As a former secondary mathematics teacher I am alarmed and disappointed by the level of disrespect that some secondary school students are displaying toward their teachers and their peers. There are many factors in the education system impacting teachers mentally, emotionally, and professionally.

Firstly, the class sizes are large and the teachers are required to facilitate learning for students with varied attitudes towards learning, learning styles, abilities, and competencies, and from varying socio-economic backgrounds. Additionally, there is a lack of resources in schools.

The workload for teachers seems to have increased as they try to make up for the learning loss that many students experienced during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic over a two-year period. As a result, the teachers can easily become burnt out. Their threshold for dealing with students’ insolence, provocation, and indiscipline becomes lowered, and in the moment they fail to react in a professional manner.

It is to be noted that I am not condoning any teacher’s rash or inappropriate reaction; however, I question whether those in authority are setting good examples for our students. I recall seeing a video clip of Everald Warmington, a Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) Member of Parliament, criticising Bruce Golding, a former prime minister of Jamaica and member of the JLP, for comments he (Golding) made in response to financial matters that were exposed in the media. To my mind, Warmington was very disrespectful in his words, tone, and mannerism. Did he set a good example of how to react when other people’s opinions do not reflect your own? What perceptions can students form of such behaviour?

In transforming the education system in Jamaica, among the objectives, as described in the National Standards (Mathematics) Curriculum (NSC), are to develop students’ critical, creative, and problem-solving thinking skills. In recent times, and particulary in this 21st century, it is important for the citizenry of any country to have critical-thinking skills and other higher-level thinking skills to facilitate the country’s social, moral, and economic growth.

What exactly is critical thinking?

Critical thinking may be defined as the use of intellectual tools, such as concepts and principles, to analyse, assess, and improve thinking. With these tools, individuals can develop intellectual virtues of integrity, humility, civility, empathy, and confidence. In other words, critical thinking guides behaviour and reasoning. It enables one to think for himself/herself; assess arguments; identify conclusions, reasons, and assumptions; and be open-minded. With such skills, people are tolerant of other people’s opinions and will seek to ask appropriate clarifying questions respectfully.

How then can teachers and schools facilitate these kinds of thinking skills for their students who will eventually graduate to the work world?

In the March 22, 2021 edition of the Education Week magazine, educator Larry Ferlazzo penned a few strategies, some of which I will share. These include:

• Development of students’ self-esteem: The aim must be to raise students’ self-esteem. To do this, teachers demonstrate that effort, not ability, leads to success. The language and interactions in the classroom, therefore, have to be aspirational — that if learners persist with something, they will achieve.

• Use of evaluative praise: Make explicit what the student has done well and where that links to prior learning. Praise their thinking and demonstrate how it helps them improve their learning.

• Learning conversations to encourage deeper thinking: Encourage students in your class to engage in learning conversations with each other. Give as many opportunities as possible to students to build on the responses of others. Facilitate chains of dialogue by inviting students to give feedback to each other. The teacher’s role is, therefore, to facilitate this dialogue and select each individual student to give feedback to others. It may also mean that you do not always need to respond at all to a student’s answer.

• Teacher modelling own thinking: Model the language you want students to learn and think about. Share what you feel about the learning activities in which your students are participating as well as the thinking you are engaging in. Your own thinking and learning will add to the discussions in the classroom and encourage students to share their own thinking.

• Metacognitive questioning: Consider the extent to which your questioning encourages students to think about their thinking, and therefore, learn about learning. By asking metacognitive questions, the teacher will enable students to have a better understanding of the learning process as well as their own self-reflections as learners.

• Classroom debates: Aside from sparking a lively conversation, classroom debates naturally embed critical-thinking skills by asking students to formulate and support their own opinions and consider and respond to opposing viewpoints.

I firmly believe that if the strategies given above are implemented in a learner’s schooling from pre-primary to secondary levels and beyond, then the intolerance, indiscipline, fights, and other misdemeanours that students (and adults) currently display will be curtailed. I am also of the view that the NSC that are currently implemented in Jamaican schools are overloaded with content to be covered within a specific time, and because of this, teachers are not able to devote time and engage students in the subject matter as they would like.

Additionally, the focus that is placed on passing the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examinations and the rating of secondary schools on the percentage of their students who pass five and more subjects create a tendency for drills and practices without having students develop conceptual understanding of the subject matter. I have always held the view that emphasis at the primary level should be placed on having learners develop varying levels of thinking and not on covering a wide range of content.

I believe that there is scope for improvement in the areas of teaching and learning and curriculum development, assessment, and monitoring in the Jamaican education system. Students’ development of critical thinking skills should help in creating the kinds of environments that foster peace, love, and harmony as the nation strives for growth, development, and success.

Camella Buddo is a mathematics educator and former mathematics education lecturer, School of Education, The University of the West Indies, Mona Campus. Send comments to the Jamaica Observer or cjbuddo@gmail.com.