Re: Violence Institute and other pieces of bull.
2008-Sep-28-1414hrs
It is a fact that a prophet is without honour in his own country. The colonial mind of most TnT people tells them that "good things come from abroad". And so, the gods of worship are the "foreign" expert who is white.
None of the knuckleheads in the Ministry of Education Bureaucracy seem to recognize that in getting these people to come in to do things on a piecemeal basis, or because some university sent them to do research, they are in fact putting down our own people, saying we are not good enough, and our children absorb the lessons of inadequacy. We seek experts in crime solving from New York, who are themselves criminals.
It gets worse. when I offered to do the volunteer reading programme I did at the Russel Latapy school in 2006, I offered to provide all staff, pick up all costs and so on. I had tremendous suport from the principal at the time, Mrs. Monica Regisford-Douglin, who cordinated the contact with the schools and so on. I brought in three people with me, all teachers and counsellors in the US, from Delaware and Houston, Texas. Read on, this is intersting.
I provided bios on all including myself. My masters is from the University of Delaware. One of the teachers/counsellors who came, Judi, lives in Delaware still, which is where iIfirst lived. The Mausican in the group, Merle Howe(73) graduated from the University of Houston, from which Mr. Eric Williams, former Minister of Energy also graduated. The fourth person graduated from Prairie View A&M, a former Land Grant College, and primarily Afrocentric school.
Soon after we returned to the USA, my friend in Delaware was contacted by someone from the university there, to ask about participating in a training programme in TnT to help develop teacher skills. She of course said that Linda Edwards-Romain was the best person for the job. Not another word. The University of Houston was also contacted to help with training. but the primarily African-American university- PV, was not contacted at all.
Someone in the Ministry of Education at the highest level, does not believe that people of colour know anything worth knowing. It may be that there is kickback money to be gotten, it may be that the idea of paying one of our own consultant fees equal to that of a white person galls them.
Now, finally, Selwyn Cudjoe wrote a piece published in Trinicenter.com, about the woeful inadequacies of the education of our children, in grounding intheir own culture and consequent lack of success in school. I wrote him a long response,(to him directly) saying that if his group would identify a cadre of young people who would volunteer to teach others after school and on weekends, t bridge the gap in The Hills and other depressed places, I would come down and train them for free. They will provide training space and the ability to reproduce materials. He said he would get back to me. Nothing.
Do we really want violence ended? Do we really want our "little black boys" to succeed?
I just had a long conversation with Rodney Foster. Maura Cooselal has contacted me. Different parts of the colour spectrum, successful Mausicans. When we were at Mausica, we trained young people to go out and change a country through education; but the country did not seem to want change, or maybe, they wanted us to ask permission about the direction of change. We did not, making ourselves- staff and students "Farse and out of Place." It is the same attitude some old school Americans have to the candidacy of Barack Obama. Who does he think he is, talking about change.
This my dear, is the problem we face while wrestling with the start of a new century. Those in power do not wish to change anything. They are already the fat cats, doing well. So what if we continue to bury half of our gene pool with every month's worth of killing? The "consultants" from abroad would love the place, and a new group would move in to settle TnT. God have mercy!
In today's Express, the new Minister of Education says that there is an absence of love. She probably has been able to access the extensive suggestions I sent to Mrs. Hazel Manning, and her Chief Education Officer that just sat there. Included among them was the need to put Early Childhood Centers in downtown government buildings, so that working mothers would not have to do a triangular trip- home to daycare to work, and the reverse, daily. My sister and her husband did that for years and years. I was hoping for a change for the next generation. All their children now live abroad.
There is a glimmer of hope. Scratiche, Dr. Theodore Lewis seems to have returned to Valsyn Teachers College to teach. I hope he lights a fire of new methodology such as Evelyn Hordatt would have done. Mausica was more that song, it was revolutionary teaching. I am sharing this with about five Mausicans whose addresses I have. Feel free to share with whomever you would.
Perhaps in Grenada, Mausicans could do a seminar on Love in Education for the younger teachers there- a workshop to which each teacher-participant brings two students. To be sure that the idea catches on, it needs two generations. Then the Min. of Ed, in TnT may begin to notice that Mausicans are still willing to make a diffeence wherever they are.
I may or may not be with you guys when that time comes, but I hope the idea catches fire.
Ideas live on when people are gone.
Linda Edwards-Romain
Houston, Texas
Sept. 28,2008
2008-Sep-28-1414hrs
It is a fact that a prophet is without honour in his own country. The colonial mind of most TnT people tells them that "good things come from abroad". And so, the gods of worship are the "foreign" expert who is white.
None of the knuckleheads in the Ministry of Education Bureaucracy seem to recognize that in getting these people to come in to do things on a piecemeal basis, or because some university sent them to do research, they are in fact putting down our own people, saying we are not good enough, and our children absorb the lessons of inadequacy. We seek experts in crime solving from New York, who are themselves criminals.
It gets worse. when I offered to do the volunteer reading programme I did at the Russel Latapy school in 2006, I offered to provide all staff, pick up all costs and so on. I had tremendous suport from the principal at the time, Mrs. Monica Regisford-Douglin, who cordinated the contact with the schools and so on. I brought in three people with me, all teachers and counsellors in the US, from Delaware and Houston, Texas. Read on, this is intersting.
I provided bios on all including myself. My masters is from the University of Delaware. One of the teachers/counsellors who came, Judi, lives in Delaware still, which is where iIfirst lived. The Mausican in the group, Merle Howe(73) graduated from the University of Houston, from which Mr. Eric Williams, former Minister of Energy also graduated. The fourth person graduated from Prairie View A&M, a former Land Grant College, and primarily Afrocentric school.
Soon after we returned to the USA, my friend in Delaware was contacted by someone from the university there, to ask about participating in a training programme in TnT to help develop teacher skills. She of course said that Linda Edwards-Romain was the best person for the job. Not another word. The University of Houston was also contacted to help with training. but the primarily African-American university- PV, was not contacted at all.
Someone in the Ministry of Education at the highest level, does not believe that people of colour know anything worth knowing. It may be that there is kickback money to be gotten, it may be that the idea of paying one of our own consultant fees equal to that of a white person galls them.
Now, finally, Selwyn Cudjoe wrote a piece published in Trinicenter.com, about the woeful inadequacies of the education of our children, in grounding intheir own culture and consequent lack of success in school. I wrote him a long response,(to him directly) saying that if his group would identify a cadre of young people who would volunteer to teach others after school and on weekends, t bridge the gap in The Hills and other depressed places, I would come down and train them for free. They will provide training space and the ability to reproduce materials. He said he would get back to me. Nothing.
Do we really want violence ended? Do we really want our "little black boys" to succeed?
I just had a long conversation with Rodney Foster. Maura Cooselal has contacted me. Different parts of the colour spectrum, successful Mausicans. When we were at Mausica, we trained young people to go out and change a country through education; but the country did not seem to want change, or maybe, they wanted us to ask permission about the direction of change. We did not, making ourselves- staff and students "Farse and out of Place." It is the same attitude some old school Americans have to the candidacy of Barack Obama. Who does he think he is, talking about change.
This my dear, is the problem we face while wrestling with the start of a new century. Those in power do not wish to change anything. They are already the fat cats, doing well. So what if we continue to bury half of our gene pool with every month's worth of killing? The "consultants" from abroad would love the place, and a new group would move in to settle TnT. God have mercy!
In today's Express, the new Minister of Education says that there is an absence of love. She probably has been able to access the extensive suggestions I sent to Mrs. Hazel Manning, and her Chief Education Officer that just sat there. Included among them was the need to put Early Childhood Centers in downtown government buildings, so that working mothers would not have to do a triangular trip- home to daycare to work, and the reverse, daily. My sister and her husband did that for years and years. I was hoping for a change for the next generation. All their children now live abroad.
There is a glimmer of hope. Scratiche, Dr. Theodore Lewis seems to have returned to Valsyn Teachers College to teach. I hope he lights a fire of new methodology such as Evelyn Hordatt would have done. Mausica was more that song, it was revolutionary teaching. I am sharing this with about five Mausicans whose addresses I have. Feel free to share with whomever you would.
Perhaps in Grenada, Mausicans could do a seminar on Love in Education for the younger teachers there- a workshop to which each teacher-participant brings two students. To be sure that the idea catches on, it needs two generations. Then the Min. of Ed, in TnT may begin to notice that Mausicans are still willing to make a diffeence wherever they are.
I may or may not be with you guys when that time comes, but I hope the idea catches fire.
Ideas live on when people are gone.
Linda Edwards-Romain
Houston, Texas
Sept. 28,2008
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