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Below:
First, I have posted what I regard as the Quote of the Week.
Secondly, I have hinted at my personal views on the matter using the vehicle of a quote from the play, “Macbeth.”
Thirdly, I have presented a few paragraphs as well as the link to the original article from today’s Jamaica Observer newspaper.
Quote of the Week:
Our people value English - as the world does - want to speak English and are disadvantaged when they don't. I am not moved by the marketing tactics of global firms which use our songs and patois to promote products. Guyanese talk about "lead-up". People flatter us to keep us exactly where they want us, and we say, "Oh, look how great we are!" Minstrels to the world is someone's agenda for us. Ours is to lift ourselves from poverty and illiteracy. Stop fiddling! Remember, Kingston is as flammable as Rome!
I want to leave my fellow forumites with one of my favorite quotes from my all-time favorite playwright, William Shakespeare.
In Shakespeare’s tragic play “Macbeth”, Banquo says to his co-leader (of the Scottish forces) and partner Macbeth:
“And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,
The instruments of darkness tell us truths,
Win us with honest trifles, to betray’s
In deepest consequence.”
(Macbeth, Act One, Scene III, lines 123-126)
Illiteracy, English, Africa, Uncle Tom
Franklin Johnston
Friday, May 22, 2009
Parents are to blame for the illiteracy of their children. Ensuring the child speaks English is the job of parents, but they bring up the child badly and expect teachers to clean up their mess. Many parents have not mastered speaking English, the 4 Rs (reading, 'riting, 'rithmetic and reasoning), and must take personal blame as we have had literacy classes islandwide for 40 years.
Franklin Johnston
I worked in literacy and was branded radical as I would not avoid the word "illiterate". The government doesn't wish to use it and prefers face-saving acronyms to describe the literacy department. If shame gets people to attend literacy classes, then shame is good. The legacy of illiterate parents is to burden our nation with illiterate children. Study this quote as it's your experience too:
"People don't rise from nothing. We do owe something to parentage and patronage. The people who stand before kings may look like they did it all by themselves. But in fact they are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot." (Malcolm Gladwell, in Outliers). So true of us!
Schools produce illiterates, as the task of remediating the screwed-up child which the screwed-up parents leave at the school gate is beyond them - garbage in, garbage out. We must not blame the teachers when they can't undo the harm done by parents. Proper speech in English and stimulation is the parents' job from birth to age six, and after that the teachers' job is reading, writing, maths, etc. The child does not start school a tabula rasa. On the contary, many children arrive at school as damaged goods. By age six many have been compromised by ignorant or wicked parents. To remove them from harm's way - their parents - is not an option, so we must invest in parent education (from pregnancy), basic schools and out-of-school activity to limit bad influences.
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/colum...NCLE_TOM__.asp
First, I have posted what I regard as the Quote of the Week.
Secondly, I have hinted at my personal views on the matter using the vehicle of a quote from the play, “Macbeth.”
Thirdly, I have presented a few paragraphs as well as the link to the original article from today’s Jamaica Observer newspaper.
Quote of the Week:
Our people value English - as the world does - want to speak English and are disadvantaged when they don't. I am not moved by the marketing tactics of global firms which use our songs and patois to promote products. Guyanese talk about "lead-up". People flatter us to keep us exactly where they want us, and we say, "Oh, look how great we are!" Minstrels to the world is someone's agenda for us. Ours is to lift ourselves from poverty and illiteracy. Stop fiddling! Remember, Kingston is as flammable as Rome!
I want to leave my fellow forumites with one of my favorite quotes from my all-time favorite playwright, William Shakespeare.
In Shakespeare’s tragic play “Macbeth”, Banquo says to his co-leader (of the Scottish forces) and partner Macbeth:
“And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,
The instruments of darkness tell us truths,
Win us with honest trifles, to betray’s
In deepest consequence.”
(Macbeth, Act One, Scene III, lines 123-126)
Illiteracy, English, Africa, Uncle Tom
Franklin Johnston
Friday, May 22, 2009
Parents are to blame for the illiteracy of their children. Ensuring the child speaks English is the job of parents, but they bring up the child badly and expect teachers to clean up their mess. Many parents have not mastered speaking English, the 4 Rs (reading, 'riting, 'rithmetic and reasoning), and must take personal blame as we have had literacy classes islandwide for 40 years.
Franklin Johnston
I worked in literacy and was branded radical as I would not avoid the word "illiterate". The government doesn't wish to use it and prefers face-saving acronyms to describe the literacy department. If shame gets people to attend literacy classes, then shame is good. The legacy of illiterate parents is to burden our nation with illiterate children. Study this quote as it's your experience too:
"People don't rise from nothing. We do owe something to parentage and patronage. The people who stand before kings may look like they did it all by themselves. But in fact they are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot." (Malcolm Gladwell, in Outliers). So true of us!
Schools produce illiterates, as the task of remediating the screwed-up child which the screwed-up parents leave at the school gate is beyond them - garbage in, garbage out. We must not blame the teachers when they can't undo the harm done by parents. Proper speech in English and stimulation is the parents' job from birth to age six, and after that the teachers' job is reading, writing, maths, etc. The child does not start school a tabula rasa. On the contary, many children arrive at school as damaged goods. By age six many have been compromised by ignorant or wicked parents. To remove them from harm's way - their parents - is not an option, so we must invest in parent education (from pregnancy), basic schools and out-of-school activity to limit bad influences.
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/colum...NCLE_TOM__.asp