THE EDITOR, Sir:
WHILE DOING back-to-school shopping recently I was forced to accept an unpleasant reality, that of the ill-placed priorities of many parents and care-givers. As I entered a well-known wholesale department store I could hardly find myself amidst the teeming crowd of shoppers. They were busy purchasing new lunch kits, school bags, shoes, hair clips, notebooks, pencils, uniforms and all such things that make the first day of school a spectacular parade of smart-looking children.
Later, a visit to a prominent bookstore painted a grave contrast. I thought to myself that maybe their purchases were made earlier in the
holidays, but my queries with several school teachers revealed my deep fears. Many students had fancy but empty school bags.
As if to further convince me of our dilemma, while shopping in the supermarket recently I overheard a mother sharing her dismay at the fact that the primary school teacher would not allow her grade three child to have her cell phone in class. "Suppose I need to get in touch with her?" she mused.
Somehow we have got to correct this situation. Children have become models of our own materialistic outlook with greater interest in what they wear and carry to the classroom than what they learn. They feel no inconvenience in sharing a friend's textbook as long as they have an empty but trendy book bag and a phone card. The trail doesn't stop there. Just follow them home where you will find an empty library but a crammed DVD or video stand and cable to make up for the shortfall. Parents and care-givers must reverse this trend. Many innocently fall into this trap in an effort to ensure that their children do not suffer the inadequacies they did, not realising the great disincentive they deal them by undermining the more crucial issue, facilitating the process of learning.
In many of our communities more resources are spent on a community and entertainment
centre than on our libraries; the ball has displaced the book. My first lesson of apartheid was learnt at age six as I accompanied my father to a discussion at the St. Catherine Parish Library. It is about time we balance the crowd between the department store and the bookstore.
I am, etc.,
PATRICE WILLIAMS-GORDON
tricieg2@yahoo.com
Department of Biology and Chemistry
Northern Caribbean University.
