Tag Archives: Education

I was going to delay my ranting until Independence Day. But a couple things—including the events in Charlottesville—pushed me to decide to leggo the ramble one time and done. Almost immediately after I wrote my piece on “model” policing, two early comments illustrated exactly what I was speaking about. One person offered up a …

At a very early age my parents, who were unable to read and write, stressed education as they understood it to be the future. The then Prime Minister, Dr Eric Williams, reminded us that “the future of the nation is in the book bags of the children.” This was the …

Recently, a series of videos have been making the rounds showing young people in school uniforms, many of them young ladies, engaged in fights. One fight is hardly out of our minds before another imprints itself on it, complementing—if that is the appropriate word—the repugnant images of girls kicking, punching, …

The academic rule of thumb states that if you’re good at science and mathematics, you’re supposed to suck at languages. And the reverse also applies. I guess I’m the exception that tests the rule since, at the tertiary level institution where I am still a student, I am able to …

I couldn’t believe my ears. Had the radio just said that the Minister of Education was planning to start instruction in panmanship in the nation’s schools? Had someone finally seen the light after all these years, just as the Lloyd Best Institute of the West Indies was launching a week-long …

“Our big problem is that we abolished corporal punishment but did not put anything else in its place. Our children are, therefore, operating in an environment where there is, in effect, no consequence for bad behaviour. That has resulted in a general breakdown of discipline, nationwide. “Discipline is much more …

Maybe it is just a Trini thing but have you noticed how, even though the persons in charge are very often leaders in their respective professional fields, amateur sports run by amateurs always seem to be run, well, amateurishly? These amateur professionals—or are they professional amateurs?—are placed there to run …

National Security Minister Major Edmund Dillon will only encourage increased violence in schools if he reintroduces corporal punishment, according to the local civic group, Working Women for Social Progress. The following is the press release issued today by the Working Women: We accept that it may become necessary to remove …

Yes, our children, too, are committing monstrous crimes, astonishing us by claiming the adult power to molest, maim and murder. Adulthood has lost its mystique as age—that great marker of maturity separating children from big men and women—is revealed as a hoax. They know now that nothing superior separates us …

From my very first year as a columnist in 2002, I criticised our dysfunctional national security system and took up then, by their names, the cases of several murder victims. I have consistently continued to do so. Even then, murder was already being carried out with impunity. There was no …

So much dust has been kicked up since Rachael Sukhdeo’s facebook posting that visibility has been reduced to almost nil on her chilling allegations of domestic violence and the refusal of the police to act on her complaints. Now displacing her voice are loud reverberations about media censorship, conflicts between …

The Arima North Secondary school dedicated its annual 5K walkathon to violence and bullying. Principal Karena Ramdeen-Steele said that there were 167 participants to the event, which was held on Friday 12 February 2016 under the banner of: “Stamp out School Violence and Bullying.” Ramdeen-Steele claimed too that her school’s …