A close acquaintance of mine is the only Jamaican I have encountered who is totally in favour of the Iraq war. His instant solution is just to bomb the hell out of the Iraqis and "flatten the place". It is the only way as he sees it to "deal with those people".

Geof Brown

He rejects the plea to understand that extremists, whether or not for a worthy cause, do not represent the majority of any racial or religious grouping of a society.

Given the stereotyping that lumps all persons of similar background into one-size-fits-all, my acquaintance would perhaps be shocked to know that I am dealing closely with "those people". But that is indeed exactly what I am doing as I write this article in Dallas, Texas, USA.

The Muslim communities in Houston, Dallas, Chicago and Atlanta, are a part of "those people" whose educational programmes for young children now claim my attention. By way of explanation, my wife Janet and I are on a joint consultancy funded by the Aga Khan Foundation, to assess the effectiveness of Early Childhood Education programmes in the four cities.

Our combined expertise was previously used to assess similar programmes in Muslim communities in the East African countries of Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. What we have found in all of those programmes is that they are outstanding models of effectiveness from which Jamaica, not to mention the rest of the Western world, could learn a great deal. "Those people" have developed approaches that put many of our own Early Childhood programmes to shame.

Picture programmes which have children leaving kindergarten levels for the regular public school system in the US, performing beyond Grade One level, leaving public school teachers in amazement. Picture children at pre-school kindergarten levels rattling off geometric terms like "parallelograms" and "trapezoids", and knowing fully what those terms mean. And picture pre-school infants at home correcting the faulty grammar of their parents and having those very parents confessing that they are learning much from their children.

And picture those infants using mouse and keyboards on the computer with such easy facility that computer near-illiterates like me simply stare in awe. You now have a tiny sample of the work of the "Learning Centres for Parents and Children (LCPC)" operating in the various Muslim pre-school education centres that we are currently evaluating.

How do they do it? The term "LCPC" partly reveals the method of approach. For parents and children literally learn together. In traditional Muslim manner, children sit cross-legged on mats on the floor while their parents sit immediately behind them, both facing the teacher. Usually the parent is the mother, but sometimes the father or a parental substitute. The "teaching" is not a formal process.

Rather, the teacher guides the children in the use of hands-on materials, which are used to illustrate the learning concepts. These are introduced in the form of games and songs, so that the learning is incidental and painless. It was most enlightening to watch three to five year-olds learning mathematics through games, virtually guaranteeing future love of a subject so dreaded in our own culture's formal teaching approach.

But these learning sessions are only two-and-a-half to three hours once a week. They are usually held in the evening or on Saturday morning to facilitate working parents. The strong point of the learning process is that parents and children take home the learning materials to continue the learning at home using the same techniques of the teacher-guide.

This is thus pleasurable "homework" which involves both parents and perhaps older siblings. Children cry if they are kept home from the school. Parents and children beg to cut out holidays. Many of the learning materials in the form of toys and miniatures are either cheaply bought in "dollar stores" or created by parents and teachers themselves. Informed readers will recognise that the Montessori education method is integral here.

Most striking is the incredible fact that all the management and staff are volunteers! In the Muslim communities, "those people" hold that it is their sacred duty to "give back" as they put it. This means more than the dutiful giving of one-eighth of their income. It means giving of their time and expertise. The volunteers in the LCPC programmes hold full-time jobs or are retired people or housewives.

Their dedication and commitment, which involve a great deal of lengthy hours, are viewed as a return to their communities of their own blessings and fortunes. In the process, they receive much psychic satisfaction in serving others. One can't help wondering how my friend, who would wish to eliminate all "those people", will view their excellent examples for the benefit of our children and our society.

geofbrown@cwjamaica.com or browngeof@hotmail.com

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