A LOT OF Barbadian 11-year-olds who received their Common Entrance results last week, will not know who Muhammad Ali was nor what he did.
And when many of their parents read this they will say, “My chile? Muhammad Ali ain never do nutten fuh my chile.”
Their child has spent half of its life, studying maths and English almost exclusively, building up to the exam. Would Muhammad Ali have helped them pass? No? Well he ain’t important then.
In this mindset, neither is Samuel Jackman Prescod. Prescod fought in the House of Assembly for Barbadian Blacks to have access to education. The planter class of the time felt that all Negroes needed was Bible knowledge and a sugar cane cutting arm. In the mind of the elites, any educational system for the poor that went beyond the needs of the plantation was unnecessary.
Our present-day minds have grown from the plantation. We are now at least physically emancipated, freer than ever to dream of riches rivalling the plantation. If you are motivated and driven you can have things your ancestors dared not imagine.
Through our pride and industry, we too can rise to the level of the elites. And we will want nothing less than the best for our children.
If we are still too plantation minded though, we will make the mistake of thinking that an education that goes beyond the goal of wealth is a waste. Learning about Samuel Jackman Prescod and Muhammad Ali, while very interesting, will not be a priority of the plantation minded parent. That must take a back seat to more important things, the way Emancipation Day must shift to accommodate Kadooment. Kadooment is a money-earner. The plantation mind does not see what Emancipation Day offers of worth.
The old-time plantation owner said, “Just educate them to do the job we need them to do.” The plantation owner in your head says, “Education is so you can get the job you need to get so you can be rich like a plantation owner.”
But the mind descended from the plantation is a double mind. You have the plantation owner speaking to you from your right shoulder and the plantation worker speaking to you from your left. You often end up being a slave or indentured servant to the job that allows you a nicer spot on the plantation.
You tell yourself, “Never mind that. It is better than being poor. Focus on what is important.”
What is important at 11 years old is a high score. You may be led to believe that it is getting into one of the older secondary schools that will give you a good start in life. Your parent may have shut down all extracurricular activities a year or two prior so you could “focus”. Because locking yourself away in an arithmetic and grammar prison is believed to be the fastest, surest way to freedom.
Everyone wants to be free. The freedoms we enjoy today come through the immense sacrifices of persons like Muhammad Ali and Samuel Jackman Prescod. To understand them and what they did is to understand the art and science of freedom and to guard it. To not fully appreciate the efforts of these icons of history is to risk not noticing re-enslavement in some other form.
The plantation minded person sees freedom as a matter of finance. Freedom can simply be bought. If they understood history they would see that many bought their way out of slavery only to be recaptured and sold again. Even after Emancipation came a period worse than the enslavement period before. Financial security is a big part of freedom, but freedom is much more.
Muhammad Ali and Samuel Jackman Prescod understood this. They themselves were financially freer than others like them. Prescod was a free slave descendent in the days of slavery and Ali was a millionaire when African Americans were still third-class citizens. Others in similar positions took the freedom they enjoyed and never looked back at those still in bondage. Prescod and Ali volunteered to sacrifice much of the privileges they enjoyed to fight that more of us could enjoy them.
Once the plantation mind feels free enough, it may relax. After the push through 11-plus, CXC, A levels and a degree to land a secure job, it is done learning. Its perceived goal of education, which is to get a good job, has been reached. There is no longer a need to learn and grow.
But there are new minds entering the arena all the time. You may not be growing but they are. They may grow past you. You have been educated to get a job and not to grow. In order to secure the position you have worked so hard to get you may be tempted to prevent those below you from growing also. Sounds familiar?
Our education system is flawed and arguably failing. Employers are complaining. We claim that we need more critical thinking, creativity, innovation, originality and entrepreneurial spirit, yet we have a system of education not designed to facilitate those traits and which may actually discourage them.
It is a system which rewards the ability to sit still and watch a black board, follow instructions and regurgitate information, write papers and past tests. Important skills, yes. But the Common Entrance exam is more a measure of the parents’ ability to motivate and pay for lessons, than it is of the child’s potential.
The persons charged with improving the system may struggle to do so, because they are largely made up of ones who were able to succeed within it. They may not fully see the problem. Have they had to dampen some of their critical thinking or creativity to succeed? If so, we hope they can dig deep and find it.
Because the plantation mind does not serve us, only the real owners of the plantation.
Adrian Green is a creative communications specialist and a Maroon minded parent. Email: Adriangreen14@gmail.com