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Trinidad Newspapers
A glimmer of hope
November 27, 2002
By Denis Solomon
The Youth forum organised on November 19 by members of the Constitution Reform Committee was an excellent initiative. It was heartening to see, in the newspaper photograph of the event, intelligent-looking young people engaged in earnest discussion about their country’s affairs.
The students’ comments were also intelligent. Study of the Constitution, they felt, should be begun in primary school. "It does not have to be a separate topic, but it should be incorporated into our current events or social studies curriculum".
How this is to happen is another story. The schools, it would seem, do not even have copies of the Constitution in their libraries. Social studies exists only in the patchiest of forms. It figured on the primary school syllabus until it was removed from the SEA examination.
In the secondary system, government schools teach something called social studies up to the CXC level, but the denominational schools have refused to do so.
The Constitution should certainly be the subject of study in schools. Not in the hand-on-the-heart, salute-the-flag, pledge-of-allegiance style of patriotic brainwashing, but as part of a well-taught and properly graduated civics curriculum, designed to stimulate critical faculties.
If these faculties are not awakened at an early stage in the child’s development, he turns into the kind of zombified Gospel-spouting adult for whom politics is encapsulated in phrases like "Eric Williams was the second greatest man in the world".
The historian Orlando Figes says: "When people learn as adults what children are normally taught in schools, they often find it difficult to progress beyond the simplest abstract ideas. These tend to lodge deep in their minds, making them resistant to the subsequent absorption of knowledge on a more sophisticated level. They see the world in black-and-white terms because their narrow learning obscures any other coloration."
There in a nutshell you have the Trinidad and Tobago Chamber of Commerce, Miracle Ministries and the Faculty of Arts of the University of the West Indies.
Judging by the education pages of the newspapers and the Ministry of Education Schools Broadcasting Unit programmes, something resembling civics is in fact "taught" in primary schools. But if the teachers are as ignorant as the people in the Schools Broadcasting Unit, it would be better not taught at all.
One SBU programme informs listeners that in 1966 "the House of Representatives is increased from 32 to 36 elected members of government" (my italics). The producers of the programme are obviously not aware that not all elected representatives are members of government.
In 1976, says the programme, "the Constitution of Trinidad and Tobago changes from an Independent Constitution to a Republican Constitution".
Some listeners may be intelligent enough to ask themselves whether the 1962 and 1966 Constitutions were not already "independent", and whether a "republican" constitution is not also an "independent" one. Unfortunately, and this is the main problem of sloppy teaching, it is precisely those who are intelligent enough to see the contradictions who will be turned off. The others will just see the lesson as something to be "learned" by rote.
Even worse, the programme goes on to say that in 1976 "Trinidad and Tobago is now called a State and no longer a Crown Colony!
At no point is it shown how the Constitution enables a government to come into existence and to function. A suggested exercise is to "list government ministers and ministries, duties and responsibilities of government ministers and ministries". But this is the first and only reference to the existence of ministers. Where they come from remains a mystery, and there is no reference to a Prime Minister at all.
Such ignorance is unpardonable. But even if the facts were right and clearly presented, the key element in any educational experience would still be lacking—stimulation of the critical faculty.
This does not mean that we should try to create a generation of cynics and frondeurs. The aim should be to inculcate the capacity for intelligent analysis of means in relation to ends. In politics, since ends and means may be often one and the same, a prior definition of these two concepts is all-important.
What is the purpose of government? How should a country be organised and a government chosen? How has the question been answered in other countries? Could our system be improved, and how?
These are not questions that must wait until the children’s minds are "formed". On the contrary, they are essential to the formation of their minds. The only difference the age of the child will make is how the questions are put.
Another SBU programme tells the pupils that citizens "have" rights as well as responsibilities. It informs the pupil that he must obey the law and pay his taxes. He "must" contribute to society and even be prepared to die to make his country a "better" place.
Noble principles. But I seriously doubt that putting them across in this way makes for good citizens, or anything but cannon fodder if the pupils accept them or criminals if they don’t.
Good citizens are thinking citizens. It would, I suppose, be a bit too abstract to inquire into the meaning of "have" in the statement that citizens "have" rights (where do rights come from?) or "must" in the statement that they "must" contribute to society. Or even to ask what makes a country "better". But if I were conducting the class I would certainly proceed not on the basis of affirmations but of questions.
These questions would be designed to bring out the evolutionary and utilitarian as opposed to the (implied) divine foundation of citizenship rights and responsibilities, by confronting pious phrases with historical reality.
"Citizens must obey the law". So what were Gandhi and Butler doing in jail? "Citizens must pay their taxes". So were the British wrong to refuse to pay the poll tax, and was Mrs Thatcher wrong to repeal it?
"Freedom of the press is a right". So what is all this about lies, half-truths and innuendoes?
The SBU programme asks the pupils to "make up a story of your own about a good citizen". I would ask my pupils to make up a newspaper report containing one lie, one half-truth and one innuendo, and then discuss whether it should be published, and why. I would then read the students a press report about "chutney rising" and take a poll as to whether it was an abuse of press freedom. Then I would get them to do a survey of the class and correlate the different responses with any underlying socio-cultural factors they could discern in themselves.
Next, I would remind the class that if someone has to die for his country it means that somebody else has to kill for his, and ask them whether they would be as comfortable in one role as in the other.
I would remind them of General Douglas Macarthur’s statement that "A soldier’s duty is not to die for his country. It is to make some other poor bastard die for his".
Then, I suppose, I would start looking for another job.
But, thanks to the Constitution Reform Committee, there is now a glimmer of hope. Another intelligent remark of a student at the forum was "teachers should also be educated".
Copyright © Denis Solomon