Educational Coaching

Over the past week the quality of education has taken center stage in the Jamaican media, with the Minister, Andrew Holness chiding elementary/ primary school teachers for the general ill-preparedness of students for secondary schools.This news comes at the dawn of Jamaica’s presentation of a status report on its achievements towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

MDGs

The Minister’s chiding must come as a surprise to many educators and Jamaicans generally, who have been convinced since the 1980s, when I was a child and growing up, that our education system was superior to even the US. I grew up thinking that there was nowhere around the world where I could get better–a long standing misconception stimulated by the so-called universal elementary access. That was such a Big joke that almost 30 years later we are caught running with our tails between our legs and the dear Minister scrambling to modernize the system that has doomed so many youth.

Before proceeding with my article, I feel it important to articulate my background in education, as it will help you to better understand where my views on this matter are coming from. I am a third generation educator, sprung from a grand mother, mother and aunts who are trained and practiced Jamaican educators. Aside from Jamaica’s so-called universal access, I have always been (un)fortunate to have a household of educators whose interest was tied up with me believing the fabled best quality education. It did not take me long to unravel the myth–as soon as I commenced secondary level education I began to see more clearly–educational success was for the socially privileged, and many of us who dared to make ourselves an anomaly by being too bright, faced the humiliation of teachers  or the lack of will from parents.

I always wondered why my mother never attempted to help me with math–”I never went to high school,” “I didn’t do CXC math,” she would say. Let me tell you, it was disappointing to hear my mother give these excuses–after all, I was a child who was half her age, with no experience other than primary school and I was able to clear the ominous mathematical clouds, yet she, with her experience preparing youth up to grade six was fearful of helping me. I later found out that like so many others, she was a victim of an education system that instilled fear and crippled our people with low confidence, which made them unwilling to try.

So you can imagine that the latest move by the new Minister, in chiding educators, came like music to my ears. “Finally,” I said, “someone at policy level has begun to see more clearly.” But, on closer scrutiny, I realized that the Minister wants to see significant improvements in the education system, while ignoring the need for wider social changes. From the Minister’s statements, captured across the print and electronic media, he espouses that schools, although miniatures of the society, should not reflect its ills. They should therefore be exemplary– a lighthouse in a foggy dawn. Schools are therefore miniatures of what our society ought to be.

Social Stratification

At a press conference at Jessie Rippol Primary, the Minister proposed that those students who are not found to be academically inclined should be placed in schools to promote skills development. This functionalist sees social stratification as normal and natural, modernizing it as a means for ensuring that ‘the most talented and able members of society are allocated to those positions that are functionally most important for our society.’ Education is then the ‘providing ground for ability and hence the selective agency for placing people in different statuses according to their capacities.’ (Haralambos & Holborn, 2000).

Despite the need to keep stratification in tact, the Minister has a desire to reflect the liberal ideals of a progressive education system, which serves the needs of the people and fulfill the expectations of a modern democracy, especially under the watchful eye of the UN. For me it’s like playing with a three card man–there’s no way to win, as a progressive education system is the antithesis of social stratification, which the Minister will retain with his proposed screening system. A word of mouth liberal and die hard functionalist, his arguments are indicative of an ideal in which schools function like the future society–the place of choice to live, work, raise families and do business, and where all the social classes accept and are satisfied with where they are placed.

While the Minister acknowledges, through his delivery of Grades F to various schools, that the hidden curriculum contributes to failings, he does not seek to examine the hidden curriculum as something that is functional to society–a covert contract handed down from the society to maintain stratification and the status quo. He proposes that we execute individual assessment of schools and teachers, which inevitably labels them the culprits of failure, rather than the society that infiltrated and intimidated them with its own hidden code on the treatment of people of specific social classes.

I therefore extend a word of caution to the Minister–the whole is the sum of its parts. The education system is merely one part of the whole, which reflects and maintains all the ills that exist within our society–class and colour prejudice and privileging, abuse, crime and violence, self-hate and skin bleaching, and expectations of failure. To change the education system we must change our society, because it is the whole that influences its parts. We therefore need a multisectoral approach involving private, public, and community entities that are committed to and supportive of wider social changes.

Article Review: Body Image, Physical Beauty and Colour Among Jamaican Adolescents- Errol Miller (from Caribbean Sociology)

Introduction:

Miller’s article provides a report on the findings of a research conducted with urban adolescent Jamaicans on how they perceive their bodies and conceive of physical beauty in relation to their actual skin colour. Miller noted that historically in the Jamaican society, “…colour has been an important determinant of social niche, economic status and personal worth … for practically all of its history. Whiteness has become associated with the desirable and Blackness with the undesirable”.

Reports/ Evidence of Colour Discrimination in Jamaica:

In the 1940s Kerr wrote:

In Jamaica there is no colour bar and theoretically  any man of colour can go anywhere. But the Government is a white man’s Government and white people still have most of the positions of heads of departments and own much of the business enterprises. Most of these people would definitely not meet the coloured people on terms of equality. This means that there always exists the possibility of discrimination both in regard to jobs and personal snubs. The shops even prefer to have lightly coloured girls as assistants and advertise openly for them. The better positions in banks go to white people; therefore people feel the lighter the skin colour the better their chances of success.

Henriques also wrote on the matter in the 1940s:

The upper class is composed of whites and fair coloured people who monopolize  executive positions in the civil service, such positions as planters and the professions generally. He further claimed that although a black doctor may have the occupational qualification to be a member of the upper class he would not be accepted as such because of his colour.

However by the 1970s Miller argued that:

At the present time the Government could not be described as a white man’s Government, neither are the heads of Government departments mainly white people, nor do shops openly advertise for light coloured girls. In fact, pressure is brought to bear on private enterprise to employ black people in the better positions. The claim of racial equality is publicly accepted . However the situation at present is not a complete reversal of the 1940s trends. Economic power still resides to a great extent with the white and fair  groups and individuals within these groups do not generally accept black people as equals.

Main Research Questions:

1. How do maturing members of the society (in and around 1970) who have been forming their personalities perceive their bodies and physical beauty in relation to their skin colour?
2. Is there still (in and around 1970) a preference for whiteness and Caucasian features as reported by Kerr and Henriques of the 1940s?
3. How do Chinese adolescents who have been maturing (between the 1950s and 1970) view their bodies and conceive of their physical beauty?

Specific Research Questions:

1. What do you like about your body?
2. What do you dislike about your body?
3. What parts of your body would you change if it were possible?
4. Describe your idea of a handsome boy
5. Describe your idea of a beautiful girl
6. Describe what the average Jamaican looks like

Research Participants Classification:

The 475 secondary school students age 11 to 15 years who were born between 1951 and 1955 were classified into two groups:

1. The White to Black colour continuum, which comprised of six different shades (white, fair, clear, brown, dark, and black) and
2. The Chinese, Indians and hybrids of unions with Negroes

Core Characteristics of Body Image:

The features of body image were classified into three distinct categories: hair and facial features, body build, and general features and strength.

Research Findings:

• Facial and body build features are the most important ones of the body image
• Facial features appear to be cathected in a manner that is related to the colour of the subjects
• The colour relationship was not very evident when subjects were reporting satisfaction, but was most evident when they were reporting dissatisfaction and intense dissatisfaction
• White and Chinese subjects expressed relatively more satisfaction with hair than all others. Only a small amount of dissatisfaction was expressed by the fair group. However, dissatisfaction and intense dissatisfaction with hair increased  as the Black end of the colour continuum was reached
• The subjects having Caucasian hair type were satisfied with it, while those with Negroid hair were dissatisfied
• No white subject reported intense dissatisfaction with nose, while the highest percentages of intense dissatisfaction were reported by the dark and black subjects. The former group was expected to have straight noses, while the latter was not expected to have this feature. Cathexis of nose depends on the closeness of subjects’ nose to Caucasian standards
• The Chinese group responded in a manner similar to the white group about the matter of hair
• In the case of nose, however, the Chinese subjects reported in a manner similar to the darker groups. Chinese subjects cathect themselves within the same frame of reference as the subjects to the White Black colour continuum. Where typical Chinese features approach closely to Caucasian features, subjects cathect themselves positively, but where they differ they cathect themselves negatively
  
• Lips and colour were not frequently reported on by the subjects, but dissatisfaction with these features was only reported by the brown, dark, and black subjects
• Although these adolescents have been growing up at a time in the society when public attitudes are not discriminatory and in fact actively support the idea of the ‘equality of the races’, they still associate Caucasian features with the desirable and the Negroid features with the undesirable
• The six features that were the most popular markers of a handsome boy by 20 percent of the subjects across the seven colour groups were: hair, nose, colour, height, face, and physique
• Five features were common amongst 20 percent of the subjects from all seven colour groups about conceptions of a beautiful girl: hair, nose, face, shape, and eyes
• The average Jamaican described by subjects is basically Negroid in character, which is inferred from the description of hair, mouth, lips, colour, and physique. This is not surprising in light of the fact that approximately 90 percent of the population is of Negro origin
• The concept of the average Jamaican is very far removed from the concept of the handsome boy or beautiful girl. The six most frequently mentioned features used to describe the average Jamaican are the same as for the handsome boy. The average Jamaican is described as: Hair- bad, woolly, kinky, course; Nose- flat, big; Face- average; Colour-dark, brown; Height- medium, tall; Physique- well built, stout. The ideal handsome boy is described as: Hair- blonde, good, straight, wavy; Nose- straight; Face- good looking; Colour- fair, clear; Height- tall, medium; Physique- well built, good.
• The generalisation which it seems reasonable to make is that the average Jamaican is negatively conceptualised in facial features and colour, but positively conceptualised in terms of body build. Interpreted another way, one may say that the stereotype of the Negro is partially undesirable. It is undesirable in colour and facial features and desirable in body build
• The idea of the partial negativity of the concept of the average Jamaican is supported when the miscellaneous comments of the subjects were examined. These include: fools, vicious, crude, hooligans, illiterates, senseless and hideous, monkeys, dogs, dirty and childish, idiots and lazy.
• Both the physical description of the concept and general comments on personality and behaviour of the average Jamaican seem to indicate that it is more negative than positive
• Beauty is associated with Caucasian features and ugliness with Negroid features
• The subjects were growing up at a time when racial equality is extolled, yet their concept of beauty is to a great extent congruent with the ideas of beauty reported by Henriques and Kerr of the 1940s when colour discrimination was commonly evidenced
• White is not the ideal colour, as one would predict, but instead, Fair and Clear
• Although public attitudes are not at present discriminatory, the individual’s private conception of his body reflects a preference for Caucasian type features. Since the majority of subjects are Negroes or of Negro extraction, it is apparent that there is widespread dissatisfaction with such physical features as hair and nose
• The most important features of the body image are of two types: Racial features- hair, nose, colour, and eyes; and Developmental features- hands, legs, toes, and feet.

Miller’s findings support the rationals given by individuals who practice skin lightening in Jamaica that, “Perceptions of Beauty and Colour Privileging are the Root Causes of the Practice”. Although there is need to attend to the issue as a medical condition that can cost Jamaica millions, we should also take a comprehensive look at addressing the root causes.