Ralph Thompson, Contributor
Graduates of the University of Technology. The insitution has removed the word 'Art' from its name, indicating a change in focus.- RICARDO MAKYN/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
THE TOPIC presumes, quite rightly perhaps, that tertiary education in Jamaica really does need humanising, that the state of health of the present system may need treatment and revitalisation. Constriction of the mind can occur when education is too specialised.
The educational swing away from liberal education is particularly strong in Third World countries which believe that their survival depends on technology. This is a change in educational emphasis that continues to gain momentum.
Perhaps the time is right for the emphasis of tertiary education in Jamaica to be reviewed and reformed.
The medical student getting used to the heft of the scalpel should not be afraid to gaze into the eyes of the patient, to see what real pain and suffering look like and so become more compassionate.
The architect should not so focus on manipulating space and costs, that light is neglected and a prison rather than a human habitation is the end result.
The lawyer, even as he practises his quillets and quiddities, should be trained to recognise the just as well as the lawful so that equity can prevail.
Politicians, nearly all of whom are graduates of our tertiary education system, should not be so consumed with power that rhetoric descends to propaganda and a professed love for the generality of 'de people dem' leaves no room for the respect of individuals and their well-being.
ETHICAL STANDARD
But, all these should and should not imply an ethical standard, a codex of acceptable human behaviour which may be as brief as a tablet of stone, the chant of a griot or the great books of the Western canon.
Like Jacob wrestling with the angel, I have been struggling with the ambiguities of 'multiculturalism' as a concept.
If multiculturalism meant respecting all cultures, accepting the riches and weaknesses of each, it would have no place in the vocabulary of those who felt that Shakespeare was irrelevant to Jamaican society and that his plays should not be performed in our schools or, if taught at all, not as vibrant cultural vehicles of universal human traits but merely as a historical phenomenon mentioned in passing.
When one culture began to be promoted at the expense of another, thus setting up an unholy and unwinnable argon, my disenchantment set in. Then multiculturalism became a political call to action and the dilemma was compounded in a Jamaica where the muticulturalists began expounding that because of slavery and colonialism there was no core Jamaican culture, and the vacuum should be filled by African culture because our people were of African ancestry no matter how far removed. This seemed to me to be swapping one kind of cultural imperialism for another.
This was bad enough but when America, whose minorities were growing in number, invented the concept of 'politically correct' speech as a method of pacifying the arrivants and its indigenous minorities, I withdrew to the sidelines.
CULTURAL DIVIDE
I spent two years in Japan as a member of the military and a greater cultural divide between Jamaica and the Japanese culture I cannot imagine. But I immersed myself in the Japanese culture, tried to learn its language, dressed in its clothes and, even as a representative of the conquering power would not have dared to suggest that any part of the culture be changed to accommodate me
not even the custom of communal toilets.
Herewith a few words about my own hybrid cultural development. I was a poor boy from South Camp Road. We lived in a house that is now part of the cartilage of the Gun Court. Neither my mother nor father had the advantages of a college education. I had to work during the day to put myself through law school. I became a businessman, nearly all my energies absorbed in the profession of being a manager. I was so tired at night that I fell asleep trying to read.
But I was determined that the best part of whatever brains I had would belong, not to my employers, but to me. So I made a practice of getting up at 4:00 a.m. and reading for two hours my own Great Books course. Books rescued me from constriction, saved me from cultural constipation and from becoming literally narrow-minded, trapped between two columns of figures on a balance sheet. My life was enriched and I believe that I became a better businessman and manager as a result. Reading was the key. Sitting around a camp fire listening to Anancy stories would have been enjoyable but not, frankly, aesthetically or ethically enlightening for me.
There are those who defend the Canon as the best vehicle for passing on from one generation to another the ethical inheritance of mankind, or at least framing the important issues for discussion. Penelope's faithfulness to Odysseus and how she finessed the suitors by never finishing her weaving is a case in point.
MIDDLE GROUND POSITION
Henry Louis Gates Jr., a great African American scholar, takes a middle ground position on the Canon. He insists that its teaching is the teaching of values. "Not inherently, no, but contingently, yes; it is and has become the teaching of an aesthetic and political order in which ... no people of colour were ever able to discover the reflection or representation of their images or hear the resonances of their cultural voices." Gates, be it noted, is not arguing for discarding the Canon but for it to include the missing voices.
If it is true, as I believe, that virtue resides in the will, not the intellect, then somewhere in the existential space between these two faculties, perpetually shuttling between them, resides the Imagination. It is Imagination that keeps the intellect and will in balance which is a state called wisdom. Imagination is unique in being able to move us forward into the future without having to leave the present.
Imagination is important for ethics because it is the gift by which we can put ourselves into the shoes of the 'other' and thus avoid the destination to which they may lead.
Any steps we can take in our educational agendas to simulate Imagination will help to humanise the process and deserves priority.
This must start in the early childhood sector with the teaching of Standard English so that a reading culture is stimulated. Regardless of whether students have a bent for the arts or the sciences, as undergraduates they should be obliged to take one core course in which the great books of many civilisations can be read.
ECLECTIC LIST
Such a list can be as eclectic as West Indian society itself including black writers like Frederick Douglas and W.E.B. Du Bois; Africans like Ngugi Wa Thiongo and Chinua Achebe; even writers from the Islamic world like Naguib Mahfouz and Mahmoud Darwish. My own list would look something like the following: Homer and Braithwaite, Sappho and Louis Bennett, Aristotle and Augustine who was an African, Pope and Ralph Ellison, Shakespeare and Walcott, Cervantes and Mittleholzer, Austen and Jean Rhys, Lamming and Soyinka, Moliere and Cesaire.
The problem is that the teaching of great writing from whichever canon demands great teachers. For these to come from our teacher training colleges I suggest that the entrance requirements for admittance to these institution must be lifted from four CXCs to five. The teacher training colleges should be elevated to university status with the same academic requirements as apply to the University of the West Indies, including the importation of foreign lecturers and professors when necessary.
The process of training good teachers and developing a reading culture in Jamaica, starting with early childhood education, may take 15 years but a start must be made, and in the life of a nation 15 years is but a blink.
Albert Einstein said that imagination is more important than knowledge. Coming from so great a scientist that is a profound observation, indeed.
Ultimately, we cannot rely exclusively on technology to save us. We need to encourage a culture that escapes constriction and rejoices in the infinite possibilities of a national Imagination. Only in this way will we ensure the humanisation of tertiary education and, in the process, preserve our democracy.
This is an excerpt of a
presentation made at the University of Technology by Dr. Ralph Thompson on
April 20.
