Dear Editor,
The debate about teachers and tattoos would have been interesting and even exciting except that the most vocal advocates now control the levers of education. This is a frightening prospect, as an education based on exclusion is not worth having, and can only lead to division, not cooperation.
Let those who want to exclude the tattooed ones today remember that, in our history, education was used as a tool of exclusion; to keep black people in their place at great socio-economic loss.
Education then must be inclusive, not exclusive, and must provide us with at least the following:
1. Give critical intellectual skills that allow us to understand, interpret and explain the realities around us.
2. Give critical life skills that allow us to separate passing behaviours and trends from lasting values.
3. Give discerning social skills that value people above things and see ‘people’ behind the facade of cultures.
4. Create an atmosphere that allows for bonds of friendship across all barriers, social, economic, political, or religious.
Our Jamaican history is marred by divisions in every sphere of human endeavour, making tolerance a scarce commodity in Jamaica. If education is sucked into that world of exclusion then the disappearance of tolerance will be virtually guaranteed.
Let us remember that Islamic extremism was not a product of the Gulf Wars; it began long ago in schools which based their ‘education’ on exclusion. Let us not make the same mistake.
Today it is the tattooed ones, who will it be tomorrow?
An education that does not take us beyond the divisions of the present is unworthy of our aspirations, let us educate not indoctrinate. Let education be the tool for inclusion, not exclusion.
Fr Patrick Joseph, JP
Newport PO
Manchester
leighton_m@live.com
The debate about teachers and tattoos would have been interesting and even exciting except that the most vocal advocates now control the levers of education. This is a frightening prospect, as an education based on exclusion is not worth having, and can only lead to division, not cooperation.
Let those who want to exclude the tattooed ones today remember that, in our history, education was used as a tool of exclusion; to keep black people in their place at great socio-economic loss.
Education then must be inclusive, not exclusive, and must provide us with at least the following:
1. Give critical intellectual skills that allow us to understand, interpret and explain the realities around us.
2. Give critical life skills that allow us to separate passing behaviours and trends from lasting values.
3. Give discerning social skills that value people above things and see ‘people’ behind the facade of cultures.
4. Create an atmosphere that allows for bonds of friendship across all barriers, social, economic, political, or religious.
Our Jamaican history is marred by divisions in every sphere of human endeavour, making tolerance a scarce commodity in Jamaica. If education is sucked into that world of exclusion then the disappearance of tolerance will be virtually guaranteed.
Let us remember that Islamic extremism was not a product of the Gulf Wars; it began long ago in schools which based their ‘education’ on exclusion. Let us not make the same mistake.
Today it is the tattooed ones, who will it be tomorrow?
An education that does not take us beyond the divisions of the present is unworthy of our aspirations, let us educate not indoctrinate. Let education be the tool for inclusion, not exclusion.
Fr Patrick Joseph, JP
Newport PO
Manchester
leighton_m@live.com