An article headline in a section of the local Press read Literacy skills spark debate. It examined what the writer called “Barbados’ on-going struggle with childhood literacy”.
The occasion was the launch of a Reading Clinic at the Barbados Community College which witnessed something of a difference of opinion between Dr Astra Babb and the Minister of Educational Transformation Mr Chad Blackman.
Dr Babb is described in the piece as a “long-time literacy specialist and founder of the Babb Reading Clinic”. If the report is accurate, Babb contended that parents should shoulder the primary responsibility for guiding their children’s development. This is in many respects a valid conclusion since parents and guardians have, or should have, the first claims on their children’s attention and affection.
As Mr Blackman pointed out, this assumes that somehow all parents possess the material, cultural and cognitive capacities to fulfil the duties and obligations involved in the ‘development’ of their children. This invariably involves multiple competencies.
An article I read decades ago stated that the greatest gift parents can offer a child is to love and care for each other. That, in today’s world of separation and divorce, is not always forthcoming. I think I recall a line from a hymn which states how “a mother’s care may sometimes cease towards the child she bears”.
Too much of the political talk on formal schooling ignores the sometimes harsh realities of human existence. That is why so many of the hopes of educational transformation amount to little more than vain political imaginings: Each one matters. No child will be left behind. Every child will have ‘a bright future’ they cry.
Where Dr Babb’s discourse went sadly off-key was in her assertion to parents gathered that, “if your child reaches ten years and cannot read, it is your fault.” It is alarming that a literacy expert would reach such an alarming conclusion.
Under normal circumstances most children learn to read quite easily even if with differing levels of comprehension of the material. Reading/comprehension deficits in young children may reflect a number of causal factors. Some may not be easily recognisable even by the more educated parent and some may require professional intervention, diagnosis and treatment.
Some deficits may reflect material poverty. Extreme nutritional deprivation in early childhood may adversely affect the synapses in the brain that enhance cognitive growth. Excessive drinking by a mother, especially during pregnancy, can lead to foetal alcohol syndrome. The result is retarded learning capacity.
Many children are not born perfect and come into a highly imperfect world. Increasing drug use in Barbados will eventually show up in the schools, and teachers will find themselves confronting a growing array of physiological and psycho-social issues.
Minister Chad Blackman in his response to Dr Babb offered a more nuanced perspective. He stated that he chose to differ “a bit”. I think he was being polite. While not rejecting the primacy of parental obligation, he however resorted to the now current political trope about adopting “a whole of society approach” or what he terms a total “ecosystem”. One is not sure how one goes about creating a totally benign “ecosystem”.
Joy and sadness, good and evil are inextricably bound up in the rhythm of human experience. However, the reporter suggested that the minister stressed the collectively shared responsibility of parents, schools, the government, the private sector, and civil society including non-governmental organisations and various charities.
As with the crime issue, the “whole of society approach” sounds good, but it is something of a cop-out. The key agencies in enhancing childhood literacy are the home and the school. The home may play a role in motivating the child, but it is the public school run by governments that has the pivotal responsibility in promoting and enhancing literacy/ comprehension in all its depth and complexity.
Of course parents should encourage and assist children in their reading. Regrettably in an increasingly visual culture, many adults themselves are not that committed to the reading habit.
One of the key areas of consensus in the present education transformation discourse is the need to improve language competencies at the foundational level in the primary system up to Class Four.
Rather than focusing all our energies on that problem we have embarked on a massive structural change that may prove extremely cumbersome to implement. Minister Blackman may have a bigger problem on his hands than he ever imagined.
Disturbing negative influences in the ‘whole society’ do not portend an overwhelmingly positive transformation. However, we wish him all success in his endeavours. Hope springs eternal.
Ralph Jemmott is a respected, retired educator and commentator on social issues.
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