Bravo! Bravo! Bravo! Calabar
LAST week our daily newspapers carried the news that Calabar, through its principal, Albert Corcho, supported by the school board had expelled eight students.
The expulsion of the eight students happened after boys at the institution were arrested for the alleged beating and robbery of a Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) bus driver.
Mr Corcho indicated that of the eight students expelled only three were connected to the incident involving the driver. The others were expelled for breaching other aspects of the school’s rules. Oftentimes such tough-love actions are necessary to jolt youngsters back onto the right track.
In Jamaica today, such action requires tremendous conviction, courage and strength of character. It seems that there is new thinking at Calabar, and that Mr Corcho and the rest of the leadership have decided to attempt to lift the institution out of the quagmire into which it seems to have fallen, they deserce commendations.
It is alleged that now, sports trumps all at this high school sports powerhouse. Though they boast such a rich history of all-round achievement, it appears that academic standards have all but been forgotten. In a recent academic ranking of secondary schools, based on CSEC English and mathematics, Calabar was numbered among the lowest placed of the so-called traditional high schools.
I remember Calabar producing academically brilliant young gentlemen, with two such coming to sixth form at St George’s College during my time. One went on to get the Jamaica Scholarship and the other became an outstanding engineer. The story goes that when the StGC principal saw the impressive sports credentials of the potential engineer, he suggested that maybe the halls of the white and blue were not the best place for him, since sports had a very low rating there.
It will be very difficult to raise the academic/technical level of the school, but instilling discipline is a necessary first step. I hope Mr Corcho and the rest of the leadership at Calabar have the fortitude and endurance to stay the course and will be able to put sports in its proper perspective — within the educational framework of high school at Calabar. It would be in the best interest of our children, and Jamaica, and we would still produce our world beaters in sports.
Research discloses that too much time is spent by our teachers dealing with non-instructional activities like discipline. Using sports in its rightful role — as a teaching tool for a larger number of students, as a teaching aid in the high school educational setting — can be most beneficial in helping the authorities to bring about the turnaround desired at Calabar and elsewhere. Through sports, one can readily capture the imagination of youngsters, which can prove a much more difficult task in the classroom. Having their attention, one can more easily teach traits that are transferable to other areas of their lives, including academics. These characteristics involve the behavioural, emotional, social, and technical aspects of sports and include self-discipline, delaying gratification, resilience, goal-setting, conflict resolution, critical thinking, and a host of other life skills, especially non-cognitive (not related to IQ) skills. Research strongly suggests that non-cognitive skills, like persistence, grit, curiosity, conscientiousness and self-confidence, are more crucial than sheer brainpower to achieving success. Non-cognitive skills affect education, employment, earnings, crime, and corruption (Heckman et al). IQ is not destiny….character is.
However, the transference of these life skills to other areas, does not happen automatically for most children, but must be taught. Few activities are more important to the society than the proper socialisation of our youth. Winning at sports, although a most commendable achievement, is not of paramount importance at the high school level. Hence the need for a change in emphasis, a different focus for sports in our high schools which recognise and accept the key role it can play in helping to socialise our young citizens. This would help to temper and control the highly charged and intensely competitive model for sports which is now dominant in our schools and which has become counterproductive in terms of the socialisation of our youngsters.
Now, schools focus almost exclusively on the technical aspects of sports, to the detriment of the other dimensions. We must start according equal importance to the other aspects of sports in school. Our schools are not sports academies. With the economic value of sports and high level of professionalism in sports, our schools can no longer efficiently or effectively perform the all encompassing sports role they used to without negatively affecting our education and socialisation. Our schools need to be cognizant of what a vice-principal of ISSA, Keith Wellington, proclaimed in an interview with Caribbean Intelligence: “We are not the youth arm of the national sporting bodies. We are schools who organise co-curricular activities.”
One of the negatives our present model has spawned and/or exacerbated is the practice of our high schools recruiting youngsters for sports purposes in an attempt to win at all cost. The ill consequences associated with this practice far outweigh the proclaimed benefits.
In the last few decades, psychologists and neuroscientists have discovered that character is developed by encountering and overcoming failure. Sports can help youngsters, stars and duds alike, turn obstacles into character-enhancing triumphs. Sport, as a microcosm of life has many teachable moments; and this, along with the passion and love that it generates, is what helps to make it the powerful transformational tool that it is. Youngsters won’t readily walk away from their love and will therefore put much more effort into making the changes necessary to keep them in the fray. Hence, this presents a tremendous opportunity to effect pro-social changes which will redound to the benefit of our young citizens and Jamaica.
The opportunity is even greater since many youngsters who are talented in sports are challenged in other areas, and so sports presents a bridge that makes them more reachable, more trainable, more redeemable, more controllable, and can help to make them more useful, productive citizens.
I hope that a number of other schools will take a leaf out of Calabar’s book and start making some of the hard but necessary decisions, if we are to stop the rot in our education/socialisation system.
Dr. Lascelve “Muggy” Graham is a former Jamaica football captain.