack of uniformity. With the passage of time, the Caribbean became a collection of small nations, colonies, and territories struggling to forge their social, economic, and political identities. They all have in common an astonishingly diverse configuration and possess a remarkable and often tragic history (George, 2000:6; Schwab, 1996:19). Schwab sums it all up by saying that: “[The Caribbean represents] a wonderful analogy for a history and culture produced by startling combinations. Begin with two remarkable primitive Indian societies, add the influence of the 16th-century gold-seeking Spaniards, and their European rivals: the French, English, Dutch, even the knight of Malta; add pirates, religious and political refugees, and a huge African slave culture, then stir in Hindus, Jews, and Rastafarians and you have the dizzying recipe that makes up these islands” (Schwab, 1996:19). One could safely say that the colonizers made the Caribbean, as we know it today. It is in that sense that some Caribbean theologians have described the Caribbean as a forced context (Boodoo, 1996:3-19).

Immigrants arrive in large amounts on the islands with a positive economic growth, while islands with less economic growth see their population decrease (Bakker & Veer, 1999:55). Indeed, besides colonial expansion, migration has also been an essential component in the social evolution of the Caribbean Islands, including the Netherlands Antilles. The Caribbean Sea which separates the islands from one another also links them with one another. Much of the regional population (perhaps the majority thereof) is truly “Caribbean,” having ancestors who have lived, worked, studied, got married, or even been born in islands which are not the one where they are currently residing.

Sint Maarten within the Kingdom of the Netherlands

The Kingdom of The Netherlands consists of three constitutive entities: the Netherlands (in the European mainland) and the two insular territories of Aruba and the Netherlands Antilles (in the Caribbean basin). The Netherlands Antilles are made up of five island territories, subdivided into two groups: the Leeward Islands (Curaçao and Bonaire) situated about 50 km north of Venezuela, and the Windward Islands (Sint Maarten, Sint Eustatius or “Statia,” and Saba), some 160 km east of Puerto Rico.

The Netherlands Antilles and Aruba, respectively, have full autonomy in internal affairs. It is a parliamentary democracy and is politically stable. The government of The Netherlands, in the European mainland, is responsible for defense and foreign affairs (Williams, 1970:499). The legal system is based on Dutch civil law but includes some elements from English Common Law. Appeals from the Netherlands Antilles courts are to the Netherlands Supreme Court in The Hague.

The Queen (or King) of the Netherlands is the head of state (Statuut, Art. 2.1.). She appoints the Governor General of the Netherlands Antilles for a six-year term (Statuut, Art. 2.2.), whose office is based in Curaçao. Each island territory has a Lieutenant Governor who is also appointed by the Dutch Queen for a six-year term to chair his own Island Council and the Executive Council, which is appointed by the elected Island Council. While the central government situated in Curaçao deals with tax, communications, public health, education, banking, law and order, company registration and economic control, the island government deals with local affairs.

However, the Netherlands Antilles is currently going through a period of constitutional dismantling. All things being equal, the two larger territories (Curaçao and St. Maarten) will become “countries” within the Kingdom (comparable to the Netherlands and Aruba), while the three smaller territories (Bonaire, Saba, and St. Eustatius) will become special, offshore municipalities of the Netherlands.

Area, population density and capital

  

Area in square kilometres

Population Density per square kilometre, December 2004

  Capital

Netherlands Antilles

800

232

Willemstad

Leeward Islands

 

 

 

     Bonaire

    288

37

Kralendijk

     Curaçao

444

306

Willemstad

 

    

 

 

Windward Islands

 

    

 

     Saba

13

    110

The Bottom

     St. Eustatius

21

    123

Oranjestad

     St. Maarten

34

1030

Philipsburg

Source: Office of Land Registry, Island Civil Registry Offices and CBS - http://www.cbs.an/area_climate/area_a1.asp

Population per island, 1st January 2006

Year

Netherlands Antilles

Bonaire

Curaçao

Saba

St. Eustatius

St. Maarten

1991

188,164

10,190

144,844

1,102

1,844

30,184

1995

189,767

11,903

144,522

1,264

1,981

30,097

2000

182,746

11,561

136,969

1,367

2,250

30,599

2005

185,513

10,638

135,822

1,434

2,584

35,035

Source: Estimations CBS - http://www.cbs.an/population/population_b2.asp

The income of the Dutch Antilles and Aruba proceeds mostly from tourism, the oil refinery, and development aid. Because of this, the small islands are strongly dependent on the external foreign market. Furthermore, due to the fact that Aruba and the Netherlands Antilles do not have many raw materials and that they hardly have an agrarian sector almost everything needs to be imported: the beef comes from e.g. Argentina, the fridges from the USA, and the oil from Venezuela. The economy is open and vulnerable and the Islands can hardly influence the developments on the world market (Bakker & Veer, 1999:50).

The Dominican Sisters of Voorschoten: 1841

The religious congregation of the Dominican Sisters of Voorschoten has its roots in the spiritual patrimony of the Italian Dominican tertiary, Saint Catherine of Siena, and was founded on 24th May of 1841. The congregation began when Sr. Catharina Pinkers and other sisters moved into het Liefdesgesticht at the Schie in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. The motherhouse was officially seated in Voorschoten in 1888, hence the name “Dominican Sisters of Voorschoten.” The congregation expanded slowly but surely, and different convents were founded elsewhere.

The sisters devoted themselves to the community in which they lived and saw their work as an indispensable part of their religious duty. Without their religious dedication, providing education and the exercise of services in the care sector would not have been possible. Their convents became overtime increasingly accessible to the public, precisely because of their capacity to reach out (Voges, 1990:16).

To do missionary work on St. Maarten: 1869

The Dominican Fathers were assigned to the Dutch colonial mission of Curaçao in 1868 by decree of the Congregation of the Propaganda Fidei. It appears that around 1890 there were some lay people who were sponsored by priests to provide education at a given number of localities in the Windward Islands. This situation does not seem to have been very satisfactory, for which reason Fr. Niewenhuys decided to start a Sunday school, although this initiative did not work out either. To make matters worse, the lack of capital meant at the time that the Vicariate could not afford to found a proper school. “In fact, the Catholic presence appears to have been reduced, even minimal. The whole social picture was a source of concern for the church leaders, and not only for education. The financial situation of the Catholic Church made it difficult for it to sponsor own initiatives; assistance from abroad and from other broader church associations was needed” (Voges, 1990:16; Hart, 1992:43).

Our secondary sources mention that in 1875 Fr. Nieuwenhuys sent a request to Sr. Dominica Wamsteeker, the General Superior of the Dominican sisters, to send sisters to assist in education. However, she refused because she could not miss any sisters at that time. In his will after his death in 1888, Fr. Nieuwenhuys left two houses, a piece of land, and ten thousand guilders to be used for the foundation of a school under supervision of religious sisters. His successor Fr. Jordanus Onderwater again asked the General Superior, Sr. Catharina Walraven, implying that with the bequeathed money schools could be built and the fares of the sisters to come to Sint Maarten be paid. Six sisters out of the announced thirty-seven were then sent, namely Sisters Regina Egelie, Catharina Dankelmann, Helena Jacobs, Gonzales Eijkenbroek, Raymunda Reijgers, and Huberta Hakkenberg.

These sisters were supposed to fulfill the wish of Father Nieuwenhuys. After saying goodbye to their family and fatherland for life, they started their journey by boat on 15th April of 1890, setting off from Rotterdam in the direction of a far, unknown country with its own culture and, for them, tiring climate. After a journey through Southampton, Barbados, and St. Kitts, they arrived on Sint Maarten on 3rd May 1890. They moved into the St. Joseph’s Convent and Sr. Regina became the first prioress of the convent and, at the same time, headmistress of the new school (Voges, 1990:17-18; Hart, 1992:43-44). With these events, the stage was set for the Dominican Sisters of Voorschoten to play their part in the island’s life. Despite the emphasis placed by the secondary sources on their educative tasks, when I asked Sr. Marie Laurence about the reason why the sisters were sent to Sint Maarten and specifically whether they had been called exclusively to set up schools, she replied that it had been so only “in general,” since they also did a lot in nursing at the local hospital.

Preparation for the mission: 1890, 1952/3 and 1968

One would expect that before the sisters were sent on a mission to a far and unknown country, their superiors would have made the due preparations to equip them with the necessary psychological and professional luggage to confront their new home and tasks. That would have been the ideal. However, the secondary sources tell a different story. Apparently, almost nothing was done except make sure that they had a teaching degree (Hart, 1992:44). Most of them were not familiar with English, the language commonly spoken on the island, and had to learn it upon arrival at their new destination. Interestingly enough, the question of the language of instruction —an ever present, controversial issue on St. Maarten— was already mentioned at the start of the first school in 1890 (Voges, 1990:19). Englih was chosen, and this remained unchanged till 1933.

The sisters were informed only that they had been chosen to go to the mission. Knowing little, or actually nothing at all, about the island, they boarded the boat that would take them to the Antilles, first to Curaçao and then “we will see were we will arrive,” as Sr. Constance put it. Our primary sources bear out that sixty years after the departure of the first sisters the situation had not changed much.

The above means that the mission in the Dutch Antilles was receiving sisters who were unprepared for their work, not because they were not interested in their future work field but because the necessary structures and the adequate ecclesial, intellectual framework were lacking. The superiors were apparently oblivious of the fact that mission work must be prepared, which testifies to a certain institutionalized disregard for the individuality of the sisters and of the people with whom they were going to be working. All that fitted, of course, with the theology of the time. If indeed, there was any internal preparation in the congregation prior to the Sisters’ departure, it does not transpire from the documentary evidence or the interviews that I have conducted, neither is it mentioned by the first group of sisters who left the Netherlands in 1890.

The fact that the Dominican Sisters of Voorschoten were a religious congregation may rightly give rise to the question whether there has been a noticeable religious influence on the education on St. Maarten, for instance, through preparation for the sacraments. Was catechesis also part of the Sisters’ work as in other colonial missions, e.g. in the Belgian Congo, where besides teaching, the Sisters were also intent on “saving and winning souls” (Depaepe, 1991-1992:137-156)?

Founding Catholic Education on Sint Maarten

The schools

In the hundred years that the Sisters were on St. Maarten, they worked mainly, although not exclusively— as Sr Marie Laurence told us— as schoolteachers. It is to their schools that we shall now turn our attention under the headings of education in Philipsburg, in Simpsonbay, and Kindergarten. Besides this, we shall also look into the issue of funding and subsidies.

a)   Education in Philipsburg

In order to be able to fulfill their mission, the Sisters needed buildings. From 2nd June of 1890 on, they started teaching in a school they founded in their convent with a mixture of Catholic and non-Catholic boys and girls, the non-Catholic pupils being in the majority. 132 children attended school and the infant classes started with 62 toddlers. In 1934, this convent school became the U.L.O, with a 7th and an 8th class. At this time, there were no subsidies for education and the income from the school was supposed to cover the expenses of both convent and school.

At the start of this project, the Sisters had to make provisions also for clothing because most of the children did not have the proper attire to attend school. To the rescue of the Sisters came Gussy Stephens, Juliette Stephens, and Anna Richardson, who helped them with their work. Classes were taught in English, and from the fourth study-year upwards, the pupils were taught Dutch as foreign language. As said above, the Sisters needed, on their part, to learn English since only two of them could speak it (Voges, 1990:20-43; Hart, 1992:44).

In 1923, the Sisters started the “Maria Boarding School,” which was meant for girls from the island of St. Bartholomew or St Barths, which lacked good educative institutions. Soon thereafter, girls from both sides of the island of St. Maarten/St. Martin started coming to this school. In 1926, the school moved to a new building and, when St. Bartholomew managed to set up a better school in 1930, the “Maria Boarding School” was closed. The boarding school then became a day school and was renamed St. Joseph’s College (Voges, 1990:20-43).

One of the staff at St. Joseph’s College School was Sr. Constance, one of our interviewees. According to Mr. Voges, Sr. Constance came to St. Maarten in 1953 and then became the headmistress of St. Joseph’s College; yet, in Sr. Constance’s own words, she arrived in 1952. Sr. Constance was in charge of the mail for the schools and the convent, collected stamps and for years did the administration for the Catholic School Board, the foundation of continued education, and the Milton Peters College. Sint‑Maarteners who still remember her told us in informal conversations that she was always ready to assist others. She remained the headmistress of St Joseph’s College until 1960, during which period there was a noticeable improvement in the administration of the College. It is said that Sr. Constance did the bookkeeping in a perfect manner (Voges, 1990:29). Next to her administrative tasks, she also taught arithmetic and bookkeeping, being very precise in her teaching (Voges, 1990:34).

It was from this point onwards that our second interviewee, Sr. Marie Laurence, can provide us with information. In 1965, a school of domestic economy was founded, which started with sewing courses for 33 pupils; this took place once the old house for the elderly Old Sweet Repose closed down and two classes of St. Joseph’s College were seated there. Our secondary sources corroborate Sr. Marie Laurence’s account. In 1968, an empty building in Cul-de-Sac, previously a Sewing factory annex printery, was lent to the school. There was also a class for salesmanship, which started in the same building. The formal opening of the Sundial School (i.e. the school of domestic economy) took place in 1974, which remained under the supervision of the Catholic School Board up until 1976 (Voges, 1990:36). Yet, according to Sr. Marie Laurence, even before the opening of what was going to be the Sundial School, students were already being taught in a hotel.

The idea of founding a school of domestic economy arose among the Sisters because of the difference in IQ among the pupils and the need to provide alternative education for these pupils, especially with a view to the present and the future. Sr. Marie Laurence and Sr. Constance told us of how the ULO and the MAVO were set up, namely the St. Joseph’s School in 1968 with an eighth grade. The secondary sources corroborate the story. In 1968, St. Joseph’s College was split up in two. On the one hand, there was the Pastoor Niewenhuys MAVO, and, on the other, St. Joseph’s school, where the sisters were, which remained in the centre and kept its name (Voges, 1990:41).

After that, a series of changes took place in the education landscape, and much had to do with development aid funds from the Netherlands. More schools were built in the years to come, namely a technical school, a school of domestic economy, a MULO, and a school for simple tourist administration education (e.t.a.o.). The Sisters tell us that with the creation of the Milton Peters College in 1976, there was an increase in the educative possibilities of the island since the MAVO, L.t.s. and E.t.a.o. students could now further their education at Milton Peters.

In 1978, the Sewing factory annex printery and the later school of domestic economy and B.B.O. became the springboard for the foundation of Sr. Magda’s Primary. At the same time, the Old Pondside School was founded in the Old Sweet Repose building, which is now called the Sr. Borgia’s Elementary (Voges, 1990:42). On 27th January 1989, the St. Dominic’s Primary was officially opened in South Reward. This school was named after the Founder of the Dominican family, St. Dominic of Guzmán (1170‑1221) (Voges, 1990:42-43).

b)   Education in Simpsonbay

In 1894, a wooden building was built to be used as church, sleeping quarters for the priest and Sisters, and school. On 8th March 1898, the school was opened in Simpsonbay, even though this, in fact, was the re‑opening of the school since it had originally been started by Minister De Weever in 1893. It functioned first as a Sunday school, in 1897, and later as a day school. This wooden school was closed later when a school bus service started in 1945 from Simpsonbay to Philipsburg and the children were able to travel to other locations. Church services continued, however, until a new church was ready in 1961.

In 1967, the building was once again used for the three lower classes of the primary school. The toddlers were housed in a wooden classroom that was occasionally used also as voting booth. In December 1967, Minister J. Korthals visited St. Maarten and laid the first stone of the new school, which had been built with development aid funds from the Netherlands and was named after Sister Regina. That is how on 10th August of 1970, after a long time, there finally was a permanent Catholic school in Simpsonbay (Voges, 1990:20-43).

c)   Kindergarten

The first Kindergarten on St. Maarten was inaugurated in 1925, initially called Bewaarschool or Guardian School. The first infants were accommodated in a wooden classroom in the vicinity of the convent. In 1956, a second wooden classroom was added. However, when in 1963 both these rooms were needed for the primary school, the kindergarten had to be moved to a clubhouse that had only one toilet for 125 infants. It became then abundantly clear that a new kindergarten was needed. Due to the fact that the Dutch Antilles did not have a kindergarten education law, the Sisters could not count on governmental subsidies. Eventually, the congregation itself had to finance the building of a four‑classed kindergarten, which opened its doors in 1964 under the name of Imelda kleurterschool. In 1968, an unfinished barn was repaired and 28 toddlers were hosted in it, which became the Sunbeam Kindergarten. However, this was a short-lived experience since the place was closed in 1970. With the passage of time, new kindergartens were set up, e.g. the Butterflies Kindergarten in Simpsonbay with 23 toddlers, and the Sunbeam with 35 toddlers. The former was blessed in 1974 by Mgr. W. Ellis, the Catholic bishop of the Dutch Antilles, residing in Curaçao. The year 1986 saw the birth of yet another kindergarten, the Jolly Dwarfs Kindergarten in South Reward (Voges, 1990:20-43).

The teachers

By school regulation of 1907 teachers were divided into 4 levels or types, from 1 to 4. The Sisters of Roosendaal and the Brothers of Tilburg gave the training for the lower levels, for pupil-teacher and assistant teachers. Boys and girls from the age of 16 years were admitted to all schools as pupil-teachers, under supervision, to learn the practice or exercise of teaching. As far as teachers were concerned, in the Dutch Antilles there were not so many candidates to choose from, that is why teachers were recruited in the Netherlands and Suriname (another Western Dutch colony at the time).

Once the pupil-teacher had completed the course, he or she was able to do the exam before the Inspector of Education. The certificate of qualification included ten subjects, one of which was pedagogy. The level of examination was comparable to that of MULO exams. To become a 3rd level teacher one had to have a Curaçao teaching degree or a comparable one from the Netherlands, Suriname, or the Netherlands Indies (a Dutch colony in the East at the time, or Indonesia at present). The level of examination on Curaçao was the same as that in the Netherlands. A 2nd level teacher was at the same time a 3rd level teacher with two additional degrees. With another degree, one could get promoted to 1st degree teacher. The exam for head-teacher or headmaster was only possible in 1944. With a Headmaster Certificate, one could teach all grades, including the first grade. It was not until 1918 that girls from Curaçao and other islands were admitted to stay as boarders at the Sint‑Martinusgesticht in order to study for a teacher’s degree. Sometimes, they had to stay the whole week there, and go home on weekends because of transportation.

During the First World War (1914-1918), it became impossible to send more Sisters from the Netherlands to the mission, which forced the local schools to recruit their personnel from the parish or neighbourhood (Hart, 1992:48-53). Most of the Sisters sent to the mission were assistant teachers or pupil-teachers. By the School Law of 1908 the Sisters that had been for a longer period of time in education obtained qualification for the 4th level. It is worth mentioning at this point that Henri Brookson, another one of our interviewees, was encouraged by one of the Sisters, Sr. Borgia, to follow the teacher training course, precisely because she found that St. Maarten would need its own teachers in the future (Voges, 1990:34). Other youngsters were given similar opportunities to study abroad.

An interesting turn of events took place in 1959 when the Curaçao government thought that the teacher training course ought to be brought to completion in the Netherlands since —they argued— this was a task for the Country (read: the Kingdom) and not for the island. The first part of the training would be done in Curaçao, and the rest in the Netherlands. However, in the end, the decision was taken to conduct the whole training in Curaçao. In 1972, the Institute for Pedagogical and Social Training or IPSO (Instituut voor Pedagogische en Sociale opleidingen) was founded. Furthermore, in 1985, the Pedagogical Academy for Basic Education or PABO (Pedagogische Akademie Basis Onderwijs) started a four‑year teacher training program (Hart, 1992:77-78). This innovation entailed that local teachers could get a teaching degree in the region, and then return to their own island to teach.

An important development in the field of education on St. Maarten has been the rather recent foundation of the University of Saint Martin or USM (this is not French Saint Martin, but an English rendition of the Dutch Sint Maarten). One of the programmes offered at the USM is a Masters of Arts in Education.[79] The two Sisters that we have interviewed have also mentioned the university, adding that they had not been part of this establishment.

The Courses

It has not been possible for us to obtain the curriculum for the schools on St. Maarten, and we must leave it for future research. What we have indeed been able to establish is that the report of the Educational Department of the Dutch Antilles mentioned in its supervision of the education the curriculum, the timetable, the list of absentees, and the students’ marks (DvO, 1960:89-97).

The implementation and structure of the education in the Netherlands Antilles was practically the same as the study programme in the Netherlands. This implies that educators on St. Maarten automatically took over the methods and study books used in the Colonial Motherland and transplanted them (most of the time) without any radical adaptation to the local context. Nonetheless, eventually some local teachers, stimulated by government subsidies and financing, developed some methods and schoolbooks for the Leeward Islands, especially for Curaçao (e.g. Zonnig Nederlands. Methode voor de Nederlandse taal voor het R.K. lager onderwijs in de Nederlandse Antillen, samengesteld door Fr. Anton Mej; and Nos Tera. Methode voor het aardrijkskunde-onderwijs door Fr. M. Walterus en Drs. H. J. Jansen; DvO, 1960:83).

Besides the school curriculum, the Sisters also taught piano, typing, sewing, commercial correspondence, business administration and assistant salesmanship.

From 1915 up to the Second World War, the subject of hoeden vlechten or hat‑making was taught in the schools of St. Maarten. In 1913, four girls and Sister Agnes Roosen obtained their D-diploma in the Hoedenvlechtschool of Curaçao. After that, they taught these classes on St. Maarten, which were very popular because of the income that they promised. In 1918, they started an innovative correspondence training for hoofdvlechters or hair‑braiders (Hart, 1992:46). Apart from this training which was manifestly aimed at tackling the local needs, the Sisters also gave a training towards a certificate in nuttige handwerken or useful manual labour from 1936 to 1954 (Hart, 1992:53). In 1930, the Sisters of Voorschoten started their own teacher training school for the 4th level of assistant teachers. In 1948, all the six candidates completed the training satisfactorily. This teacher training school existed until 1959.

Course Materials

The course materials needed for teaching are never clearly mentioned in the documents. Given that books were necessary for the different subjects taught at school, we could ask what the Sisters used in their schools and whether they developed their own course material. According to Harry Schaminee, a Dutch educator on St. Maarten and one of our interviewees, this was not the case. This confirms what other sources indicate. Most schoolbooks were Dutch books imported from the Netherlands, and when this was not the case, they were books developed by the Fraters of Tilburg in Curaçao. Nonetheless, Sr. Constance did mention that she did develop some of her own books.

For Geography, they used Nos Tera, which was verified and confirmed by Harry Schaminee. He also recalled Zonnig Nederlands. Peggy Plet, a Surinamese teacher who worked on St. Maarten and is another one of our interviewees, mentioned in a previous undocumented interview to have worked with these books. We have been able to locate the said books in the Archive of the Fraters van Tilburg in the Netherlands. Our interviewees agree that at times these books did not fit in with the reality on St. Maarten because they had been designed to meet the needs of Curaçao (the different location of the islands has important consequences for the contours of their geographical, biological, and social environment).

Language of instruction

Even though the official language of St. Maarten is Dutch, English is by far the spoken language, even in government offices. The language issue has always been a puzzling and controversial one. Will Johnson words it admirably well when he says that: “What divides us most and makes us a strange peculiarity in the history of the Dutch Kingdom is the fact that we have always been and still are an English speaking people. Throughout the centuries Dutch historians, administrators and religious leaders have all lamented the fact that they could not get us to abandon the English language and to become proper Dutch speaking law abiding citizens” (Johnson 1995, 1).

St. Maarten’s first language has always been English. Even nowadays, English remains the main lingua franca used when the English-, Spanish-, Haitian Patois-, Hindi-, Chinese-, Arabic-, and Dutch-speaking residents of the island want to communicate across the language divide. However, Fleming-Rogers warns that even though English is proposed to be the national language, it is not the mother tongue of the people of the Windward Islands. Their actual mother tongue is a variant of English (Fleming-Rogers, 1990:46). Sint-Maarteners speak a language that is neither Received Standard English, as this is spoken and written in the UK or the USA, nor Dutch, the official language of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

When the Sisters started their mission on St. Maarten in 1890, the language of instruction in the schools was English. At that time, only two sisters knew English, but after a while the others succeeded in learning the language so as to teach. This went on until 1933, when in all the school years Dutch lessons were introduced. In the 4th grade, almost everything was in Dutch, whereas in the 5th and the 6th grades all lessons were taught in Dutch (Hart, 1992:44). Sr. Marie Laurence and Sr. Constance mentioned the language situation several times as well as the shift from one language to the other. This had been an important issue in their lives, especially considering that Received Standard English was already a problem for them, let alone St. Maarten English. The shift from English to Dutch and vice versa has been and still is a debated topic (even at the language colloquium of all the Dutch‑speaking parts of the world, namely The Netherlands, Flanders (Belgium), Suriname, The Dutch Antilles and Aruba).[80]

The more specialized private schools (such as Montessori or Learning Unlimited) have always used English as language of instruction. As far as the rest of schools is concerned, an evolution has recently taken place whereby most of them use English as language of instruction (keeping Dutch as foreign language), while a given number of other schools are given permission to use Dutch (teaching English as second language).

School attendance

In the initial period of the Sisters, school attendance was low because most children had to pick cotton or look for salt. Although there was no compulsory education up to 1991, education was valued by parents and by most children who went to school. In the law of 1991, compulsory education was finally instituted at the federal level, even though it has not yet been implemented at the island level on St. Maarten. The age of the children that fall under this law is not mentioned (Hart, 1992:63; Voges, 1990:20). It would appear that despite the lack of a legal duty to go to school, the church promoted the feeling among Catholics that education was a compulsory aspect of both parenting and childhood.

Timetable

We have not been able to find any report on school timetables. However, one of our primary sources did give us a glimpse into the structure of an ordinary school day. Harry Schaminee told us: “I disagreed with the timetable from 7.30 till 8.30 arithmetic, from 8.30 till 9.30 Dutch language (“Zonnig Nederlands”), 9.30 up to 10 reading skills, from 10 to 10.15 break, from 10.15 up to 11 once more Dutch language, from 11 to 12 geography or history, and from 12 up to 1.00 drawing or music or needlepoint work for the little girls. No gymnastics! That was not possible according to the prioress, who was also on the school governing Board. When the inspector of Curaçao came in November and I asked him as to why gymnastics was not given, he was very astonished. He discussed it with the Sisters and from that day onwards I gave gymnastics on an area about a kilometer from the school to three different classes, approximately once a week for 3 hours, each hour another class, and as material, only a tennis ball”. Sr. Constance told us about the timetable, at an earlier period, as follows: “we had grades 8 and 9 together in one class. It was almost impossible to handle. We worked from 8 am to 1 pm in the morning and started at noon at 2 o’clock to 4.30 pm. At a given moment we had 54 lessons.”

Examination

The available documents do not give any indications about how the exams or evaluations were conducted. In the report of 1960, the inspectorate mentioned why marks were important and how they should be given. It was argued that marks could stimulate students (also giving stamps), determining their exact efforts throughout the trimester and the whole year. Furthermore, marks had to be given for oral exams, homework, tests, repetitions, and the neatness of the work.

We asked the Sisters how they had examined their pupils, but they could not recall much. However, they were able to tell us something about the school of domestic economics: “I think it depended on the teachers and the family. You showed the parents the grades and discussed it with them”.

In the case of primary schools, the grading of the pupils went according to the official system, yet the discussion with the parents mentioned by the Sisters still played an important role. An important given was that the exams on St. Maarten were on a par with those in the Netherlands. Keeping up the Dutch standards of education, when possible, was one of the Sisters’ aims.

Continued education

Besides the possibilities for continued education in Curaçao, St. Maarteners could also continue their study in the Netherlands. Nonetheless, in order to be awarded a scholarship to study in Europe, the candidates had to choose programmes that were not available in the Netherlands Antilles. In fact, between 1946 and 1960, only eight students of the Windward Islands were awarded a scholarship. Judging from the documents, after 1960 there was a considerable increase in the number of students that went to study abroad, one of the reasons being the efforts of the Sisters who encouraged students to do so and tried to find funds for them. Brookson himself was an example of someone who went to study in the Netherlands thanks to the assistance of one of the Sisters.

The subsidies

Without funding, it would have been impossible to keep the schools and other facilities running as they should in the Dutch Antilles. Where did the money come from? We already mentioned the paying classes from the students from St. Bartholomew. At the beginning of the 20th century, the subsidies from the government were very low. Public schools occupied a privileged position. Increases of the subsidies were often not allowed because, e.g. in 1899, not all schools for special education were “neutral.” The law of 1905 made allowances for Catholic schools concerning subsidies provided that they took a series of points into account (Hart, 1992:46).

In the case of Catholic schools, it was the diocese alone that in the main paid for the costs of education, which included the travel expenses of the teaching staff, the salaries of school personnel, the purchases of land, building and maintenance of the schools. The parish priests and the motherhouses of the religious congregations assisted with all the above. Expenditures were kept to a minimum by employing religious Sisters and Brothers, and thanks to the contributions received from family and acquaintances back in the Motherland. Two main contributors were the annual support of an association based in Paris, the Propagation de la Foi and another one in the Netherlands, the Associatie ter bevordering van het onderwijs der katholieke jeugd, bijzonder voor de behoeftigen in Nederlandse Overzeese Bezittingen. The aim of the latter was to expand the teaching personal, facilitate classroom improvement, and supply school attributes, etc. (Hart, 1992:46).

On St. Maarten, the appreciation for the work done by the Sisters was made manifest when they were granted an increase of governmental subsidies from 600 guilders a year in 1910 to 1,150 guilders in 1914 (Voges, 1990:20). The subsidies for the Convent school and the Simpsonbay School together were 1,000 guilders in 1900. This enabled them to expand and have a new classroom in March of 1900. In 1911, the subsidies for the Convent school amounted to 950 guilders, which increased in 1914 to 2,183 guilders a year. Another 180 guilders were added to this for the maintenance of the school. More money meant better school management. The sister school in Philipsburg counted 172 pupils in 1915, while the kindergarten had 29 toddlers. One third of these pupils received subsidies for clothing and food. The school received 5 guilders per pupil a year for clothing, to buy a simple suit or dress, and 10 guilders per pupil a year for food. By “food” it was meant bread of 2 1/2 cent and 2 1/2 cent sugar or molasses per pupil a day (Voges, 1990:20.22.37).

The subsidies became equal for all schools only in 1946. Despite this, the subsidies per student in 1957, in special education, were 272.47 guilders over against 404.03 guilders per student, in public education (Hart, 1992:57). However, this amount might have been applicable only to the Leeward Islands, given that in the 1960 Report for the Windward Islands the subsidies for a student a year were 16 guilders, and 20 guilders per classroom a month. We can now visualize the climate of the time.

Conclusions

It is an undeniable fact that the Dominican Sisters of Voorschoten have shaped Catholic Education on St. Maarten. Moreover, their influence has gone way beyond the confinements of the Catholic educational setting. During the hundred years that they were on the mission of St. Maarten (1890‑1990), they started different schools and projects geared towards instructing and educating the youth. Despite their being ill‑prepared for their mission, they had their orders to be teachers and their vocation to keep them going in their new setting.

We can honestly say that, from a historical viewpoint, they have done a tremendous job in establishing the educational infrastructure of Catholic education on the island, especially considering the local situation and the lack of financial backing. The names of many of the local schools still make clear reference to the Sisters’ past presence and work on St. Maarten. In future publications, we shall go beyond the present descriptive, historical account in order to analyze their work from an educational, ideological‑critical perspective.

 

References and/or complementary bibliography

Badejo, Fabian (1990). Sint Maarten: The Dutch half in future perspective. In Betty Sedoc-Dahlberg (ed.), The Dutch Caribbean: Prospects for Democracy. New York: Gordon and Breach, pp. 119-50.

Bakker, J. & Veer, van der R. (1999). Nederlandse Antillen en Aruba: Mensen, Politiek, Economie, Cultuur, Milieu. Boskoop: Macula bv.

Boodoo, Gerald (1996). Gospel and Culture in a Forced Theological context. Caribbean Journal of Religious Studies 17, nr. 2: 3-19.

Braudel, Fernand (1972). The Mediterranean, vol. 1. Great Brittain: Wim Collings Sons Ltd. & Harper & Row Pub. Inc.

Depaepe, Marc (1991-1992). Levensverhaal van moeder Marie Adonia Depaepe, missie-zuster uit het Kortrijkse in Belgisch Kongo 1906-1961, gereconstrueerd op basis van brieven aan haar familie. Handelingen van de Koninklijke Geschied- en Oudheidkundige Kring van Kortrijk (nieuwe reeks), LVII-LVIII: 137-56.

DvO (1960). Het onderwijs in de Nederlandse Antillen: verslag over het jaar 1960. Departement van Onderwijs.

Encyclopedia international. Volume 4 (1963).

George, Milton A. (2000). Caribbean Theology in the making: Idris Hamid, Kortridge Davis and the ongoing challenges. M.A. dissertation, KULeuven.

Hart, J. (1992). 150 jaar Rooms Katholiek Onderwijs op de Nederlandse Antillen: Een gedenkboek ter herinnering aan de komst der Zusters 150 jaar geleden op de Nederlandse Antillen. Scherpenheuvel: Imprenta.

Hartog, J. (1981). History of Sint Maarten and Saint Martin. Sint Maarten: The Sint Maarten Jaycees.

Johnson, Will (1995). The history of the Windward Islands. Stichting ABC Advies, 78: 1-9.

Kingdom of the Netherlands (2002). Statuut voor het Koninkrijk der Nederland, in “Kluwer College Bundel 2002-2003 Wetteksten”. Deventer: Uitgeverij Kluwer BV.

Nettleford, Rex (1994). The Caribbean: Crossroads of the Americas. In Alan Cobley (ed.), Crossroads of Empire, The Europe-Caribbean Connection 1492-1992. Barbados: Stephonson’s Lithopress Ltd., pp. 15-23.

NEB (1995). The New Encyclopaedia Britannica. Volume 29. Macropaedia.

Schwab, D. (ed.) (1996). Insight Guides: Caribbean, The Lesser Antilles. Great Britain: APA Publications.

Sypkens Smith, M. (1995). Beyond the tourist trap: A study of Sint Maarten culture. Amsterdam: s.n.

Thompson, A. (1997). The Haunting Past. Politics, Economics and Race in Caribbean life. Kingston: Ian Randle Publishers.

Voges, M. (1990). De zusters Dominicanessen van Voorschoten: 100 jaar op St. Maarten, Nederlandse Antillen, 1890-1990. S.I.: De Couraçaosche Courant N.V.

Williams, Eric (1970). From Columbus to Castro: The History of the Caribbean 1492-1969. Great Britain: St. Edmunsbury Press Limited.

 


 

 


Doing Theology in a Caribbean Context:
The Caribbean and the challenges of becoming oneself

PhD candidate, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium

milgeorge@yahoo.com

 

At the current moment of the development of a theology or theologies of and for the Caribbean, we would have to define more than one word. “Theology” itself and its methodology need to be re‑defined and re‑examined in the context of the religious experience of the people of this region.[81] There is a need for an explicitly and relevantly Caribbean paradigm to bring about change, not only to define the kind of change required, but also to help give a sense of coherence and direction to efforts for bringing about change.[82]

In this contribution, we shall look at some of the elements of the Christian theological reflection conducted on the British and Dutch sides of the Caribbean. We shall start with Idris Hamid and Kortright Davis, two men who attempted to articulate the coordinates that should steer regional change in times when black societies around the world sought emancipation and a clear sense of coherence was being called for.

1. Laying down the foundations

1.1. The problem of definitions

The Caribbean (basin) has become a broader term than the Antilles; the difference between the two is that while the latter points only to a group of islands, the former includes countries which are on the Central and South American mainland, e.g. parts of Brazil, Guyana, Suriname, (French) Guiana, Panama, Venezuela, Colombia, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Belize, and Mexico.[83]

The decade of the 1970s constitutes an important milestone in the process of decolonization, homecoming, and regional integration, in general, and in the development of a truly Caribbean theological method, in particular. Within this context there are two theologians that deserve special mention: Idris Hamid and Kortright Davis. Their personal contributions led to the birth and growth of a truly Caribbean Christian theological methodology.

1.2. Idris Hamid and Kortright Davis

i) Idris Hamid

Idris Hamid was a married ordained minister of the Presbyterian Church in Trinidad and Grenada, and father of four.  Hamid edited the Caribbean Lenten Booklet, wrote the seminal paper called In Search of New Perspectives (1971) for the historic Caribbean Ecumenical Consultation on Development in 1971, edited an earlier work on theological exploration called Troubling of the Waters (1973), and Out of the Depths[84] (1977). The latter work was a collection of papers presented at four Missiology Conferences held in Antigua, Guyana, Jamaica, and Trinidad in 1975. Reverend Idris Hamid died in the late seventies.

ii) Kortright Davis

Kortright Davis was born on the Island of Antigua, in the West Indies. He is an Anglican clergyman, trained for his ministry at Codrington College in Barbados. Relevant is his work with the Caribbean Conference of Churches between 1971‑1978. He coordinated several important ecumenical gatherings including the two Assemblies of the CCC in 1973 and 1977, respectively.

Davis has published a number of articles and papers, contributed to collections of essays on Caribbean Christianity, and edited a few books including Moving Into Freedom (Barbados, 1977). Some other important works of his are: Mission For Caribbean Change: Caribbean Development as Theological Enterprise (1982)[85], Cross and crown in Barbados: Caribbean politics. Religion in the late 19th Century (1983)[86], and Emancipation Still Comin’, Explorations in Caribbean Emancipatory Theology (1990)[87].

iii) The search for a new theological method

Idris Hamid’s contribution to the development of Caribbean theology has been seminal. He sustained that the Caribbean churches were in need of a new theological method: any truly Caribbean theology must be framed within the coordinates of contextualization. Theology and theologians must thus embark upon a homecoming process. This ideological movement towards the free and creative establishment of one’s identity would include a number of elements: decolonization, a new reading of history, a missiological and ecumenical thrust, and a direct link to or translation into development and education.

a. Decolonizing theology

Colonization is the historical context of the Caribbean. The colonizers made the Caribbean that we now know; moreover, they forced[88] it into existence. Hamid interpreted the incident whereby the Black Power movement blackened a crucifix as a clear example of the regional need for decolonizing theology and religious life, as well as their symbols. For him, the theology of the churches was the last bastion of colonialism. The mother countries had allowed their Caribbean subjects to become more or less autonomous or even independent states, yet the old colonies were still ideologically and religiously dependent. The trappings of the old European empires had to be removed from Caribbean societies and religiosity.

What Hamid called decolonization appears in Davis as the two‑dimensional principle or dynamic of emancipation‑indigenization. For him, emancipation was in fact the keyword referring to the change that mediates all other changes in the Caribbean human condition. “‘Emancipation’ links us existentially with the struggle of our slave ancestors, since we are the inheritors of that struggle; it also keeps before us the strongest warning away from the bondage to which God wills that we should never return. In Caribbean terms, ‘emancipation’ is the word that tells us and the world ‘Massa day done.’ Slavemasters are no more, nor are there to be slaves anymore.”[89]

It is at this point that Caribbean theology and the neighboring Latin‑American liberation theology both come together and part ways. In fact, emancipation is the Caribbean word for liberation, not only because it denotes the major Caribbean aspiration, but also because it evokes a sense of accountability to the Caribbean forebears in slavery and to their descendants in freedom.[90] Davis was in favour of an “emancipatory theology,” instead of a “liberation theology.” There is nobody to liberate in this process other than the Caribbean devalued self. Such an emancipatory theology cannot remain on the surface, at the level of appearances and show only. It should plunge deeper and aim at more comprehensive levels. Davis argued that the history of religion in the Caribbean and the history of the church in the region are not identical. Religion has extended far beyond the reaches of the church.

Indigenization represents one of the dimensions of emancipation. Davis cannot see in which way self‑identity, dignity, and negritude can be measured either in economic or religious terms. It encapsulates the religious surplus that transcends the churches and which they have missed.

b. A new reading of history

Hamid’s second great contribution towards the development of Caribbean theology is to be found in his book Out of the Depths from 1977. Indeed, out of the depths of history the new theology must arise. Or, in his words, “The church in the Caribbean cannot reflect on its Mission to-day without first seriously coming to terms with its own history. Its historical experience will yield insights into its own present posture and suggest clues for the future.”

Christianity was one of the elements whereby the mind of the colonized was shaped, as Hamid had already emphasized in his paper In Search of New Perspectives. In fact, both the foregoing gospel proclamation and the churches wherein it subsisted were radically double‑edged socio‑historical realities. In Hamid’s own words, “The gospel came to us on the back of Colonialism. The assumptions of colonialism concerning the colonized, their potential and destiny; and the value-system of colonialism have penetrated and often perverted that Gospel. It was too easily made, or tailor made, to serve the ends and ideals of colonialism. What was produced in the process was a colonial Church.”[91]

c. Re‑examining the gospel

If history itself is to be re‑read, then the Gospel proclamation done in the past must also come under scrutiny. That is why Hamid suggests that the gospel has to be re‑examined. This re‑examination will be an open one: with a missiological, ecumenical, and dialogical thrust especially aware of the (new) religious traditions native to the Caribbean.

During the colonial period, life happened on two fronts: the official and the domestic. The culture of the colonizer and that of the colonized co‑existed, but not always coincided. There has always been an official language and a Creole language, the official religion (Christianity) and the neo‑traditional religions (Voodoo, Santería, Winti, etc.). The dynamic of cultural negotiation whereby some elements are borrowed and others are refused, as spoken of by Ferdinand Braudel, also played their part in the religious arena. Hamid was aware that the Caribbean people often picked and chose what was suitable for their survival. Theologians must therefore get in touch with those undercurrents that preserve the creative selectivity, on the one hand, of the people and, on the other hand, of the teachings of and the opportunities provided by the Church.[92]

Davis, too, believes that the gospel has to be re‑examined. He is aware that theology exists at three different levels: (a) at the level of the hierarchy, (b) at the level of academic theologians, and (c) at the level of the people in the pews. Everybody at each one of these levels has his or her own methodological preferences and re‑interpretation of the faith, and therefore draws different conclusions for the praxis.

The Caribbean contextual theology is (a) a clear inclination, and (b) it has already been undertaken by the people, which Davis sees as fulfilled, to a certain extent, in Vodun or Voodoo in Haiti, Shango in Trinidad and Tobago, and Rastafarianism in Jamaica. In these Caribbean religious traditions, a clear inclination in favour of the poorer and socially weaker classes is manifest, as well as the agency and reception thereof on the part of the people. These are essentially grass‑roots religious movements.

Where can Caribbean theology start then? Which paths must it tread in order to elicit from within the Caribbean reality a truly faith‑filled Caribbean response to reality? Davis suggests some pointers. Theology must involve an exploration into the identity of a largely “ancestorless” people since in the Caribbean it is easier to see in which ways new ancestral lines have been initiated than to trace back one’s roots. Theology must analyze the ways in which the subordination experienced in slavery, indentureship, and colonialism has brought about dysfunctional social structures. Theology must be concerned with the bipolarities of human existence, e.g. the tension between pain and possibility. Theology must highlight the unbreakable experience of God of the Caribbean people who never doubted of the Divine presence even amidst the most horrendous conditions. Theology must engage in creative action in the community.[93]

By re‑examining the Gospel and as a radical part thereof, theology must try to become a narrative theology. A renewed regional and local religious story is needed; one that integrates the Caribbean people’s belief with their experiences for others to hear, feel, and remember.

d. A direct link to or translation into development & education

The contextualization and decolonization of theology must undoubtedly also include a re‑interpretation not only of history and the Gospel, but also of the systematization of the faith. In other words, Caribbean theology must be praxis (reflective engagement in action) rather than doxa (mere mental search for the truth). Davis stated that theological education is more needed than ministerial formation; hereby he was taking theology beyond the clergy. He also pointed out that the re‑structuring of this aspect of church life had not taken place yet. The mission of the church in the Caribbean is to proclaim in word, sacrament, and action that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is Good News for today and tomorrow, and not merely about the past or history. He argued that the theological education offered to the Caribbean people is still an image of the North American ideas and influences. The USA is now perhaps the strongest “imperialistic” cultural influence in the Caribbean, from which the region must be emancipated.

One part of the Caribbean reality that has played a central role and often been ignored is “women.” As for the priorities of the position of the Caribbean woman, Davis favoured their leadership. According to him, they have been the major preservers of the Caribbean cultural foundation—he would thus seem to adhere to the ordination of women. It is clear that he pleaded for the recognition by the church of “the significance of motherhood and feminine strength.” Furthermore, the church ought to struggle “to secure the rights and privileges of women.”[94] And all this is also part and parcel of education and development.

Liberation theology as known in Latin America is, according to Davis, not generally understood or admired in the region because in the English‑speaking Caribbean only a few people can speak and read Spanish and Portuguese and because most pastors and church leaders have not read much on this topic.

Political emancipation has taken place. The rise of a third way between American Capitalism and Russian Communism came and went in Grenada, Guyana, and Suriname. Only Cuba remains as a unique exception. In light of this, Davis offered four pointers for future praxis: 1) poverty is still there, 2) the only interest is survival, 3) people do not read (which makes Christianity as a religion of the book not so popular in this region; furthermore, the few theological scholars do not know much about each other’s work, perhaps as a result of insularity), and 4) the prevailing regional tradition is the oral tradition (the theologizing, too, is done as a narrative enterprise, orally, and informally, rather than in writing).[95]

iv) Some remarks

Hamid and Davis agreed that a Caribbean Christian theological method must be found: a path for reflecting theologically, one that would do justice to the Caribbean social, cultural, and religious configuration. A path is, however, a functional element towards a goal. Paths are made, re‑made, and sometimes declared obsolete and replaced by newer ones. The Caribbean people must pluck up the courage to think theologically from within the place and time where they are (not where they were). The task of becoming oneself is not easy, especially in societies that have lived in patronizing, inhumane, forced political contexts. Emancipation has taken place at the political level, but not yet fully in the areas of economics, education, and theology. Decolonization and indigenization remain a promise of a future yet to come.

2. Building on the foundations

Caribbean Christian theology remained somewhat still during the great part of the 80s Even though Hamid and Davis had indicated the way forward towards a truly contextual, regional, theological reflection, more time was needed to strengthen the process of decolonization of the intellect. In the 90s, however, a new generation of theologians picked up the torch and ventured new ideas, assigning a central role to the search for Caribbean hermeneutics, i.e. categories and strategies that would help re‑think the Caribbean context. We shall now briefly present some of their suggestions.

2.1. The “forced context”

Gerald Boodoo, a Trinidadian lecturer of theology at Xavier University, Louisiana (USA), takes up Hamid’s basic points once again. He underlines the “need to recall the religious intuitions of our people and to subject these to scrutiny for the purpose of articulating them through the symbols of faith and life.”[96]

Boodoo has repeatedly spoken in terms of forced‑ness[97] and space of confrontation[98], pointing to the forced nature of past and present oppression. He has also pleaded for a distinction between survival and salvation.

That survival is not equal to salvation ─as the latter is understood by the Christian tradition─ becomes evident since salvation may at times even ask for the sacrifice of the self in the cause of dreams/values. In this dynamic, theology has a key role to play. It could give venues of expression to the painful space between dreams and reality, between the unconditioned God and the limitedness of Caribbean life. Dreams are in this sense the voice that reminds a society that “reality bites.” Theology could and ought to mediate the society’s homecoming to its own “clarity” ─one that lies in its unthematic spontaneity. The Caribbean must find its “own parables” that can encapsulate that space. This remark shares Davis’s view on ideologies and takes it to newer heights.

Finally, Boodoo has suggested that the realization of freedom and liberation[99] are the goals of a theology that is done in a forced context, which might imply that for Boodoo, unlike for Davis, there can be some common ground between Latin‑American liberation theology and Caribbean theology.

Theresa Lowe‑Ching, a lecturer of Systematic Theology at the Saint Michael’s Theological Centre in Jamaica, has openly acknowledged her debt to the pioneers of the 70’s.[100] She has taken up the issue of decolonization once again, re‑interpreting it in light of the present situation of cultural and economic imperialism and neo‑colonization. Caribbean theology must aim at emancipation from the oppressive forces that subdue Caribbean life. It must free itself from the straightjacket of foreign cultural and economic dominance, what Boodoo would describe as its new forced context.

2.2. A new reading of Caribbean history

The Hamid‑Davis tradition has been revisited by Hyacinth I. Boothe, a Jamaican‑trained Methodist pastor. She focuses, however, on the relationship between gospel, culture, and Caribbean hermeneutics. She has once again challenged Caribbean Christian theologians “to expound an indigenous theology.”[101]

Jason Gordon, a Trinidadian, has been particularly active in the field of history. Based on the fact that colonization, slavery, and the plantation system served the financial needs of the colonizers, he employs the analysis of the economic context as a valid and significant factor to approach and assess Caribbean history. He has also suggested that not only the social scientist should provide the tools to mediate and analyze Caribbean reality, but also the artists and their works of literature and literary critique.

2.3. Re‑examining the gospel

The “re‑examination of the gospel” project launched by Hamid involves much more than the mere re‑assessment of the validity of the four gospels or the Greek‑Latin Christian dogmas; it is about finding what the good news actually is and re‑translating it into Caribbean Creole Christian theological language. It is about understanding the gospel in and through one’s own words. This approach espouses neither a Christology from above nor one from below but, instead, one from within.

Martin Shade, a naturalized Jamaican, has delved into the Rastafarian tradition and its implicit and explicit contribution to and critique of the colonial Christ‑image. Shade carries on thus with the re‑examination of the gospel that Hamid and Davis advocated. He represents a clear example of the new Caribbean Christian theological methodology.

Shade attempts to integrate Hebrew thought patterns, high and low christologies, Karl Rahner’s transcendental theology, Teilhard de Chardin’s evolutionary cosmology-christology, and Rastafarianism in order to discover the ways in which Rastafarianism unveils the relevance of Christ for Caribbean subjects. Shade expresses all this in a very telling manner: “A sermon attributed to St. Augustine asserts: ‘But already then [in Genesis] Mary was included in Eve; yet it was only when Mary came that we knew who Eve was.’ In a similar way for Rastas, Haile Selassie and Christ this statement can be restated: ‘But already then [Haile Selassie] was included in [Christ]; yet it was only when [Haile Selassie] came that [the Rastas] knew who [Christ] was.’ Hopefully, now the Rastas of the world will have discovered ‘Christ the Alpha … the way and the truth and the life’ through Haile Selassie. ‘Jah!!! Ras Tafari!!!’ Amen !!!!”[102]

2.4. Indigenization

Duncan Wielzen, from Suriname, has been working in the last ten years on an indigenization project both in Suriname and in the Netherlands, in the Caribbean diaspora. He is interested in the inculturation process of the liturgy. He has paid particular attention to Winti, the Afro‑Surinamese traditional religion, its symbols and healing rituals, seeking to integrate them into the ritual life of Afro‑Surinamese Catholics, both at home and in the Netherlands.[103]

For Wielzen, the process of inculturation has broad dimensions, some of which lie hidden in the subconscious or unconscious undercurrents of the Surinamese cultural make‑up. He supports, for instance, the use of sranantongo (the main Afro‑Surinamese language) in the liturgy, arguing that this would (1) strengthen the identity of the people, (2) increase the respect for one’s own national Creole language, and (3) help emancipate the collective unconscious of the people with its social inferiority complexes.[104] 

3. New developments

Even though Caribbean Christian theologians have dealt with the issues brought to the fore by Hamid and Davis, they have also started to bring in new elements representative of the 90’s.

Inter-culturality and multi-culturality: the difference lies in the inter‑relational dimension of the former. The fact is that the Caribbean multi‑cultural society can be a collection of ghettos, failing to be an integrated whole where differences not only coexist, but also influence one another leading up to ever‑new syntheses and to a common national and regional identity beyond race or religion.

Feminist theology and gender studies: women are demanding their own space where they can deal with and plead for their own agenda. This space has called for new contributions to the Caribbean theological reflection which were not there before. Theresa Lowe-Ching has rightly pointed out that the almost complete lack of references to the experience of women and women’s contribution in the regional theological reflections up until now is remarkable, coupled with the dearth of women theologians in our region.[105] According to Schneiders, patriarchy is not only one example of classism, but the root of all hierarchical relationships including sexism, classism, clericalism, colonialism, racism, ageism, and hetero‑sexism.[106]

Ethnicity and identity: even though ethnicity has always been a powerful social reality in the Caribbean, it has not always been pondered theologically what “Caribbeanness” means. Premdas classifies four types of identity: the ethno‑national or ethnological identity, the ethno‑national universal identity, a national identity, and the Trans-Caribbean identity. Considering the large Caribbean diaspora, it could be said that the Caribbean is wherever Caribbean people are in the global village. Moreover, Caribbean people are themselves carriers of multiple identities, not only linguistically and culturally, but also genetically speaking since most of the Caribbean people are partly European, black, Asian, and indigenous.

4. Final remarks

Even though our separate Caribbean societies have already started their journey towards regional integration (e.g. in the CARICOM), we cannot as yet speak of an integrated theological discourse. The colonial roots of each portion of the Caribbean continue to play an important role. Martinique, Guadeloupe, (northern) St. Martin, St. Barthes, and French Guiana are French overseas territories. Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao, Saba, St. Eustatius, and (southern) St. Martin are constituent parts of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Puerto Rico belongs to the USA Commonwealth. Due to the colonial past, language remains a barrier whereby not all theologians can read each other’s work. Despite having so much in common, we —British, French, Spanish, and Dutch Caribbean Christians— have not yet managed to coordinate our efforts, exchanging insights, experiences, and tools for conducting our theological reflection. We are much more dependant on our former metropolitan motherlands and the current world superpower (the USA), and their theological discourses, than on our neighbors’.

The Amerindian and black bush population in Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana remain voiceless in the theological spectrum. They are the voiceless among the voiceless.

Caribbean cultures are not “book cultures,” as Davis pointed out. Ideas are transmitted through the spoken or sung word and often in the context of festivity. Caribbean theologians should continue with their experiments into new models of narrative theology and Gospel enactment (e.g. preaching is sometimes done in Trinidad and Tobago in a Calypso format and in Suriname as theater plays).

The place of historical studies in exegesis and the evolution of dogmas, liturgy, and (Christian) ethics could still be highlighted. A re‑translation of the Christological faith is at this point a necessity. Questions could be asked about: the role of the historical Jesus within the Caribbean religious reality (Christianity « traditional religions), the role of the church over against regionalism, rebellion against imperialism, mimicry of American styles, drugs, the economy, etc.

An aspect of human life that is crying out for attention is that of sexuality, including gender issues concerning men and women, hetero‑, homo‑ and bi‑sexuality, marriage, cohabitation, single parenthood, and the extended family.

Intra-ecclesial relationships could also be looked into, such as church management, clericalism, new lay ministries, and the option for the poor. Unlike their Latin America neighbours, the Caribbean Christian communities are conspicuously silent on the issue of poverty. The tourist sights shown in brochures of the Caribbean do not present the whole picture. Our societies fall prey to the appearance mentality.

Another area that must be examined further is that of celebration, including the study of the relationship between Christian sacraments and the healing rituals of traditional religions. Do the biblical and traditional Afro‑Caribbean cosmologies clash or merge into a new worldview?

The role of the Caribbean diaspora in the shaping of Caribbean consciousness and expectations ought also to be analyzed.

It is important for the Caribbean theological methodology to realize that the Caribbean religious experience has been and still is a bilingual one. [107] In the same way as the people switch back and forth between their official (colonial) language and the local dialects or versions thereof, so too do most Caribbean men and women show a religious bilingual disposition —or a Creole second nature— towards the usage of Christian, African, or Asian religious concepts, rituals, and symbols. This remains still a venue to be explored by the Caribbean churches.

Finally, Caribbean societies are radically plural ones. Current theological reflection cannot therefore fail to give ecumenism and inter-religious dialogue its due place.


 

 

Making sense of the Afro‑Caribbean concubinage
from a canon law perspective

PhD candidate, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium

milgeorge@yahoo.com

 

0   Introduction

In 1993, Bishop Anthony Dickson of Barbados (now emeritus) opened the Antillean Canon Law Society convention and called its members to have "an attitude towards the law which will enable us to use the law in the service of our people, in all our social and cultural realities",[108] and to enter into dialogue with the Holy See so that "the Holy See will be aware of our particular cultural and social reality".[109] This is the spirit that informs the suggestions put forward in this paper.

The aim of this presentation is to present the church’s teaching on concubinage and its legislation on marriage in a nutshell, and to compare and adapt them to the Caribbean reality of concubinage among the Afro‑Caribbean population. What follows is based on a previous study of mine on this subject.[110] The core of my suggestion is based on three convictions. (1) The Afro‑Caribbean institution of purposive or faithful concubinage cannot be equated with what the later teaching of the church understands by "concubinage". (2) The relationship between marriage and the Afro‑Caribbean purposive or faithful concubinage can be compared to that between sacraments and sacramentals. (3) The institutionalised Afro‑Caribbean purposive or faithful concubinage could be declared to be a regional custom and celebrated by the creation of a sacramental blessing for the partners.

The pointers towards a solution suggested in this paper differ thus from the ones presented by Michael Lewis in a short paper of his entitled Canonical Response to Common Law Unions or Faithful Concubinage. The essence of his argument is founded on the principle that: “A process for determining the existence of naturally sufficient consent might be similar to the process employed in determining the nullity of marriages. However, instead of trying to prove that matrimonial consent was fundamentally flawed and so rebut the presumption of validity enshrined in canon 1060, this process would attempt to determine whether there is sufficient evidence of the existence and perdurance of true marital consent between the partners to a common‑law union to conclude that the consent was truly marital.” [111]

He considers then how the strategies of simple convalidation, radical sanation and dispensation from the observance of the canonical form can be applied to the case of common law unions.

The suggestions in this paper do not intend to counter Michael Lewis's suggestion. They take a different point of departure and arrive at a different picture, where marriage and the other six canonised sacraments remain the basic ecclesial models of graced interactions, yet definitely not the only ones.

Whatever is said here about the Afro-Caribbean concubinage might perhaps not be fully applicable to all Caribbean societies. These data must therefore be interpreted and applied mutatis mutandis in light of each contextual situation.

1   The “Code of Canon Law” on marriage

1. 1   “Code of Canon Law”

Not many people know that, next to its Scriptures, dogmatic and social writings, the Catholic Church also has a legislative corpus: the Code of Canon Law. The 1752 canons of the Code promulgated in 1983 regulate the whole life and functioning of the Catholic Church of Latin rite: the rights and duties of its members, its offices, its sanctifying acts (sacraments [among which marriage] and sacramentals), its courts and penal processes etc.

Mariage is the only relationship pattern between a man and a woman, involving sexual activity and the procreation of children, dealt with in detail in the Code. Concubinage is mentioned only once.

1. 2  Church legislation on marriage

The word marriage connotes a series of different realities. Marriage is a contract (a legal act), a covenant (an initial interpersonal relationship), a partnership of life and love (a growing process), an institution (a social state) and a sacrament (a sanctifying reality) ‑‑all of them being inaugurated publicly by the consent voiced at the wedding ceremony.

In the 60s there was much discussion whether marriage was a covenant or an institution, i.e. whether it was a personal pact or a social legal entity. Gaudium et spes (= GS) 47‑52 set then the tone of the debate on the family and marriage. In fact, GS 48 encapsulated all the above-mentioned elements, albeit opting for the personalistic approach. “The intimate partnership of life and love which constitutes the married state has been established by the creator and endowed by him with its own proper laws: it is rooted in the contract of its partners, that is, in their irrevocable personal consent. It is an institution confirmed by the divine law and receiving its stability, even in the eyes of society, from the human act by which the partners mutually surrender themselves to each other; for the good of the partners, of the children, and of society this sacred bond no longer depends on human decision alone. (...) Just as of old God encountered his people with a covenant of love and fidelity, so our Saviour, the spouse of the Church, now encounters Christian spouses through the sacrament of marriage.”[112]

The 1983 Code of Canon Law dedicated more than a hundred canons to marriage (cf. cann. 1055‑1165). Canon 1055 ushers in the legislation on marriage as follows: “§1. The marriage covenant (matrimoniale foedus), by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of their whole life (totius vitae consortium), and which of its own very nature is ordered to the well‑being of the spouses and to the procreation and upbringing of children, has, between the baptised, been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament (ad sacramenti dignitatem). §2. Consequently, a valid marriage contract (matrimonialis contractus) cannot exist between baptised persons without its being by that very fact a sacrament.”

Canon 1056 defines the essential properties of marriage: unity and indissolubility. This means that the Catholic marriage, as conceived by the Code of Canon Law, excludes both polygamy and divorce. People can be married only one at a time and they remain married until one of them dies.

A marriage starts when the consent to a common life of partnership is expressed. The partners’ mutual yes‑word founds their marriage. This means, that the validity of the marriage stands or falls on the quality of their yes‑word (can. 1101), which is both internal and external.

The internal consent refers to the intention of the partners. This means that they fully and freely accept the tria bona matrimonialia (i.e. the three goods of Catholic marriage): fidelity (“you and only you”), openness to procreation (“yes to children”) and indissolubility (“till death do us part”).[113]

The external consent refers basically to the acts that embody the partner’s intention to be married in social and corporeal terms. Their consent must thus be expressed first before the community according to the canonical form and then in the intimacy of the sexual encounter (consummation). This means that, if the partners did not mean either to be faithful or to be open to receiving children or to being together up to death, or that if the consent was not witnessed by anyone in the name of the church (canonical form), then in the eyes of the church, they have married invalidly. There has never been a marriage. The union can therefore be declared null, i.e. non‑existent. If they have not consummated their consent in a sexual manner (a so‑called matrimonium ratum tantum), their marriage can be dissolved (cann. 1061 and 1142).[114]

It is the canonical form that ensures the public and social nature of marriage. This is stipulated by can. 1108: “§1. Only those marriages are valid which are contracted in the presence of the local Ordinary or parish priest or of the priest or deacon delegated by either of them, who, in the presence of two witnesses, assists, in accordance however with the rules set out in the following canons, and without prejudice to the exceptions mentioned in cann. 144, 1112 §2, 1116 and 1127 §§1‑2. §2. Only that person who, being present, asks the contracting parties to manifest their consent and in the name of the Church receives it, is understood to assist at the marriage.”

Lay people can also be delegated to witness the exchange of mutual marital consent, cfr. can. 1112 §1.

In the event that the canonical form cannot be observed, the Code allows for a matrimonium sine forma (a marriage without the form) carried out in the presence of the witnesses alone, in danger of death (cf. can. 1116 §1.1o) or when the absence of the person competent to assist the marriage will continue for a month (cf. can. 1116 §1.2o).

In short, one can say that, according to current Catholic legislation, marriage is considered to be the paradigmatic relationship pattern between a man and a woman involving sexual intimacy and the procreation of children. This means that marriage and all its inherent elements (such as sexual intercourse) are seen as good. Moreover, marriage is not only a good thing, it is also a sacrament. That is, it is one of the “(...) signs and means by which faith is expressed and strengthened, worship is offered to God and our sanctification is brought about.”[115]

The positive legal position of marriage within Catholic legislation and the fact that concubinage is mentioned only once and then in negative terms presents theologians and pastoral agents in the Caribbean with some problems, especially when the law is read in light of other ecclesiastical writings (e.g. papal statements, documents and the latest version of the Catechism of the Catholic Church). Yet, before any conclusion is drawn, the Afro‑Caribbean relationship patterns must be briefly looked at and then compared with the data from the Catholic tradition.

2   Relationship patterns in the Caribbean

The relationship patterns that exist in the Caribbean and the words used to name them are not different from those present in other parts of the world. This does not entail, however, that lexical coincidence implies semantic and social coincidence. In other words, the fact that the same words are used does not necessitate that their content and social meaning coincide. The most noticeable patterns of sexual relationships in the Caribbean are the following:

2. 1   Visiting relationship

The visiting relationship is the relationship in which a man visits a woman (or vice‑versa) at her place, at her mother’s or at a place that is rented to that purpose. That is why they are also called extra‑residential unions,[116] extra‑residential mating [117] or casual mating [118]. The essential characteristic of a visiting relationship is that it “(...) is a sexual congress without cohabitation or any intention to form a permanent relationship.”[119]

On the one hand, the sexual element distinguishes it from mere friendship; and, on the other hand, the lack of cohabitation makes it clear that it is not concubinage. This means that this type of relationship is unstable and lacks a socially perceivable binding commitment to one another. Having said that, a visiting relationship can, at times, be recognisable within the social structure. The family of both or of one of the parties may know of the relationship.[120]

In fact, it can take place parallel to the relationship that a person has with his or her married partner or concubine.[121] Visiting relationships are cut out for people who cannot afford to have a more socially recognised and recognisable committed relationship, such as people who belong to different social strata, or are either too young or too old.

From a theological, ethical and social point of view, visiting relationships can give rise to situations of single parenthood (read: single motherhood) where the man does not acknowledge the children born out his “visits,” and to sexual promiscuity or so‑called fornication.

2. 2   Concubinage

In the English‑speaking world, concubinage is also called common law marriage or non‑legal union of living. In reality, more often than not, it is regarded as a normal relationship pattern. G. Cumper states, “The notion of common‑law marriage probably established itself so firmly in the West Indies in the days when it was difficult, and sometimes impossible for slaves to marry. Though it has been impossible for a long time now to make a legal marriage on the basis of consent as evidenced by a living together as man and wife, the notion persisted that some special relationship was created thereby.”[122]

People enter into a concubinage relationship because of financial, structural and/or psychological reasons. Not everyone, especially not every male, is capable of meeting all the needs that come along with the married state. There are also those who are put off by the bureaucratic side of marriage. In some other cases, there are men who feel that their loyalty goes out first and foremost to their mother and that they therefore do not need to be bound to any other woman.[123]

There are roughly two kinds of concubinage: the consensual or non‑purposive unions and the faithful or purpose unions.[124] The first type is made up of those relationships that do not last any longer than three years. Their positive element lies in that they constitute a real relationship of love and life between a man and a woman. Their shortcoming becomes apparent once they are compared to the second type, i.e. to those relationships that enjoy (certain) permanence. In Clarke’s words, “The distinguishing features of these non-purposive unions are, therefore, the fortuitous manner in which they occur, their transitory nature and the inferior status of the woman. She has little expectation that the arrangement will last or provide any permanent solution of her economic problems. Moreover, she cannot claim the man’s exclusive attention though if she were found to be going with another man she would certainly be turned out.”[125]

It is worth noting that some consensual or non-purposive unions are at times the beginning of permanent relationships. Even when some of these unions cease to exist, it can still be said that the partners had in the beginning already the intention to remain together. So as Clarke observes: “(...) the repetition, in one life history after another, of some such phrase as ‘I must seek a man to be responsible for me’ leads to the conclusion that even the most casual-seeming concubinage is not without the hope, on the woman’s side, that it may lead to a permanent domestic establishment.”[126]

In the case of the so-called faithful or purposive concubinage the partners have the intention to stay together on a permanent basis and their families know of this. The community looks at them as though they were married and has similar expectations from them as they would from a married couple. The actual consent of the parents is at times asked for, one way or another.[127]

The fact that the legislation of several countries in the Caribbean, among which Suriname, sets couples living in concubinage on a par with married couples in several respects constitutes an important element that speaks in favour of the social and institutional character of concubinage relationships of the faithful or purposive type.[128]

2. 3   Marriage

Marriage is not an unknown social entity among the Afro-Caribbean people. It often is preceded by a visiting or a concubinage relationship. It is sometimes the children that lead their parents towards marriage. However, marriage is not always the norm within the Afro‑Caribbean community.

The institution of marriage has, in the Caribbean, its own cultural socio-historical connotations that go back to the plantation days. Marriage is at times perceived as calling for a certain economic position. O. Lewis remarks, coming from another angle, that: “People with a culture of poverty are aware of middle-class values, talk about them and even claim some of them as their own, but on the whole do not live by them. Thus it is important to distinguish between what they say and what they do. For example, many will tell you that marriage by law, by the church, or by both, is the ideal form of marriage, but few will marry.”[129]

This is so because the black slaves associated marriage with their white masters. Marriage was to whites, what concubinage was to blacks —in their own separate ways.

3   The problems

The problems for the theological and canonical assessment of the Afro‑Caribbean concubinage arise when the legislation on marriage is complemented with the on‑going teachings of the church on sexuality and relationships. Throughout the centuries, there have been two clear trends of thought. While one group has had a positive understanding of concubinage, another group has placed all the emphasis on marriage and conceived of concubinage only as a sinful situation.

In Roman jurisprudence, there existed the institution of concubinage, which referred to the bond between a man and a woman in cases where marriage or connubium was not possible. If the concubinage was between two free persons, it was called concubinatus. If it involved slaves, it was called contubernium.[130] The fact that the slaves were not subjects of the law meant that they did not possess the patrias potestas (whereby a father has the fatherly rights over a child) and that they could not get married. Marriage was a legal institution accessible only to those that were subjects of the law. Having said that, concubinage was considered to be a social institution, and not just a casual thing.[131]

The fact that the same word contubernium could be used to refer (a) to the relationship between slaves, (b) to the loose relationship of a free man with a free woman of a lower social position or a female slave, and (c) to fornication (stuprum) may be at the basis of the later evaluation of concubinage.[132]

3. 1   Positive tradition about concubinage

There are clear signs that Pope Callystus (217-222), St Augustine (354‑430), the Council of Toledo (400) and the great legislator Gratian (1140) could think of concubinage as being similar to marriage in certain circumstances. This school of thought was in keeping with the old Roman legal tradition that viewed concubinage as a social institution. The key idea behind this school was worded clearly by the Council of Toledo, when it decreed that: “Si, qui non habet uxorem, et pro uxore concubinam habet, a communione non repellatur: tamen ut unius mulieris, aut uxoris aut concubinae, sit coniunctione contentus.”[133]

This basically means that whenever concubinage leads to a life of contentment and faithfulness to one partner only, it cannot be branded as a sinful situation and the partners cannot be cut off from the life of the church.

The assemblies of the Latin American Conference of Bishops both at Medellín (1968) and Puebla (1979) have stressed in their own ways that the family plays a vital role in society and the church. Medellín has also added that the concept of family ought not to be understood univocally everywhere. In other words, family cannot be reduced to marriage.[134] Puebla has highlighted that: “(...) no podemos desconocer que un gran número de familias de nuestro Continente no ha recibido el sacramento del matrimonio. Muchas de estas familias, no obstante, viven en cierta unidad, fidelidad y responsabilidad. Esta situación plantea interrogantes teológicos y exige un adecuado acompañamiento pastoral.”[135] (underlining ours)

The remark that these unions still show signs of unity, fidelity and responsibility is a step towards the acknowledgement that they do share some of the characteristics of marriage.

Even though the Antillean Bishops’ Conference has highlighted the place of marriage in church life in 1994, it has also pleaded that: “The experience of many couples who live together in permanent, responsible non-legal unions is that they know their situation to be incomplete. Many people have become trapped in unions and relationships from which they seem to have no escape. While we bishops cannot equate these unions with marriage, we pledge to exercise greater pastoral care and concern so that those who have entered into these unions will not lose their dignity or be alienated from the Church community. Let priests and other pastoral workers offer their help and understand to enable these couples to make the proper decisions which are in harmony with God’s plan for the family and their own well-being.”[136] (underline ours)

Even though their position vis-à-vis concubinage is still (surprisingly?) within the bounds of “orthodox” Roman Catholic teaching, the Antillean bishops would seem to be aware that these couples cannot simply be written off as sinners without further comments and nuances.

3. 2   Negative tradition about concubinage

Hippolytus of Rome (†235), Césaire of Arles (470‑543), and the Council of Trent (1563) viewed concubinage as an instance of obstinate perseverance in a situation of sexual lewdness. One of Césaire of Arles’ sermons furbishes us with a good summary of this position. “Thus I beg and exhort your charity, dearly beloved, that those who intend to marry observe virginity until their wedding. Just as no one wants to marry a wife that has been violated, so no one should defile himself by adulterous associations before marriage. What is worse, a great many have concubines before marriage. Since their number is large, a bishop cannot excommunicate them all, but he tolerates them with groans and many sighs, hoping the good and merciful Lord will grant them fruitful repentance, in order that they may be able to obtain forgiveness. Now because this evil has become so habitual that it is not even considered a sin, behold I proclaim before God and His angels that anyone who keeps a concubine either before or after his marriage commits adultery. Still worse is the adultery of a man who publicly does it without any shame, as if with sanction, although no reason permits it. Finally, we realize that considerable sin arises from the fact that children conceived by concubines are born as slaves, not free men. Therefore, even if they obtain their liberty, no law or order allows them to receive inheritance from their father. Consider whether there can be an absence of sin, when the honor of noble birth is humbled to such an extent that slaves are born of noble parents. So grave a sin is it that in Rome, if a man wants to marry, but realizes he is not a virgin, he may not dare to go within to receive the nuptial blessing. See how serious it is, if he does not merit to receive a blessing with the one he desires to marry.”[137] [underlining ours]

From the 17th century onwards, it was the second and more negative school of thought that got the upper hand. Concubinage was associated with fornication and it often referred to a relation that a married person had with somebody else other than his or her spouse.[138]

The 1917 Code of Canon Law established that people who were living in concubinage had to be excluded from ecclesiastical acts (cf. can. 2357 §2), functions and offices (cf. can. 2256 §2). Concubines could not be accepted in church organisations (cf. can. 693 §1). They could not receive Holy Communion either (cf. can. 855 §1), with the exception of situations involving a danger of death, after having gone to confession (cf. can. 1066). Neither could concubines, once dead, receive a church burial (cf. can. 1240 §1.6o).

Even though these measures sound rather harsh, they were still a lesser punishment than the excommunication that the Council of Trent had stipulated for concubines.

Vatican II consecrated marriage as the relationship pattern between a man and a woman including sexual intimacy, especially in GS n. 47, throwing a negative light upon all other situation involving sexual intimacy.

John Paul II, in Familiaris consortio (1981), describes de facto free unions as lacking a public commitment to one another, which would then be one of the essential characteristics of marriage.[139] Furthermore, for Pope John Paul II, de facto free unions constitute a (more or less) conscious rejection of marriage, rather than a positive choice for another pattern of committed love.

The current 1983 Code of Canon Law decrees no punishment for concubines. Nevertheless, can. 1093 stipulates that notorious or public concubinage constitutes an impediment for validly marrying: “The impediment of public propriety arises when a couple live together after an invalid marriage, or from a notorious or public concubinage. It invalidates marriage in the first degree of the direct line between the man and those related by consanguinity to the woman, and vice‑versa”.

This would mean that whenever the concubinage relationship is not public or notorious, it would not form an impediment to marriage.[140]

The sharpest official disapproval of concubinage in our times has been stated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1991): “In a so‑called free union, a man and a woman refuse to give juridical and public form to a liaison involving sexual intimacy. The expression ‘free union’ is fallacious: what can ‘union’ mean when the partners make no commitment to one another, each exhibiting a lack of trust in the other, in himself, or in the future? The expression covers a number of difficult situations: concubinage, rejection of marriage as such, or inability to make long‑term commitments. All these situations offend against the dignity of marriage; they destroy the very idea of the family; they weaken the sense of fidelity. They are contrary to the moral law. The sexual act must take place exclusively within marriage. Outside of marriage it always constitutes a grave sin and excludes one from sacramental communion.”[141]

3. 3   Partial conclusion

It is a fact that the assessment of the value of concubinage has not always been the same in the past within the Roman Catholic Church. Yet, the more the importance of marriage was emphasised, the more concubinage was depreciated, until the latter became a synonym of sexual sin.

It is our conviction that the older view on concubinage within the Roman imperial church, i.e. that concubinage is a valid and serious relationship pattern, ought to be revived and applied to the Afro‑Caribbean situation. The obvious common factor between the two is slavery, which calls for similar pastoral and theological sensitivity.

The current official teaching on marriage is by far too European and takes the European concept of concubinage as being univocal and applicable everywhere regardless of the socio‑historical developments that have taken place in different societies. Furthermore, the current thought that concubinage represents an outright rejection of marriage cannot be applied to the Caribbean in the same way as to the Western world. Concubinage does often represent a conscious disregard of the church’s teaching in the Western world, whereas that is not the main reason why many or even most of the Afro‑Caribbean people enter into a life of concubinage.

4   Suggestion towards a solution

         4. 1   Some necessary distinctions

The first necessary step for a realistic understanding of the Afro‑Caribbean concubinage involves seeing the difference between consensual or non‑purposive and faithful or purposive concubinage.

The second step implies the realisation that the Afro‑Caribbean institution of purposive concubinage cannot be equated to the Western view thereof as fornication (sexual sin) or parallel relationship (lack of marital faithfulness). Purposive concubinage entails that the partners take their relationship as being a serious and permanent one. When people move in together, accept each other as “man” and “woman,” have children and are recognised by their respective families and communities as being a stable couple, they can no longer be described as not being a true union or as being against the moral law, so as the Catechism of the Catholic Church would have us believe. Such scathing statement by the Roman teaching authorities is not only inaccurate, but also offensive, generalising and Europe‑centred.

The Afro‑Caribbean purposive form of concubinage has become a social institution recognised by the different Caribbean legislations in varying degrees. In the Caribbean, concubinage does not constitute a private deed. It is highly social, with increasingly clear legal and financial consequences.

From a religious point of view, the Afro‑Caribbean concubinage has become the source of grace and the space where Christian life has flourished ever since the plantation days. Even though the slaves were denied the right to marriage, they still found their way to a common life of love by living together in concubinage. The current Roman disapproval of concubinage, when translated in Afro‑Caribbean terms, constitutes a most shocking show of Western ecclesial hypocrisy. After all, it was the European powers that deprived the slaves of their right to marry. How can the Roman church voice now such wholesale condemnation of concubinage, when this relationship pattern has been the very proof of the slaves’ forbidden wish to commit their life to love? In spite of the radically dysfunctional character of plantation life and the slave trade, the Afro‑Caribbean people and their forerunners have developed their own way for a man and a woman to live together and beget children. This is why Bishop Anthony Dickson remarked that cultural and social realities must be taken into account in the interpretation of the law, among which he highlighted the following: “The forced migration of Africans to the Caribbean as slaves. Members of Tribes, members of families were violently separated; there was the disruption of stable family patterns; sex was for breeding. There emerged after the abolition of slavery "Living together", some persons with the intention of permanence and fidelity, others only temporarily. Marriage is seen only as a social event. Canonical Form of Marriage is just not observed.”[142]

We are convinced that both the Roman Catholic view of marriage and the Afro‑Caribbean concubinage can live side by side within the church, not as competing social phenomena, but as analogous social institutions. While marriage remains a sacrament, the Afro‑Caribbean form of purposive concubinage can also be considered as a way of living out one’s Christian call to life and love. We only need a paradigm that can help us visualise both realities next to each other and not opposite to each other as they are seen nowadays by Rome.

4. 2   In search of a theological hermeneutic paradigm

The fact that St Augustine knew of 304 sacraments[143] is an important sign that the church was aware in its early years of the broadness of the way to sanctity. The Council of Trent spoke of sacraments and sacramentals (e.g. liturgy of the hours, blessings, blessed water etc.) ‑‑marriage being one of the seven canonised sacraments.

Both the sacraments and the sacramentals have to do with the sanctification of believers.[144] They are both related to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Sacraments and sacramentals exist side by side and both cooperate to the sanctification of the church. This means that we have here a model or a paradigm of two realities that are similar, yet not equal, without confusion, conflict or competition. And no value judgement needs to be made: each one is good in its own terms. In fact, SC 60 itself declares that the sacramentals function somewhat in imitation of the sacraments (ad aliquam sacramentorum imitationem). As far as their origin is concerned, sacraments are said to stem from Jesus‑Christ, while the church is believed to have the power to cancel irrelevant sacramentals and to create new ones.

The Afro‑Caribbean concubinage contains, in a similar way to marriage, the consensus to enter into and remain within a partnership of love and life that is meant to be permanent and is open to procreation. In fact, the purposive form of concubinage comes very close to a matrimonium sine forma, since the families of the partners function as witnesses to their wish to live together in partnership. What concubinage lacks is the presence of the local ordinary or his delegate at the moment when the partners express their wish to live together. The relationship between marriage and the Afro‑Caribbean concubinage is therefore similar to that between sacraments and sacramentals.

4. 3   Towards a canonical solution

The question is now then: how can we welcome the marginalized institution of the Afro‑Caribbean concubinage within the home and family of church teaching and law? The current 1983 Code of Canon Law leaves room open for regional or local adaptations to the universal law. One of the means whereby this happens is by legislating on the basis of consuetudo or custom (cf. can. 5). This is a sign that the universal church subsists only in the particular church.

The conciliar conviction that the faithful, and not only the bishops, possess the sensus fidei (a sense or feeling of what the faith is) and that the church is a communio fidelium (communion of the faithful) is behind the acceptance of custom as legal principles (cann. 23‑28).[145] That is why can. 27 can say that: “Custom is the best interpreter of laws.”

Yet, not every local custom can have the force of law. According to can. 23, “Only a custom introduced by a community of the faithful has the force of law if it has been approved by the legislator, in accordance with the following canons.”

It is clear that it is the community who introduces a custom, but it is the legislator who approves it. The community alluded to here is one that is complete enough to have people on both sides of the law: lawmakers and subjects of the law.

Only customs that are not against divine law can receive approval (can. 24 §1). Those customs that fall outside of or are against canon law must be reasonable to be able to be approved (can. 24 §1), they must also have been kept for thirty continuous years (cann. 26 and 24 §2). The important thing is that customs that fall outside of or are against canon law can still take on the force of law if they are centennial or immemorial customs (cann. 5 §1 and 28). Centennial or immemorial customs can be revoked only expressly.

The Afro‑Caribbean community could then officially ask the Antillean Bishops in their capacity of local ordinaries to approve purposive concubinage as a consuetudo centenaria vel immemorabilis. The bishops —if they are to be truthful to the region— would then have to explain two things to the ecclesial Roman legislators. First, that the Afro‑Caribbean purposive form of concubinage cannot be equated with the European idea of concubinage and that it is about committed love and not just about sin. Second, that purposive concubinage constitutes a centennial or immemorial regional custom. The fact that purposive concubinage has been practised by the faithful in the Caribbean and tolerated by the church since the plantation days up to today is true beyond any shred of doubt. Once the Afro‑Caribbean concubinage has been appreciated in its own right, a sacramental, i.e. one or more blessings, could be created to show that the commitment of the concubines has its own rightful place along the way to sanctification.


 

What their modernity can teach us:
exploring the linkages between Black Atlantic identity formations in the Caribbean and consumer capitalism[146]

University of St. Martin, Netherlands Antilles

fguadeloupe@diasporainternational.org

                                                        

***

For every renowned black public or academic intellectual that produces a seminal work, there are at least a thousand unrecognised black men and women who toil in obscurity, producing the modern conveniences and foods that allow that genius to shine. And upon closer examination the lives that these faceless and nameless persons produce—in the stories they tell about themselves and the tales others tell about them—are some of the greatest oral books ever recorded. This essay is one such book. It recounts the life of the Richardson sisters—Elza, Tica, and Amelia—who were born in the Dominican Republic, and, who through actual travels and kinship ties connect the Dutch, English, French, and Spanish Caribbean to Canada, Western Europe, and the United States of America. Theirs is a Black Atlantic sojourn of Afro-Caribbean working classes. One of the Richardson sisters, Elza, is my maternal grandmother and what follows is based upon several conversations, interviews, and talks, I had with the sisters and other members of the family.

I hope to demonstrate by recounting the lives of the Richardson sisters that cultivating black transnational identities, while accepting ones self as a product of processes of inter-racial transculturation, is not solely the forte of well-read and well-fed black intellectuals. Many ordinary black West Indian folk do so in their own ways. More importantly, and this the main argument I wish to make, as products and producers of Caribbean based Black Atlantic ecologies—habitats inhabited by blacks, within the teeth of multinational enterprise, where consumerism plays a vital role—they signal one of the ways in which to see beyond race and recognise the power that consumer capitalism has had in shaping both blacks and whites in the Caribbean and its Diaspora.  

                                               ***

Elza, Amelia, and Tica started out as cocolos, a transnational identity marked by struggle against white American capitalists in the Dominican Republic with whom they were nonetheless intricately connected. Ethnically speaking they were cocolo because they were the children of the black French, Dutch, and British West Indians who migrated to the Dominican Republic at the turn of the 19th century to work in the sugar factories. For the cocolos the dominant language was English because the English speakers formed the numerical majority, and it gave them an edge with the American plantation owners. Due to this edge a symbiotic relationship was established between black English speaking cocolos and white American capitalists; part of a more general Caribbean pattern.

Wherever wealthy white Americans and Europeans invested, they attracted black West Indian workers who created Black Atlantic ecologies. In the Dominican Republic, as was the case in Panama, Costa Rica, and Cuba, black West Indians founded their own schools, associations, and businesses, which soon became transnational and inter-national as they differentiated themselves from the indigenous population. Many of these endeavours were sponsored by churches and the multinational enterprises.[147] Unwittingly, this sponsorship and the self-organisation of these West Indians led to the formation of radical racialised transnational identities. 

For the Richardson sisters, all cocolos are blak. Blak contained many shades of brown, and depending on the circumstances they distinguished a potpourri of different kinds of blak cocolos, but they also told me that they learnt quite early from the grown ups around them that for the American bosses of the sugar plantations a drop of “black blood” meant that you were black. Identity is always self-ascribed as well as ascribed by others. Usually it is a significant other (a dominant other) that plays a major role in ones identity formation.

Struggles between the mulattos and the darker brown cocolos were of less consequence in the face of this white hegemonic American presence; the significant other that all cocolos had to relate to. Due to the influence of Garveyism and other more mystical ideologies of black redemption, such as, the black Masonic lodges, of which their mulatto father was an active member, they had no problems accepting at times that whoever bore some marks of the stereotypical African phenotype was black. Yes they had “white blood,” yes they were morenas, but they were blak.

But not all black Africans, or their plantation born descendants, were blak. Many, in fact most, were nigger people as they termed it: people who accepted white superiority. Blaks as opposed to nigger people did not believe that their natural place was at the bottom of the socio-economic pyramid. Blaks were ambitious; nigger people, complacent. Blaks were cultivated; nigger people, uncouth. By employing dualisms, the Richardson sisters sought to instil in all their children and grandchildren that we should be blak

Of course this distinction between blaks and nigger people is too rigid to fit real life, but it contains some grains of truth if looked at from a sociological and historical point of view. Since the mid 19th century schooling was compulsory in British, Dutch, and French possessions in the Caribbean.[148] Decades before that the missionaries had already successfully began founding and operating schools for blacks.[149] Schooling implemented to control their minds and bodies, had the indirect effect of creating ambitious and complex subjectivities; creating blaks with a transnational and revolutionary outlook.[150] 

Blaks were a different kind of Negro if you wish; one that fiction writers and scholars, devoted to political realism and binary categorisation, have difficulties describing. Not stereotypical Uncle Tom’s, or Richard Wright´s Bigger Thomas,’ or even Alex Haley´s Kunta Kente’s, but David Dabydeen´s Mungos with an attitude.[151] And these Mungos, or blaks if we stay close to the Richardson sisters’ term, were as much critical and in love with Europe as they were of Africa. This love/hate relationship made some of them long to resolve this contradiction of the soul.

The Richardson sisters were universalist blaks, and chose to see within race beyond race. Racial consciousness for them was unequivocally secondary to human oneness; this was how they resolved their double consciousness to evoke W.E. B Dubois famous concept. I remember growing up hearing my grandmother Elza telling me, and her other grandchildren that were flirting with the Rasta doctrine of Africa as our motherland, that our roots began and ended with her; in her womb. Mama Africa did not feed our mothers and fathers. Mama Elza with God’s help, did. And Mama Elza’s motto in life was: all people are equal. Unfortunately life taught her, as it later taught me that we would have to fight everyday to have others concede this position.

                                               ***

Their cross-cultural outlook, viewing themselves as originating everywhere, while accepting their blak identity and contesting anti-black racism came in handy as the sisters migrated to Aruba at the end of the 1920s. The sugar boom in the Dominican Republic was on a decline and Aruba, a scarcely inhabited island populated by mestizos, became the place where the Exxon enterprise decided to refine the crude oil of Gomez’s Venezuela. The island was fast becoming one of the jewels of the Caribbean; and wherever there were these jewels, Black Atlantic ecologies came into being.

Blaks were close to the wealthy few of the world and therefore knew where wealth was heading and followed. They were “wealth’s” favourite workers because of their discipline and their eagerness to learn. They were also their most persistent migraine, because of their demand that the ideologies of equal rights and universal justice be put into practice. They also mimicked the masters’ consumer habits and lifestyle to such an extent—within their means—that soon no one knew who started this consumer thing. More on this later.    

In Aruba two thriving Black ecologies—Sint Nicolaas and Dakota—came into existence. Sint Nicolaas, the sleepy town, located in the Southeastern part of the country, was transformed into a thriving black metropolis. Here is where the Exxon enterprise put down Lago Oil & Transport Company and Eagle Oil —together the world’s largest refineries from the 1930s until the 1970s. Dakota, in the middle of the country, was where black migrants resided who worked primarily in the tourist industry that began to boom at the beginning of the 1960s.    

The Richardson sisters lived in Sint Nicolaas, which was re-christened “Chocolate City.” Adjacent to this city one encountered the gated community of the North American personnel ironically called the Colony. The Colony was self-sufficient, a modern day fort of oil refining conquistadors most of whom hailed from the Southern oil states. Schools, churches, a well-equipped hospital, shops, and supermarkets; you name it and the Colony had it. The “colonisers” of the Colony did however venture into Sint Nicolaas. Larger warehouses were located there that sold luxury items, and it was an outing for the women bored with colony life. The men came for the whores and sometimes to have a drink.

Nonetheless Sint Nicolaas was a black town; a place of blacks and to a lesser extent mestizos. While it lacked the wealth of Colony, for the Richardson sisters it was an earthly paradise. In Sint Nicolaas they were the boss. No one could tell black people what to do. Indigenous Arubans, and other mestizos, did not dare employ any racial slurs in Sint Nicolaas for they were a minority lacking any clear-cut class advantage. In addition in the wider scheme of things where the mestizos were a majority, the Sint Nicolaas blacks simply re-signified the indigenous mestizo´s leading ideology of Arawakism. The ideology was one where it was promulgated that the island belonged to the peaceful Arawaks (all this according to European lore), and since the mestizos claimed Arawak blood, they were the true belongers. Only those who married to them could claim to truly belong. This was Aruba’s version of a racial democracy.

The Richardson sisters and other Sint Nicolaas blacks were not having it, and did not buy into the ideology. Mestizos were not referred to as Arawaks, but as Apaches. The name change mattered, for it was a direct reference to the Hollywood Westerns that were famous at the time. In those days Apaches were depicted as blood thirsty and uncouth savages. In Sint Nicolaas and Dakota the ideology of Arawakism was contained. In these Black Atlantic ecologies, blacks could contest the ideology of Arawakism and white supremacy.

Things were different when Elza and her sisters went to work as domestics in the Colony, or to clean the public and private schools, or to housekeep in the hotels. “Yes mam and no mam, yes sir and no sir,” was the mode of address in these settings. As long as they knew their place everything was fine. The most severe sanction was being fired, as the Jim Crow style of racism remained something that solely occurred on screen. Lynching and manhunts were things they heard about but never experienced.

In fact the most overt form of racism got transferred to the realm of love and marriage politics. Americans and many Apaches never fell in love with a black man or woman. They made it quite clear that they found such unions unacceptable. Love and marriage was a way to establish boundaries, where all other boundaries that they were accustomed to seemed to crumble. Even the boundary of class was as porous as can be due to the growing importance of consumerism.

                                               ***

Over and above racial, gender, and ethnic difference, consumerism homogenised all Arubans. Simultaneously a new law was being instituted: to be was to consume.[152] And to assert one’s difference one was enticed to consume the tailor made products being brought on the market. Desire, was seduced into finding temporary satisfaction in the trinkets of capitalism. Through the enormous sign value attached to their commodities, young and old, male and female, rich and poor, longed to own the beautifully marketed and glittery wrapped products that were made in USA. Made in Japan (read Asia or anywhere outside the North-Western world) stood for lesser quality. In the minutest of ways the law of consumer capitalism was interiorised. For instance, though a mango was delicious, you had to have red delicious apples in your fridge if you were a somebody. And though one could get cheap and unprocessed Trinidad coconut oil for one’s hair, most people preferred to buy the expensive and chemically treated American name brands.

The sisters were not exempt from these selective buying habits. I became aware of this exuberance when they would speak about their husbands and boyfriends. They described them as men who were typical men; men who were not always good to them; men who attached a bunch of strings to the money they gave them…to feed the children they had fathered; men who wanted to rule them; men who fooled around and had lots of outside children. Whenever they ranted about the bad manners of their men, it always contained the idea that their men did not cater sufficiently to their needs, a synonym for their consumer desires. A recurring theme: they loved nice things.

Obtaining these things, however, did not create a feeling that lasted. If it did it would not be consumer capitalism. The sisters “consoled” themselves by sharing their longings and temporary satisfaction of their desires amongst themselves and with their superiors. Commodities of capitalism and the consumption logic that triggered it, made it possible for the domestics to engage with the white lady of the house, and the black pipe fitter to engage the white foreman. Colony residents were in a constant race to outrun their workers, while still wanting their workers to keep up. Workers had to know how to fix the Cadillac’s and Oldsmobile’s, and they had to be experts in dealing with the modern conveniences that the lady of the house bought. Concomitantly money moreover was the universal colour for the merchants—Chinese, Lebanese, mestizos, whites, and blacks. If workers had saved enough to buy the new General Electric appliance, the store owners did not refuse them.

Where the production system kept the blacks in their place, as all the managerial positions were exclusively white, consumption broke down this logic. But it did more than that as well. One of the manners in which the Black ecologies resembled those in other parts of the wider Caribbean basin, and emerging ones in Western Europe, the USA, and Canada, was that the blacks that were produced in these habitats were avid consumers of the latest gadgets of capitalism. Consumption was an important part of their commonness. As some of the daughters and sons of the Richardson sisters moved to western metropolises and other Caribbean islands, they maintained and consolidated ties through the sending and receiving of brand name clothing, electrical appliances, and money (the transformer of products into commodities, mediator of other commodities and human relationships; the ultimate commodity that alerts us to the almost inevitable commodification of all of life under consumer capitalism).[153]

In addition through their purchasing power the line between consumption and production got blurred. Consumption items served as fodder for their creative imagination as blacks produced songs and dance relating their collective experience and contesting the ideologies of white supremacy. Carnivals in Trinidad and Aruba got bigger and better due to the Cadillac that were bought and then adorned to resemble space ships of aliens that would force whites to recognise the fundamental humanity of their black workers. Hollywood films and Western comics that depicted Africans as savage cannibals got re-signified as from the transistor radios young and old sung along to Sparrow’s Congo Man and congratulated the African “savages” for eating succulent white women. These and other pop cultural expressions, never divorced from the consumer logic, travelled throughout the Atlantic world.[154] Black Atlantic ecologies got connected and knew about each other’s fortunes and trials. 

                                               ***

In time two out of the three Richardson sisters—Tica and Amelia—moved to the Netherlands and the USA. Most of us, their children and grandchildren have also migrated or were born elsewhere. Our family extends now to Aruba, Curaçao, Sint Maarten, the Dominican Republic, the Netherlands, the USA, Canada, and England. Yet the bond remains and through us these Black Atlantic ecologies in the New and the Old World are connected to each other. The goods of capitalism travel up and down strengthening our bond, and for the first time I realise that maybe what binds the Richardson sisters, what binds me, to all the blacks and whites in the Caribbean basin and the Caribbean diasporas in the wider North Atlantic world maybe that we do not yet fully recognise that our contemporary Mother is not Africa, Asia, or Europe, but actually capitalism that is socialising us all to be consumers. Consumer capitalism maybe our collective matrix, but it may perhaps also be our collective way out of the maze of race.        

 

 



How to Define St. Maarten Culture?

The Netherlands

c.hagenaars@gmail.com

 

In this era of mass migration the question of belonging – who belongs more, who belongs less, and who doesn’t belong – is one of the most debated topics inside and outside the academia. Processes of migration go hand in hand with the preoccupation over the authenticity of native cultures and the demarcation and establishment of clear-cut national (read supra ethnic) or ethnic identities. Sint Maarten (Dutch) & Saint Martin (French), a bi-national island in the northeast of the Caribbean Sea, is no exception. Locally, this alternative postcolony still constitutionally tied to France and the Netherlands, is simply referred to as St. Marten, or when the inhabitants wish to play with words, the “Little Apple.” Victor, one of my respondents, phrased the matter thus, “after New York, the Big Apple, there is no place on earth where you’ll find so many varieties in cultures on a tiny stroke of land.” Victor was right. Eighty percent of the population consists of newcomers. St. Marten is multi-multicultural. From Rwanda to Canada, from Uruguay to Hungary, you name the nationality and you will find a representative on this Caribbean island. The island’s population totalling 70.000 multiplied over forty times in the last four decades and transformed this former backwater into a booming and cosmopolitan tourist paradise. One-point five million tourists visit annually and they are catered to by representatives of over one hundred nations.

As with all seeming anomalies, which make visible our global interdependence, St Marten is often characterised by residents of less touristy Caribbean islands as a freak show. Especially the local St. Marteners, those with ancestral ties to the land, are chided and ridiculed for not having an authentic culture and for being a people who has lost its identity. St. Marten as a country without a true culture. Intrigued I spent four months on the island in 2004, and defended my M.A. thesis in cultural anthropology on the politics of belonging and the question of culture on St. Marten. The following essay is a condensed version of my findings.

®®®

“St Marten lacks an authentic culture. Nothing unites them.” These were the recurring discourses I heard whenever I spoke to visitors from the less touristy islands that came to St. Marten to do their shopping or spend their holidays. But what is exactly this thing we call culture? Conventionally many persons and even some academics in the spirit of Edward Tylor argue that culture is the specific way of life of a people; an authentic good with roots in the land where its authentic people live. During my stay on the island I witnessed a presentation by Jay Haviser, an American archaeologist. Haviser argued that he saw culture as a good consisting of many layers. These layers enwrapped the core identity: the authentic core of culture, rooted in history. According to Haviser, St. Marteners have to embrace and celebrate their core identity in order to be “one people” and newcomers have to adjust to this authenticity. Here you see how specificity and authenticity, two distinct words, are rendered synonyms of each other. A people can claim a territory because this is where they belong; this is where their culture is from.

The above is but one understanding of culture and a problematic one at that. Most academics disentangle culture from authenticity. Authenticity denies the dynamic change of everyday life. For instance, Stuart Hall, the eminent social theorist, conceives culture as translation.[155] Culture is the translation of the ideal ways, symbolic constructs, a group or a society critically employs in their day-to-day interactions. Culture is not about roots, but about routes. And these symbolic constructs cannot be divorced from the economy and the political, their material base. The base is not the determinant, but it does determine a lot.

In addition, since all societies are heterogeneous and produce hybrids, we must recognise Gerd Baumann’s (1995:730) concept of C-culture which complements Hall’s conception of culture. C-culture is what Caribbeanists term transculturation: two cultures A and B meet and change into a new culture, the C-culture. What the concepts of C-culture or transculturation makes explicit is the idea that there is a common base culture, a deep symbolic structure of how one should interpret life, that all persons of given society tap into and negotiate. This is the conception of culture I employed to understand St. Marten culture.

Following this line of thought, the question was: What was the deep structure that unites the people on St. Marten and upon which they have to work? After conducting fieldwork, I realised that the basis of this unity is intrinsically related to the tourist economy. 95% of the jobs on the island are tourist related. More concretely, it is the dollars from the tourists that makes the islanders dependent upon each other; the dollar glues the nation. All St. Marteners know this and therefore seek ways to get along. Strife would lead the tourists, their breathing ATM machines, to stay away. An illustration is in order. All the street hawkers—women whose job it is to lure tourists inside the plethora of jewellery shops in the touristy centres—I encountered and observed, tolerated their rival street hawkers. This was also the case when they knew that their rival was an illegal resident. They would jokingly tell them to respect their turf. It would not do to fight in front of the tourists. Moreover, I was told by many that resident permit or no resident permit, illegal street hawkers were trying to earn a buck too so they could relate. Money indeed makes possible that various groups are able to communicate and relate despite the arbitrary social boundaries that differentiates them (Wallace, 1961).

Money also individualises. On St. Marten a person is socialised to be an individual first, and thereafter a member of a particular ethnic group. The raison d’être of this category of the person is to make money. Money creates money hungry individuals, who seek to create more money. But at one and the same time I saw how in a peculiar way money also enriched and enhanced their personality (Wallace, 1961). They learnt to be tolerant and accepting of the fact that there is a bond between all St. Marteners that went further that the overt differences in accent, tongue, food, or dress. Francio Guadeloupe (2005), a fellow anthropologist who also conducted fieldwork on the island termed this, following his respondents, the money tie system: “the term used to denote the common sense that the ultimate ground of most relationships on the island is a quest for more money and more power. Since one is first and foremost an individual, one is licensed to maximise one’s gains while interacting with others. It matters little whether or not they belong to the same ethnic group as oneself.” (Guadeloupe, 2005:3)

In their efforts to maximise their gains St. Marteners constantly perform different national and transnational identities. These national and transnational categories were not considered primordial in any sense, but more so social positions persons could take up as means to an end (Guadeloupe, 2005). Let me give an illustration of the many I encountered on the island. When a St. Marten woman originally from Jamaica has a business deal with a St. Martener originally from India, she will probably explain to the ‘Indian’ that she, as a Jamaican, knows what it is to be a migrant. In a conversation with a St. Martener from Curacao the same woman is a West Indian and on a birthday party of a Jamaican friend she will perform the identity of a Jamaican.

The same process of a shifting of national and transnational identities is discernible among the locals. Even the staunchest of these in rhetoric, the nationalistas, succumb to the realities of the money tie system in practice. Their rhetoric of “localness” gets interpreted by most of their fellow St. Marteners as just another tactic of the money tie system. This happens regardless of the fact that the nationalistas may claim that their motives are disinterested. The frustration they may feel for not being taken seriously is engaged by their fellow St. Marteners with a joke and a reminder that they too do not practice sexual or cultural endogamy.  

®®®

I would like to end this essay by taking up the question of joking, for it is also plays a pivotal role in deflecting the tourists’ awareness that the summum bonum of their interaction with the St. Marteners is money. Tourist workers create a joking relationship with their clients. And it works, corroborating the writings of Henk Driessen (1996) who argues that “humour and laughter create communication, eases the contact between people, causes cultural differences and tensions to seem relative, reduces potential hostilities and, naturally, offer amusement” (Driessen, 1996:23). Let me furnish an illustration. Whilst on the island I worked in a gift shop and repeatedly saw my colleague, a young man originally from India, joking with the tourists when he tried to sell them alcohol. With his jokes and big smile he tried to sell more, but he also joked to let the transaction seem relative: as a devout Hindu he could not sell this product seriously.

The joking relationship displayed during their interaction with the tourists spills over or is a spill over from the dynamics of everyday life on St Marten. Humour maybe a way of hiding what all St. Marteners know, and that is that money is the root of their common culture. Tolerance towards one another, performing different transnational and national identities, and the creation of the joking relationship are all ways to deal with this money tie system. These ways define the transculturation of St. Marten culture; Baumann’s C-culture. What St. Marten has left me wondering about is whether it is an anomaly or the growing reality in the rest of the Caribbean?

 

References and/or complementary bibliography

Baumann, G. (1995). ‘Managing a Polyethnic Milieu: Kinship and Interaction in a London Suburb’, The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 1 (4): 725-741.

Driessen, H. (1996). ‘Do fieldworkers laugh? Notities over humor in en over het etnografische veld’,  Focaal, 28: 17-27.

Guadeloupe, F. (2005). Chanting down the New Jerusalem. The politics of belonging on Saint Martin and Sint Maarten. Amsterdam: Rozenberg Publishers.

Hagenaars, C. (2006). Saint Martin: many cultures, many faces, one country, one people? Een zoektocht naar culturele eenheid op Sint Maarten. M.A. thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands.

Paul, A.       (2005).  ‘Culture is always a translation’, Caribbean Beat, 71: 1-3.

Wallace, A.F.C. (1961). Culture and Personality. New York: Random House.

 


 

 


Educating our teachers in the Caribbean for the 21st century:
Challenges and prospects

University of the West Indies, Jamaica

eddevser@cwjamaica.com

 

Thus in a typical classroom of 25 students, today’s teacher will  serve at least four or five students with specific educational needs that  require  professional  expertise previously reserved to a few specialist. In addition, he or she will need considerable knowledge to develop curriculum and teaching strategies that address the wide range of of learning approaches, experiences and  prior levels of knowledge the other students bring with them, and an understanding of how to work within a wide range of  family and community contexts. And  he   o r she will need to know how to help these students acquire   much more  complex skills and types of knowledge than ever  before.

(Darling–Hammond, 1999:223)

Introduction      

In her exploration of what should go into the education of teachers for the 21st century, Darling-Hammond (1999) maintains that teachers need to be able to ensure successful learning for students who bring different levels of prior knowledge and learn in different ways. As teacher educators we need to provide   programmes of powerful teacher education which  help teachers to practice  in ways which are  learner-centred which she defines as “ways that are responsive to individual students’ academic needs, intelligences, talents, cultural and linguistic backgrounds” (p223) and ‘learning centred i.e. “ ways that support in-depth learning that results in keen thinking and proficient performances” (ibid). She proceeds to talk about what teaching knowledge matters and I will highlight a few of the points she makes:

While Darling-Hammond was writing about the American higher education system, all that she says applies to us in the Caribbean as we strive to educate our teachers for living in today’s world. But there are other things that we need to take into consideration in the Caribbean.

At the 16th Heads of Government Conference held in Jamaica in 1997,  a paper  prepared  by the Caribbean Community Secretariat entitled ’Towards creative and productive citizens for the 21st century’ was discussed.  They highlighted characteristics of the ideal Caribbean person -a citizen– worker who, inter alia, should have foreign language skills. They identified the following areas for urgent attention ; the improvement of literacy and numeracy; the development of multilingual skills; student-centred teaching; teaching low achievers with special reference to male underachievement; the provision of  universal quality secondary education(by 2000); and the application of technology as an aid to teaching and learning. Teacher education and upgrading were acknowledged as the key to the achievement of these goals (Jennings 2001). It therefore means that in our teacher education programmes we should be giving attention to the following as well:

·        Teachers should  have a foreign language skill

·        Literacy and numeracy

·        Methodology  with a focus on learner/student-centredness

·        Special needs (esp. low achieving males)

·        Use of technology(modern)  in teaching

Specifically with regard to the Jamaican situation, I would add another point,

·        Teachers need to know how to deal with aggressive behaviour, violence in the school and classroom and how to resolve conflicts.

Aims of the paper

While  I will   touch on  how these areas have been addressed , I will give particular attention  in this paper to  how teacher educators in  two training institutions  have delivered training  in ways that promote collaboration and foster interaction among students that allow for more powerful shared learning to occur.  The institutions selected are a contrast not only in terms of their geographical location and resources available but also in terms of their function. They pinpoint sharp differences in concerns teacher preparation in the Caribbean. The institutions are:

                   i.            The Department of Educational Studies (DES) in the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona campus.

                 ii.            The Cyril Potter College of Education (CPCE) ,Guyana.

The latter, which is located in the capital city Georgetown deals with initial teacher training and is the only institution of its kind in Guyana. The DES deals with professional development to degree level post initial certification. My focus will be on how these institutions have used distance education and on-line delivery to respond to the demand for increased training of their teaching force as well as to respond to concerns some of which are country specific. I will also discuss the extent to which the content of these programmes addresses the critical areas highlighted by Darling-Hammond as well as those areas identified above as especially important in the Caribbean context. In so doing, particular attention will be given to some of the more contentious issues in teacher education in the English–speaking Caribbean today. But first of all I will briefly discuss the context in Guyana and Jamaica in which teacher education functions.

Background to the problem: contrasting contexts

For CPCE

Guyana, ‘the land of many waters’, and Jamaica ‘land of wood and water’ , both former British colonies  and both having experimented with socialism during the 1970s and 1980s, are  countries which have much in common and yet are different in  many ways. Guyana  is situated on the South American continent ,surrounded by Spanish, Dutch and Portuguese speaking neighbours,  while  Jamaica is  an island in the Caribbean sea  whose  nearest  Spanish speaking neighbour is Cuba but is much more subject to the influence of North America due to its proximity to Florida. Guyana, the only English–speaking country on the South American continent, has always identified with its Caribbean neighbours and has been a member of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) since its inception. Table 1 gives a summary of the main differences between the two countries which underscore that Guyana faces greater challenges than Jamaica in terms of its level of poverty, the variety of its ethnic groups, including an indigenous population scattered over a vast and difficult terrain for which it has to provide trained teachers. That the Amerindians are  most disadvantaged is evident from this statement from The Government of Guyana (2002): “Amerindians, the indigenous people of Guyana, represent less than 10 per cent of the population but account for 17 per cent of the poor because they live in the geographically isolated and inaccessible rural interior” (p 13).

As elsewhere, so in Guyana better educational conditions are provided in the urban/coastal areas, particularly in the capital city, Georgetown. The geography of the country and its size has made it difficult to travel to and communicate with the relatively small and widely dispersed communities in the interior with the result that “ the educational and other services provided to hinterland and deep riverain regions are clearly below national standards” (Government of Guyana 2002: 4). These are the areas largely inhabited by the Amerindians. Of particular concern is the fact that life is so difficult in those areas that few trained teachers are attracted to work there. The Amerindians form closely knit families and villages and an integral part of the culture is that the women are never far from home. Consequently   most Amerindian women   are unwilling or cannot afford to leave their homes to go to the city to study, and so a way had to be found of training the teachers while at the same time enabling them to remain with or close to their families. Amerindian elders see this as important in sustaining their culture.

There are however, other problems that the teacher training institution has to address. Firstly, because of the inferior standard of education in the hinterland, Amerindians who seek to enter teaching, tend to have a low entry level. Secondly, due to the poverty of their circumstances their preparation for teaching needs to be such that they can be provided with teaching /learning resources which they can use in their schools. Thirdly, Amerindians tend to live in isolated villages and because their primary schools tend to be small, it is essential that their teachers be trained to do multigrade teaching. Linked to the problem of isolation is the difficulty with transportation. Paddling in dug out canoes is rapidly giving way to travel in boats powered by engines. This has increased the cost of river transport considerably, especially in light of increases in oil prices.

Table 1: Some differences between Jamaica and Guyana

 

Yr  Indep.

Area (Sq.Km)

Pop.

Main Ethnic Groups (%)

Major Econ. Activity

Below Poverty Line (%)

Jamaica

1962

10,991

2,758,000

91 Black

7.3 mixed

Tourism

Bauxite

19.1

Guyana

1966

24,970

730,000

51 East Indian

38 African Guyanese

4.5 Amerindian

Sugar, Rice, Timber, Gold, Diamond mining

35

            

For the DES

The context in which the DES has to train its teachers provides a stark contrast to that in which the CPCE has to function. As a department in the UWI, the Des has had to address concerns which face the wider university body. These are:

                               i.            Response to needs of NCCs

The non-campus countries (NCCs) have   been critical of the UWI’s failure to respond to their needs. In 1984   a major restructuring exercise took place at UWI which resulted in each campus being given   greater autonomy to respond more to national needs while at the same time meeting the needs of the NCCs. So the challenge that the DES had was to meet needs as specified by the Ministry of Education & Youth   as well as respond to the needs of the NCCs.

ii        Competition  /collaboration with other tertiary level institutions offering training  in education   .

Heads of Caribbean Governments agreed that by 2005 the percentage of high school graduates entering university should double to 15%.This doubling of tertiary saw a variety of tertiary institutions entering the arena to offer  degree programmes at various levels GATS (General Agreement on Trades in Services of the World trade Organisation (WTO) has led to a liberalisation of ‘trades in services’,  which includes higher education . New local universities were created   (e.g. University of Technology in Jamaica, the Universities of Trinidad and Tobago and Belize) and a number of external providers entered the market including those who were able to offer degrees using distance education delivery methods or on-line delivery. While the range of choices have increased considerably for students as they are no longer limited to the fare   offered by the UWI there is the view  that  after over 50 years of  virtual monopoly of the tertiary sector, the UWI has  a ‘brand’ which makes it competitive Report of the Chancellor’s Task Force on Governance of the UWI (RCTFG 2006: 12)  

         iii      Pressure on  Departments to  generate income

At the same time, the UWI has to be cognisant of the increasing cost of education at a rate that  governments cannot afford to subsidize and as a result the institution has been prevailed  upon to becoming more entrepreneurial,  finding various means of generating its own income. This has put additional pressures on departments but at the same time this has resulted in some benefits   to the department and even   more so to the students.

Table 2: Summary of concerns

Concerns

DES (Jamaica)

CPCE (Guyana)

Response  to needs of the country

Response to needs  of the   REGION

 

Competition /collaboration with other TLIU

 

Financial constraints

 

Low level of entry of students

 

Dearth of teaching/learning resources in schools

 

Study costs (Travel/Residential/Transportation costs/family responsibilities)

 

Table 2 shows the differences in the concerns that the two institutions had to address predicated by the fact that the UWI is a regional institution while   CPCE is not and while CPCE has the monopoly of initial teacher training   in Guyana, the DES has to compete not only with the local Teachers Colleges which collaborate with foreign universities in offering degree programmes, but with other local as well as foreign universities which operate in the country. While the CPCE has financial constraints,  the institution  is provided for in the budget of the Ministry of Education and is not under the  pressure that the DES experiences to generate income. What both institutions have in common is that they  have to respond  to national needs in education   and they are both faced with  prospective students who  increasingly find it difficult  to  study full time and  so are more interested in opportunities for working and studying part time so that they can meet their family responsibilities  a t the same time. Over the years the DES   has seen a decrease in the number of students from the NCCs coming to the Mona campus for full time study. This is not only because new universities have been formed  in the region (e.g. the University of Belize)but also because of the number of foreign universities operating in the Region. As in the case of many students in Guyana, especially the Amerindians, many students in the NCCs would prefer to   stay closer to home when doing their degrees.

Distance Education

To address all the concerns in Table 2, both institutions have introduced distance education programmes.

Distance Education has been described as an educational process in which a significant proportion of the teaching is conducted by someone removed in space and/or time from the learner (Perraton  &  Tsekoa 1987).  It is the process by which educational interaction occurs between  teachers and students  some of whom may be in different geographic locations.  In some instances teachers and students may never meet, their contact being entirely through printed or written words which are exchanged through the postal or courier services and sometimes through electronic mail.  In other instances, teachers and students keep in regular contact via the telephone, through teleconferences and occasionally through face-to-face workshops and summer schools. However it is organised, a basic assumption underlying distance education is that its teaching/learning activities take place off campus and involve activities other than face-to-face interaction. Learner-centredness is a distinctive quality of distance education in that the technology used has the flexibility to respond to the learner's needs.  The most effective technology is one which is simple and permits the learners to learn when they want, wherever they want and how they want.  This fosters an independent approach to learning and resilience in situations which pose fundamental constraints

Models of distance education

CPCE

The model for the Trained Teachers Certificate by Distance (TTCD) involved:

·        4 semesters during which the students were involved in independent study using printed modules developed by lecturers at the College.  They meet for face to face tutorials once per month at the Regional centres and they use this opportunity to make use of resources at the Resource Centre which is usually located at the  Regional Centre. Students are also encouraged to form study groups and meet in between at nearest school or a member’s home.

·        3 summers (each approx. 6 weeks between July and August) for face to face instruction at Regional Centres.

 

DES

Table 3: Progammes offered by distance and on-line

 1. Programme offered

2. Year Started

3. Countries

4. Options offered

5. Funding

6. DE model

 

1

2

3

4

5

6

B.Ed (Secondary) distance

2001 - 2011

Jamaica

Biology,

Chemistry,

Physics

Computer Science,

 Linguistics &Literature,

Spanish 

History,

Maths

Geography

Ministry of Education, Jamaica

Print materials

Teleconference

Summer face to face

On-line delivery

Blended learning

 

B.Ed(Literacy Studies)

2006

Jamaica  ,Grenada,

Dominica,  St.  Lucia,

St Vincent

Literacy Studies

Self

financed

On-line delivery

Local tutorials

B.Ed (Educational Administration)

1999

Jamaica, Barbados,

Trinidad and Tobago and all the NCCs.

Educational Administration

Centre -funded

Print   materials

Local tutorials

Teleconference

Blended learning

 

Table 3 shows three   programmes that  the Department is offering by distance and on-line. The B.Ed Educational Administration  is designed for training educational leaders at the primary  and  secondary levels  of the Caribbean education systems. It reaches all territories that contribute to the UWI. While the mode of delivery was initially print based and  by teleconference, in 2004/5 it became part of the  UWIDEC Project  on blended learning/asynchronous delivery which enables the teacher to ‘learn anytime, any place, anywhere’. Central to asynchronous delivery  is the  learning resource package (print material, CD-Rom, website, links to  online resources, etc) that provides the content, as well as the means of interacting with lecturers/tutors and other students so as to facilitate social and interactive learning (Marshall 2004). Both the B. Ed Secondary and  the Literacy programme adopt a similar format. All blend in a face to face component. In the Secondary programme, the students from the  various sites in Jamaica  converge on the Mona campus  for a summer  face to face session where they meet their lecturers, are able to  visit the Library and Documentation Centre and it provides a  good opportunity for the different year groups to meet , interact and learn from each other. In the Literacy programme face to face contact is with local programme coordinators and local tutors while the main lecturer   and e-tutors handle the on-line delivery and chat sessions. The Educational Administration option does not have a summer face to face component, but students have access to local tutors and   each student has a local supervisor for the Practicum and Study.  All the programmes in Table 3 last for 4 semesters and three summers.

An  open source software, “Moodle”,   has been adopted as the learning management software for the development of blended learning courses for the Literacy Studies and the Educational Administration options. But in the DES   even in the full time face to face programmes, staff use Moodle   to integrate technology in their teaching. Assignments are put on line, links to readings are made and some   staff organise chat sessions. And some staff are now beginning to accept on-line submission of assignments. In fact this is a part of the UWIDEC   2004/5 project.

To what extent has distance education addressed the concerns?

Response to needs of the country

In this  paper we are largely concerned with the extent to which the CPCE has been able to respond to the  need to improve the supply of trained teachers in the  more remote parts of Guyana.  The TTCD was  implemented in August 2001 in  five of the CPCE’s in-service centres in five regions. In four of the  regions, the students came from remote  areas  inhabited by  the Amerindians. Of two hundred and fifty six  teacher trainees who sat the final examinations in 2004,  65% were successful. Prior to 2001, such teachers would have had to go to  the main CPCE campus  in the city to be trained and  tended to want to remain in the city and environs after training .Those who graduated from the TTCD remained  where they were trained. The programme therefore has gone some way in meeting the need for trained teachers in  some of the more disadvantaged areas of the country.

The B.Ed Secondary distance(B.Ed SecDE) programme was  a response to  a specific request by the Ministry of Education  and Youth   in Jamaica (MOEY) to train 3000 teachers in the secondary school system over a ten year period. The programme  was  specially funded by the MOEY and therefore was limited to Jamaican teachers. The DES implemented the B.EDSecDE in January 2003  by part –time delivery. However by the time the  final cohort is admitted in January 2007 , less than one third that number would have been taken in  the programme. While the original estimate by the Ministry of Education of untrained teachers in the system may not have been altogether accurate, we became aware that amongst those untrained teachers were a number of primary trained teachers teaching at the secondary level. There were  also a number of secondary trained teachers teaching at the primary level. Despite a  special upgrading programme  being  put in place in the Teachers’ Colleges (paid for by the MOEY) to get the primary trained  teachers up to  a level for entry to the programme this  did not help to increase the numbers significantly. Nevertheless the programme  is not only helping to increase the number of trained teachers in critical areas such as mathematics and English, but it is also addressing  a concern of  the MOEY and principals  of schools ,namely the  practice of teachers having to be granted leave for two years  of full time study at the UWI to do the B.Ed  degree and the difficulty of  filling the positions  adequately during the period.

Response to regional needs

This is  clearly an area in which the  DES has been successful. When the University of the West Indies Distance Teaching Experiment (UWIDITE) was initially launched during the 19802 ,the DES was the first department to offer a Certificate in Education by distance, firstly in the teaching of the Hearing Impaired and Reading and then later other options were added in Mathematics, Science, Social Studies and Adult Education. This programme lasted for   nearly 20 years   before it was phased out in 2003. The B. Ed Educational Administration by distance   started in 1999. This programme is designed for training principals and vice principals and senior teachers in schools. The DES collaborates with colleagues  in the  Schools  of education on the other two campuses in offering  this programme.  In July 2006 the DES commenced offering the B.Ed in Literacy on-line to four  countries in the Eastern Caribbean-Dominica, St. Lucia, Grenada and St. Vincent.  Studies as well as Jamaica. The first batch attracted over 100  students. While there were a number of logistical and technical problems, there is no doubt that this programme opened up possibilities  for  administrators and  teachers which  they would not have had otherwise. This is particularly the case for teachers in the NCCs. While the Certificate in education was offered only on a full time basis on the Mona campus, Dominica over a period of  22 years (1962-1984)  had 12 teachers trained. In the first two cohorts trained in the distance programme they had 11 teachers graduate (Jennings 1999). The interaction by teleconference and the cross fertilisation of ideas amongst teachers from some   eight or nine Caribbean countries provided a richness of experience which at the time was very novel.

Collaboration  with tertiary institutions

While the DES  has to compete with other universities offering degrees in education in Jamaica   (and  some of these work in collaboration  with the Teachers Colleges) in the context of existing diversity of  institutions and offerings in the higher education environment, the UWI sees  as crucial “the maintenance of the existing  linkages with tertiary institutions, the formation of new relationships” (RCTFG 2006:9).

Table  4 : DES  collaboration with tertiary   institutions

               Institution                                     Yr started                B. Ed Programme (Option)

Mico  College

 

Special Education

Mico College

2004

Primary Education #

Shortwood Teachers College

 

Early Childhood Education (Full Time )

Shortwood  Teachers  College

2005

Early Childhood  Education  (part time#

Moneague College

2004

Literacy Studies (part time)#

Schools of Education, Cave Hill, St.   Augustine

1999

 

Educational Administration (UWIDEC)

 

# = self financed

The Department has   a long history of collaboration with tertiary level institutions in the training of teachers and this has resulted in various benefits:

Financial Constraints

With an increased intake and no additional resources in terms of staffing, lecture rooms, equipment, etc. the DES, like other departments at the UWI, has had to find ways of generating income.  As is evident from tables 3 and 4, the programmes offered by distance and on-line as well as some of those offered in collaboration with the tertiary level institutions are self –financed. The income generated has enabled the DES to purchase air conditioners for seminar  and lecture rooms, computers for administrative purposes and to target as a  more long term goal the building of a Literacy Centre.

Low level of entry of students

This is a problem faced by the CPCE and is particularly acute amongst the trainees from the hinterland.  The first attempt to address this problem  was in  1985-86  when  the  Hinterland Upgrading  Programme (HUP) was offered. It involved face to face training in centres in the regions with lecturers from the CPCE travelling to the various locations to teach. This programme turned out to be so costly that it was not repeated. The next attempt did not take place until 1994 when the European Union funded the Hinterland Teacher Training Project (HTTP). One hundred  and fifty students were trained  by distance. The model was print-based and involved the development of modules in English Language, Mathematics, Social Studies and Integrated Science. Trainees studied the materials independently and met at Regional Centres for face to face sessions once per month. Of 122 students who sat the final examination, only 44% passed (Jennings 1996). The CIDA funded Guyana Basic Education and Teacher Training Project (GBET) offers a  foundation programme  by distance to trainees in  the most remote parts of Guyana inhabited by the Amerindians. This uses a mixed mode delivery involving independent study using print materials, local tutorials, cluster group study guided by mentors and face to face summer sessions.

Dearth of teaching learning materials in schools

The trainee teachers  in the TTCD were expected to  return  the printed materials to  the CPCE  on completion of training, so that  t hey could be used by the new cohort. This would avoid having to reproduce the  modules  annually  and so  recurrent   costs could  be minimised. However most of the trainees did not return the modules.  They   said that during training they did not have enough  time to read the modules thoroughly and this they  wanted to do now that they  had graduated. Furthermore, they could use the modules in their classes as resource materials. This  was a particularly compelling reason   for   allowing  the teachers to keep the modules  especially in   the   more remote schools  where resource materials   are  scarce and  teachers have little ,  if any, access to resource materials  to help  with  their classes.  In the distance programmes delivered by the DES, students are allowed to keep all print materials.

Undoubtedly, the use of distance education  and on-line delivery has enabled both institutions to address many of the current concerns in  the delivery of  teacher  training  today.  Giving teachers  options in how they are trained in  especially important not only in an increasingly competitive education arena, but in the context of spiralling cost of education  as well as living  expenses. As a teacher in  one  of the remote  regions   who did the  TTCD said “If it wasn’t for this programme, I would have to wait till the children grow up before I could get to train” (Jennings    2005:34).  She is a typical case. Imagine the number  of students who would have been exposed to untrained teachers over those years!  But the fact that the distance programmes are in-service has other spin-offs. What is learnt in training can be immediately applied.  Another trainee in the TTCD  summed this up well: “It helped me to be more selective in attending  to needs. A child in my class was extremely weak. Training helped me to identify the source of his weakness and to better deal with it” (Jennings ibid:34).

Some Issues

Which is the best mode of delivery for teacher training in the 21st century?

The best  mode of delivery is  dependent on the context in which training is being  done. Because the DES responded to the needs of four Eastern Caribbean countries and since the  expertise was on the UWI campus in Jamaica, on-line  delivery was considered the best way to go. But the DES had the technological resources  and technical expertise of  the  UWI Distance Education Centre (UWIDEC) at its disposal and could afford to pay for the cost of its services, given  that the B.Ed Literacy Studies was a self-financed programme. The DES could also move to on-line delivery in the B.Ed Secondary distance programme as  this was the expressed wish of its client, the MOEY, which was paying for the programme anyway. In far more impoverished countries like Guyana, the scenario is different. Given the vastness of its terrain, on-line delivery would be ideal, but this does not seem likely in the near future. While some schools  on the coast   have computers, those in the hinterland rarely do and even if  a few have,  they  do not have  internet facilities as they do not have  phone lines. In fact, there is no electricity in the hinterland regions, except for a few areas that  have power generators and can make electricity available for  a few hours in the evenings. Few trainee teachers would have their own personal computers and access through Internet Cafes is far beyond what their meagre budgets  can afford. On-line delivery of teacher training would therefore require massive investment in technology on the part of the Ministry of Education in Guyana-a situation which seems unlikely at this time.

While the DES can think of putting more and more of its programmes on-line, the CPCE will have  to rely on  the print mode for some time to come. This does not, however, mean that on-line delivery excludes print. Each student in the on-line programmes gets a printed course guide and a course reader with key readings in addition to being given linkages to other resources on the Internet.

Is distance education /on-line delivery learner –centred  and  learning-centred ?

But to return to a point made by Darling-Hammond (1999) earlier in this paper. She spoke of the need for teacher education  programmes to be both learner centred and ‘learning centred’  if we interpret   learner-centredness  in distance education  and  on-line delivery as being responsive to the learners in  enabling   them to study however, whenever and wherever they want, then we fall short in some regard. Students have to submit assignments on  given dates. They also have to  sit examinations at given times. A rigid  and formal examination system is not conducive to  a  delivery system which should allow students to study whenever they want. They are able to  choose when  to go on-line and when to read the print materials, but they cannot choose when to be assessed. We need to put in place not only alternative modes of assessment but multiple times for assessment  thereby enabling the  adult learners to  opt in and out of the training within a reasonable time  frame, without prejudice to their assessment.

Likewise, if we see  being ‘learning centred’ as delivering training in  “ ways that support in-depth learning that results in keen thinking and proficient performances”(Darling –Hammond), we  also fall short in this regard.  A common complaint of lecturers and tutors in the distance and on-line programmes is that the students do not read the printed  materials  and so come to the  tutorials unprepared (Jennings 2002). Admittedly the TTCD experienced  some difficulty  with the print materials. The modules invariably arrived late and the students complained of not being  given enough time to read before the tutorials (Jennings 2005).This had to do with  communication difficulties due to the geography of the Guyana. The modules were printed in the capital city, Georgetown, then taken by air   to some  regional centres , or by boat  to others and then they had to be transported from there to the teachers  in the  individual schools. Sometimes  there was a long wait  before transportation further inland became available. Given that thee examination dates were fixed, the late  arrival of the modules meant that greater pressure was placed on the tutors to ’teach’ at the tutorial sessions  with the  result that  the trainees wanted more and more tutorials  despite the fact that these sessions were meant to clarify anything not understood  in the modules  and provide an opportunity for exchange of ideas and experiences, based on the readings.

Trainees in programmes delivered by the DES did not have such problems and yet their lecturers reported that they were not reading. In some cases this had to do with poor time management and a difficulty in balancing the demands of home, work and study, but some students complained  that there was too much reading to be done. Some lecturers, however, blame the semester system which puts pressure on the students  to learn too much in too short a space of time and because the examinations are pre-set, their learning is superficial-remembered  at the end of thirteen weeks but forgotten soon after. They yearn for a return to the trimester system  when it was felt that , since the examinations ,were at the end of the year,  the student had months in  which to read, think and understand. In other words, much more meaningful learning took place. Opinions  may differ on this  issue, but the bottom line is how and when we examine learning. If we are to become more ‘learner centred’ and more ‘learning –centred’ we have to revisit our examination system.

Collaboration

The  DES uses  three  models of collaboration in  offering its distance and on-line programmes:

Ø      In model A where the tertiary level institution (TLI) is outside the city, lecturers in the TLI offer some courses in the area of specialisation (e.g. Literacy Studies) while other courses are offered by lecturers from the UWI who travel to the TLI. There is no interaction between students in the TLI and those at the UWI.

Ø      In model B   where the TLI is in the city, ,  lecturers in  the TLI offer all courses in the area of specialisation (e.g. Early Childhood Education) and students attend the UWI for  core education courses as well as content courses  in the disciplines in other Faculties.

Ø      In  Model C for on-line delivery, students in the NCCs interact with

·        the lecturer in the area of specialisation on the Mona campus  who has overall responsibility for the course

·         e-tutors who have responsibilities for small groups. These are located both on the Mona campus and in the NCCs.

·        local tutors in the NCC who organise  face to face tutorials

·        a  local  programme coordinator who liaises with the Project Director on the  Mona  campus

·        the Resident Tutor in the local UWIDEC  who deal with  administrative matters.

·        Technical assistant from UWIDEC on the Mona campus who troubleshoots problems with internet connection.

In collaborative arrangements the teachers who are able to attend classes in two different institutions benefit from a wider range of interactions with many different people.  Models B and C make this possible and exemplifies –“how interaction among students can be structured to allow more powerful shared learning to occur” ( Darling-Hammond 1999, p226). In model C in particular students benefit from the cross-fertilisation of ideas from peers from many different countries. Model A is a modification of what was originally agreed between the TLI and the UWI. According to the agreement all specialist and core education courses were to be taught by lecturers  in the TLI  and students were to travel  to the Mona  campus to do the content courses in the disciplines alongside  students from other Faculties, thereby ensuring the kind of interaction  that takes place in models B and C. Financial difficulties militated against this. Neither the TLI nor the students themselves were prepared to meet the transportation costs.

The Content of Teacher Education

Table 5 : Content of teacher education

                                  CPCE  (Guyana)                        DES (Jamaica)     

      Primary                                   Primary                             Secondary

University/College Foundation 

English Proficiency (12) Personal &Professional Develop. (2)

(14)

English   for academic purposes  + one other

(6)

English   for academic purposes  + one other

(6)

Core Education

Technology in Education (6) Psychology of Learning (3) Special Needs (2 Philosophical/Sociological  Issues (3)

 Education & Society  (3) Intro. curriculum (3) Child Devel. (3) Classroom Testing & Measurement (3)

Educational Administration (3)

(29)

Intro. Computers in education (3) Intro. Curriculum  Studies (3)

Intro. Learner in  Difficulty (3)  + one other (Research Methods) #

 (12)

Intro. Computers in education  (3) + one other  (Research Methods) #

(6)

Methodology

Teaching  Methods  (4)

 

 

Content (Education)

Reading across the curriculum(6)Maths/English/

Science/Soc.St. (18 )

Spanish  (5)Major Subject (10)  PE(3) Methods  in core areas (4)                     

(46)

Courses in   Maths, English,  social Studies, Science, Reading,

integrated Curriculum

music/dance/art/drama

(18)

Area  of specialization (e.g. maths, science, English, History, Spanish)

(12)

Content (Disciplines)*

 

(12)

(30)

Elective**

Art & craft/Music /Industrial Arts/Home Econ.

(3)

   (e.g.  Conflict & Aggression in the classroom)

(6)

 

Practicum

 (17)

 (9)                         

 (9)

Study

 (2)

 (3)

 (3)

Community Project

 (2)

 

 

Total (Credits)

 (113)

 (66)        

(66)

*  Done in Faculties other than Education 

** Students could opt to do a co-curricular credit

# Highly recommended

Increasingly, teachers have realised that   having a B.Ed degree is not  the be-all and end-all of teaching. The education of a teacher falls on a continuum beginning with school where   the would be teacher not only  acquires  the pre-requisite  knowledge ,attitude and values  but also develops a concept of what  ‘teaching  ‘is from  observation of  his/her teachers  and  what goes on in classrooms.  At the next stage of  initial preparation (pre-service or in-service) much of  what  has  been learnt has to  be   analysed and  interrogated.  Induction which is the next stage   takes place at university after which the teacher is involved in continuing professional development over his/her career (e.g. postgraduate courses at university).  Each phase of teacher learning has essential tasks. In  this paper we are only concerned with the phases  of initial preparation  (at CPCE)  and induction (at the  UWI).It should be noted that the structure outlined in table  5 is  of the new CPCE curriculum which was revised in 2000 and implemented  the following  year. 

Two   of the essential tasks of initial preparation  are  to confront early experiences with teaching, analyse initial beliefs, etc  and to develop an understanding  of learners  and learning  and the understanding of differences to which Darling-Hammond (1999) referred.  This is the purpose of the core education courses in table 5, such as  philosophical and sociological issues and psychology of learning. The development of subject matter for teaching is another essential task  which the education content  and electives in  table 5 addresses. A fourth task is the development  of a  beginning  repertoire of skills such a s skills in  classroom testing and measurement, in developing  curriculum ,  in  addressing  special needs and methods of teaching.  A fifth task is the development of professional ethics. The course on personal and professional development (PPD) was designed for that purpose.

The induction phase builds on and reinforces rather than repeats the  stage of initial preparation. Consequently in table 5 we see a much reduced compulsory educational foundations and  theory component but a much stronger emphasis on  the development of subject matter for teaching  in both education  content and content from the disciplines, especially at the secondary level. DES students specialising in  history,  for example, do 30 credits of History courses in the Department of History. Learning to design or adapt responsive curriculum and instruction   which is  a  task of induction is dealt with in the  education content  courses. The Practicum and study  for both the primary and secondary options in the DES is designed so as to enable the teachers to hone their skills in gaining knowledge of school contexts, the learner and the curriculum, to create a classroom learning community as well as to develop skills in reflective  teaching (Feraria 2002) which enable them to learn in  and from practice as well as use their practice as  a site for enquiry.

But table 5 presents not the ideal for the content of teacher education  at either CPCE or the DES, but rather  a compromise. Some of the difficulties which have led to this situation will be discussed.

(i) Language issues

This brings us back to the concern about the low level of entry of students to the TTCD.A major reason for this is the weak language skills of the students. Students entering the TTCD should have passed the CSEC preferably with a grade 11 at least. But few achieve this. Research in fact has shown that  most countries  achieve far below 50% success at grades 1 and 11 with more  countries showing a decline in levels  of achievement (Craig, 1998). Research has also shown  that  whether they are coming from the Colleges or straight  from high school, many students entering the university  are also weak in  language skills (Craig ibid). That is why at the UWI every student  has to pass an English Language Proficiency Test  before entry to the UWI and then has to pass  a course on English  for Academic Purposes (EAP) before they can be awarded their degree. Table 5  shows that a considerable amount of time is devoted  to developing the  language skills of  students in the TTCD and  this is treated in a  developmental way in that  the courses are spread over the  three years of the programme. Some Faculty members at UWI  consider that the  EAP is not enough since  many employers still complain about  poor communication skills  of university graduates, and advocate  a developmental  approach like what applies at the CPCE.  Other members of Faculty feel that the degree programme is already too packed to accommodate  additional courses in English proficiency.

But another problem at CPCE relates to the content of  modules in  some of the courses  which is not appropriate for trainees in the hinterland. For  example, in  the Reading across the curriculum  reference  is made to ‘bedroom’ and planning a trip to the zoo. While this is appropriate for the coastal/urban areas of Guyana, it is inappropriate for the hinterland Amerindians sleep in hammocks slung  up in the house. There is no ‘bedroom’ area as such  and  they live amongst the  animals that city dwellers would  visit in a zoo. Another example is reference to  visit to a supermarket and to buying pizzas and hamburgers. When I assisted in planning the delivery of the TTCD in  the more remote regions of Guyana, I met with a group of  village elders  in one of the remote areas who  were fearful  of   the impact of exposure to such Western ideas on  the indigenous culture. They felt that the preservation of Amerindian culture needed to be provided for in  the training of the teacher. This underscores why  it is essential that  the Amerindians themselves be trained to teach  in their own communities. Prior to the  mid-1980s when the HUP was introduced,  it was teachers from  the coastal areas who went to the hinterland to teach. Invariably they found themselves having to teach children  in their classes for whom English was their second (and sometimes  their third) language. Their training programme had not prepared  them to deal with this situation. It was not until 2003 that  a programme for teaching English as a second language was developed for the CPCE ‘s new curriculum.

(ii) Understanding subject matter

Darling-Hammond(1999) underscores  the need for teachers  to understand  subject matter  in ways that provide a foundation for pedagogical content knowledge.  There is much  difference  of opinion  as to how this should be done at the degree level, particularly in the preparation of secondary school teachers. Some are of the view that  the training of secondary school teachers should begin with  a first degree in a discipline, followed by a postgraduate diploma in education. The approach taken by the DES for many years, however, was  for  students  who had satisfied the pre-requisite of  a  three year teachers college diploma in  the teaching of a secondary subject  t o proceed  to the B.Ed  degree  in which they were exposed to  at least 27 credits in content  (education)  and  between 15 to 18 credits in content from the disciplines. The Ministry of Education, based on feedback from principals of secondary schools, pressed for more content in the disciplines to improve the teachers’ preparation of students for the CSEC.  This was made a requirement for the B.Ed Sec DE. In the 2002-2003 academic year  the content in the disciplines in the degree programme was increased to 30 credits and the education content was decreased (see table 5). This was met with much dissatisfaction from staff in the DES who argued that what was taught in the disciplines was geared more for persons who wanted to pursue research in the area rather than for teachers  who wanted an understanding of the subject  matter for teaching. The strongest criticism  came from the mathematics educators  who proposed that members of the Department of mathematics  should collaborate with the mathematics educators to develop  special content courses  for mathematics teachers. Despite  difficulties experienced with the  kind of collaboration envisaged,  the mathematics/education (ME) courses were developed and teaching of these courses began in 2003 in the distance programme. Whether or not this is a better way of preparing the secondary school teacher cannot be ascertained  since at the time of writing  the first batch of students had not yet completed the programme.

(iii) Integrating technology in the curriculum

Both institutions  have  included   in  their teacher preparation  courses  which train teachers in the use of technology as an aid to teaching and learning. But this has given rise to different concerns in each country. The Ministry of Education in Jamaica  asked the DES to ensure that every trained teacher was computer literate and could integrate technology into t heir  teaching. The DES therefore made the Introduction to Computers in Education (ED20Y)  a compulsory course but soon discovered that the students  had a wide ability range. Some students achieved an ‘A’ grade with little effort, while others seemed afraid even  to touch the computers and struggled through the course.  In the August preceding the beginning of the 2003-2004 academic year, students were given t he option of doing a ‘challenge examination’ for ED20Y.If they passed it, they could choose  another core education course  instead. Not a single student  did the examination, t he excuse being that they were not prepared to pay the examination  fee  (less than US$20). However, it was clear that they had begun to see the course as an ‘easy pass’  that could raise their grade point average.  Because well over 30% of the students get an ‘A’ grade in ED20Y,  a decision  has been taken not to include  the course in the list of compulsory core education courses as of the 2007-2008 academic year, but to retain the challenge examination and still keep the course  as  a requirement for the  award of the B.Ed.

Given the vast contrast in teaching /learning environments  in Guyana,  two different  courses were designed for the new CPCE curriculum. The course on Technology in Education was  designed for  teachers working in schools in  the more coastal  areas  where electricity was available and teachers and students had access to computers and the Internet.  For those who would be working in  schools in the hinterland, there was the course on Appropriate Technology for situations  of fundamental constraints.  These schools had no electricity and no access to computers, but had to rely on traditional technologies such as  the chalkboard and charts  made from cardboard and they would need to know what to do when they ran  out of chalk. I   visited a school in one of   the remote regions of Guyana where the teacher, on discovering that she had no chalk, sent one of the children to fetch a particular soft stone from a nearby river bed. The evaluation of the TTCD revealed that  even in situations where computers were available,  so many trainees had to share one computer that it rendered the Technology in Education course ineffective. Even so, trainees  in the remote regions  insisted that they too should be exposed to this course (Jennings 2005).

(iv) Provision for the holistic development of the teacher

When  the new curriculum for the CPCE  was being developed,   the principal and  lecturers of the college bemoaned  the type of person that was being attracted into the   profession. They   emphasised the need  for  courses that would develop desirable attitudes and values and mould them into role models for the young. The course, Personal and Professional Development, was  designed with this in mind. It was originally conceived as  developmental in that it would be delivered in modules over the three years of the training programme and would promote health, wellness and human living. Other areas in the course included ethics, professionalism, morality and values. However, there were other areas in the old curriculum  taught  by influential staff members  over many years who fought hard for the  survival of their field in the new curriculum. One such area was Educational Administration.  This area was not included in the original blueprint not only because the primary option was designed for preparing classroom teachers but also because  it had been observed that its inclusion encouraged  those trained  to be classroom teachers  to move  into educational administration at the degree level  leading to an over subscription of  that area  with few wanting to be trained to return to the primary classroom after the B.Ed  degree. The Educational Administrators, however, won out.

Over the years at the UWI there has been  a movement away from a total focus on academic learning in a specialised area   towards exposure to a curriculum oriented to a more holistic development of the student. All  UWI students have to do two courses outside their own  Faculties to ensure  a much broader development. A student in the Faculty of Humanities  and Education, for example, may do a course in Law ,Governance  and Society in the Faculty of Social Sciences while a student in the Faculty of Medicine may do a course in Caribbean Civilisation. But in more recent times, some members of the UWI community have argued for broadening  the  student’s development   even further. This  has been motivated by research   that  employers value personal and intellectual skills beyond those traditionally emphasised in higher education-skills such as  communication skills, teamwork and interpersonal skills, problem –solving and decision-making skills, flexibility and adaptability , imagination and creativity (Brown and Stewart 2004). Fallow (2003) highlights different models used by tertiary level institutions  for teaching theses skills. This includes the external model  used by the UWI . Here students develop  the needed skills through co-curricular activity.

Reynolds (2004/5) underscores the importance of Student Services  Divisions (SSD) in higher education institutions in contributing to the holistic development of the tertiary  level student   through offering learning experiences that  enhance  the  affective development of the  learners She reported, however, that  many faculty members of tertiary level institutions believe that student personal development  programmes should not be  their concern (Reynolds 2004/5). Her own research  showed that  tertiary level students in Jamaica  attached great importance to  services that supported their affective  development, but  generally found the delivery of such services wanting in  these institutions.  “Serious consideration”, she maintains  “needs to be given  to the concept of  tertiary level institutions as  learning communities, where the holistic  development of students is not just the concern of an individual department” (Reynolds 2004/5:24).  Reynolds in fact seems to be proposing what Fallows (2003) calls  the totally embedded model. Here skills development takes place within the general curriculum  and across the range of  courses offered. It would then become a shared responsibility  of  all Faculty members.

In the 2001-2002 academic year the SSD at UWI spearheaded  the development of co-curricular credits whereby students  could be given three credits towards their degree for involvement in co-curricular activities such as sports, dramatic society and leadership programmes.   This development has been well supported by some students.  In a recent study, one student said of the Quality Leadership Programme: “It should be compulsory that every student get involved in a co-curricular  activity. My involvement in the UWI’ s Quality Leadership programme has  helped me improve my academic performance  significantly. During the same semester I joined the programme, my GPA for the  first time  in any semester moved from below 3 points to 3.8” (Jennings 2006).

(vi) Balancing the curriculum

With  the  rapid advance of  technology, the job of the teacher has become more complex and demanding and teachers are  required to know more and more in order to cope with these new demands. Universal secondary education, for example, brings with it students with a wider range of abilities  that the teacher has to cope with. Teachers also have to be able to use  a  wider range of  assessment techniques. More often than not, they have to be able to deal with aggressive and  violent behaviour in the classroom, often from children who have real  learning difficulties. The content of their training, it can be argued should prepare them to deal successfully with all of these things. But the reality is that, given the  limitation of time to complete  an initial training certificate  or  a degree, difficult choices have to be  made. This  is  evident in table 5. Secondary teachers need to be exposed to course that   help them deal with conflict and  aggressive behaviour but the strong content  input in their area of specialisation leaves no room for electives.  Because  the  degree programme  builds on   what was done  at the Teachers college,  there are few compulsory educational  foundations  and theory courses. This poses dilemmas for the students. For example, many of the secondary students would like to do the course on the learner in difficulty, but after graduation most want  to proceed to   the Masters degree  for which research methods  is a pre-requisite.

But there are other pressures on the DES curriculum arising from demands  in the wider university. As  part of the UWI’s repositioning itself to be  more competitive and produce a  more rounded graduate for life and the working world, Departments have been encouraged to introduce service learning .The DES has not found room in the curriculum to introduce it , apart from  Educational Administration where it is  an integral part of the design of that option.  For their practicum  students work in groups to identify a  need  in a school or  in the community. They develop a plan to respond to that need, mobilise  resources   and implement the plan. These students  have done such things  as renovate school libraries, install water tanks  in schools, refurbish classrooms, establish computer rooms,  renovate health clinics in the community. The community project done by students at CPCE is very similar to this. This project   was considered  so valuable to

t he students as well as the  communities that benefited  that  it was carried over from the old curriculum to the new.

Another pressure  on the DES curriculum is to ensure that every teacher , who does not have a second language, acquires one during the course of the degree. Opinions on this vary, even about what should be the second language. While Spanish is the obvious choice, given that most  Caribbean countries are surrounded by Spanish  speaking  neighbours, some members of faculty argue that  given the reconfiguration of  world powers  taking place, Chinese, Portuguese or Hindi are also strong alternatives. Some are of the view that the second language requirement should be  made at the school level and not at the university. Others argue that it is all part of the rounding of the students’ education. The point however is that  the DES has not been able to find room to include this foreign language requirement in its curriculum. The CPCE was the first teachers college in the English-speaking Caribbean to make Spanish compulsory in its curriculum. Others followed suit later because  of the current trend for the learning of  Spanish to begin at the primary level. In the original blueprint for the new CPCE curriculum  Spanish  was to be taught in the second year of the programme  and  given a total of four credits. But it too fell victim to the pressure for space in the curriculum  from other areas  considered more important (e. g Reading across the curriculum) and was given  only  2 credits  and “squashed in a concentrated period of  three weeks one summer” (Jennings 2005:11). Spanish was treated in the college curriculum as it is treated in  the schools “as a ‘third-class’ subject whose time was reduced if extra instructional time was needed for high-status subjects like the sciences” (Jennings 2001:119).

Conclusion

This striving for a balanced curriculum in the two institutions studied underscores the   growing tension between  the role of higher education as preparation for  employment and that of providing  a general enhancement of knowledge and a cultivation of values and attitudes  and the development of the personality. But a curriculum once developed is not static. It is constantly kept under review and responds accordingly to changes  not only in the society but in the global world.  Both the DES and the CPCE have attempted to provide ‘programmes of powerful teacher education ‘ which Darling-Hammond speaks about , but a mix of die-hard practices, inadequacies of resources prevent them achieving their ideals.  There  are innovative ideas in the  new CPCE curriculum that the lecturers have not yet  attempted to implement.  For example, Special Needs was originally conceived as being infused in various aspects of the curriculum (e.g. in courses on Child Development and Psychology of Learning and Teaching). The Practicum was  conceived as development with the module for each semester having a different focus  but all being designed to provide an opportunity for guidance in implementing  ideas  learnt and skills acquired. For example, Practicum 3 in year 2 was designed to provide opportunities for the trainees to demonstrate  skills in catering to students of differing abilities including those with special needs. Practicum  5 in the   final year  reinforced these skills with particular attention to  low achieving males. Such differentiation required the use of instruments specifically designed to  assess the particular skills. But  such differentiation was not done  and the same instrument was used all the time with the result that  the students  saw the Practicum as ‘going on too long’ (Jennings 2005:10).

In the 2005-2006 academic year the DES undertook a review of its  core courses and decided that  room had to be found in the curriculum for all students to do a course in special needs, conflict  and aggression in the classroom and research methods. A review of the Education  content courses revealed that some economy of space could  be achieved in the curriculum if, instead of each option doing its own teaching method course,  a common  teaching method  course  be done  and then reinforced in  other courses, as in the CPCE curriculum. All of this underscores the dynamic nature of the curriculum and  the fact that it is constantly changing and ways are being found of responding to the issues  that have been highlighted in this paper.

 

References and/or complementary bibliography

Brown, M., Stewart, M.(2004) Survey of employers’ perceptions of graduates of the University of the West Indies Report commissioned by the Board for Undergraduate Studies. University of the West Indies.

Darling-Hammond, L (1999) Educating teachers  for the next century: rethinking practice and policy In The Education of Teachers: Ninety Eighth Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education Griffin, G,A, (Ed). Chicago University of Chicago Press.

Fallows, S. (2003) Teaching and learning for student skills development In: Fry, H, Ketteridge, S, Marshall, S. A Handbook for Teaching and Learning  in Higher Education .

Feraria ,P (2002) Preparing the teacher as reflective practitioner: some emerging trends in a professional training programme  at the University of the West Indies, Jamaica. Journal of Education and Development in the Caribbean   Vol. 4, No. 2 :107-122.

Government of Guyana (2002) Education for all –Fast Track Initiative Country Proposal/Credible Plan

Jennings, Z (1996) Evaluation of the Hinterland Teacher Training Programme (June 1994 – June 1995).  Education  and Development Services Inc. Guyana.

Jennings,  Z. (1999) Innovation with Hesitation: Distance Education in Commonwealth Caribbean Universities. Journal of Education and Development in the Caribbean Vol 3 No.2 :115-144.

Jennings, Z. (2001). Teacher education in selected  countries in the Commonwealth  Caribbean: the ideal of policy versus   the reality of practice.  Comparative Education  Vol.37,No.1:107-134.

Jennings, Z.(2005). The review and evaluation of the Certificate  programme delivered by CPCE(August 2001-July 2004).Quebec: TECSULT.

Jennings, Z (2006). The role of faculty in holistic learning and development. Paper presented at the Caribbean Tertiary Level Personnel Association

Radisson Cable Beach and Golf Resort Hotel, Nassau , Bahamas .June 19-23.2006

Marshall, S (2004)  Blended learning/Asynchronous delivery: A UWIDEC project for 2004/5  UWIDEC.

Perraton, H.; Tsekoa, K. (1987).  Distance Education in Small Nation States.  In: Bacchus, K. & Brock, C. (eds.)  The Challenge of Scale: Educational Development in the Small States of the Commonwealth.  London, Common­wealth Secretariat

Reynolds, T.(2004/5) Affective Teaching and Learning in Tertiary Level Institutions: An Imperative for the  21st Century. Journal of Education and Development in the Caribbean  Vol. 8. Nos 1&2:  1-27.


 

 


A Kingdom identity: mirage, illusion, or vision?
Some allochthonous thoughts on the European and Caribbean Dutch, unequal equals with an elusive common identity

University of St. Martin, Netherlands Antilles

silviosergio@yahoo.com

 

“In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity.”

Albert Einstein

Introduction

I would like to start with one of the points made in 2004 by the so-called Jesurun Report: “Een visie op het Koninkrijk ontbreekt,” that is, “What is missing is a vision of the Kingdom” (Werkgroep BFV, 2004:6). Suzanne Römer, one of the former Prime Ministers of the Netherlands Antilles, pointed in the same direction: “In the discussion about the status aparte, autonomous St. Martin or Korsou outonomo, Crown Island, fundamental special bond with the Netherlands, etc., I miss a discussion about the content of the Kingdom” (Arrindell, 2006:40).

It is precisely this Kingdom dimension that interests me. Even though the Islands have opted to request the cessation of the Netherlands Antilles, they want to remain within the broader partnership of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The Netherlands has shown itself increasingly reluctant to accord with the requested changes, which incidentally fall under the right to self-determination of the Islands. The European Dutch are not as aware of the Kingdom reality as are their Caribbean counterparts. In fact, they have recently been woken up to the common Dutchness which they share with the other Caribbean Kingdom subjects due to the discussions and debates to which the multicultural society has given rise. For instance, whether or not criminal Antillean Dutch youths could be sent away from the Netherlands back to their Islands. Social integration programs for newcomers in the Netherlands do not even mention the statutory fact that these new citizens are entering a whole Kingdom, and not merely “Holland,” as they would most likely (and inaccurately so) call it in English.

Is there a Dutch Kingdom identity at all? Is it a sheer mirage, something that vanishes as soon as you try to examine it more closely? Is it an illusion, cheap make-belief, concocted by those who drew up the Statuut or Charter for the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the old Motherland trying to appease its former plantation “bastard” stepchildren by letting them think that they were being treated equally, on a par with the Kingdom’s “real” children?

My suggestion is that if all parties involved are honest and responsible enough, the Kingdom identity can be redefined so that it becomes a visionary blueprint for the future. If the Kingdom subjects committed their energy to this multilingual, multiethnic, multi-religious, and multifaceted project that is the Kingdom of the Netherlands, both the Caribbean and European Dutch could become more rather than less. Such a common project of mutual social enrichment would be an asset in our globalized world where we need to multiply our potentials rather than reduce them.

Forging identities

Identities are not the same as identification. Identity is what we choose to become: our life project. Identification is how society sees and defines us. For instance, when we identify ourselves with our society’s racial categories we become racialized. This means that we do no longer look upon ourselves as individuals endowed with personal characteristics and free choice, but as black, white, yellow, or mixed, i.e. as an impersonal living sample of a group.

It is at this point that many ongoing integration or “inburgering” programs overstep the line that distinguishes the public from the private arenas. When a government claims the right to determine how people should think or feel about certain issues, it has gone too far. A government can inform its citizens what the laws and/or binding customs of the community are; moreover, it must enforce them. However, it may never force its people to agree with them. Only fascist governments will claim that their power reaches to the inside of a person’s mind and heart. Governments are there not to regulate what individuals think or feel, but to shape and steer the course of interpersonal relations, guaranteeing that they take place in accordance with the community’s inner agreements that are crystallized in the law. For the law, in democratic societies, theoretically expresses the will of the majority: it functions as a social pact which is made, adapted, and changed by the people through the representatives that they have elected directly or indirectly.

Nonetheless, there will be issues such as safety and decency that will extend the presence of the state deeper into our more private spheres. The state will regulate, for instance, what types of electronic gadgets are safe and we may therefore buy and sell, or what clothing is considered dangerous.

Identity is a complex issue. Human identities share in the human predicament: they are always relative and changing constructions, never absolute and monolithic. They are hypotheses.

Personal and social identities are built on some memory of the past as remembered and retold, and are themselves a project of becoming whose fulfillment lies in the future. Very often the past we seem to be describing is nothing other than the future we would like to be able to identify ourselves with: it is not our roots, but the imaginary ground in which we would like to take roots.

Identities are ideological constructions

Identities are semantic realities: they are products of broader meaning‑producing processes which encompass language(s), culture(s), social interaction(s), political relationships, religious tradition(s), the human habitat etc. For indeed, “every cultural phenomenon is a communication act that can be understood only in reference to the codes, rules, conventions, structures that constitute it as such” (De Lauretis, 1981:29).

Things such as language, culture, political relationships, religious traditions, among other phenomena, are macrostructures built on presuppositions and conventions born out of lived experience, yet transcending the singular. They constitute the network within which individuals subsist and without which we cannot be human. Humans are humanized within the matrix of such macrostructures. We are initiated into (at least) one culture and one language, which are therefore not our exclusive possessions, but the signs of our social dependency.

The fact that we humans are always‑already found within a broader network of socio‑geographical interactions, with views and personal positions about the meaning of what happens in and around us, necessitates the conclusion that we are not disinterested cultural agents. Our so-called identities are perspectival in a similar way as our consciousness is.

An ideology is a more or less unquestioned, social and personal default worldview from which and within which we and our identities live. “Ideology” is therefore not seen here exclusively as a forceful political view, but as the more or less arbitrary, yet necessary, structuring structure without which we as humans would not be able to become functional social agents. To be a human is to define oneself and be defined by others as such, in light of a set of more or less conscious presuppositions, and to situate oneself and be situated within the humanized world. Ideologies are part and parcel of the humanizing processes.

Cultural phenomena take place within an ideological universe that is made up of various plausible parallel ideological systems, each with its own central star, black holes, singularities and unknown entities. Ideologies do not exist anywhere, they function rather (a) as the general models of what has already been patterned and / or (b) as models for what must and could still be patterned. They are thus the gnoseological structures that structure thought and feelings, without possessing any ontic existence. This is the sense in which Eco speaks of the structure as being absent (De Lauretis, 1981:31f). It is at this point that concepts such as ideology, myth and truth converge on one another and become very difficult to distinguish, so much so that what is said of one may mutatis mutandis be applied to the other. Ricoeur —following Turbayne— speaks thus of myth as “believed poetry,” as “metaphor taken literally” and —following Nietzsche— of truths as being “illusions of which one has forgotten that they are illusions” (Ricoeur, 1994:251.286, respectively).

What exists is particular actualizations of general ideologies. In this sense, Christianity (the structured given) cannot be equaled to the ideology of the gospels (the structuring model), nor can the Soviet state be identified with Marxism. They are particular, always relative and alternative, actualizations of the ideal. For neither the ideology of the gospels nor that of Marx exists anywhere in concrete, what there exists is particular religious groups and socio‑political bodies that pattern themselves after the ideal, structuring model.

An ideology constitutes therefore the ideational framework within which individuals are socialized and interact with themselves and others, with the environment and the Ultimate Horizon. Ideologies concern thus not only what people think, but also what they feel insofar as it is hard to feel what one does not know (Cassirer, 1953:3ff.; Heidegger, 1971:19; Lonergan, 1973:4.253; Bleicher, 1990:98-103). Would we be “angry” if we did not have the word “angry”? Would it not feel otherwise if we called it something else?

Eagleton defines an ideology as “an inherently complex formation which, by inserting individuals into history in a variety of ways, allows of multiple kinds and degrees of access to that history” (Eagleton, 1976:69). Observers observe from within an already existing framework. This is the predicament of human knowledge: all knowledge comes from a given perspective. The fact that one sees the difference between a robber’s demand to hand over a certain amount of money under threat of violence and that of a tax inspector’s shows that people have been pre‑programmed to differentiate between a robber and a government official. The fact that the mechanics of the sexual act between siblings and between two unrelated people are the same does not undo the incest taboo. This is because we humans do not live in the mechanic world of physics, but in the quite arbitrary world of culture. We could also mention the distinction between abortion, self‑defense killing, euthanasia, homicide and murder, or between private property and common property. Moreover, theoretically speaking, an observer that looks at five birds from within a worldview where people only know the categories of “one,” “two” and “many” will not become aware of the distinction between “four birds,” “five birds” or “a hundred birds”. They will just speak of “many birds” (Brouwer, 2000:25‑26).

Even though culture is larger than ideology insofar as the former comprises also all material productions of a people and of individuals within it, the two are radically interrelated; for even material production is dependant upon considerations such as purpose, functionality, demand, receptivity, aesthetic judgments, etc. Things are more or less functional, more or less worth doing or making —and worth rests on value judgments. Ideologies therefore have to do with culture “as a community of evidences, i.e. as a ‘secret’ collectivity within which a number of ideas, believable items, value judgments, etc. become recognized as evident at a given moment in history and do no longer need to be justified” (Brouwer, 2000).

Every ideology is ultimately based on beliefs, presuppositions or assumptions that are both necessary and relative. These presuppositions are necessary mechanisms because if individuals and cultures are to think of themselves and others in any way at all, and if they are to interact with reality at all, they have to depart from some guiding principles. Nonetheless, the concrete ways in which this need for intellectual and behavioral co‑ordinates is met and given content are relative. They are true and reasonable on condition that, provided that (if A, then B, and then also C). The belief that “peace is better than war,” for instance, is true only if one accepts, among other things, that the law of the jungle is not the determining factor for the further evolution of human society. In this sense, thinking, perceptions, emotions (to a certain extent) and actions go hand in hand with a narrative that grounds them, leads them, criticizes them, rewards them, or even condemns them. This narrative is basically a myth (in the extended sense of the word) that, when worked out, becomes overall ideologies. Ideologies level out, draw out, socialize, and perpetuate the initial myth (Murray, 1986:159-195).

Identities are imagined

Identity includes memory and expectation: it tells where one comes from, as well as where one is going to or ought to be going to.

If I look towards the past, at the memory element, what binds both the European and Caribbean Dutch is colonialism. The ancestors of the European Dutch expropriated the land that belonged to other people and laid a claim to it; then, they went on to fabricate their Caribbean, watering its soil with the sweat and blood of slaves (and, in the Surinamese case, also with Asian indentured laborers). It is therefore not a wonder that both types of Dutch citizens have tried to suppress the memories of their shared past of oppressing or being oppressed, enslaving or being enslaved, being the master or the subject.

Unlike the post-Hitler Germans, who were not allowed to forget the atrocities committed by the Nazis and their affiliates, post-slavery Europeans were allowed to get away with robbery, kidnapping, abuse, rape, and murder. How can European and Caribbean Dutch individuals create a past that can engender a common feeling of a Kingdom identity surpassing negative bipolarities when there has been an institutionalized loss of memory, the oblivion of the guilty, as well as of the embarrassed and humiliated?

If we look towards the future, there are different possibilities. The Caribbean Dutch could choose (to continue) to see their Dutch nationality as a sign of colonial dependency and seek independence (however, only a minority on the islands harbors such a wish). The Caribbean Dutch could also accept their Dutchness, at least at the level of nationality, being equals within the Kingdom, accepting that equal rights entail equal responsibilities.

However, the problem with both the past and the future is that the former does not exist any longer and the latter does not exist as yet. The act of attributing an identity to ourselves is basically an undertaking in the present. “Time exists only insofar as it can be measured, and the yardstick by which we measure it is space. Where is the space located that permits us to measure time? For Augustine the answer is: in our memory where things are being stored up. Memory, the storehouse of time, is the presence of the ‘no more’ (iam non) as expectation is the presence of the ‘not yet’ (nondum). Therefore I do not measure what is no more, but something in my memory that remains fixed in it. It is only by calling past and future into the present of remembrance and expectation that time exists at all. Hence the only valid tense is the present, the Now.” (Arendt, 1996:15)

The present is all that we have to work with. On what could an inclusive Kingdom Dutch identity be based here and now, using the tools that are at our disposal without falling under the reductive influences of nationalistic, exclusivist, or fragmentary identities? Is there anything in the present cacophonic Babel of the Kingdom of the Netherlands that could ground some sort of “common Kingdom identity,” something that would justify the qualification of “Dutch” for both European and Caribbean Dutch citizens, the old and the newcomers alike?

Even though the Dutchness of the Caribbean Dutch does make them different from the rest of the Caribbean people, it does not make them very similar to their European Kingdom partners. History binds them as much as it divides them: the colonial master and the servant may be gone, but the arrogance and the grudges characteristic of both have not been eradicated yet. Just as the collective psyche of the Jews has never quite forgotten the Holocaust, so too do European and Caribbean Dutch individuals continue to be born within the asymmetric structures engendered by and inherited from the colonial machinery.

The Kingdom vision: a union of countries

The Statuut voor het Konkrijk der Nederlanden or Charter for the Kingdom of the Netherlands of 1954 (henceforth: Statuut) founded a type of Kingdom that we could mutatis mutandis compare to the European Union of the future: a union of autonomous countries sharing a statutory foundation, as well as a common defense and foreign affairs portfolio. For, indeed, the Kingdom of the Netherlands is made up of countries that are autonomous in matters of internal affairs but integrated on issues of defense, nationality, and foreign affairs. The Preamble of the Statuut states that these countries will be joined in a new juridical order within which they would embark on an autonomous search of their own concerns, as well as a common quest of their common concerns, on a footing of equal dignity and helping one another along the way.

“The Netherlands, the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba, considering that they, of their own free will, have stated that they accept a new constitutional order for the Kingdom of the Netherlands, in which they will, autonomously handle their internal affairs, and, on a basis of equality, handle the common interests and render assistance to each other, have decided in mutual consultation, to establish the Charter for Kingdom of the Netherlands as follows.” (Statuut, Preamble)

At the head of the Kingdom is the monarch (the King or Queen), who symbolizes the unity of the statutory partners, vouchsafing for the Kingdom’s rationale (Statuut, § 1. art. 2.1).

I would like to interpret this unity in difference and autonomy in solidarity as a social project—say, the Kingdom vision. While it presupposes an implicit recognition of the past of injustice that brought together the European and Caribbean Dutch and explains why they are now all Dutch, it can also be seen as a wish for equity that could help the individual and social psyche of the Kingdom work out their differences in their mutual favor. The Preamble may be described as visionary, even though this most probably was an unwilled side-effect, and reality is still trying to catch up with it.

The Statuut states that the Kingdom members can veto any project of changes to the statutory relations within the Kingdom. This means that the Netherlands cannot one-sidedly break up the Kingdom. The Statuut, which certainly did not intend to be an “eternal edict,” has become one (Oostindie, 2002:10).

The Caribbean Dutch have clearly indicated that they do not want to follow the Surinamese example. They have opted against the Netherlands Antilles, but in favor of the Kingdom. They want to maintain their Dutch nationality, mostly because of practical reasons. Their choice indirectly proves that, in the Antilles, the colonists lacked an effective colonial cultural policy. Unlike the Surinamese, the Caribbean Dutch did not quite become culturally “Dutch,” at least not in any considerable way. This created the situation in which the Surinamese, who are Dutch-speaking and feel profoundly connected with the Netherlands, found themselves severed from the Kingdom in 1975, while the Antilleans and Arubans, whose knowledge of Dutch and the Dutch culture is not remarkable, are still inside the Kingdom.

Autonomy is a start, but not everything

The problem is that the issue of the common Kingdom Dutchness is not without problems.

The European and Antillean Dutch citizens were unequal equals at the moment in which of the Statuut was drawn up and still are today (Munneke, 2002:34; Broek, 2005:7). The Caribbean Dutch have preferred to stress their autonomy, while their European counterparts opted to stay out, trying to remain politically correct. Thus, autonomy became lack of meaningful engagement and commitment. The Kingdom grew and continued to grow in disproportionate ways: while its European member became increasingly preoccupied with its own problems and the European question, the Caribbean communities became more and more disenchanted with the Netherlands Antilles.

Colonial thought-patterns die hard, in general and in particular. The very relationships of dependency that the Netherlands had implanted in the individual minds and groups of the colonized at the levels of law, education, and finances became structural obstacles to Kingdom equality. The European Dutch legal mentality made it worse. One of the most characteristic malaises of the European Dutch political culture is the belief that solutions can be imposed and society changed at will by decree. Many politicians see themselves as engineers and the rest as mere clay waiting to be shaped. The European Dutch tend to think that all that they need to do to solve social problems is talk about the problems, pass good laws, and then convince the people of the goodness of these laws —of course, because there are no laws as good as the Dutch in the entire world! Often, their culture is sick with self-importance, the myth of a tolerant self that tolerates only itself and the like. The establishment must now wake up to reality. People are not submissive clay; they resist the politicians’ hubris.

The Constitution: a clear sign of inequality

The Netherlands cannot deny that it (i.e. the European partner in the Kingdom) is still the colonial master who continues to identify itself with the Kingdom and its identity with the pure Dutch identity. The Dutchness of the other Dutch citizens is not their own since it does not belong to them: it has been given to them. This applied not only to the newcomers (the Dutch of Turkish or Moroccan descent), but also to the Caribbean Dutch.

The Queen, who is the basic symbol of the unity of the Kingdom and the equal dignity of its member countries, resides in the Netherlands and has Governors or Lieutenant Governors in the Caribbean Dutch territories. If the Kingdom was truly based on a footing of equality between its members, the monarch would alternate her stay among the countries of her Kingdom to preclude any identification of the Kingdom with any of the individual member countries. This would be desirable especially as a means to rectify the colonial past of the Netherlands. In such a case scenario, it is altogether reasonable that the Queen should have a Governor in Amsterdam or Den Haag just as she currently has one in Curaçao and Oranjestad.

The part in the government of the Kingdom allotted to the governments of the Caribbean member countries is quite negligible. “§ 2. Art. 7 The Kingdom Council of Ministers consists of Ministers appointed by the King and the respective Plenipotentiary Ministers appointed by the governments of the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba. (…) § 2. Art. 10.1 The Plenipotentiary Minister will take part in those discussions in meetings of the Council of Ministers and the permanent boards and special committees of the council, regarding Kingdom matters affecting his respective country.” (Statuut)

The idea of the equality of the Kingdom member countries is also weakened by the Statuut’s lexical distinction between the names of the Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom member countries. “§ 4. Art. 42.1 Within the Kingdom, the constitutional organization of the Netherlands is established in the Constitution, that of the Netherlands Antilles in the Regulations for the Islands of the Netherlands Antilles and that of Aruba in the Island Regulations for Aruba.” (Statuut)

In other words, the Netherlands got a Constitution, whereas the insular partners did Island Regulations. This lexical colonial Freudian slip is further aggravated by the fact that the Constitution of the Netherlands is called: the Constitution of the Kingdom of the Netherlands or Grondwet van het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden. It is also remarkable that even though this Constitution does not explicitly legislate for Aruba and the Netherlands Antilles, it does still do so indirectly when it concerns the establishment of the Kingdom’s Organs, the workings of which are described in the Constitution.

The legislative component of the Kingdom is also equally one-sided. “§1. Art. 4.2 Legislative power, with regard to the Kingdom, is executed by the Legislative body of the Kingdom. Draft Kingdom laws will be handled with the observation of articles 15, up to and including, article 21.” (Statuut)

Articles 15 up to including article 21 will show that the First and Second Chambers of the States-General (Staten Generaal) —which are in the Netherlands— take on factual precedence over the Dutch Caribbean legislative bodies. This is so even despite the role allotted to the Plenipotentiary Ministers of the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba, respectively, in the Kingdom’s law-making processes. Even though the Plenipotentiary Ministers of the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba, respectively, may introduce a project of Kingdom law at the Second Chamber of the Dutch Parliament, the Members of this Parliament have been elected only by the voters of the country of the Netherlands. Needless to say, this does not do justice to the Caribbean Dutch citizens’ right to meaningful self-determination.

The current process of statutory inner self-redefinition of the Kingdom relations vis-à-vis the cessation of the Netherlands Antilles has further reinforced the inkling that the Kingdom of the Netherlands is a union of unequal equals. The government of the Netherlands would seem to act at times as though they were the mouth speakers of the Kingdom.

What is the value of such a Kingdom?

One might rightfully ask: Why maintain a Kingdom while there is no visibly dominant Kingdom identity? Who wins and who loses? Is its survival based, on the part of the Caribbean Dutch, on the pragmatic benefits of having the Dutch nationality or, on the part of the European Dutch, on the guilty feelings of the old masters who would lose face if they sent the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba away as they did Suriname?

The Caribbean Dutch have opted to discontinue the Netherlands Antilles, while expressly restating their will to stay within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Their option is in keeping with Resolution 2625 (XXV) passed by the United Nations General Assembly in 1970: “The emergence of a sovereign and independent State, the free association or integration with an independent State or the emergence into any other political status freely determined by a people constitute modes of implementing the right of self-determination by that people.” Does the Netherlands share the same commitment to the Kingdom or do its citizens merely feel saddled with the burden of their colonial past in the Caribbean, “the wages of the slave and plantation masters’ sins”? Have they ever really opted for a Kingdom of equals? Are they willing to put their money where their mouth is?

Concluding remarks

I consider myself a world citizen and as such I refuse to let myself be reduced to my nationality. Still, for dearth of better criteria, I would like to underline the truism that even though our personal identity can never be circumscribed to being this or that because we are much more, from the legal point of view, our identity as natural persons within the global political community is still defined by our nationality. The law is the basic organizational framework within which we become who we can be by demanding our rights and doing our duties. If the law says that we are Dutch, we will be as Dutch as any other Dutch citizen, according to the terms of the law. This is not the greatest humanist ideal, but it is also not an irrelevant given. We can build on it as we attempt to form communities and steer their course. We do not need to fight for what the law already gives us; we must only find ways to implement it and, if need be, even demand that it be done.

Even though sometimes people treat “country, nation, and people” as though they were synonymous, they refer to different things. They may be coterminous, but they are not the same. Countries are legal constructions. They may house one or more peoples and nations. They may equally be mono- or multicultural communities. Communities may be joined by cultural or ethnic traits, which may or may not be our own, but countries are established by laws and manifested in nationalities. We may be among the nationals of a country, even though we are not members of its majority ethnic group.

The Kingdom of the Netherlands is not one country, but a union of countries within which several groups are found (in terms of language, religion, descent, philosophies, economics, education, politics, etc.). However, the Statuut recognizes the equal legal standing of all of the citizens and residents of the Kingdom, regardless whether they share the same traits and culture or not.

For a society that keeps to the rule of law, the above makes all the difference. If some of the cultural identities of a society were unjustly privileged to the detriment of others, this would equal to a breach of the equality that the law foresees. Therefore, the moral caliber of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is essentially linked to the recognition and defense of the common Dutchness of all of its members; this is the basis upon which the rest of their fundamental rights and duties are established.

I would suggest that the nationals of the Kingdom of the Netherlands be invited to focus on the fact that the law stipulates that all Dutch nationals are equally Dutch. Once the people have become aware of this liberating idea, each of the Kingdom partners should struggle to have its rights recognized, not based on the size of its population, but in terms of its status as Kingdom partner.

Given that the Kingdom is a union at the statutory level between countries that can autonomously deal with their own internal affairs, it is of paramount importance that the equality of all the members may be visible and safeguarded at this very statutory level, which is not the case now since it is quite undeniable that the Netherlands has drawn Kingdom capacities toward itself. The Kingdom’s administrative and legislative dimensions should be clearly, easily, and absolutely distinguishable from the government of the country of the Netherlands, which is not quite the case at present.

The wording of Kingdom statutory law should show its community character. The stipulation of the Statuut dealing with naturalization is clearly written from the perspective of the country of the Netherlands, as though naturalization into the Kingdom’s nationality was not the same everywhere in the Kingdom’s territories: “§ 2. Art. 11.5 Proposals for naturalization are assumed to affect the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba only when the petitioners live in those countries. (…) § 2. Art. 14.4 The naturalization of persons, who are residing in the Netherlands Antilles or Aruba is done by Kingdom Law.” (Statuut) A more Kingdom-conscious alternative could have been: “§ 2. Art. 11.5 Proposals for naturalization are assumed to affect the individual country where the petitioners live, namely the Netherlands, the Netherlands Antilles, or Aruba. (…) § 2. Art. 14.4 The naturalization of persons within the Kingdom, regardless whether they live in the Netherlands, the Netherlands Antilles, or Aruba, is done by Kingdom Law.”

At the economic and financial level, population size will surely be of importance since small developing islands cannot be expected to compete with a fully developed country as the Netherlands. However, if there is a healthy conviction of the common Kingdom identity, looking after each other’s need in cooperation —as the Kingdom Charter says and as the European Union is doing vis-à-vis its needier members— should not be an impossible task. False prides born out of historical complexes should be overcome on both sides of the Atlantic.

The common Dutchness of all the Kingdom’s citizens should lead to a common concern for democracy, the rule of law, and welfare at all levels of the Kingdom.

If European and Caribbean Dutch people decided that they would like their belonging to the Kingdom of the Netherlands to be continued in ways that are meaningful and concrete, then, education, the arts, study trips, and sports could become effective channels whereby a Kingdom identity could be forged on all sides. Such a Kingdom identity would be polyvalent, with as many different facets as a diamond. The European Dutch would have to learn that the Kingdom is larger than the Netherlands, and the Caribbean Dutch would have to value their belonging to a statutory body which enables them to have special ties with the European Union, as well as the rest of the Caribbean. This should be a question of being and becoming more, instead of less.

The European education system would have to acquaint its pupils and students with the history and culture of the Dutch Caribbean, and the Caribbean Dutch education systems ought to help their pupils and students to discover the multifaceted reality of the Kingdom, including the assets of their fellow nationals in the Netherlands, both old and newcomers.

The issue of language should function as an example. The Kingdom of the Netherlands is practically trilingual. This is not a matter of discussion and it need not be proven: it is a fact. The Caribbean Dutch must demand what is theirs. The Kingdom ought to accept the fact that some parts of the Kingdom are essentially Dutch-speaking, others Papiamento-speaking, and others English-speaking. The Kingdom’s statutory and juridical framework ought therefore to expressly acknowledge and reflect this linguistic given, thus establishing in the letter of the law that Dutch, Papiamento, and English are the official languages of the Kingdom, in a similar way as French, Dutch, and German are the official languages of the Federal Kingdom of Belgium. The text of the Constitution of the Kingdom should be trilingual and so too the Kingdom’s whole legal corpus. It should even be desired that the members of the Kingdom government, starting by the monarch, are fluent in all three languages.

However, the poor knowledge of Dutch that the Caribbean Dutch have is creating problems and has adverse repercussions both for the Netherlands and the Islands. The migration of thousands of Caribbean Dutch into the Netherlands and the problems they encounter over there favor the idea that the Caribbean Dutch should be helped to learn Dutch and not just their mother tongue and their island’s lingua franca, if the latter is different from their mother tongue.

It is only if and when all parties acknowledge their right to opt for and against their togetherness in difference that a healthy Kingdom identity will be able to develop naturally. It must not be another compulsion: the state cannot force the citizenry to think and feel “in a Kingdom way.” Identifications encroach upon the individual’s and the group’s freedom to determine what thoughts and feelings they want to make their own. Generalizing identifications are bad for true identity. Still, if the Kingdom presents itself as togetherness in difference, the citizenry might realize that the idea of the Kingdom could precisely safeguard their right to self-determination, instead of undermining it.

On the one hand, the Netherlands must once and for all abandon its colonial mentality and stop identifying the Kingdom with the Netherlands. As long as this mentality change has not taken place, we may keep on describing the government and people of the Netherlands as a colonial power, with the negative moral value judgment that this entails and deserves in the present world. On the other hand, the Caribbean Dutch must stop undermining their position by endlessly doubting their Dutchness or taking it slightly. Only if they allow it to happen can they be patronized as second class colonial subjects. Of course, laying their rightful claim to equality presupposes, too, that they accept their rights together with their duties.

It is my suggestion that if a number of significant measures were taken, a positive Kingdom identity could be forged (i.e. an ideology of equality, equity, and togetherness in difference). There is therefore a need for symbolic deeds that can enhance the feeling of the Kingdom, for instance:

·        Ideally, the Statuut could be updated. It could be renamed so that it becomes a true Constitution of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. [If the monarchy should ever be abolished, such a Statuut could become the Statuut of the Commonwealth of the Netherlands].

·        Each of the countries making up the Kingdom could have their own Fundamental Rule without the dichotomy of one being called Constitution and the others Regulations, including the Netherlands. Otherwise, they could all be called Constitution without claiming to be the Kingdom’s Constitution, as now is the case.

·        The Queen could rotate her stay in the member countries of her Kingdom. [In the event of the abolition of the monarchy, a President could become the Head of the Commonwealth of the Netherlands and whatever is suggested for the monarch could apply to him or her.]

·        The Kingdom Government could more clearly be distinguished from the government of each of the member countries, especially the Netherlands.

·        The Caribbean communities could overcome the victim mentality whereby they fail to see the active role that they can and must play within the Kingdom. The “Dutch” standards of welfare and wellbeing do not always dovetail with the “Caribbean way;” in this respect, they indeed are unequal equals. Upgrading the life standards on the Islands is not merely the task of the Netherlands. The Islands could be helped to become more aware that the world is larger than each of them, within which strength is found in communion and not in fragmentation and isolation, and that adult choices must be made and followed through if they (the Islands) really want to count. If they do not want to be patronized, they must become adult societies, conscious of their duties, especially toward their local citizens and residents. Being a country entails functioning as one.

·        The Netherlands could also make sure that the help they give to their partners in the Kingdom is not mere self-help under the guise of developmental aid. How can it be that often “helping the Islands” ends up helping the Netherlands more than the Islands, as if the money never left the Netherlands or merely went from European Dutch bank accounts into European Dutch bank accounts?

·        Even if all of the Islands should opt for integration into the Netherlands, the ideals of a Kingdom of togetherness in difference could still be maintained. Acculturation did not take place in the colonial past —if it ever did, it failed— and it will not work now either. The whole world is moving towards a recipe of globalization and regionalization, of commonalities and differences being upheld at the same time. Why should the Kingdom of the Netherlands be an exception to the trend?

·        Defense is a Kingdom affair and all member countries ought to be seen to be contributing to it. Having said this, it is unthinkable to expect the smaller member countries to take such a task upon their shoulders. The Netherlands will always remain the greater defense provider. Nevertheless, it could also be made structurally clear that the role of the country of the Netherlands in defense is by delegation and not by appropriation. And it should feel that it is this way.

·        New educational activities and projects could be created whereby a Kingdom identity can be fostered by impartial mutual knowledge so that the European Dutch may learn to be proud of belonging to a Kingdom that is multicultural and surpasses the boundaries of Europe. The Caribbean Dutch could also learn to acknowledge and be proud of their Dutchness, which adds one more color into the mosaic of their Caribbean identity and opens up possibilities for them in Europe and beyond.

·        People should be helped to appreciate, on the one hand, the statutory union of the Kingdom, expressed in their common nationality, and, on the other hand, the local differences, recognized in the statutory acceptance of the local autonomy of each of the Kingdom’s countries. In the current globalized world, the Kingdom philosophy of togetherness in difference could benefit both the European and Caribbean Dutch and better equip them to positively live in different dimensions at once, making use of all the chances that this situation gives them rather than emphasizing the problems that divides them.

·        Newcomers to the Caribbean and European Netherlands territories should be made aware that they are coming not only into a particular local territory, but also into a Kingdom of countries. Socialization programs for newcomers ought not to leave out this organic dimension of Dutch life, be it in the Caribbean or on the European continent.

References and/or complementary bibliography

Arrindell, Gracita R. (2006). Looking Back to Move Forward. Speeches from the Forum of Former Prime Ministers  of the Netherlands Antilles. Philipsburg, St. Martin: House of Nehesi.

Arendt, Hanna (1996).  Love and Saint Augustine. Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press.

Bleicher, Joseph (1990). Contemporary Hermeneutics. London: Routledge.

Broek, Aart G. (2005). “Voorbij schuld en schaamte: naar ongedeeld Nederlanderschap,” in Christen Democratische Verkenningen, winter [speciaal nummer: Antillen/Aruba: uit de gunst], pp. 20-33.

Brouwer, P. W. (2000). Kenmerken van recht. Nijmegen: Ars Aequi Libri.

Cassirer, Ernst (1953).  Language and Myth. New York: Dover Pub. Inc.

De Lauretis, Teresa (1981). Umberto Eco. Firenze: La nuova Italia.

Eagleton, Terry (1976). Criticism and Ideology. A Study in Marxist Literary Theory. London: NLB, 1976.

Government of the Island Territory of St. Martin (2001). Saint Martin as a Country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Synopsis of the position paper of the government of the island territory of Sint Maarten. Philipsburg: Government Administration Building.

Heidegger, Martin (1971). Unterwegs zur Sprache. Pfullingen: Neske. 

Bureau of Constitutional Affairs. Kingdom Charter of the Netherlands. Online version: http://constiburosxm.org/content/view/30/43. Retrieved on Oct 28, 2006.

Lonergan, Bernard J. F. (1973). Philosophy of God, and Theology. London: Darton, Longman & Todd.

Munneke, Harold F. (2002). “Staatsrecht in de Cariben; van locale speelterrein naar aanpassing aan de internationale orde,” in Justitiële Verkenningen, jrg. 28, nr. 1, pp. 47-66.

Murray, Edward L. (1986). Imaginative Thinking and Human Existence. Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press.

Oostindie, G.J. (2002). “Een antwoord op de Curaçaose exodus?,” in Justitiële Verkenningen, jrg. 28, nr. 1, pp. 1-20.

Ricoeur, Paul (1994).  The Rule of Metaphor: Multi-disciplinary Studies of the Creation of Meaning in Language. Padstow: TJ Press.

Werkgroep BFV (2004). Nu kan het… nu moet het! Online version: http://constiburosxm.org/content/view/30/43. Retrieved on Oct 28, 2006.

 

 

Some thoughts on Education as Bildung

University of St. Martin, Netherlands Antilles

silviosergio@yahoo.com

 

It has been argued that one of the things that differentiate modernity from the previous periods in time is that the modern discourse on education is no longer limited to an enquiry into the means of education, but encompasses also the debate on its purpose (Nordenbo, 2002). Modernity refers here to the worldview formed in the 19th century under the influence of philosophers such as Immanuel Kant (1724—1804), industrialization, and the rise of the European nation states. The 1960s would deconstruct the grand narrative of modernity, thus ushering in the post-modern era.

Bildung encapsulates the modern re‑centring of education that took place at the time, especially in the German-speaking societies. It has to do with the paradigm shift which moved away from mere upbringing (Erziehung) seen as socialization in terms of accepted, heteronomous values and morals as understood by the Church in the Middle Ages and started concentrating on the development of the autonomous, critical subject.

Bildung

The concept of Bildung goes back principally to the Prussian diplomat, linguist and philosopher Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767—1835). It encapsulates his views of education, especially as set forth in On the Limits of State Action. For him, education was the means whereby the state could be reformed by reforming the individual. Education should transform human subjects into free-thinking citizens of the nation.

When Humboldt was asked to reform the education system, he set out his vision in the School Plans Königsberg and Prussian Lithuania. (1) Every ordinary person should have access to the same basic education as the one enjoyed by the most highly educated person and (2) all the components of the education system should be interlocking. He divided the education trajectory into a tripartite structure: elementary, scholastic, and university education. The purpose of elementary education would be to equip the pupils with the necessary tools to describe their world and experience (language acquisition, reading, writing, and numeracy). Scholastic education would concentrate on giving the students a broad knowledge base (learning) and skills (learning how to learn). University education must concentrate on pure science; university students should, according to Von Humboldt, live for science. The position of the teacher would also change in relation to his or her place within the structure. For Von Humboldt, teachers had a central role to play only in scholastic education. However, even though for Von Humboldt university students would not be as dependent on their teachers as scholastic students, they would still learn to be scientific by being at the service of their professors’ research projects (Nordenbo, 2002:347‑348).

“Bildung has the goal of a fulfilment of humanity as its aim: full development of the powers of each human individual. In such a Kultur the end result will be the development of many, different, highly individuated persons who will establish a more humane society.” Furthermore, “Bildung represents ‘a principal orientation of the totality of the human (intellect, will and senses) towards the totality of Being’ and this orientation is carried and developed by and within the history of humanity. The elevation of the independent, creative, autonomous individual here is the heart of the project.” (Gur-Ze’ev, s.d.:3)

Three main general trends can be recognized in the overall modern Bildung philosophy of Education. The first in time was Rousseau’s (1712—1778) implicit approach to Bildung in his work on education Émile, published in 1762. He focused on the child’s own path as the key to self‑fulfilment, after which came the guide of an instructor (Nordenbo, 2002:345.351). In a certain sense, each child became (in theory) its own norm. Then, there was the philanthropist approach to Bildung. Happiness or bliss was seen as the purpose of education, and civil competence as its means (Nordenbo, 2002:345). Utility and usefulness thus became the rationale of the educative process (Nordenbo, 2002:351). Whatever makes the individual happy within the matrix of his or her society cannot be absent from the educative offer. “No pain no gain.” Education must prepare the students to attain happiness by giving them the necessary tools for struggling for it within society. Finally, there came the neo‑humanist approach to Bildung. This perspective aimed at the harmonious development of spiritual powers (Nordenbo, 2002:345), emphasising the world as the other necessary element of the equation —the ego and the world (Nordenbo, 2002:351).

Critique

Bildung is related to the Greek concept of Education as paideia. As viewed by the Greek, paideia was the process whereby a child was formed into a citizen by means of his or her gradual, rhetoric‑erotic interaction with a pedagogue (Gurley). Both paideia and Bildung aimed at forming the citizen. However, modern Bildung theories must be read in light of Kant’s philosophy of the subject involving the transcendental, critical analysis of knowledge, its validity and acquisition.

The development of the modern subject does not take place in isolation. Nor does it happen overnight. If it did, there would be no need to question the purpose of education as such since it would take place of its own. Teaching is still needed, as are time and effort.

The fact that none of the Bildung proponents after Von Humboldt were social revolutionaries indicates that Bildung is not meant primarily as a means of bringing about sudden changes. The contrary is true. Bildung as a pedagogical ideal affects society only in the long run, by fostering the new citizens who can, on the one hand, do their given jobs and, on the other, push the boundaries of (accepted) knowledge.

The positive elements of Bildung are that the primary participants of the educative task —namely the children, pupils, and students— come to the fore, albeit not always in the same way. We could say, however, that modern Bildung has had to pay the price of the burden of the subject’s own subjectivity perceived as a strong sense of alienation from the world. To the Kantian, modern mind, the world became a mere unknown, a noumenon that we can use better than we can know.

The said “autonomy” and self‑regulation that modern Bildung would bring about is engrafted on far‑reaching power relationships. Education loses its critiquing force, it becomes subsumed within the normativity of “normalcy,” the “conduite des conduites” (Foucault). Education in terms of Bildung aims at socializing students into this ideology: the modern industrialized society is the new polis into which our children must be led by their pedagogues. In our globalized world, this means that the formation of character (Bildung) is understood as the formation of inventive, competitive citizens. This does not need to be envisaged as being a negative objective as such; it becomes deficient only when it is not the only coordinate used to define education.

Education should not only prepare our young generations to find a place in the global market, but also to critically assess its promises, as well as the sacrifices it calls for. If pupils and students are seen only as future “workforce,” Bildung will automatically be at the service of the labour‑consumption society. Istead of freeing the individual, it will enslave him or her to the labour market.

Thus, the problem with the term is that it “always implies ‘an idea of humanity’” (Masschelein & Ricken, 2003:142). In other words, it is not ideology‑free. It is based on grand narratives and found within truth games and power relations. It indeed appears as a key‑term of Bourgeois society, as a force of individualization and totalization (Masschelein & Ricken, 2003:146).

Masschelein analyzes the change that started taking place with modernity by distinguishing between zoé (physical life as such) and bios (human life, including the search for meaning). In religious terms, it is often said that in modernity European Christians started reading the biblical Creation Narratives as legitimizing their “dominion of the world” by means of industrial production and colonialism, including slavery. Both these tactics provided them with the raw materials and the cheap labour. Humans saw themselves as masters, rather than as part of the living commune.

With modernity and the industrialization of society, Bildung started off its journey towards the zoologization of human life itself: human existence was increasingly understood as the satisfaction of human physical needs, to which end the rest functions as a means or tool, including social relationships and education. Education became reduced to learning how to sustain life in order to stay alive at all costs, especially by using the right information and technologies. Learning became the mere learning of skills, and not the attainment of knowledge, insights, and wisdom.

The mercantilization of human life means that many people nowadays want to be “happy” even by leading meaningless lives. Happiness and meaning have been disconnected, even wrenched asunder. Even though we think that we are becoming more autonomous, we are increasingly becoming automatized pieces of the larger machinery of power and economic games.

 

References and/or complementary bibliography

Gur-Ze’ev, Ilan (s.d.). Bildung and Critical Theory facing Post-modern Education. Haifa: The University of Haifa.

Nordenbo, Sven Erik (2002). “Bildung and the Thinking of bildung,” in Løvlie, Lars; Mortensen, Klaus P. & Nordenbo, Sven Erik, Educating humanity: "Bildung" in Postmodernity [Journal of Philosophy of Education, vol. 36, no 3], pp. 341-352. London: Blackwell.

 

 


 

 


Some thoughts on the Meaning of Education in the Learning Society

University of St. Martin, Netherlands Antilles

silviosergio@yahoo.com

 

Currently, schools can no longer meet our technological world’s hunger for knowledge. Society at large must therefore become a “learning society” (Faure et al., 1972). In the globalizing world, the boundaries of nation states become porous. Any serious attempts to block the translational flow of information and merchandize will sooner or later have negative consequences.

Torten Husén already predicted in 1974 that education would become a life-long, flexible, and increasingly informal enterprise (Husén, 1974). Richard Evans (1977) described the learning society in the following terms:

The learning society is an educated society, committed to active citizenship, liberal democracy and equal opportunities. This supports lifelong learning within the social policy frameworks of post-Second World War social democracies. The aim is to provide learning opportunities to educate adults to meet the challenges of change and citizenship. Support for this conception was put forward largely by liberal educators in the metropolitan areas of the industrialized North in the 1960s and 1970s. This is part of a modernist discourse.

A learning society is a learning market, enabling institutions to provide services for individuals as a condition for supporting the competitiveness of the economy. This supports lifelong learning within the economic policy framework adopted by many governments since the middle of the 1970s. The aim is for a market in learning opportunities to be developed to meet the demands of individuals and employers for the updating of skills and competences. Support for this conception has come from employers' bodies and modernizing policy think-tanks in the industrialized North since the mid-1970s in response to economic uncertainty. The usefulness or performativity of education and training becomes a guiding criterion.

A learning society is one in which learners adopt a learning approach to life, drawing on a wide range of resources to enable them to support their lifestyle practices. This supports lifelong learning as a condition of individuals in the contemporary period to which policy needs to respond. This conception of a learning society formulates the latter as a series of overlapping learning networks...  and is implicit to much of the writing on post-modernity with its emphasis on the contingent, the ephemeral and heterogeneity. The normative goals of a liberal democratic society - an educated society - and an economically competitive society - a learning market - are displaced by a conception of participation in learning as an activity in and through which individuals and groups pursue their heterogeneous goals. (Smith, 2000)

One can hardly object to the idea that learning must be a process on which the whole society —indeed all societies— embarks. Nonetheless, we as educators must be conscious that the “learning society” is often politicized, resulting in reductive views of education.

According to the European Commission’s “White Paper on Education and Training: Teaching and Learning – Towards the Learning Society,” European schools are faced with the issues of “personal development” and “social integration.” Despite the positive ring of these concepts, an intra‑textual reading of the Paper shows that both poles of the equation are reduced to sheer economic terms. “Personal development” is synonymous with “becoming employable” and “social integration” means that society should not be ruptured into two groups, namely those who have a job and those who do not. This is made manifest by the stress on the idea that growing employment fosters social integration. For “this essential function of social integration is today under threat unless it is accompanied by the prospect of employment” (EC, 1995:3).

The above is confirmed by the intertextual evidence, especially in light of the White Paper on Growth, Competitiveness, and Employment, The challenges and ways forward into the 21st century, of 5th December 1993. The rationale is spelt out there more clearly than in the White Paper on Teaching and Learning:

Our countries’ education systems are faced with major difficulties, and not only of a budgetary nature. These problems are rooted in social ills: the breakdown of the family and the demotivation bred by unemployment. They also reflect a change in the very nature of what is being taught. Preparation for life in tomorrow’s world cannot be satisfied by a once-and-for-all acquisition of knowledge and know-how. Every bit as essential is the ability to learn, to communicate, to work in a group and to assess one’s own situation. Tomorrow’s trades will require the ability to make diagnoses and propose improvements at all levels, and the autonomy and independence of spirit and analytical ability which come of knowledge. Hence the need to adapt the content of training and to be able to improve one’s training (knowledge and know-how) whenever necessary.

Lifelong education is therefore the overall objective to which the national educational communities can make their own contributions. Difficult choices will have to be made, between increasing university capacity or quality, between higher education and vocational paths, and between traditional courses and “sandwich” courses (studying plus work experience). However, each country should be aiming towards universally accessible advanced vocational training.

As is shown by the Member States’ contributions, principles and methods of financing may differ. In some cases, the emphasis is on equal opportunities for all individuals and the proposed response is the provision of training capital or cheques financed by the redistribution of public resources. In other cases, advanced vocational training is linked to businesses and so contractual mechanisms will be proposed for training investment or for co-investment with the participation of wage-earners. In any event, public and private efforts must be married to create the basis in each Member State for a genuine right to on-going training. This should be a key area of social dialogue at European level. A start has in fact already been made. To enhance this right, the Community will have to facilitate cooperation between the Member States with a view to creating a genuine European area for vocational qualifications. (EC, 1993; italics added)

The three major factors of upheaval in Europe, according to this Paper, are: “the onset of the information society; the impact of the scientific and technological world; and the internationalisation of the economy” (EC, 1995:5). Within this scheme of things, schools are expected to be the main mediators of a broad knowledge base, proficiency in foreign languages, and domain‑specific knowledge of modern technologies whereby these three causes of upheaval are domesticated and put at the service of European economic bonanza.

All in all, the Paper’s main concern is that Europe remains a key player on the international, global economic scene. Despite the mentions of European “plurality” ad intra and economic openness ad extra, the Paper works on the basis of an imperialist and pedantic view of “European culture.” The Paper is apparently interested in anything non‑European only insofar as that can create jobs for Europeans or permit Europe to remain one of the hegemonic economic powers on the globe.

Even though it is a truism to say that schools cannot be impervious to the labour market (children will become adults and must have the necessary minimum tools for functioning in society, including the labour market), it must still be asked whether education can be understood exclusively in terms of knowledge that vouchsafes the individual’s employability. Can we reduce human life to labour, and human society to labour networks and relationships? In fact, the Paper’s use of the word “relationships” is somewhat puzzling since its point of departure for interpreting social interaction is “competition” and “competitiveness.” Schools must make their students become skilful and competitive, rather than empower them for establishing “relationships” that go beyond economic gain. Seen from this viewpoint, the Paper’s mention of ecological concerns comes across as somewhat unrelated to the rest of the argumentation.

Even though there are some hints at the ethical dimension of technological inventions (“The future of European culture depends on its capacity to equip young people to question constantly and seek new answers without prejudicing human values,” EC, 1995:10) and to the present “European social model” (EC, 1995:7; presumably the social‑democratic welfare state), it transpires from the text read in its entirety that the stress on inventiveness is driven mostly by the wish to facilitate economic gain so that Europe’s superiority may be safeguarded, rather than by an outspoken desire to create a future where being is more important than having (using the language of Marcel). Even the call to allow for and encourage “critical faculties ... among both pupils and teachers” (EC, 1995:12) does not escape being related to the value of economics and employment (cf. EC, 1995:13).

Even though the Paper positively pleads for a diversification of the meaning of knowledge so that it can encompass not only scientific expertise backed up by diplomas, but also skills for which people do not necessarily need degrees, knowledge and understanding are still continually being reduced to learning technological domain‑specific knowledge or skills. In the Paper’s words: “In today’s world, knowledge in the broad sense [!!!] can be defined as an acquired body of fundamental and technical knowledge, allied to social skills (...) Basic knowledge is the foundation on which individual employability is built” (EC, 1995:13; underlining added). Must education no longer aim at helping the learners gain insights into the non‑quantifiable value of human life, joy, togetherness, and solidarity —to mention but a few non-commercial human realities?

“The ability to understand is the capacity to analyze how things are assembled and taken apart” (EC, 1995:11). There must surely be more to be said about “understanding” that the technical know‑how of assembling and disassembling a machine! Can the human heart of all labourers and business people be “assembled and taken apart”? Can their lives be conceived of as mere machines to be analyzed by “human engineers”? We may thus ask whether the notion of education implied by this White Paper is conducive to happier lives, to the attainment of a sense of personal development and social integration that transcends the possession of a job, or the lack thereof.

The use of the term “learning society” in this Paper implies that students are envisaged already from a tender age merely as “the future workforce,” as though work or employment was their essence. Europe is rich (among other things because of its colonial past) and must be kept rich. How? By “creating” students that are innovative and creative in an economic and technological sense since both terms are becoming increasingly inseparable. It is accurate to say that being human and survival are both radically linked to creativity and innovation, but can we reduce human inventiveness to labour conditions and market competition?

We humans do not ultimately live for working, but for what we see as valuable (which can be work, but it can also be something else). We live in the world of our imagination where we first create worlds to inhabit, and then move towards them. If we set too high goals for ourselves, we will cause our own pain. If we imagine that there should not be death, we will fear our death. If we think that romantic love is the highest type of love, then we will feel unhappy as long as we remain alone. Think a thought and cause an emotion!

Education ought therefore to be as broad as possible. It should touch human concerns, including, but also going beyond, market and labour concerns. If we were to limit the world “knowledge” to practical know‑how, as this Paper suggests, we will stop seeking wisdom.

The vision of humanity and education implicit in this White Paper is grossly reductive and does great disservice to human life as it is lived. Most people work in order to survive, not the other way around. Even in those cases where they do it out of avarice, they are still doing it for cultural goals, such as to become rich and be adulated by others, and not for merely economic reasons. The Paper gives the impression of having been written by economists, finance people, and managers, rather than by philosophers of education or educators.

In the world of employment rather than of meaning, there is little place for solidarity and justice. People such as Osama Bin Laden are unfortunately symptomatic figures that will keep coming up to remind us that nobody is an island. The globalized world puts us all face to face with each other. The world has become some sort of Worldwide Big Brother show. The have‑nots see what the have’s possess thanks to their ill‑paid labour and age‑long structural inequality. The rich also know that millions of eyes are fixed on them —in emulation, in pain and frustration, or in wait for revenge.

Now that we are all on the mega screen erected in the main square of our global village, there is a need for deep thinking. Is there really no room left for other stories that can replace “economism”? Will our conscience be bribed into silence for ever? Is education a mere servant of the status quo? Can we not turn the learning society into an insightful society? After all, the more we know, the more we realize that we do not know much and that we need one another. Schools cannot afford to be oblivious to the economic dimension of human life. Such a lack of realism would be a recipe for social irrelevancy. Economic wellbeing is to be desired not only for Europe, but also for the Caribbean and other developing regions. However, schools must also not be allowed to be reduced to being the factories of future labourers. Our young generations are surely called to become more than that.

 

References and/or complementary bibliography

Edwards, R. (1997). Changing Places? Flexibility, lifelong learning and a learning society, London: Routledge.

European Commission [EC] (1993). White Paper on growth, competitiveness, and employment: The challenges and ways forward into the 21st century, in COM (93) 700 final. Brussels.

European Commision [EC] (1995). White Paper on Education and Training -Teaching and Learning - Towards the Learning Society, in COM (95) 590. Brussels.

Faure, E. and others (1972). Learning to Be, Paris: UNESCO.

Husén, T. (1974). The Learning Society, London: Methuen.

Smith, M. K. (2000). “The theory and rhetoric of the learning society,” in The encyclopedia of informal education, www.infed.org/lifelonglearning/b-lrnsoc.htm. Retrieved on 17th November 2006.

 

 


Some thoughts on Jean-Paul Sartre and Education

University of St. Martin, Netherlands Antilles

silviosergio@yahoo.com

 

Starting point

“(…) I will refer to the case of a pupil of mine, who sought me out in the following circumstances. His father was quarrelling with his mother and was also inclined to be a ‘collaborator’; his elder brother had been killed in the German offensive of 1940 and this young man, with a sentiment somewhat primitive but generous, burned to avenge him. His mother was living alone with him, deeply afflicted by the semi-treason of his father and by the death of her eldest son, and her one consolation was in this young man. But he, at this moment, had the choice between going to England to join the Free French Forces or of staying near his mother and helping her to live. He fully realised that this woman lived only for him and that his disappearance – or perhaps his death – would plunge her into despair. He also realised that, concretely and in fact, every action he performed on his mother’s behalf would be sure of effect in the sense of aiding her to live, whereas anything he did in order to go and fight would be an ambiguous action which might vanish like water into sand and serve no purpose. For instance, to set out for England he would have to wait indefinitely in a Spanish camp on the way through Spain; or, on arriving in England or in Algiers he might be put into an office to fill up forms. Consequently, he found himself confronted by two very different modes of action; the one concrete, immediate, but directed towards only one individual; and the other an action addressed to an end infinitely greater, a national collectivity, but for that very reason ambiguous – and it might be frustrated on the way. At the same time, he was hesitating between two kinds of morality; on the one side the morality of sympathy, of personal devotion and, on the other side, a morality of wider scope but of more debatable validity. He had to choose between those two. What could help him to choose? Could the Christian doctrine? No. Christian doctrine says: Act with charity, love your neighbour, deny yourself for others, choose the way which is hardest, and so forth. But which is the harder road? To whom does one owe the more brotherly love, the patriot or the mother? Which is the more useful aim, the general one of fighting in and for the whole community, or the precise aim of helping one particular person to live? Who can give an answer to that a priori? No one. Nor is it given in any ethical scripture. The Kantian ethic says, Never regard another as a means, but always as an end. Very well; if I remain with my mother, I shall be regarding her as the end and not as a means: but by the same token I am in danger of treating as means those who are fighting on my behalf; and the converse is also true, that if I go to the aid of the combatants I shall be treating them as the end at the risk of treating my mother as a means. If values are uncertain, if they are still too abstract to determine the particular, concrete case under consideration, nothing remains but to trust in our instincts. That is what this young man tried to do; and when I saw him he said, “In the end, it is feeling that counts; the direction in which it is really pushing me is the one I ought to choose. If I feel that I love my mother enough to sacrifice everything else for her – my will to be avenged, all my longings for action and adventure then I stay with her. If, on the contrary, I feel that my love for her is not enough, I go.” But how does one estimate the strength of a feeling? The value of his feeling for his mother was determined precisely by the fact that he was standing by her. I may say that I love a certain friend enough to sacrifice such or such a sum of money for him, but I cannot prove that unless I have done it. I may say, ‘I love my mother enough to remain with her,’ if actually I have remained with her. I can only estimate the strength of this affection if I have performed an action by which it is defined and ratified. But if I then appeal to this affection to justify my action, I find myself drawn into a vicious circle.

Moreover, as Gide has very well said, a sentiment which is play-acting and one which is vital are two things that are hardly distinguishable one from another. To decide that I love my mother by staying beside her, and to play a comedy the upshot of which is that I do so – these are nearly the same thing. In other words, feeling is formed by the deeds that one does; therefore I cannot consult it as a guide to action. And that is to say that I can neither seek within myself for an authentic impulse to action, nor can I expect, from some ethic, formulae that will enable me to act. You may say that the youth did, at least, go to a professor to ask for advice. But if you seek counsel – from a priest, for example you have selected that priest; and at bottom you already knew, more or less, what he would advise. In other words, to choose an adviser is nevertheless to commit oneself by that choice. If you are a Christian, you will say, consult a priest; but there are collaborationists, priests who are resisters and priests who wait for the tide to turn: which will you choose? Had this young man chosen a priest of the resistance, or one of the collaboration, he would have decided beforehand the kind of advice he was to receive. Similarly, in coming to me, he knew what advice I should give him, and I had but one reply to make. You are free, therefore choose, that is to say, invent. No rule of general morality can show you what you ought to do: no signs are vouchsafed in this world. The Catholics will reply, ‘Oh, but they are!’ Very well; still, it is I myself, in every case, who have to interpret the signs. While I was imprisoned, I made the acquaintance of a somewhat remarkable man, a Jesuit, who had become a member of that order in the following manner. In his life he had suffered a succession of rather severe setbacks. His father had died when he was a child, leaving him in poverty, and he had been awarded a free scholarship in a religious institution, where he had been made continually to feel that he was accepted for charity’s sake, and, in consequence, he had been denied several of those distinctions and honours which gratify children. Later, about the age of eighteen, he came to grief in a sentimental affair; and finally, at twenty-two – this was a trifle in itself, but it was the last drop that overflowed his cup – he failed in his military examination. This young man, then, could regard himself as a total failure: it was a sign – but a sign of what? He might have taken refuge in bitterness or despair. But he took it – very cleverly for him – as a sign that he was not intended for secular success, and that only the attainments of religion, those of sanctity and of faith, were accessible to him. He interpreted his record as a message from God, and became a member of the Order. Who can doubt but that this decision as to the meaning of the sign was his, and his alone? One could have drawn quite different conclusions from such a series of reverses – as, for example, that he had better become a carpenter or a revolutionary. For the decipherment of the sign, however, he bears the entire responsibility. That is what ‘abandonment’ implies, that we ourselves decide our being. And with this abandonment goes anguish.” (Sartre, 1964)

Question

“You are free, choose, that is, invent.” Does Sartre refuse to be an educator or is he being an educator precisely because of this attitude?

Elements towards an answer

When enquired about his answer to the young man in the above example, Sartre’s response was once again very simple: “If he comes to ask your advice, it is because he has already chosen the answer. Practically, I should have been very well able to give him some advice. But as he was seeking freedom I wanted to let him decide. Besides, I knew what he was going to do, and that is what he did.” (Sartre, 1964:70)

Condemned to freedom

Sartre made explicit what he had always proclaimed: the young man is condemned to freedom, he must invent himself. After all, this thinker understood his philosophy as being one of freedom and commitment. It was not one “of reality,” but “of the Cartesian cogito.” (Sartre, 1964:66‑67) Freedom and commitment are subjective, psychological experiences circumscribed within the thinking self that is aware of itself. Sartre said that in a world of objects, there is no truth. For, he argues, in a world that seeks objectivity, the only thing left is the probable, the doubting and inquiring self. The only firm ground left is subjectivity: cogito ergo sum. Humans are objects that attain to themselves as subjects: we are être‑en‑soi (being-in-itself), able to double ourselves so that we become être‑pour‑soi (being-for-itself). Humans are at once the mirror, the image reflected on the glass and the one reflecting on it. In this sense, the most terrifying “gaze” is not that of others looking at us, but our own gaze upon ourselves. Our human self is thus radically alienated: it becomes its own judge.

“Thus we have neither behind us, nor before us in a luminous realm of values, any means of justification or excuse. – We are left alone, without excuse. That is what I mean when I say that man is condemned to be free. Condemned, because he did not create himself, yet is nevertheless at liberty, and from the moment that he is thrown into this world he is responsible for everything he does. The existentialist does not believe in the power of passion. He will never regard a grand passion as a destructive torrent upon which a man is swept into certain actions as by fate, and which, therefore, is an excuse for them. He thinks that man is responsible for his passion. Neither will an existentialist think that a man can find help through some sign being vouchsafed upon earth for his orientation: for he thinks that the man himself interprets the sign as he chooses. He thinks that every man, without any support or help whatever, is condemned at every instant to invent man.” (Sartre, 1964)

In the subjective sphere of human life, humans (can) come to the realization that our existence is a dynamic —the dynamic of freedom. I say “the dynamic” of freedom and not “the rule” of freedom because the latter would presuppose an intentionality that encompasses history. There can be rules only when there is a Ruler (e.g. God), but this is impossible in Sartre’s view because “existence precedes essence.” If there is no essence, there is no “should be” since there is no telos, no purpose. In Sartre’s eyes, there is only dynamic, only movement. It is in this sense that, for Sartre, what determines human actions is not human nature (“human essence”) but the conditions within which we humans live and the dialectics of interaction between us human subjects. This is the human “condition” or “predicament,” rather than human “nature”.

“Furthermore, although it is impossible to find in each and every man a universal essence that can be called human nature, there is nevertheless a human universality of condition. It is not by chance that the thinkers of today are so much more ready to speak of the condition than of the nature of man. By his condition they understand, with more or less clarity, all the limitations which a priori define man’s fundamental situation in the universe. His historical situations are variable: man may be born a slave in a pagan society or may be a feudal baron, or a proletarian. But what never vary are the necessities of being in the world, of having to labor and to die there. These limitations are neither subjective nor objective, or rather there is both a subjective and an objective aspect of them. Objective, because we meet with them everywhere and they are everywhere recognisable: and subjective because they are lived and are nothing if man does not live them – if, that is to say, he does not freely determine himself and his existence in relation to them. And, diverse though man’s purpose may be, at least none of them is wholly foreign to me, since every human purpose presents itself as an attempt either to surpass these limitations, or to widen them, or else to deny or to accommodate oneself to them. Consequently every purpose, however individual it may be, is of universal value. Every purpose, even that of a Chinese, an Indian or a Negro, can be understood by a European. To say it can be understood, means that the European of 1945 may be striving out of a certain situation towards the same limitations in the same way, and that he may reconceive in himself the purpose of the Chinese, of the Indian or the African. In every purpose there is universality, in this sense that every purpose is comprehensible to every man. Not that this or that purpose defines man for ever, but that it may be entertained again and again. There is always some way of understanding an idiot, a child, a primitive man or a foreigner if one has sufficient information. In this sense we may say that there is a human universality, but it is not something given; it is being perpetually made. I make this universality in choosing myself; I also make it by understanding the purpose of any other man, of whatever epoch. This absoluteness of the act of choice does not alter the relativity of each epoch.” (Sartre, 1964)

For Sartre, there is no blueprint which one must of necessity live up to. There is only movement. The so‑called blueprint is continually being made. How is it being made? By choosing, that is, by means of commitment. To choose is to commit oneself to one instant definition of freedom that will be the ground for another choice, and another and another... Every choice bears within itself an image of humanity. “In fashioning myself I fashion man.” What I do is an implicit statement of what I believe human beings should become if they found themselves in this situation that I am in. If the generalization of my choice ends up being counterproductive for myself, that is a sign that I am being irresponsible and wrong. The problem is: How can I fashion the human in a world where there is no essence and therefore also no “humanity”? How can I produce essence (“form”) out of formless existence?

Existence precedes essence

The combination of freedom and commitment (bearing within itself the burden of responsibility) brings along anguish and despair. Each choice, insofar as “existence comes before essence,” is original. Each action is always‑already a new, unrepeatable and, therefore, also unjustifiable. A world without essences (without “forms” after which life may or must be “patterned”) will always lack justification. Not only the human, but the whole world is “forlorn,” lost to itself, like a snowball rolling off a mountain top. The only justification for one’s action is that one must act. Each epoch calls for different kinds of commitment, but commit we must!

According to Satrte, we humans present ourselves as choices to be made. The problem is that once the choice is made, we are still unfinished. No matter how much we may try to become, we never ARE in the sense that our existence and our essence can coincide and stay that way. In other words, Sartre takes the old theological axiom defining God as “the Being in which existence and essence are one and the same” as the definition of “being” in general, also applicable to human beings. No human IS in this sense (existence = essence). Whenever we humans as être‑pour‑soi (human as objects to ourselves) gaze upon ourselves and see that we are être‑en‑soi (self-conscious beings), we know that the movement of becoming will never end. We will never really attain to Being. We will always be and not be, until we are no more. By negating God, Sartre expected the human to be like God and ended up saddling the human with the unbearable lightness of endless Being‑less becoming.

What is education?

Does Sartre have a view of education? His reply to the young and to the question why he had given him such an answer suggests that the teacher must lay out the conditionings within which human freedom must commit itself, but ought never to make the choice for someone else. Educators must help their students to own up to their own responsibility. Students exist within their own situatedness; they are condemned to make their own choices. There is no teaching possible in the sense of showing the way, because there is no map, no blueprint. There is only walking. “Camino se hace al andar,” that is, “the way is made while/by walking.” It is not the teachers’ job to present their students with some sort of schema of life and human existence, simply because, for Sartre, it does not exist. Existence precedes essence. Sartre as teacher differs thus from Plato since, for the latter, e‑ducare means ducere ex umbris in lucem, that is, to conduce the students out of the world of shadows into the world of light. This world of clarity is the realm of the blueprint of existence. For Sartre, there are no “forms” because there is no essence. Educators ought therefore to help their students to become aware of their own situation and necessity to choose. Educators must help them to see what is at play. Teachers are there to invite students to live their lives in good faith. Educators must encourage their students to accept the inescapable predicament of their human condition, as well as the freedom that the absence of blueprints gives them. For better or for worse, educators cannot walk in somebody else’s shoes.

 

References and/or complementary bibliography

Jean‑Paul Sartre (1964). Existentialism & Humanism. London: Eyre Methuen.

 

 


Otto Huiswoud:
Political Praxis and Anti-Imperialism*

University of St. Martin, the Netherlands Antilles

educonsult@caribserve.net

 

It is 1919. The Great War that was supposed to have made the world safe for democracy is over. Thousands of black Americans who fought in the war have returned home. Race riots are on the increase, yet the Jamaican poet Claude McKay admonishes the Negro population to fight back. Otto Huiswoud, born in Dutch Guiana (nowadays known as Suriname), has been in the United States for nine years as an illegal immigrant when he joins the African Blood Brotherhood (ABB), a revolutionary organization founded by Caribbean radicals, and becomes one of the charter members of the American Communist Party (CPUSA).

Otto Eduard Majella Huiswoud (1893-1961) stands out in the rank of Caribbean radicals who lived in the United States at the beginning of this century. Not only for being the first person of colour to join the CPUSA, but also for never officially severing his connections with the Communist Movement as most of his friends did later. Within a group of radicals that consisted mainly of people originating from the British West Indies, Huiswoud is the only one who grew up in a Dutch colony (where the abolition of slavery occurred thirty years later than in the British territories). Huiswoud’s father, born a slave and emancipated at the age of eleven, settled in the city of Paramaribo where he became a tailor. Descending from a working-class background Otto Huiswoud profited from the Dutch assimilation policy (1876), which provided all children with free education until the age of twelve. After he landed in the United States in 1910, Huiswoud became a member of the Socialist Propaganda League and joined the surrounding group of Black radicals.1

Throughout his life, Otto Huiswoud wrote various articles and pamphlets2. He also worked as contributing-editor and editor-in-chief for The Negro Worker, a black radical magazine which appeared from 1928 until 1937 and was banned in most European colonies3, and for De Koerier (The Messenger), a magazine for Surinamese in the Netherlands during the late 1950s. But since Huiswoud was an expert professional revolutionary working for the Communist International or Comintern from 1928 until 1938, and was sought after by the FBI and security agencies of various European colonial powers, he destroyed many of the documents he produced. The writings that did not perish are written in the typical communist agitprop-style of the 1920s and 1930s. These factors make a systematic analysis of his political thoughts extremely difficult. Furthermore, on account of Huiswoud’s work and actions, I prefer not to speak of his political thought but his political praxis. First and foremost, Huiswoud was an organizer, a union man, concerned about the dissemination of information and material needed to become better organized in the struggle against colonialism and capitalism. His anti-imperialist sentiments are a recurrent thread from his first article, in 1919,4 to his last action in 1961.

The African Blood Brotherhood, the American Communist Party, and the Communist International

Otto Huiswoud was already a member of the CPUSA when he joined the African Blood Brotherhood sometime between 1919 and 1920.5 His illegal presence in the United States (until 1923) and the fact that the Communist Party had gone underground right after its beginning account for the fact that he does not feature highly in documents from the ABB and other organizations. In 1922 Huiswoud attended the Fourth Comintern Congress in Moscow as an official delegate for the CPUSA, together with Claude McKay as a fraternal delegate. These two West Indians presented the Comintern with a thorough picture of the position of Negro workers in the United States of America, generally referred to as the ‘Negro Question or Negro Problem’.

A few words on the ‘Negro Question’ are in order here. From an orthodox Leninist point of view, the ‘Negro Question’ is part of the ‘National & Colonial Question’. During the Second Comintern Congress in 1920, Lenin mentioned the American Negroes in his Theses on the National & Colonial Question as being part of the oppressed minorities of the world.  At the Fourth Comintern Congress, in 1922, Huiswoud was elected Chairman of the Negro Commission charged with analysing the ‘Negro Question’. This resulted in the Thesis on the Negro Question and four resolutions, which Huiswoud presented to the Congress. In the Thesis it was acknowledged that, “the history of the Negro in America fits him for an important role in the liberation struggle of the entire African race”, and concluded: “ . . . Subjectively as well as objectively, the Negro problem has become an important question of the world revolution, and, that the Comintern, already understanding how important it can be for the proletarian Revolution to support the coloured Asian people in semi-colonial countries, has also acknowledged the necessity of the participation of our exploited black fellow men for the Revolution of the proletarian masses and the destruction of capitalist power.” 6

But who was going to convince the black workers in America that it was necessary for them to participate in the proletarian revolution? The Garvey Movement? The African Blood Brotherhood? An unknown fact concerning the four resolutions could provide an answer to these questions. The resolutions were offered twice. The second resolution “The Communist International will fight for the equality of the white and black races, for equal wages and political and social rights” originally read: “The work among Negroes should mainly be done by Negroes.”7 Despite the official change of the resolution the mentality of most American Communists did not change, and many felt that the work among the Negroes should be a special task of the black comrades. It was not until 1928 when the Sixth Comintern Congress endorsed the “Black Belt Thesis” that this attitude finally changed.   

When Huiswoud returned to the United States in 1923, he became actively involved in the Brotherhood as its National Organizing Secretary. In this capacity, Huiswoud travelled throughout the United States, trying to organize “Negro Labor” and “unite them with the white workers.”  In an article in The Worker of 28 April1923, called The Negro Problem is Important, Huiswoud analysed the ‘Negro Problem’ in the United States and why it was important for the CPUSA to win the support of the Negro workers. According to Huiswoud, the “Negro Problem is fundamentally an economic problem but intensified by racial antagonism.” Huiswoud felt that the Negro population was the most ruthlessly exploited group of the working class and ought to be won over to the Communist Party. In case the Party failed to win the support of the Negro workers they would be used as strike breakers against the white workers. Since Negroes had become more radical after the Great War, “[They] did not let themselves be shot down as dogs. Instead they put up resistance and became race conscious.”  It was the duty of the Communist Party to turn this “race-consciousness into class-consciousness.”    

The American Communist Party failed to do any political and organizational work among the Negroes and attracted hardly any new black members during the first five years of its existence.  This serious shortcoming became obvious during the All-Race Conference or Sanhedrin, in Chicago in February 1924, which Huiswoud attended as an ABB delegate.8 Backed by the reactions from the audience, Huiswoud forced the chairman of the conference to deal with the issue of labour. The delegate of the Communist Party (Lovett Fort-Whiteman) had tried the same but had been overruled. The audience clearly favoured the Brotherhood above the Communist Party.9 As an official Communist Party member, yet actively involved in the ABB, Otto Huiswoud has contributed greatly to the organization of black workers by appealing to their class-consciousness, yet never ignoring their race-consciousness.

Three months later, Huiswoud’s outspokenness on the issue of race led to his suspension from the CPUSA. Attending a conference of the Farmer-Labor Party in St. Paul, Minnesota,10 Huiswoud proposed a resolution for the social equality of Negroes and against lynching. When a white farmer from Texas opposed the resolution, saying that the farmers in the South would not support a platform which demanded social equality for Negroes, the leading party members decided to tone down the resolution. The same farmer reacted by declaring that Negroes did not want social equality but were only seeking to secure material advantages. Although Huiswoud had been urged not to react, he took the floor again and strongly denounced the farmer, which led to a one-year-long suspension from the party.11

This incident, at that time hardly known among Huiswoud’s black comrades, demonstrates two important aspects of Huiswoud’s political thoughts and actions. First, he seemed to be the only one in the party, black or white, who realized that when addressing the ‘Negro Question’ one ought to include the sharecroppers, tenant farmers and agricultural labourers in the South, where ten of the twelve million Negroes lived.  He had already elaborated on this point during the Fourth Comintern Congress in Moscow in 1922. Secondly, in his outspokenness against the racism of white party members he joined his friends Richard B. Moore and Cyrill Briggs, who by 1924 had both joined the CPUSA.12 The outspokenness of the ABB members within the American Communist Party, and their work on behalf of the Negro workers, was a continuous embarrassment to the Party. The Brotherhood members exposed the lack of organization for and amongst Negroes by the CPUSA and the Party’s existing racist attitude against its active Black comrades. Moscow’s insistence that all members of the American Communist Party, and not only the ABB members, should deal with the ‘Negro Question’ led to the founding of the American Negro Labor Congress (ANLC) in October 1925. Communist Party leaders made use of the opportunity to put the vocal Brotherhood members on the sideline. Young black communists (Lovett Fort-Whiteman, Harry Haywood 13 and James Ford14), who had recently joined the Party and were unfamiliar with previous Party politics, were promoted to high positions within the newly founded ANLC.15

Huiswoud, Briggs and Moore continued to work with the ANLC, and by 1928, both Huiswoud and Moore had obtained high positions within the CPUSA, a fact that never kept them from criticizing the party’s work among the “Negro working masses”.16 By that time Stalin had reorganized the Comintern. The appointment of these two old hands in high positions had been motivated by political opportunism.17 It goes beyond the scope of this paper to elaborate on the organizational pattern of the Comintern. However, some aspects need to be discussed in order to better understand Huiswoud’s relocation from the CPUSA to the Comintern.

The Comintern was founded in 1919 and was formally run by the Executive Committee or ECCI, and by the ECCI’s Presidium and Political Secretariat or Politsecretariat.18 On 10 December 1928, the Politsecretariat requested the founding of a Negro Bureau “to study the Negro situation and organizations and the political propaganda among the Negro masses in various countries.”  At the same time, a second Negro Bureau was founded by the Profintern or Red International of Labour Unions (RILU), and accountable to the Comintern.19 These two Negro Bureaus did not coordinate their work. Before the official organization of the two bureaus several Negro Commissions and sub commissions existed at various times. They were attached to either the Anglo-American or to the Eastern Secretariat.20 Until 1928 most of the Comintern’s “Negro Work” was done through the Eastern and the Anglo-American Secretariat. This accounted for the lack of commitment concerning the ‘Negro Question’ because the Comintern was never in the position to directly enforce its instructions, but had to go through the Communist Parties in the various countries. If the Party in question did not do as the Comintern had ordered, it was virtually impossible to do anything at all.

By the time Moscow ordered the CPUSA to adhere to the “Black Belt Thesis”21 in 1928, Huiswoud had moved on to the international arena, where he was in a better situation to “organise the Negro workers of the USA as the vanguard of the struggle of the Negro movement all over the world against imperialism.”22

Huiswoud, Padmore and the International Trade Union for Negro Workers (ITUC-NW)

In August 1929, Huiswoud challenged Marcus Garvey to a public debate on the race / class issue in connection with the ‘Negro Problem’ in Kingston, Jamaica. Following the orthodox Marxist-Leninist tradition, Huiswoud stated: “The Negro problem is fundamentally a class problem and not a race problem, for race only serves to intensify the situation and gives an impetus to the further exploitation of the Negro.” 23

However, a slight deviation from the orthodox interpretation became apparent when Huiswoud compared the situation for the Negro people in Africa and the West Indies with those in America. Because of the colonial situation in the West Indies and Africa, class against class came more readily to the forefront, rather than race. Back in the United States, Huiswoud expanded more fully on the racial aspect of the ‘Negro Question’. “It is essential that we distinguish the situation of the Negro masses in the colonies - Africa and the West Indies- and the semi-colonies - Haiti and Liberia - who suffer from colonial exploitation, from that of the Negro in America, a racial minority, subjected to racial persecution and exploitation. We must take into consideration the National-Colonial character of the Negro Question in Africa and the West Indies and the racial character of this question in the United States.” 24

Before his visit to Jamaica, Huiswoud had travelled to Moscow where he stayed from March until June.25 Documents in both the Comintern and Profintern Fund indicate that Huiswoud was present at meetings of the ITUC-NW of the RILU, where he delivered a report on the “Negro Work in the United States”.26 At that time the preparations for a Negro Conference were already in full swing. The RILU was looking into the possibility of creating a Negro Bureau in Paris, which would be responsible for connecting work between the French and Belgian parties and the United States.27 Another urgent task was to find people to participate in the Negro Conference and “in line with this, definite steps should be made to make contact with the workers of the West Indies and Latin and Central America.”28 

I have found no clear indications in the Comintern and Profintern Funds that Huiswoud was officially appointed as a member of the Negro Bureau.29 However, Huiswoud’s activities and his writings30 demonstrate that he had moved away from the CPUSA with its factional fighting about the Black Belt Thesis31 and had become engaged in the international anti-colonial struggle, alongside his younger friend and comrade George Padmore.32 In 1930 he travelled throughout the Caribbean, together with his wife Hermine Alicia Huiswoud-Dumont, to find representatives for the First International Negro Congress, to be held in Hamburg in July 1930. From December 1930 until Huiswoud’s trip to South Africa late 1932, a close working relationship ensued between Huiswoud and Padmore. They were both working for the RILU and its ITUC-NW. In October 1931, Padmore was sent to Hamburg to replace James Ford as editor-in-chief of The Negro Worker, while Otto Huiswoud became chairman of the ITUC-NW.33 When Huiswoud returned from South Africa, George Padmore had been arrested by the German police and was deported to the United Kingdom.34 Padmore relocated to Paris, where he established contact with Tiemoko Garan Kouyaté. They had first met in 1930 during the Negro Conference and became good friends. When the Comintern officially excluded Kouyaté in October 1933,35 Padmore continued to associate with him and supplied him with Comintern money. Otto Huiswoud was ordered by the Comintern to go down to Paris and investigate both Padmore and Kouyaté. Huiswoud explained to Padmore that he was supposed to travel to Moscow “to give an account of his work amongst the Negroes since his departure from Hamburg.” Padmore refused to go; this led to his official exclusion by the Comintern on 23 February 1934.36

Contrary to Padmore’s assertion, the Comintern did not dissolve the ITUC-NW in 1933. Huiswoud continued with the work until 1937, relocating from Copenhagen to Antwerp, to Amsterdam, and finally to Paris. In the last issue of The Negro Worker (September-October 1937) Huiswoud announced the formation of a new committee that would join the movement to “stop the ruthless advance of fascism.”37 This committee never materialized, but evidence in the French Archives Nationales section Outre-Mer (ANSOM) shows that Huiswoud was very active in the Union des Travailleurs Nègres (UTN) until he left Paris for the United States in the second half of 1938.

Though no longer working for the same organisation, Padmore and Huiswoud remained engaged in similar activities. What Padmore was doing in England, first with the International African Friends of Ethiopia (IAFE) and later with the International African Service Bureau (IASB), Huiswoud was doing in France with the ITUC-NW and the UTN. In one of his last reports to the Profintern, Huiswoud noted the change in interest among the “toiling masses in the colonies”. “While we must recognize the fact that in most of the colonies strike struggles are fast increasing and steady progress is being made in trade union organization, especially in South Africa and the West Indies, nevertheless the major development in organization among the Native people today is on a much wider basis - the struggle for elementary democratic rights - political rights, the rights of free press, speech and organization, against specific colonial laws and economic exploitation. The demand for the activity to gain self-government is gaining ground among the Natives of the larger and most important West Indian colonies. [...] To this must be added that the Italian fascist war on Abyssinia, has profoundly affected large strata of the Negro people everywhere imbuing them with a certain political consciousness as to the necessity of struggle for liberation from imperialist domination.[...] We consider that our present major task is to further stimulate and give aid in the development of the National Liberation movement organizations in the colonies and to propagate and help bring about united front actions and the unity of these organizations.”38

A month later, at the opening of the new headquarters of the UTN in Paris,39 Huiswoud took the ‘united front’ policy to a logical conclusion by advising those present that it was important for Negroes to cooperate with those democracies that were concerned about their welfare. Since the Negroes would never be able to obtain their liberation by themselves, they would need the support of these democracies and their respective mother-countries.40

During the Second World War Huiswoud was incarcerated by the Dutch colonial authorities in his country of birth, Suriname. At the same time, the FBI started an investigation into Huiswoud’s past. When it became known that Huiswoud had worked for the Comintern, he became an enemy of the state and was unable to return to the United States. In 1947 Otto Huiswoud settled down in the Netherlands, where he dedicated the rest of his life to the guidance and growth of young Surinamese, who would become the ‘avant-garde’ in the struggle for “national independence, and against colonialism and imperialism.”41

 

Notes

* This contribution reproduces an older unpublished paper based on Dr. Maria Van Enckevort’s PhD dissertation.

[1] The moving force behind the Socialist Propaganda League was Sebald Justinus Rutgers, a Dutch civil engineer who had worked in the Dutch East Indies. Through Rutgers, Huiswoud befriended the Japanese Sen Katayama, who in 1922 became the Head of the “Negro Commission” of the Comintern.

2 How to Organize and Lead the Struggles of Negro Toilers, by Charles Woodson. Published by the International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers, Copenhagen, 1935.

3 George Padmore worked as its editor-in-chief from November 1931 until February 1933, when he was arrested by the Political Division of the Hamburg police and subsequently deported to England. The magazine did not cease to exist as many were led to believe but continued with Otto Huiswoud, under the name of Charles Woodson, until 1937.

4 The Messenger, Dec.1919, Vol.2, nr.11, 22-23: “In order to understand colonialism, it is necessary to understand the development of capitalism. The principal motive behind the race for colonies, protectorates and ‘spheres of influence’ between the great nations of Europe is not one of good or bad intent toward the natives of these colonies, but one of their economic exploitation.”

5 FBI Records file # HQ 64-30457-2, p.2. “Otto Huiswoud” an obituary by Cyril Briggs in: The Worker, Dec. 1961, p.8.; Letter Hermine Huiswoud, Oct.24, 1990.  In Huiswoud’s personal file in the Comintern Fund 495, Inv. 261. File # 6668, it states that he has been a member of the CPUSA since 1919.

6 Protokoll des IV Kongresses, p.697, translation mine.

7 Ibidem.

8 Turner & Turner [1988:50] explain that the name “Negro Sanhedrin” was used by Kelly Miller a sociology professor and the Dean of Howard University, who acted as chairman of the conference.

9 The Daily Worker, February 15, 1924.

10 The Farmer-Labor Movement had been formed around the same time as the American Communist Party at the end of 1919. The movement was started by local trade unions and concentrated in the American West.

11 Comintern Fund 495, Inv.155, file # 59. The only reference in the American Press is by Cyril Briggs in the Communist of September 1929; see Foner [1987:217].

12 It is not clear when exactly Moore and Briggs joined the Communist Party. Turner & Turner [1988:51] put Moore’s entry around 1926. Briggs’ entry is more difficult to determine. Many scholars put his entry around the same time as that of Moore. In his handwritten autobiography in the Comintern Fund 495, Inv. 261, file # 2133, Briggs states that he joined the party in 1919 in New York.

13 In his autobiography Black Bolshevik [1978:146] Haywood questions the selection of the new leadership for the ANLC. “Why was Fort-Whiteman chosen in preference to such well-known and capable Blacks as Richard B. Moore, Otto Huiswood or Cyril Briggs, all of whom had revolutionary records superior to Fort-Whiteman’s? [ . . . ] These Black leaders had records comparable to, or better then, those of any whites on the Central Committee.”

14 It was James Ford who introduced George Padmore to the work of the International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers (ITUC-NW) in 1929. Padmore was acquainted with Otto Huiswoud and his wife Hermine to whom he allegedly owns his pseudonym. The three of them had worked together in the ANLC. [Turner & Turner, 1988: p.56 & note 43, p.104]

15 Three years later (1928) in a report to the Comintern [Fund 495, Inv. 155, file # 59] Ford criticizes the Party’s “attitude to leading Negro Comrades.” Capable Negro Comrades who had pointed out mistakes had not been given consideration, but were relegated to insignificant positions. He mentioned Moore, Briggs and Huiswoud by name.

16 Comintern Fund 495, Inv. 155, file # 39, pp. 3-5.  Report and recommendations on the Conference of the Party Fraction in the General Executive Board of the ANLC. Moore had been elected as the new General Secretary-Organizer of the ANLC and had been placed on the Council of Directors. Huiswoud had been appointed as the Head of the Negro Department of the National Executive Committee.

17 Jay Lovestone, who was lobbying in Moscow for the vacant position of General Secretary of the CPUSA admitted that the former Party leadership had neglected its Negro Work. By appointing Huiswoud and Moore the Party showed Athe determination of the Central Committee to remedy our default on this most important question@. See Haywood [1978:189] and Comintern Fund 495, Inv. 155, file # 66.

18 These executive organs had an extensive administrative network at their disposal, with departments for organization, information, agitation and propaganda. The headquarters also contained regional or “ländersecretariats”, e.g. the “Anglo-American Secretariat”, the “Latin American Secretariat” etc. These regional secretariats could form commissions and sub commissions to study specific problems.

19 The Profintern or RILU - an international federation of revolutionary trade unions - was founded in July 1921, under the leadership of the Comintern. Its purpose was ‘to organize the working masses of the world for the overthrow of capitalism”. A chosen representative of the RILU was part of the ECCI. From 1921 until 1937, when the RILU was dissolved, Losovsky was its General Secretary and the representative on the ECCI. On July 31st, 1928, during a meeting of the Executive Bureau of the RILU, Losovsky came with the idea of forming a Negro Bureau under the name of the International trade Union Committee of Negro Workers (ITUC-NW), with the African American James Ford as chairman of the Committee.

20 A clear picture of the organizational pattern of the Comintern can be found in the Short Guide (Kratki’i Putjevoditjel) of the Funds and Collections, collected by the Central Archives of the Party. Published by the Russian Center of Conservation & Study of Records for Modern History, Moscow: Blagoviet, 1993.

21 At the Sixth Comintern Congress in Moscow, summer 1928, a resolution was passed on the Negro Question in America, which advocated the slogan of “the right of self-determination of the Negroes in the Black Belt” better known as “Black Belt Thesis”. The African American Harry Haywood had played an important part in the development of the thesis. Stalin, however, used it as an instrument to establish his power over the American communist Party, manipulating the Party’s factional fighting. See also Robinson, Black Marxism, 1983, pp.308, ff.

22 Comintern Fund 495, Inv.155, file # 56, p.114. “The Negro and the Trade Unions”, in The Communist, December 1928, Vol.viii, no.12, pp.770-775. In this article Huiswoud mentioned the newly established International Trade Union Committee for Negro Workers (ITUC-NW) organized by the RILU as being responsible for “ . . . the distinctly proletarian leadership of the American Negro worker, not only nationally, but internationally as well.”

23  The Daily Gleaner, August 12, 1929. The theme of the debate was: “Resolved that the Negro problem can only be solved by International Labour cooperation between White and Black labour.” Huiswoud would speak for the affirmative and Garvey for the negative.

24 “World Aspects of the Negro Question”, in: The Communist, Vol.ix, no.2, Feb.30, 1930, pp.132-147.

25 FBI file # HQ 64-30457-2, p.4.

26 Comintern Fund 495, Inv. 155, file # 67, p.14; Profintern Fund 534, Inv. 3, file # 450

27 Comintern Fund 495, Inv. 155, file # 67, p.19.

28 Ibidem, file # 77, p.86.

29 Comintern Fund 495, Inv.261, file # 1408, p.16 & p.26 contain a questionnaire and an autobiography by Helen Davis, the party name of Hermine Huiswoud-Dumont.  In it she mentions that in 1930 her husband was working for the RILU doing “Colonial and Trade Union work in the Caribbean and Latin America. While I was not sent to do this work, I accompanied my husband and assisted in it.”

30 See above, note 24. The same article talks about the need to draw the “colonial slaves” in Africa and the West Indian Islands into a “world-wide revolutionary movement for the overthrow of world capitalism.” Interesting is Huiswoud’s warning of another imperialist war and a war against the Soviet Union “into which thousands of Negroes will be drawn and sacrificed to appease the greed of world imperialism.”

31 Huiswoud had publicly ignored the “Black Belt Thesis” and had published an article that was interpreted as being in direct opposition to the line of the Comintern. In December 1930, when he had officially relocated in Moscow with his wife, he confessed that he had made an error with regard to the question of self-determination. Comintern Fund 495, Inv. 155, file # 87, pp.441-445.

32 The Profintern Fund 534, Inv. 3, file # 450, contains a letter, dated Dec. 23, 1929, from James Ford to Slavin in Moscow, in which he announced the arrival of George Padmore. This is the first mention of Padmore in this Fund.

The Caribbean Bureau of the Profintern Fund 534, Inv. 4, file # 330, contains a personal letter from Huiswoud, dated April 14, 1930, Port of Spain, to George Padmore. The letter is not written in the stiff Comintern style. It opens with “Dear George” and is signed “Fraternally yours, Otto.”

33 Profintern Fund 534, Inv. 3, file # 668.

34 Public Record Office, London, FO 372/2910, Dispatches, no.21, February 21, 1933 and no.22, February 22, 1933 (208/33).

35 SLOTFOM, III/53, dossier UTN, Rapport de Paul, date: Dec.18, 1933.

36 SLOTFOM III/53, Rapport de Joe, date: Feb.27, 1934; SLOTFOM, III/61, doss.”Notes sur la propagande, Février 1935, Huiswood et la Crusader News Agency.” The Profintern Fund 534, Inv. 3, file # 895, contains an interesting letter to Padmore, dated March 22, 1933, signed [illegible], admonishing him that he has to change his methods of work radically. He is too individualistic and not collective enough, he leaves too many traces of himself and he should become more skillful in “legal, semi-legal and illegal methods of work.” 

37 Profintern Fund 534, Inv.3, file # 1114, contains a letter to Moskvin, a former chief of the Secret Police (OGPU), who in 1935 had been elected to the ECCI. In this letter Moskvin is informed that the ITUC-NW had been converted into a “Committee of Cultural service for the toiling masses of Africa.”

38 Profintern Fund 534, Inv. 3, file # 1103, date: January 1937, total of eight pages.

39 Huiswoud donated the furniture and appliances of the former ITUC-NW offices to the new UTN headquarters.

40 SLOTFOM II/2, Agent COCO, date: Fevr.7, 1938.

41 In Memoriam Otto Huiswoud,  [1989:13]. ARA, GvS/KG, No.102/15 June 1959.

 

References and/or complementary bibliography

Primary Sources

Archief van de Gouverneur van Suriname (Kabinet Geheim 1885-1951)”. In Algemeen Rijksarchief (ARA), The Hague

FBI Records

“Documents of the Executive Committee of the Communist International or Comintern, Fund 495”. In Russian Centre for the Preservation and Study of Documents. Moscow.

“Documents of the Red International of Labour Unions or Profintern, Fund 534”. In Russian Centre for the Preservation and Study of Documents. Moscow.

“Documents of the ‘Service de Liaison des Originaires des Territoires Français d”Outre Mer’ (SLOTFOM). In Archives Nationales Section Outre-Mer (ANSOM). Aix-en-Provence.

“Foreign Records”. In Public Record Office. London.

Secondary Sources

Haywood, Harry. 1978. Black Bolshevik. Autobiography of an Afro-American Communist. Chicago: Liberator Press.

Huiswoud, Otto. 1919. “Dutch Guiana: A Study in Colonial Exploitation”. In The Messenger. Vol.2, nr. 11, pp.22-23.

Huiswoud, Otto. 1928. “The Negro and the Trade Unions”. In The Communist. December. Vol.viii, no.12, pp.770-775.

Huiswoud, Otto. 1930. “World Aspects of the Negro Question”. In The Communist. February. Vol.ix, no 2, pp.132-147.

“In Memoriam Otto Huiswoud”. 1989. In Vereniging Ons Suriname 18 Januari 1919 – 18 Januari 1989. Een Aanzet tot de Geschiedschrijving over Zeventig Jaren Leven en Strijd van Surinamers in Nederland. Amsterdam: Vereniging Ons Suriname, pp.110-13.

Protokoll des IV Kongresses der Kommunistischen Internationale. 1923. Hamburg.

Robinson, Cedric. 1983. Black Marxism. The Making of the Black Radical Tradition. London: Zed Books Ltd.

Short Guide of the Funds and Collections, collected by the Central Archives of the Party. 1993. Moscow: Russian Center of Conservation & Study of Records for Modern History.

Turner, W. Burghardt and Joyce Moore Turner. 1988. Richard B. Moore, Caribbean Militant in Harlem: Collected Writings 1920-1972. Bloomington: Indiana Press.

Woodson, Charles. 1935. How to Organize and Lead the Struggles of Negro Toilers. Copenhagen: the International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers.

 

 


Information about the authors

Max BELAISE (University of Martinique, Martinique)

Max Belaise was born in 1960 in Pointe-à-Pitre (Guadeloupe). He has completed his Ph.D. candidacy in Philosophy in the Philosophy Department of the Université Marne La Vallée (France), and Theology and in History of Philosophy (Sorbonne). He is a graduate in Pharmacology, theology, and in medical anthropology (France). He is currently teaching ethics at the Institute of Technology and at the Faculty of letters, at the Université des Antilles-Guyane (Martinique, France), after having exercised the pastoral ministry in France and in the French West Indies. His primary research interests are centered on ethics, medicine, religion and civilization in the French West Indies.

Gracelyn CASSELL (UWI, Montserrat)

Gracelyn Cassell, B.A. Library Studies (UWI), M.A. Archives (Lond), and M Sc Computer Assisted Management Information Systems (UWI) worked in the Montserrat Public Library from 1982 to 1997 and in the Main Library at the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica from 1997 to 2005. In August 2005, she returned to Montserrat to take up the post of Resident Tutor and Head of the University of the West Indies School of Continuing Studies.

Dr. Maria CIJNTJE – VAN ENCKEVORT (USM Dean of Academic Affairs, St Martin, N.A.)

Dr. Cijntje-Van Enckevort was born in the Netherlands. She studied in the Netherlands, Canada, and Jamaica (UWI, Mona), and has been working in education on (Dutch) St. Martin for the past 25 years. She has published various textbooks on history and social studies for secondary education. Her main interests are in the areas of history, philosophy and Caribbean Studies. She is the current Dean of Academic Affairs at the University of St. Martin, N.A.

Website: https://consultants2006.tripod.com/maria_van_enckevort.

Prof. Dr. Marc DEPAEPE (K.U.Leuven-Kortrijk, Belgium)

Marc Depaepe (1953) is Full Professor at the “Katholieke Universiteit Leuven” (Belgium), where he is chairing the Center for the History of Education. Since 2004, he is also chairing the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences at the Campus Kortrijk. He is a former President of the International Standing Conference for the History of Education as well as of the Belgian Dutch Society for the History of Education. He has a large amount of publications in several languages. They deal whith four main topics: the historiography, theory and methodology of the history of education; the international history of the sciences of education; the history of primary education in Belgium; and, the history of colonial education in Congo. Since 2005, he is, with Frank Simon, co-editor-in-chief of Paedagogica Historica. The international journal of the history of education.

Josianne FLEMING-ARTSEN (USM President, St. Martin, N.A.)

Mrs. Fleming-Artsen is a qualified educator and holds degrees in Educational Sciences. She has studied in the Netherlands Antilles, the Netherlands, and the USA. She has been active in St. Martin classrooms and school management for approximately 25 years.

Dr. June GEORGE (UWI, St Augustine, Trinidad & Tobago)

June George, Ph.D., is Head, School of Education, The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad, West Indies. An educator with over 25 years of experience at tertiary and secondary levels, Dr. George’s main interests are in the fields of science education, indigenous technology and traditional beliefs and practices, and assessment and evaluation. She has published widely in these fields.

Website: http://www.id21.org/education/E3jg1g1.html

Milton A. GEORGE (PhD candidate, K.U.Leuven, Belgium & USM Guest Instructor, St. Martin, N.A.)

Milton A. George was born in Suriname. He studied in The Netherlands, the UK, and Belgium. He holds a university teaching degree, a diploma in teaching English as a Foreign Language, and MAs in Religious Studies, Theology, Canon Law, and Educational Studies, respectively. He is currently a PhD candidate at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium. He is conducting a research project about the history of primary education in St Martin, The Netherlands Antilles, and doing an MA in Linguistics at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium.

Website: http://www.geocities.com/milgeorge/official.html

Dr. Francio GUADELOUPE (Head of the Research and Publication Dept., USM, St. Martin, N.A.)

Francio Guadeloupe was born on the 11th of May 1971 on the Dutch West Indian Island of Aruba. After having lived and traveled throughout the Caribbean, he moved to the Netherlands at 18 years of age. In 1999, he obtained his Master’s degree in development studies at the University of Nijmegen, based on his research on the Afro-Brazilian cults Candomblé and Umbanda in Rio de Janeiro and Salvador da Bahia, Brazil. On the basis of his dissertation Guadeloupe has published two books: A vida e uma dança: the Candomble Through the Lives of Two Cariocas (Nijmegen, CIDI, 1999), and Dansen om te leven: over Afro-Braziliaanse cultuur en religie (Luyten & Babar, 1999). His PhD research resulted in his book, entitled: Chanting down the New Jerusalem: The politics of belonging on Saint Martin and Sint Maarten. This dissertation concerns itself with the manner in which popular radio disc jockeys on the bi-national island of Saint-Martin & Sint Maarten (the French and Dutch West Indies) employ Caribbean music, and Creolized Christianity, to put forth all-inclusive politics of belonging. It is about how on a multi-ethnic and multi-religious island, where everyone's livelihood is dependent on tourism, all social classes seek and often times are able to transcend their ethnic and religious differences. This is done paradoxically by employing Creolized Christianity as a public religion that does not privilege any of the faiths practiced; not even that of the Christian churches. It is an ethnography that seeks to demonstrate, that in a time in which ethnic and religious based identity politics are rampant, there are alternatives in the world. That there are places where people understand, because of the circumstances they are in, that taking on an identity is about creating for oneself a space to act while taking others into consideration.

Website: http://www.diasporainternational.org/pdf/healing_of.pdf

Prof. Dr. Yegin HABTES (UVI, US Virgin Islands, USA)

Prof. Dr. Habtes is professor of Education at the University of the Virgin Islands (UVI), USA, and Executive Director of the UVI’s Center of Excellence in Developmental Disabilities.

Prof. Dr. Zellynne JENNINGS-CRAIG (UWI, Mona, Jamaica)

Zellynne Jennings-Craig is Professor and Head of the Department of Educational Studies at the University of the West Indies, Mona. She read for her B.A (Hons) at the University of Hull in England and has Masters Degrees from the Universities of Leeds and Birmingham in the U.K. She has a Ph D from the University of the West Indies. A former Professor of Education at the University of Guyana, Professor Jennings has wide experience in Caribbean education systems, including Guyana and the Eastern Caribbean and has worked on consultancies for various international agencies, including UNESCO, DFID and CIDA. Her scholarly work includes four school texts, fourteen chapters in books, three monographs, forty six articles published in refereed international journals, book reviews, editorials, twelve papers presented at international conferences and over twenty reports.

Jeannette J. LOVERN (UVI, St Croix, US Virgin Islands, USA)

J. Jeannette Lovern, Ph.D. is a native of Missouri, in the United States. Throughout her career, she has taught at the junior high, high school, community college, 4-year college, university, and graduate school levels. She did her undergraduate work at Northeast Missouri State University (now Truman State University) where she was a Pershing Scholar. She got her master's degree from the University of Oklahoma. While there, she was chosen for the Oxford Scholars Program at Oxford University in the UK. She received her Ph.D. in Education from Capella University in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She completed the Mind, Brain, and Education Institute at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 2002. Her specialty areas include Educational Psychology, Multiculturalism, Literacy, and Assessment.

Drs. Rob PAULUSSEN (OU, the Netherlands & BAZN Academy for Public Administration)

Drs. Rob Paulussen, consultant and researcher Linea Partners and associate lecturer in Public Administration, Open University – Fontys Academy for Public Administration

Dr. Marilyn ROBB (UWI, St Augustine, Trinidad & Tobago)

Marilyn Robb is an Educational Consultant attached to the Caribbean Institute for Research and Professional Education, Ltd (CIRPEL). She has an M. Ed from Towson State University, Maryland USA, an M. Phil from the University of the West Indies and a Ph.D. from the University of the West Indies. She is the Program Administrator and a tutor for the University of Sheffield Caribbean Program in Education. She also lectures in the Department of Education at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago. One of her major consultancies was the “Changing the Culture of the Classroom” project which she designed and implemented in several Caribbean countries for UNESCO. Marilyn has also conducted workshops on Social and Emotional Learning and Educational Change in North America, Australia and several countries in Europe. The Institute- CIRPEL: Caribbean Institute for Research and Professional Education, Ltd., an independent learning organization in operation for the past ten years, offers services in the sphere of education. They are the agents for the University of Sheffield, School of Education Caribbean Programs. The consultancy services offered by CIRPEL include support for distance learners, staff and professional development and collaborative research.

Website: www.cirpel.org.

Dr. Silvio Sergio SCATOLINI APÓSTOLO (USM Guest Instructor, St. Martin, N.A.)

Dr. Scatolini Apóstolo was born in Argentina. He has worked, conducted research, and/or studied in Argentina, the UK, Belgium, Suriname, the Netherlands, Egypt, and St. Martin. He has made several contributions to the conferences Catholic Theology in the Caribbean Today and taught at the USM as Guest Instructor (“Comparative Religions” [together with Milton A. George] and “Introduction to Metaphysics and Human Values”). Dr. Scatolini Apóstolo holds a Cambridge Certificate in TEFL, as well as a BA in Ancient Near Eastern Studies (Semitic Studies), an MA in Educational Sciences, and a PhD in Theology from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium. He also has an academic teacher’s degree for secondary education. Currently, he is pursuing an MA in Advanced Linguistics (Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium), and participating in a Postgradute Course in Caribbean Studies (KITLV, Leiden, the Netherlands) and a Postgraduate E‑learning Course to become a Professional Expert in Islamic Culture, Civilization, and Religion (UNED, Spain).

Website: www.geocities.com/silviosergio/index.html and consultants.tripod.com/phil232

Drs. Iwan SEWANDONO (OU, The Netherlands & BAZN-USM, St. Martin, N.A.)

Drs. Iwan Sewandono is the Principal Lecturer in the M.Sc. course on Public Management and Policy for civil servants in St. Martin, N.A., jointly organized by the Open University (OU) of the Netherlands and the Fontys Academy for Public Administration. He is also a member of the Amsterdam Advice Council for Diversity and Integration.

Prof. Dr. Peter SNOW (Christopher Newport University, USA)

Peter Snow received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles and is now an Assistant Professor of Linguistics in the Department of English at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Virginia, USA. He has conducted ethnographic fieldwork and worked as an elementary school teacher and teacher-trainer on the Panamanian island of Bastimentos in the Western Caribbean Sea since 1993. His articles on language contact and Caribbean Creole language varieties have appeared in the Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages, the International Journal of the Sociology of Language, and – most recently – in the book ‘Politeness and Face in Caribbean Creoles’ edited by Susanne Muhleisen and Bettina Migge.



[1] In 2005, I published an internal research report for the OUNL and some committees on strengthening relationships between educational institutes at the lowest level and employers in the Dordrecht area in the Netherlands

[2] The so-called February strike in 1942

[3] Wij Amsterdammers II, pg. 11.

[4] F. Reno, « L’Europe tropicale », in La Tribune des Antilles, no 43, p. 22-23.

[5] F. Flahault, Le paradoxe de Robinson, Paris, Mille et une nuits, 2003, p. 148.

[6] F. Fanon, Peau noire, masques blancs, Paris, Seuil, 1952.

[7] A. Césaire, Nègre je suis, nègre je resterai, Paris, A. Michel, 2005, p. 42.

[8] Our free translation: “We must accept that meanwhile the intellectuals and the ideologists were fighting the colonial domination by many means, they were mimetically perpetuating its teachings.” J.-M. Theodore, “La production d’outils pédagogiques,” in Cahiers de l’UGTM-éducation, no spécial, octobre 2002, p. 25.

[9] A. Touraine, “Les Français piégés par leur moi national,” in Le Monde, no 18907, 8 novembre 2005, p. 37. Our free translation: “The French republicanism identifies itself with universalism, which more often implies the rejection or the maintenance in an inferior position of those who are “different”. Those obstacles to integration have deep causes […] We are marked by a colonial tradition.”

[10] Ibid.   Our free translation: “It is no longer acceptable to think and to act as if France was the depositor of the universal values, and had the right, in the name of this mission, to treat as inferior those whose characters do not correspond to the ideal Me. The false consciousness of the French when they talk about themselves explains the weak opening to the social sciences.”

[11] E. Benbassa, N. Bancel, “Le passé colonial de la France : un écueil historique,” in Le Monde de l’éducation, no 338, juillet-août 2005, p. 90.

[12] T. Delsham (interview with), “La France a du mal à respecter la diversité culturelle,” in Antilla, no 1122, 22 décembre 2004, p. 10. Our free translation: “The [French] republic accepts a technical decentralisation [of its administration]. You will have to manage the roads [construction], the tourism industry, the formation, cottage industry, and all else that I forget! But you do not manage the symbolic. You do not manage the language, the culture, your soul, your future.”

[13] A. Césaire, Ibid., p. 37.

[14] Quoted by Nelson Maldonado-Torres, “Frantz Fanon and C.L.R. James on intellectualism and enlightened rationality,” in Caribbean Studies, vol. 33, no 2, July-December 2005, p. 159.

[15]A.-L. Conklin, « Le colonialisme : un dérapage de l’idéal éducatif », in Communications, no 72/2002, p. 160.

[16] P. Erny, Essai sur l’éducation en Afrique noire, Paris, L’Harmattan, 2001, p. 243. Our free translation: “Each culture has its ethos that gives a particular, intellectual, moral, and affective colour to the education delivered in it.”

[17] A. Césaire, Ibid., p. 41. Our free translation: “The education that we received and the world conception which comes from it are responsible of our irresponsibility.”

[18] E. Glissant, Le discours antillais, Paris, Seuil, 1997, p. 583.

[19] A. Yvan-Augustin, “L’école haïtienne, une immense machine en panne,” in Le Nouvelliste, no 37407, 13 Juin 2006, p. 33. Our free translation: “Most of the school books we have do not correspond to the realities of the country.  The manuals, till recently, reproduce the French model, even if they have been conceived and produced in Haiti.”

[20] P. Chamoiseau, Une enfance créole II/ Chemin-d’école, Paris, Gallimard, 1996, p. 170. Our free translation: “The Universal was a shield, a disinfectant, a religion, a hope, a supreme poetical act. The universal was a command.”

[21] A. Césaire, Discours à la maison du peuple, Fort-de-France, Editions : PPM/SLND, p. 53.

[22] M. H. Léotin, “Agir pour l’éducation,” in Cahiers de l’UGTM-éducation, no spécial, octobre 2002, p. 30.

[23] J.-P. Sainton, “La caraïbe qui nous unit : construire une socio-histoire,” in Cahiers de l’UGTM-éducation, no spécial, novembre 2003, p. 22.

[24] P. Erny, Ibid., p. 289.

[25] F. Savater, Pour l’éducation, Paris, Rivages poche, 1998, p. 39. Our free translation: “Education is the concrete mark of the human being put there where the latter was only potential.”

[26] E. Kant, Anthropologie d’un point de vue pragmatique, Paris, Vrin, 1991, p. 155.

[27] F. Fanon, Ibid., p. 88.

[28] Ibid., p. 30.

[29] J.-P. Sartre, L’existentialisme est un humanisme, Paris, Gallimard, 1996, p. 29. Our free translation: “Man is not only as he conceives himself, but as he desires himself”.

[30] E. Kant, On education (Ueber Paedagogik) The Online Library of liberty.htm, p. 11.

[31] J.-L. Legrand, “Place de l’anthropologie dans les sciences de l’éducation,” in Spirale, no 11, 203, p. 15.

[32] Ph. Descola, “Offrir ce magnifique moteur qu’est la curiosité,” in Le Monde de l’éducation, no 349, Juillet-Août 2006.

[33] M. Cegarra, “Vers une anthropologie de l’éducation: entre attirance et réserve,” in Spirale, no 11, 203, p. 22. Our free translation: “The education of human beings is rooted in a specific milieu which must be characterized through the exterior conditions that will act on it, such as its physical, cultural, and social environment. It is all about identifying the society’s characteristics in which the education is developed, from the perspective of its economical system as much as from the social and cultural point of view.”  

[34] http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~brians/anglophone/postcolonial.html

[35] This is one of the strategies that are being followed at the K.U.Leuven Research Center in the History of Pedagogy in the Belgian Congo.

[36] http://www.historymatters.gmu.edu/mse/oral/interpret.html

[37] Taken from MAC general information folder. Material received from Mr. Clinton Spring, executive director of the MAC while collecting data.

[38] Baudrillard (2005: 41).

[39] As quoted in Baudrillard (2005: 141).

[40] Nancy (1996: 95).

[41] For an example hereof on Sint Maarten see Sekou (1997). In Sekou’s book the flamboyant tree is recognized as SXM’s national symbol standing for complete and absolute independence from the Netherlands.

[42] The term objective culture is borrowed from the philosopher Georg Simmel.

[43] See Lyotard (2004) and Blanchot (2001).

[44] See Harris (1999: 80).

[45] Castells, (1997), pp. 244-245, 252-254, 259-261.

[46] I will examine the concept of good governance only looking at local government. This means the object of this article is ‘government governance’ in stead of ‘corporate governance’. (e.g. Bossert, (2003), p. 16)

[47] I think those two elements are interesting. Traditionally, good governance gets much attention by focussing on the key element ‘integrity’ (e.g. democracy and accountability seems to be more challenging for this paper).

[48] Recently, with an ambitious reform of Dutch democratic formal institutions (provinces and municipalities), some relevant research is conducted in which the quality of political decision-making was the object (Pröpper,  and Paulussen, 2004 and Pröpper, Paulussen and Steenbeek, 2003). For the purpose of this article I will partly follow the theoretical framework of this research.

[49] See for instance: Behn, R.D., (2001).

[50] Aardema (2002) gives an explanation of this by using the concept of ‘institutionele amorfie’ (Dutch): the difference between individual rationality and collective rationality.

[51] This problem gets much attention in literature on public administration; see, for instance: Wilson, (1989), 11-13.

[52] Farneti and Bestebreur (2004) draw the same conclusion: ‘Though formal concepts of budgeting accountability lay at heart of the implementation, it should be taken into account that a critical, constructive attitude (itself also a result of existing culture) with regard to the internalization of such (new) concepts in the organization, is needed for a successful introduction in the organization. This can not be reached by a legislation programme alone…” (See also the work of Aardema, 2002).

[53] My personal experience is that many politicians consider themselves a victim of an overwhelming production of policy notes made by civil servants.

[54]  hooks [1994:51].

[55] Gordon, Shirley (1963) “A Century of West Indian Education: A Source Book”. London: Longmans, quoted in: M. Kassion Bacchus “Education in the Pre-emancipation Period (With Special Reference to the  Colonies who later became British Guiana).” p. 645.

[56]  Hartog [1964:511].

[57]  Richards [1967:167].

[58]  George [2004:40]; Hartog [1964:491-92 & 505]; for Saba also see Crane [1971:60].

[59]  Hartog [1964:502-505].

[60]  See Hartog [1964:231-34 & 279].

[61]  Hartog [1964:633]; Voges [1990:27].

[62]   Menkman [1942:483].

[63]  Hartog [1964:483]

[64]  Cited in Bor [1981:145].

[65]  Dutch society is ‘vertically’ divided in several smaller segments or “pillars’ according to different religions or ideologies, with their own social institutions, such as political parties, schools, broadcasting organizations, etc.

[66]  Dei [2006:16].

[67]  Fanon [1967:18].

[68]  Marcha & Verweel [2003:10].

[69]  Ibid., p.121

[70]  The fact that the Catholic religion is not as dominant on St. Maarten, as well as a more oecumenical fellowship between the various Christian denominations, has also contributed to this.

[71]  Clarke [ 2003: 50]; See also George Lamming, who speaks about “fractured consciousness” in:  In the Castle of My Skin; Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994; p. xxxix

[72]  e.g. Eduard Glissant; Ulf Hannerz.

[73]  For an excellent overview of the concept creolization and its genesis see: Verene A. Shepherd & Glen L. Richards, eds.  Questioning Creole. Creolisation Discourses in Caribbean Culture, Kingston: Ian Randle Publishers, 2002

[74]  See C.L.R. James, Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution. New York: Vintage Books, Random House, 1963, [1938], and, Eric Williams, Capitalism and Slavery, Chapel Hill: University of Carolina Press, 1944.

[75]  In a lecture prepared for the Caribbean Conference on Culture (Jamaica, March 1996) entitled “CLR James and the Trinidad & Tobago Intellectual Tradition: Or Not Learning Shakespeare Under a Mango Tree” Selwyn R. Cudjoe acknowledges the “legacies of the 19th century intellectuals . . . [who] effect[ed] on his [CLR’s] intellectual development.” That article inspired me to use the flamboyant tree as a symbol for St. Martin’s intellectual achievements, both past and future.

[76]  See Kempf [2006: 152].

[77]  See Sekou [1990].

[78]  In the future country St. Martin, the Dutch spelling of the name will be discarded.

[79] Cf. http://www.usmonline.net. Retrieved on March 10, 2004.

[81] Jason Gordon, “Class of paradigms report from the Caribbean,” in Georges de Schrijver (ed.) Liberation Theologies on Shifting Grounds: a clash of socio‑economic and cultural paradigms (Leuven, B: Peeters, 1998) 365 [underlining mine].

[82] William G. Demas, “Change and Renewal in the Caribbean,” in David I. Mitchell (ed.) Challenges in the New Caribbean, (Barbados: CCC Publishing House, 1975) v.

[83] Cf. Encyclopedia international (1963) vol.4, 102.

[84] Idris Hamid (ed.), Out of The Depths, a collection of papers presented at four Missiology Conferences held in Antigua, Guyana, Jamaica and Trinidad in 1975, (Trinidad: Rahaman Printery Ltd., 1977) back‑cover.

[85] Cf. Kortright Davis, Mission For Caribbean Change: Caribbean Development as Theological Enterprise, (Frankfurt am Main, D: Peter Lang GmBH, 1982).

[86] Cf. Kortright Davis, Cross and crown in Barbados: Caribbean politics. Religion in the late 19th century, (Frankfurt am Main, D: Peter Lang Gmbh, 1983).

[87] Cf. Kortright Davis, Emancipation Still Comin’, Explorations in Caribbean Emancipatory Theology2, (Maryknoll, USA: Orbis Books, 1990).

[88] Cf. Gerald Boodoo, “Gospel and Culture in a Forced Theological Context,” in Caribbean Journal of Religious Studies, vol. 17, No. 2 (1996) 3‑19.

[89] Kortright Davis, Emancipation Still Comin’, 103.

[90] Kortright Davis, Emancipation Still Comin’, 71.

[91] Idris Hamid (ed.), Out of the Depths, VI.

[92] Idris Hamid (ed.), Out of the Depths, VI.

[93] Cf. Kortright Davis, Mission For Caribbean Change, 112.

[94] Kortright Davis, Emancipation Still Comin’, 91.

[95] Kortright Davis, Emancipation Still Comin’, 93.

[96] Gerald Boodoo, In Response To Adolfo Ham (1), in Howard Gregory (ed.), Caribbean Theology, Preparing for the Challenges Ahead, (Jamaica, Canoe Press, 1995) 7.

[97] Gerald Boodoo, “Gospel and Culture in a Forced Theological Context,” in Caribbean Journal of Religious Studies, vol. 17, No. 2 (1996) 11‑12.

[98] Gerald Boodoo, In Response To Adolfo Ham (1), 10‑11.

[99] Gerald Boodoo, “Gospel and Culture in a Forced Theological Context,” 16.

[100] Cf. Theresa Lowe‑Ching, “Method in Caribbean Theology,” in Howard Gregory (ed.), Caribbean Theology, Preparing for the Challenges Ahead, (Jamaica, Canoe Press, 1995) 23‑33.

[101] Hyacinth I. Boothe, A Theological Journey For An Emancipatory Theology, in Caribbean Journal of Religious Studies, 1 (1996) 20.

[102] Martin Shade, “Christ the Alpha and the Rasta: A Reflection On Christology Within The Emergence of Rastafari,” in Caribbean Journal of Religious Studies, vol. 17, No. 1 (1996) 59.

[103] Cf. Duncan Wielzen, Inculturatie van de Liturgie. Een kritische analyse van het gebruik van het sranan in het proces van surinamisering van de liturgie (Heerlen, NL: UTP MA dissertation, 1996).

[104] Cf. Duncan Wielzen, 66.

[105] Cf. Theresa Lowe‑Ching, 29.

[106] Idem.

[107] Milton George and Sergio Scatolini, “Thinking and talking about God-the-Father in the presence of Winti,” [Papers from the Sixth Caribbean Conference of Catholic Theologians], in Theology in the Caribbean Today, GOD THE FATHER, (1999) forthcoming.

[108] Bishop Anthony Dickson, Opening Address: Interpreting the Law in a Caribbean Context (Barbados: Canon Law Convention, October 1993) 2.

[109] Bishop Anthony Dickson, op. cit., 2.

[110] Milton A. George, Het Afro‑Caribische Concubinaat als Sacramentaal Partnerschap: pogingen naar een theologische en kerkrechtelijke herevaluatie en aanvaarding van het concubinaat bij de Afro‑Caribische bevolkingsgroepen [dissertation for the MA in Canon Law] (Leuven: 2001).

[111] Michael Lewis, Canonical Response to Common Law Unions or Faithful Concubinage (s.l.: s.n., s.d.) 1.

[112] “Gaudium et spes” in Austin Flannery (ed. General), Vatican Council II. The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents (Dublin: 1977) 950.

[113] Cf. H. Warnink, “Kerkjuridische visie op het huwelijk,” in Roger Burggraeve et al. (eds.), Levensrituelen: het huwelijk [Kadoc-Studies 24] (Leuven: 2000) 224.

[114] In fact, it is not marriage in general that is indissoluble, but a marriage that has been ratified and consummated (matrimonium ratum et consummatum, can. 1141).

[115] Can. 840.

[116] Cf. R. T. Smith, “Culture and Social Structure in the Caribbean: Some Recent Work on Family and Kinship Studies,” in M. Horowitz (ed.), Peoples and Cultures of the Caribbean (New York: 1971), 461.

[117] Cf. M. Horowitz, “A Decision Model of Conjugal Patterns in Martinique,” in M. Horowitz (ed.), op. cit., 477.

[118] Cf. E. Clarke, My Mother Who Fathered Me. Study of the Family in Three Selected Communities in Jamaica (London: 1979) 30.

[119] E. Clarke, My Mother Who Fathered Me. Study of the Family in Three Selected Communities in Jamaica (London: 1979) 30.

[120] Cf. Karel Choennie, Een pastoraaltheologische herwaardering van het Caribisch familiesysteem bij de volkscreolen in Paramaribo [STL‑dissertation] (Leuven: 1997) 33. R. Smith, Kinship and Class in the West Indies. A Genealogical Study of Jamaica and Guyana (Cambridge: 1988) 5‑7.

[121] That is why the persons involved are called in Suriname: buitenman (the out‑man) and buitenvrouw (the out‑woman).

[122] Gloria Cumper, Survey of Social Legislation in Jamaica [Law and Society in the Caribbean] (Jamaica: 21987) 16. In Suriname, the concubinage is also a social reality comparable to marriage, cf. W. Buschkens, Het familiesysteem der volkscreolen van Paramaribo [Proefschrift, Universiteit van Amsterdam] (Leiden: 1973) 175.

[123] Cf. Milton A. George, op. cit., 11-13.

[124] Cf. T. Simey, Welfare and Planning in the West Indies (London: 1947) 79; S. Keller, “Caraibische gezinstypen en hun toekomst in Nederland,” in R. De Moor (ed.), Huwelijk en gezin, Annalen van het Thijmgenootschap 73 (1985) 85‑112, esp. 87; and K. Choennie, op. cit., 100.

[125] E. Clarke, op. cit., p. 102.

[126] E. Clarke, op. cit, 102.

[127] Cf. E. clarke, op. cit., 104-105; and W. Buschkens, op. cit., 169.

[128] Cf. M.A. George, op.cit., 18-20; S. Gangaram-Panday, “Het concubinaat in het Surinaams recht,” in Surinaams Juristenblad (September, 1991) 14; and E. Clarke, op. cit., 108.

[129] O. Lewis, La Vida, London, 1969, 51.

[130] Cf. Marie Zimmerman, Couple Libre (Strasbourg: 1983) 36; see also J. Gaudemet, Le marriage en Occident (Paris:1987).

[131] Cf. E. Jonkers, Invloed van het Christendom op de Romeinse wetgeving betreffende het concubinaat en de echtscheiding (Wageningen: 1938) 5.

[132] Cf. M. George, op. cit., 33-34.

[133] Transl. “Should there be a man who has not got a wife, and has a concubine for wife, let him not be kept back from Communion ‑‑provided that he be contented in his union with one woman, be it either a wife or a concubine”. Gratian, D 34. c. 4; see also D. 34. c. 5; C. 32. q. 2. c. 11.; C. 32. q. 4. c. 9; M. Zimmerman, op. cit., 42; J. Brundage, Sexual Practices & the Medieval Church () 121.

[134] Cf. Documentos finales, Segunda conferencia general del episcopado Latinoamericano Medellín (1968) n. III. “Familia y demografía,” n. 1.

[135] Transl. “(...) we cannot ignore that a great number of families in our continent have not received the sacrament of marriage. Nonetheless, many of these families do live in certain unity, faithfulness and responsibility. This situation poses many theological questions and calls for an adequate pastoral accompaniment”. III Conferencia General Del Episcopado LatinoAmericano, Puebla, La Evangelization en el presente y en el futuro de Americana Latina, (1979) n. 578.

[136] Antilles Episcopal Conference, Pastoral Letter: Evangelizing Family Life For A New Caribbean, (1994) n. 5.

[137] Hermigild Dressler (ed.), The Fathers of the Church: Saint Caesarius of Arles. Sermons, vol. 1 (Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 1956) 212‑213.

[138] Cf. Ruud Huysmans, “Katholieke kerk en vrije verhoudingen ten opzichte van haar huwelijksrecht,” in Huwelijk en relatie, Rechtskundige Afdeling 9 (1983) 45.

[139] Cf. John Paul II, “Familiaris consortio,” in Origins 11 (1981) n. 81.

[140] Cf. B. Siegle, Marriage according to the New Code of Canon Law (New York: 1986) 93; E. Caparros, M. Theriault, J. Thorn (eds), Code of Canon Law Annotated (Montreal: 1993) 684; J. Beal, J. Corridon & J. Green (eds), New Commentary on the Code of Canon Law (New York: 2000) 1295.

[141] Catechism of the Catholic Church (London: 31994) n. 2390.

[142] Bishop Anthony Dickson, op. cit., 6.

[143] Cf. Leonardo Boff, Sacramenteel denken en leven (Averbode-Apeldoorn: 1983) 61.

[144] Cf. Vatican II, Sacrosanctum concilium [=SC], 59 and 60.

[145] Cf. Javier Otaduy, “Título II: De consuetudine,” in A. Marzoa, J. Miras & R. Rodríguez‑Ocaña (eds), Comentario exegético al código de derecho canónico, vol. 1 (Pamplona: 21997) 417‑418.

[146] Black Atlantic is a concept popularized by the social theorist Paul Gilroy, which emphasizes the importance of slavery and dehumanisation of Africans and their descendents in the development of occidental modernity. In addition, Gilroy argues that the mobility of black intellectuals (organic and academic) signal ways of understanding the continuing evolution of black cultural expressions beyond the narrow confines of exclusive racial, ethnic, and national boundaries. This essay, taking as point of departure members of the Afro-Caribbean working classes, seeks to complement and extend the critical work done by Paul Gilroy. See Gilroy, Paul. 1993. The Black Atlantic: modernity and double consciousness. London: Verso

[147] The question of church sponsorship is important, but exceeds the scope and thematic of this paper.

[148]Gordon, Shirley. 1998. Schools of the Free. In: Before & After 1865: education, politics, and regionalism in the Caribbean, eds. Brian Moore and Swithin Wilmot, 1-12. Kingston: Ian Randle Publishers. King, Ruby Hope. 1998. Education in late nineteenth-century Jamaica: the American Connection. . In: Before & After 1865: education, politics, and regionalism in the Caribbean, eds. Brian Moore and Swithin Wilmot, 13-22. Kingston: Ian Randle Publishers. Turner, Trevor. 1987. The Socialisation Intent in Colonial Jamaican Education, 1867-1911. In: Caribbean Journal of Education, Vol. 14 (1- 2): 50-83. For the Dutch West Indies, see Gobardhan-Rambocus, Sabitrie Lilawatie. 2001 Onderwijs als sleutel tot maatschappelijke vooruitgang: een taal en onderwijs geschiedenis. Van Suriname 1651-1975. Zutphen: Walburg Press. 

[149] Hall, Catherine. 2002. Civilising subjects: metropole and colony in the English imagination 1830-1876. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bacchus, M. Kassion. 1991. “Education in the Pre-Emancipation Period (with special reference to the colonies which later became British Guiana). In: Transition (18) pp.20-49. For the Dutch West Indies it is worth noting on that the historian Johan Hartog reported that, due to the influence of the missionaries, at the end of the nineteenth century one encountered in the Windward Islands the situation whereby black children could read and write whereas most of their white counterparts could not. Whites did not consider literacy of much consequence, relying on their economic and/or racial privilege. See Hartog, Johan. 1964. De Bovenwindse Eilanden: Sint Maarten, Saba, Sint Eustatius. Aruba: De Wit NV.  George, Milton. 2004. Transplanting catholic Education on Sint Maarten Soil: a research into the educational work of the Dominican sisters of Voorschoten on the island of Sint Maarten. Unpublished M.A. thesis at the Faculty of Psychology & Educational Sciences, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.

[150] For thorough studies on these “universalist blaks,” see Vergès, Françoise. 2001. Vertigo and Emancipation, Creole Cosmopolitanism and Cultural Politics. In: Theory, Culture & Society, Vol. 18 (2-3): 169-183. Van Enckevort, Maria. 2000. The Life and Work of Otto Huiswoud: Professional Revolutionary and Internationalist (1893 – 1961). Unpublished PhD thesis at the Department of History, Faculty of Arts, the University of the West Indies. Van Enckevort, Maria. 1998. Otto Huiswoud: political praxis and anti-imperialism. Unpublished paper presented at the conference “Caribbean Intellectual Tradition,” held at the University of the West Indies (Mona Campus). James, Winston. 1999. Holding Aloft the Banner of Ethiopia: Caribbean radicalism in Early Twentieth Century America. London: Verso.

[151] Dabydeen, David. 1999. A Harlots Progress. London: Jonathan Cape. Wright, Richard. A. 1998. Native Son. New York: Harper Perennial. Beecher Stowe, Harriet. 1996. Uncle Tom’s Cabin. New York: Random House Inc. Haley, Alex. 1976. Roots: the saga of an American Family. New York: DoubleDay.

[152] For a general theory on the rise and totalising impulse of consumer capitalisms see pages 13 to 100 in Baudrillard, Jean. 2001. Selected Writings. Cambridge: Polity Press. This reading has to be accompanied with writings of Caribbeanists that alert us to the continuing importance of production in the region. See for instance Henry, Paget. Caribbean Marxism: after the neoliberal and linguistic turn. In: New Caribbean Thought. A Reader. Eds. Brian Meeks & Folke Lindahl. Kingston: University of the West Indies Press, 325-354. 

[153] See Deflem, Mathieu. 2003. The Sociology of the Sociology of Money: Simmel and the contemporary battle of the classics. In: Journal of Classical Sociology, 3, (1) 67-96. 

[154] For thorough social scientific examinations of the manner in which black popular culture connects blacks in the various regions of the Black Atlantic see Gilroy, Paul. 1993. The Black Atlantic: modernity and double consciousness. London: Verso.  

[155] (Stuart Hall in Paul, 2005:2)