WHEN FYAH FM 105 boss Ronald Sutherland said recently in a Rotary Club presentation, “I have seen kids at schools that I’ve taught… where the kid is very bright and pretends to be dunce, because he wants to fit in… the dominant culture is one of mediocrity, and it is worse that these schools have elements of violence in them,” he should have known that he would be pilloried by wide swathes of Jamaicans for uttering such an inconvenient truth.

When he went further and said the unforgivable: “One harsh fact is that bright kids and average kids learn differently and the system is organised for average students and our teachers are very average people, very rarely you find a very bright person end up in teaching,” he was setting up himself for a crucifixion.

He went on to explain that three decades ago and beyond, there were in fact bright people who got into teaching as a decisive career choice and did well at it, but since that time the picture has changed.

People are now into teaching because their academic qualifications from high school are ‘ordinary’ and the profession represents a meal ticket. The relatively few excellent teachers in the system are drowned out by the loud noise of mediocrity.

In the last few weeks I met a 20-year-old young woman who told me she was looking a job. I told her that jobs have disappeared into a black hole of radical change at the workplace. I asked her what could she offer a prospective employer. She said she had six subjects. Again I asked her what could she offer any company that would employ her. She seemed confused. I told her that I didn’t want to make any promises but I would ‘keep an eye out’.

A few days later she called me and asked me for $2,000 to assist in some matter to do with her hair. Then she sent me a form from a teachers’ college asking to sign as a referee. And by the way, her nickname of which she is quite proud is ‘Shameless’.

I told her that I needed to know more about her. In the conversation she told me that her older brother would be assisting her to pay for the three-year teaching course in English A. She told me the total cost was $200,000. When I pointed out to her that it would be $200,000 per year for the three years, she was genuinely surprised. How could she believe that it would be about $67,000 per year?

When I told her that there were no vacancies in the system for teachers, again she sounded nonplussed. Like most Jamaicans, she doesn’t read and doesn’t seem too anxious in gathering knowledge, either for the sheer fun of it or because it will assist in her future development. Would she make a good teacher?

Quite likely, no.

On the matter of very bright students, it is quite foolish to believe that mixing ‘average’ students with ‘very bright’ bordering on genius students does anyone of them justice.

In that scenario let us assume the teacher is ‘above average’ or bright. Such a teacher would be naturally and professionally drawn to the brighter students and may be tempted to teach at that level, leaving the average student behind at almost every step of the way. When the teacher recognises that she is doing a disservice to the ‘average’ students, she slows down and, in time, the bright students get bored and fall behind.

It is a fallacy to believe that average students are pulled up when mixing them with near geniuses. It is the geniuses of this world who are the cutting-edge scientists, the inventors and the innovators. Sure, there will be need for ditch diggers and journalists but we must focus on bringing out the best in our brighter students by singling them out and pairing them with teachers whose brain activity is a synch with their own.

When Sutherland said: “Every single effort that could be made to support the weakest kids in the schools are made and so we have this thing called a remedial class. We tend to focus on the weaker ones, and I don’t know of any school that thinks about the gifted and, for the most part, people believe that it is a risk that we can run because since they are bright they will get by anyway; but that is absolutely not true,” he was definitely citing the way the system was set up to reflect mediocrity.

The brightest teachers in too many government schools are often hounded out, and worse, competent and highly innovative teaching administrators are driven to the wall by the large mass of mediocre teachers and school boards, many of which are fiefdoms for the sake of holding power.

But quite apart from teachers and students, too many of those in the wider society, especially the man at street level, are in a big love affair with mediocrity and it is difficult for others to convince them that there is a direct correlation between mediocrity and generational poverty.

The politicians will not say it because they will be voted out. The bright teachers are afraid of rocking the boat because they will be pushed out and away.

In the process, the bright students sit in the classroom, get bored and in a few years the country loses another shot at inventiveness and innovation.

You stirred up an ant’s nest, Mr Sutherland, but maybe some of the important policymakers will get bitten.

There was nothing ‘ordinary’ or mediocre about Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. Indeed, not even university could hold them. Unfortunately, our brightest minds live in the lands of these giants because the Jamaican society is quite hostile to brightness, effective learning, inventiveness and innovation.

Portia will not shuffle her Cabinet

Mr Chris Zacca, president of the powerful PSOJ, just doesn’t get it. He wants PM Portia Simpson Miller to shuffle out some of her Cabinet members from their powerful jobs.

Surely Mr Zacca ought to know that party politics operates on a reward system. Many votes, numerous wins at the polls and one is entitled to the position. Simpson Miller is herself trapped in a system that was there long ago and one can hardly see her as political innovator setting out to shed dead weight in the Cabinet.

The PSOJ president mentioned just four members of the Cabinet who were performers — the PM herself, Finance Minister Peter Phillips, Justice Minister Mark Golding and the late Roger Clarke of the agriculture ministry.

One can almost hear the whoosh of the vacuum. No other names? Does this translate to non- performance or under- performance?

What about Minister of Transport and Works, Omar Davies? Is he an underperformer? What about Health Minister Fenton Ferguson? Where on the performance roster does he stand?

What about the highly overrated Anthony Hylton, Mr Talk in the Investment, Industry and Commerce Ministry?

There is no mention of Minister Phillip Paulwell after the rug was pulled out from under him in the failed 380-Megawatt gas-fired generation system.

Knowing that each minister in his post has been able to convince himself that he is firing on all cylinders, is it likely that the prime minister will take heed of the words of the powerful Mr Chris Zacca?

I think not. The prime minister has other more matters. She has a plane to catch.

What will the JLP conference be like?

When Portia Simpson issued a challenge to PJ Patterson at the beginning of the 1990s, although Simpson Miller was more popular than PJ among the general population, the PNP delegates voted for PJ and the PNP, dusted off itself and won another term in 1993.

In 2006 when Simpson Miller won, there was something simmering and she took too much on herself as the face of the PNP, it lost the 2007 elections. In 2008 Phillips challenged again, the PNP dusted off itself and kept any overhang of disunity in check.

The PNP won the 2011 elections.

In all the years when JLP leader Eddie Seaga led his party as a disunited entity, it could not win an election.

Andrew Holness has all of that history at his disposal and he has embraced disunity in his belief that those on the slate of losers who had challenged him must make space for others of his own choice. Some people just don’t learn.

One JLP caretaker called me and said, “All of us are just going out there as individuals to try to win our seats. At party central few of us know what is happening.”

When I asked him about the upcoming conference later this year he said, “I don’t even know where the funding will come from.”

When I spoke to JLP chairman Bobby Montague he said: “We will be having our annual conference as usual and we will be presenting a full slate of candidates to meet with any election that the PNP may be tempted to call.”

A JLP insider has told me that the perennial PNP powerhouse has had a number of constituency polls done in 17 of those known as swing constituencies and those polls are quite unflattering to the PNP. “Are they flattering to the JLP?” I asked.

“Let me just say that we inside the JLP will not be taking anything for granted. If the touted economic gains continue to elude the little man and woman on the street and, micro business continues to struggle with slow sales, the PNP may be tempted to do a snap election on us because it might think we are not ready. That would totally destroy us if we are not ready. It would also place Andrew Holness in a deep, dark place.”

I am accepting JLP Chairman Bobby Montague’s word that the JLP will be having its conference and as a first, the obvious, that it will be adequately funded.

I am not, however, sensing any great energy for any of the two political parties. Whenever that happens, the party in power tends to have the advantage.

Is it likely that we will be seeing much more of the same?

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