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Did anyone publish Dudus' journal here?
http://www.guardian.co.tt/columnist/...ke-huge-gamble
The Boys and I Take a Huge Gamble
Published: Mon, 2011-11-14 18:23
This is bizarre, I thought, as I read my students’ essays. I am teaching English to taciturn young men (lads as they’re called in YTC) dressed in white or brown prison uniforms (with hand-written numbers on them) and my students write with sophisticated punctuation. If colons, semi-colons, dashes and commas could be converted to clothes, my students would be dressed in pin-striped suits, silk ties and Gucci shoes. Take for instance what Marc wrote about Miguel Street by VS Naipaul: “It is important to find yourself within the pages of a book: horror, informative, short story—any type of book. Miguel Street does just that: It draws you in. Even if you are not in a cheerful mood, when you sit or lie down to read Miguel Street, you will, I guarantee, cheer up. VS Naipaul’s Miguel Street blows even the most humourless souls on earth away.”
Clearly, somewhere in their past these young men had great teachers who created a solid, academic foundation so that I could complete a two-year CXC English language syllabus in eight months. All I had to do was stick my fingers in some academic holes and plug them up like the proverbial Dutch girl plugging up a leak in a dam. My problem was my textbooks. “I can’t stand all that irrelevant stuff in the textbooks,” I confided in my friend Nadira Akal, a biology teacher. She said, “Talk to Jenny Woods,” an English teacher from Bishop Anstey High School in Port-of-Spain. “Trust your instincts. You don’t have to depend on textbooks. Don’t worry about teaching for an exam. Do what you feel you need to do. Do what is best,” Jenny told me.
I took her advice and finally felt like I was in charge of my own class. I would do things my way. I began with a cool series from the Jamaica Gleaner featuring a journal written by the drug lord Christopher “Dudus” Coke. Mark Wilson, who writes geography textbooks for secondary school, e-mailed me the articles written in Jamaican creole. That turned out to be an exercise is summarising, turning creole to formal English, and writing analytical essays—all on the English syllabus. The journal would surely show my students that crime didn’t pay—at least that’s what I thought until I read my students’ essays. Jahmai wrote: “Robin Hood to the Kingston, Jamaican ghetto, Tivoli Garden, is what I would have called Christopher “Dudus” Coke. His every move was quite similar to the legendary Robin Hood, who stole from the rich to give to the poor.
Dudus’ approach was a little different. Instead of robbing the Jamaican government of its currency, he deprived it of its social development when he imported and exported drugs and guns to support the needs of the ghetto people along with his own needs. “To law enforcement officers, he was known as the country’s most wanted man because of his sinister lifestyle. Fed up of the operations run by Dudus, the government decided that the ghetto hero and his empire had to be destroyed. Putting away Dudus would be no easy task because he was a man who had gained support from the needy. It would cause a rebellion in the ghetto. “All hell broke loose when the law made its move to capture the infamous Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke. The people of Tivoli Garden started rioting in an attempt to avoid Dudus’ capture.
Can we be so selfish to blame the people of Tivoli Garden? I wouldn’t! Do not get the wrong idea, I am no real supporter of criminal activities, but if I were in their position, I would have done the same. Would you? The people living in places similar to Tivoli face a tremendous amount of trouble finding jobs in Jamaica. Even if they are educated, their residence causes obstacles for them when they try to get jobs. “In the end of this entire chaotic episode, 73 people were killed while trying to prevent the modern day Robin Hood from being captured. One of those people could have approached the government and brought about some kind of eye opener about the crisis of the ghetto in a more civil way. Instead, Government chose to be aggressive about the matter and went about it the wrong way. I hope the Jamaican government did not just see the whole madness as the people trying to defend wrong, but instead, see it as a cry for help.”
My students agreed with Jahmai. “Dudus helped his neighbourhood,” Kendall said. I was shocked. My students didn’t see Dudus as a doomed criminal. They felt his life had meaning because he helped poor people. To them, what really mattered is that Dudus didn’t turn his back on people like the Jamaican Government had. They didn’t see my main point: Dudus’s life was doomed because of his life of crime. I am teaching Martians, I thought, aliens from another planet. Then came a jolting revelation: My students weren’t Martians. They lived in another world right here in Trinidad.
• Next week: Finding Friday: Discovering a unique talent in my class
http://www.guardian.co.tt/columnist/...ke-huge-gamble
The Boys and I Take a Huge Gamble
Published: Mon, 2011-11-14 18:23
This is bizarre, I thought, as I read my students’ essays. I am teaching English to taciturn young men (lads as they’re called in YTC) dressed in white or brown prison uniforms (with hand-written numbers on them) and my students write with sophisticated punctuation. If colons, semi-colons, dashes and commas could be converted to clothes, my students would be dressed in pin-striped suits, silk ties and Gucci shoes. Take for instance what Marc wrote about Miguel Street by VS Naipaul: “It is important to find yourself within the pages of a book: horror, informative, short story—any type of book. Miguel Street does just that: It draws you in. Even if you are not in a cheerful mood, when you sit or lie down to read Miguel Street, you will, I guarantee, cheer up. VS Naipaul’s Miguel Street blows even the most humourless souls on earth away.”
Clearly, somewhere in their past these young men had great teachers who created a solid, academic foundation so that I could complete a two-year CXC English language syllabus in eight months. All I had to do was stick my fingers in some academic holes and plug them up like the proverbial Dutch girl plugging up a leak in a dam. My problem was my textbooks. “I can’t stand all that irrelevant stuff in the textbooks,” I confided in my friend Nadira Akal, a biology teacher. She said, “Talk to Jenny Woods,” an English teacher from Bishop Anstey High School in Port-of-Spain. “Trust your instincts. You don’t have to depend on textbooks. Don’t worry about teaching for an exam. Do what you feel you need to do. Do what is best,” Jenny told me.
I took her advice and finally felt like I was in charge of my own class. I would do things my way. I began with a cool series from the Jamaica Gleaner featuring a journal written by the drug lord Christopher “Dudus” Coke. Mark Wilson, who writes geography textbooks for secondary school, e-mailed me the articles written in Jamaican creole. That turned out to be an exercise is summarising, turning creole to formal English, and writing analytical essays—all on the English syllabus. The journal would surely show my students that crime didn’t pay—at least that’s what I thought until I read my students’ essays. Jahmai wrote: “Robin Hood to the Kingston, Jamaican ghetto, Tivoli Garden, is what I would have called Christopher “Dudus” Coke. His every move was quite similar to the legendary Robin Hood, who stole from the rich to give to the poor.
Dudus’ approach was a little different. Instead of robbing the Jamaican government of its currency, he deprived it of its social development when he imported and exported drugs and guns to support the needs of the ghetto people along with his own needs. “To law enforcement officers, he was known as the country’s most wanted man because of his sinister lifestyle. Fed up of the operations run by Dudus, the government decided that the ghetto hero and his empire had to be destroyed. Putting away Dudus would be no easy task because he was a man who had gained support from the needy. It would cause a rebellion in the ghetto. “All hell broke loose when the law made its move to capture the infamous Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke. The people of Tivoli Garden started rioting in an attempt to avoid Dudus’ capture.
Can we be so selfish to blame the people of Tivoli Garden? I wouldn’t! Do not get the wrong idea, I am no real supporter of criminal activities, but if I were in their position, I would have done the same. Would you? The people living in places similar to Tivoli face a tremendous amount of trouble finding jobs in Jamaica. Even if they are educated, their residence causes obstacles for them when they try to get jobs. “In the end of this entire chaotic episode, 73 people were killed while trying to prevent the modern day Robin Hood from being captured. One of those people could have approached the government and brought about some kind of eye opener about the crisis of the ghetto in a more civil way. Instead, Government chose to be aggressive about the matter and went about it the wrong way. I hope the Jamaican government did not just see the whole madness as the people trying to defend wrong, but instead, see it as a cry for help.”
My students agreed with Jahmai. “Dudus helped his neighbourhood,” Kendall said. I was shocked. My students didn’t see Dudus as a doomed criminal. They felt his life had meaning because he helped poor people. To them, what really mattered is that Dudus didn’t turn his back on people like the Jamaican Government had. They didn’t see my main point: Dudus’s life was doomed because of his life of crime. I am teaching Martians, I thought, aliens from another planet. Then came a jolting revelation: My students weren’t Martians. They lived in another world right here in Trinidad.
• Next week: Finding Friday: Discovering a unique talent in my class