Clement Clementson, Contributor ONE ASPECT of our education system has been rightly likened to tiers of cake on a match-stick base. I wish to stretch this cake analogy to point out other weaknesses and suggest ways to provide better education at a lower monetary cost.
Strengthening the base does not necessarily mean spending more on infant schools. Much can be done at home: labelling items in the house; books with Aa apple (and an apple) , Bb - banana (and its picture, 1, 2etc., singing from a book while pointing out the words of the song.
Such simple things can help prepare literate and numerate children for primary school. Morality must be an important part of the base. A sense of purpose will build on the base.
SEEING SIMILARITIES
Cake alone is an unbalanced meal. School has been so involved in education that some people see schoolishness and call it education and miss much real education that is available cheaply outside of school radio, TV, newspapers, old people, farm, factory, office, building site, market, hospital.
Many don't see the links between 'cake world' and 'real world' (what happens inside and outside school).
They do not know that the 'vertical' and 'horizontal' they met in school are the 'plumb' and 'level' on the building site, or the 'straight up' and 'flat' on the farm.
Then the slices of the cake (the different subjects) are so separated in some minds that some who are good at music are frightened by numbers though music is so full of mathematics.
Does the average student see any similarity between the x and y axes in mathematics and the east-west, north-south in geography?
Some mathematics classes held at the building site and the builder's square and spirit level on the classroom walls and floor will help students see the relevance of the theoretical work, increase their interest and deepen their grasp of the subject. A 'square' corner is a right angle!
Cake misused is an obstacle to good nutrition, and a distortion of or misapplication of education is a tool for ignorance, injustice and other evils.
'UNKNOWN TONGUE'
Language is an important aspect of education and is meant for communication but as some people get more 'education' they become so steeped in technical jargon (or feel too exalted to use simple words) that they lose their ability to tell what they know to those who don't know.
The result? Knowledge useful to farmers, parents and others remains hidden in hard-to-understood documents; laws meant to be kept by everyone is written in an needing interpretation by lawyers; policies for the people's good and needing the people's understanding and cooperation are written down or proclaimed in 'primeministerial language'.
Related to this is the wedge which 'education' puts between the more schooled and the not-so-schooled.
NOT ALL FOR EVERYONE
A better-than-them air blows the more brainy ones from the communities and occupations that need them. Such 'education' produces some selfish progress but fails to unify people and build communities. Jamaican proverbs in the programme will help here.
Cake is not good for everyone. Some are allergic to flour or egg and some get diabetes and tooth decay because of the sugar.
Our education system is quite wasteful in trying to teach more or less the same thing to everybody when some have neither ability nor interest in or need for some subjects or topics.
Only a few need to know the mathematics, physics and chemistry behind cellular phones. The rest can assist and benefit from the technology by buying, selling, using the phones and cards and paying the taxes to educate students who can handle such technology.
Why waste powder or black birds? Pear for the cat, banana for the monkey.
Clement Clementson is a former high school teacher.
