The weight of learning

Jean Antoine-Dunne writes a weekly column for the Newsday. 

On Wednesday, newspapers reported that the Minister of Education was seeking to reduce the number of books carried by pupils and also the number of female teachers in primary schools, for practical reasons – apparently.

Minister Garcia feels that only one book per subject is enough. Books should be replaced by teaching time. Carrying too many books causes physical stress. Also, having an imbalanced number of female teachers is the cause of at least some of the ills in our society. This is so in particular when boys are brought up in family homes headed by women. Boys need positive male role models.

Now why are there more female teachers than male? Women, who are often excluded from competitive business, often choose to teach. And those long August holidays and Christmas break are a Godsend. These compensate for the relatively low wages. It also means that they are in the running for advancement in their careers, despite the fact that they are mothers.

Teaching is notoriously a badly paid job. I still remember what my salary was when I first entered the teaching profession.

Why do men not choose to become teachers? There are two reasons: the first is that they prefer more lucrative positions. The second is that all over the world women are placing greater value on education than their male counterparts. And to become a teacher one needs to be educated. It is a sad fact that women are better students in this day and age and are more dedicated to achieving and more consistent in their approach to education. Women also tend to be better readers.

As a teacher of literature and as a lecturer in West Indian Literature at UWI, I often found myself teaching the future teachers of literature in our schools. The sad fact is that many students did not like to read. In fact I recall overhearing a conversation between two of my final-year students who felt that they could pass a literature exam without having read the books. Is this possible? Well, there is always the internet, which gives excellent glosses of texts. Now, if teachers do not read, which means they do not love reading, how are they going to interact with students and what exactly is the knowledge they will impart in lieu of books they have not read?

Do books matter? I can see why we might need only one geography, mathematics or history book at primary level, but what about learning the basic skills of reading and comprehension, analysis and critical thinking?

But the more important fact is the message that the Minister is conveying. Books “weigh” down the child. Time is better spent in being taught, than in finding knowledge for one self. Minister Garcia obviously did not intend any correlation between female teachers, weighty books and poor mentorship, but some wicked mind might create a link and suggest that the hidden meaning is that female teachers do not know how to teach and force their students to learn by reading and as a result of their poor teaching the men in our society are no longer what they once were.

The study of literature is no longer compulsory at second level in our schools, so someone somewhere along the line felt that literature was simply not an essential part of education. But how does one learn to understand words and their multiple meanings and messages without the study of many different books at an early age?

Of course it is important not to place too much weight on the shoulders of our students, they who are already burdened by the weight of mobile phones and computers, but is it really wise?

Would the Minister also consider banning the use of mobile phones and iPads in schools, as has recently occurred in France as a “public health message?”

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"The weight of learning"

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