At the age of 18 Dwayne Devonish was on his way to pursue a Bachelor of Science degree in psychology at the University of the West Indies (UWI).
He received first class honours, and at just 21 years old he started to work for the Department of Management at the UWI as a teaching and research assistant.
A little later the Black Rock, St Michael native applied for and was awarded a Commonwealth Scholarship to read for his master’s at the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom. There he attained the highest grades in his class, performing so outstandingly that the student second to him was an incredible 20 per cent below his grade. For this, Devonish earned a distinction.
After assuming a full-time lecturing position in management research and statistics at UWI in 2008, Devonish later returned to Nottingham and continued his excellence, gaining several academic awards and ultimately earning his PhD at age 29.
All this from a young man who once placed 28th in a class of 29 pupils as a student at Combermere, a young man whose interests rested in playing video games in an arcade into the wee hours of the morning or until his grandmother called the police for him so he would go home.
“The police would talk to me all the time. My constant average performance was below 55 per cent. Devonish was never associated with excellence. Devonish was never associated with high performance,” he recalled, laughing as he reclined in a chair during an interview with the SUNDAY SUN on Friday.
“I was promoted ‘with caution’. This was done for students whose performances were just at marginal – I got mainly 49, 50, 51 per cent. I was told by teachers that my best move was perhaps to go into some kind of vocational training. I used to go to school late – intentionally . . . . I was no head boy or prefect but I didn’t care. The CXCs I attained were not good enough for me to get into the [Barbados Community College], so I was awarded a position in Lower Sixth at Combermere, where I continued to perform at a substandard rate,” Devonish added.
Now a UWI tutor, he said he was so dissatisfied with himself that whenever there were form level meetings he never took the notice home to his grandmother, Sybil Devonish, with whom he lived from age 11, in fear of her reaction. However, though displeased with himself, he was still not moved to change – that was until he transitioned to university.
Devonish was adamant that there was no particular catalyst for a change of heart or no action pulled from the script of a movie – he simply awoke one day.
“I barely got into university by the skin of my teeth. In Upper Sixth I barely managed to get all my A levels back at Es. From there I started looking at life differently. People say a traumatic experience would have happened, but it was nothing like that. It was basically having a level of maturity and recognising that when I saw people in my community on the block, smoking weed, I saw how people were struggling because of their level of education . . . .
“At that time I was the first person in my household to go to the University of the West Indies; so all of those things hit home and I think that led to a transition in my thought processes,” he said.
An author of more than 30 publications, Devonish maintained that even after all his successes, he still believed that excellence was not an attainment or achievement – nor an accomplishment for others to look upon and praise. Excellence, in his opinion, is an attitude.
This attitude was manifested through every encouragement from his gran, about whom he spoke glowingly, and from his telling himself that he was worth greatness.
Devonish frequently goes to seminars and schools to speak to young people, and his advice to those who wanted to achieve greatness also was to make excellence a habit.
“Excellence is a way of life. When I used to clean the house, I would clean it anyhow because I wanted to get out and go play cricket with the guys, and my gran said there were only two ways of doing something in life – you either give it 100 per cent or not. She would say if you are a plumber, if you are a garbage collector, do it with excellence because excellence has nothing to do with the title. Though she may not be able to read everything, she taught me well.
“The definition of excellence is the process of continually growing and improving yourself. It is not the goal that you attain or achieve that is excellent; it is the process and your attitude. My definition, as someone who was substandard, was based on how others saw me, and what other persons thought of me I thought of myself.” (SDB Media)