A NEW SCHOOL YEAR. Especially at secondary level, another introduction to mistaken identity. You can get very far on mistaken identity in Barbados.
Months ago, the Common Entrance Examination made its determinations, accompanied by the yearly celebration and consternation. And, of course, Barbadians attached their addenda of “bright” and “dumpsy”.
Barbadians love to talk about people being bright. And there seems to be a tacit belief that by segregating our young ones into “top schools” and the rest we are ensuring that we produce bright people.
So our system puts an intense spotlight on passing exams – a valuable thing, no doubt – but does not put an equally intense focus on the nature of the product after exams.
Assessment
When I was growing up, older people had a saying that encapsulated their assessment of a person who was well certificated, or known to be doing well in school or known to have done so, but did not show common sense or civility or sensitivity or some special value-added deemed important to the society.
Every now and then, in the midst of the description of somebody as being bright, some wise old soul would say of such a person, “They bright but they en shining”.
But the matter of shining has had a hard time gaining traction in Barbados – has found it hard to be elevated into being a partner to passing exams. As a matter of fact, doing well in exams has been equated to shining. The old people knew better.
We have not turned our people – by socialization, by fuss, by focus – on to the vitally important something else beyond passing exams.
So if we don’t change, this new generation of entrants to school will find that if they add nothing special to outstanding exam performance, they will still be seen as special, still be accorded a special place in the Barbadian landscape.
Look beyond exams
I say we should be looking for bright and shining – the truly consequential beyond exams.
Seriously, what is the distinctive productive mark of those we say are bright? Where are those bright people in whom we can see the shining?
Why, if you are bright, is the quality of your societal input (never mind the particular field or the superior pay – in Barbados those things themselves don’t generally tell a story of shining, except to the shallow observer) not markedly different from that of someone who is not considered bright?
How come we bright and the key thing to us in a society that needs transformative thinking and action is social and material standing and what school you went to and what “papers” you have rather than the brilliance of your thinking and contribution (be it evidenced in initiative, creativity, analysis, insight, invention, caring, emotional intelligence, specialness of output, high-level productivity and so on)?
How come we bright and hard-back men and women are mostly seeking social cachet out of the school they went to rather than surpassingly providing for the alma mater?
How come we bright and we think that if we are funded by taxpayers and we simply come back and work that that constitutes worthy enough payback?
How come we bright and Barbados, the home of more freeness per square foot than virtually anywhere else, is not a world-leader in charity?
Common sense
How come we bright and people (a Prime Minister not excluded) don’t exercise the common sense to not call their countrymen xenophobic, showing a failure to understand and navigate and negotiate around that dear concept of “our home” when people from other places arrive in droves and are not afraid to show us that they don’t like us or our values and have only the crass intention of using and abusing us till they spot something better?
(The critical difference between inter-island movement these days and inter-island movement of years ago is that past immigrants were intent on becoming like the citizens of the country to which they moved. Today’s immigrant, aided by the sheer unheard of numbers of his fellows, has a fierce aversion to assimilation, and the recipient country sometimes finds it is in danger of being colonized from within. If we were more than just bright we would have realized that and the difficulties it would pose. We woulda know that it en as simple as xenophobia.)
How come we bright and a Prime Minister don’ know that it isn’t smart to give people who staring down the barrel of no job tomorrow a definition of what temporary means, not showing the basic “knowing” of why a “temporary” officer who has been working in a job for months or years got to feel that he/she was not going to be sent home tomorrow.
While we busy talking ’bout brightness and thinking that we have framed a system that produces the best brightness – and are intent on keeping it in place – all around us is the unmistakable evidence of averageness or worse.
Mistaken identity. Being bright is not the real thing. Leh we try shining.
• Sherwyn Walters is a writer who became a teacher, a song analyst, a broadcaster and an editor. Email [email protected].
