When we speak of education, we have in mind a number of developmental activities linked to institutions and society designed to expose clients to greater knowledge, skills and understanding to enable them to be better human beings, contribute to society's culture and well-being, and provide the strategies necessary to process our experiences and make sense of our environment and the world.
Education is also about thinking creatively, knowing how things connect and influence each other, having a subject base from which we can draw to provide a perspective, and from which we can build on existing knowledge. It is about the search for truth through evidence and having an open mind subject to change when new evidence is presented. Our acquired knowledge has to be refined when faced with practical situations, and we should operate from an ethical framework so that we ensure no harm is done as we process everyday reality.
But the concept of education presented here seems uncomplicated and this is because education is an uncomplicated enterprise. Surprised? You may be, because education as it is practiced in the Caribbean is actually a mixed-up business. My attention was recently drawn to a brilliant commentary in Caribbean News Now by Eve George who speaks about moral decline in her country, examines the social and moral issues and mentions the need to practice decent values, morals and proper living. But is this not what education should be doing as a priority?
Instead, throughout our region education is all mixed-up, so that values, what it is to be really human, our obligations to ourselves and society, are not given the recognition and attention they should by our educational and other public institutions. It means a comprehensive effort should be engaged in to change Caribbean psychology, so that we process and act out our experiences through gentleness, kindness and thoughtfulness. Instead we concentrate on irrelevant education, which does not address our real issues.
Our education is a mish-mash of subjects with no relation to each other and the real world. It consists in most cases of groups of courses with meaningless credits and hours attached to them, divided into semesters with a credential at the end with little meaning or purpose, instead of real programs that meet the needs of clients and the institutions that deliver them. This is the mix-up. Intentions are mixed up, and so are the philosophies of education, the methodologies that deliver them and the thinking and management theories that produce them. Clarity of goals is therefore required.
Our technical and scientific education do not prepare us to think anew and in multiple ways about what is before us and build novel innovations. Our arts and education programs do not encourage creativity, intellectual exploration or teach students to doubt and critique what is presented to them. Instead, education consists of banking information, which in turn is deposited to students, who return it to educators as essays or research papers. But many research papers in the arts and education are guided along a paradigm which is a disincentive to forging what is new and different and contributing to new knowledge.
Staecha Goulbourne in a recent piece in the Jamaica Observer notes how the educational establishment continues to advocate the use of technology and modern teaching styles, but does not provide the tools and equipment the responsibilities entail. Is this a mismatch, and a mix-up where the need is identified, but not realized, and intentions are outmatched by reality? What about innovations on the teacher's part, and the fostering of creativity and flexibility, which exposure to an educational program should be about? Could the teacher have been more enterprising and done more?
Goulbourne further mentions the multiple tasks to be performed, deadline pressures, fixed schedules, and stresses the importance of teachers-in-training getting to know the profession, the roles and responsibilities entrusted to them, and seeing teaching as more than planning lessons and teaching them. The question is, was this teacher professionally prepared for the total job of teaching? What she mentions are actually issues in educational management, and this should have been integral to the professional program. Her difficulties would then have been minimized. Is there a mix-up and mismatch then between what is left out, and what is done? Should not the two be reconciled?
She then stresses the need for institutions to do more to assist student teachers in managing emotional stress, and for students entering the profession to know the real truth about the job for which they will be trained. For me, this is a significant observation. Student teachers need an onboarding program where they are sensitized to what the profession is about, its philosophies and strategies, what is required of them and the kind of educational management tools they need to navigate through the issues successfully as well as knowledge of what constitutes successful teaching. She also notes there is too much emphasis on the instructional approach. What about more attention to the academic subjects that should be in the program?
I get the impression in reading aspects of the Goulbourne article that to avoid mix-ups and mismatches in education, a thorough study is required concerning the purpose, point and philosophy of teacher education. It has to be determined by an educational management expert whether the extra multiple tasks to be performed could not be further refined and replaced by a more effective and accountable system.
Critical questions also need to be asked concerning what the education enterprise should really be about, and how it could be better streamlined to be made fit for purpose without mismatches, mishaps or mix-ups.
o Oliver Mills is a former lecturer of education at the University of the West Indies Mona Campus. He holds an M.Ed degree from Dalhousie University in Canada, an MA from the University of London and a post-graduate diploma in HRM and training, University of Leicester. He is a past permanent secretary in education with the government of the Turks and Caicos Islands. Published with the permission of Caribbean News Now.
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