Veronica Carnegie"I," said the fly, "with my little eye killed Cock Robin."I ended the poem right there inthe open AIDS office. I had to have lost control, gone out of my mind when the supervisor suggested that I go into the schools to get information about diseased children.
I'm ashamed to tell you I was kicked out of the classroom, and the system, when the daughter of the home economics teacher accused me of touching her inappropriately.
I became ill when the letter confirming my dismissal came from the Ministry of Education with the approval of the school's chairman and principal. Only one teacher protested and I heard she later found the girl and her mother to be liars.
I refused to go back into any school for any reason until my name was cleared. I demanded a letter of apology and reinstatement, my full salary and increments for the four-year period, confessions from the little liar and her scheming mother whose advances I had rejected.
I pressed for publicity of the whole affair and asked them to send copies to my parents who had gone abroad, disappointed, after the scandal broke.
"Aren't you overdoing it?" Nurse asked, but I felt not. Who feels it knows it, and I played them with my innocence and knew in no time I would be exonerated and smell like a rosebud. Mrs. Banton, Nurse and a lawyer went to the school at River Bottom.
I walked in the woods lifting my feet high over bramble and putting them down gingerly, like a Gestapo. I ran by the river and tried to keep pace with the boat-branches I had thrown in.
The river was faster. I'd give up every time, throw my exhausted self under a tree and yell as loudly as my lungs allowed. Cows grazing nearby would stop, look in the direction of the sound, raise their rumps as if in agreement, face the opposite direction and deposit manure.
As I waited for the investigation week to pass, I filled my notebook with information for my inspector contact on Washington Boulevard. I collected information on the drugs women who ran a ring in the town.Yes, I said drugs women, and the weasel of a man who planned to squeal on them, for they would have no dealings with him. But I will tell you about these women another time.
"Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty!" I shouted when I saw the headlines in the newspapers. 'TEACHER ON SEX MOLESTATION CHARGES WRONGLY DISMISSED. MOTHER AND DAUGHTER CHARGED WITH MALICIOUS DESTRUCTION OF CHARACTER. RAYMOND WELSH, TEACHER, WRONGLY DISMISSED. GOVT TO PAY.'
The lawyer was also a talk show host, and whether by way of fear or what, letters of apologies were written and acceptable settlements made in no time.
I went back into school, but not alone. Nurse came with me. Our first assignment was to register the OVCs (orphans and vulnerable children). What a hell we found! Who was not orphaned was severely vulnerable.
This first staff meeting, it seemed, never ended. Teachers, guidance counsellors and coaches chattered about the war in Iraq, the situation in the Middle East and the politics of the Far East.
"I don't want to hear a blast about Iraq. I'm sick and tired of analyses of President Bush's war. Look at our stinking country. Let's talk about that."
"Watch your mouth, young man. You are new here. It would suit you to take the pulse from the older ones of us."
I looked directly at the young teacher who sounded angrier than he really was. I saw that it was his stutter that aggravated his speech: he spat out every word. He seemed to have overcome a speech defect.
"You know that over 1,500 Jamaicans are murdered each year?"
"Where the 500 come from?"
"That falls under 'Not to be reported' by the press."
"The same amount of American soldiers reported killed in Iraq."
"But they had no right to invade and occupy the people's country. I am sorry for the soldiers, but I cry for my beloved who live here."
"I mourn the same amount of Jamaicans murdered by Jamaicans and I don't hear you bawling about that. Talk about terrorist abroad? The terrorists are here! The violence has escalated. Which country you know kill 12 policemen each year and, the other day, five in one week?"
"Some of the police are in drugs."
"Whether or not, no country can afford to have that high murder rate, especially among its protective services."
"We have to deal with these damn noisy and aggressive war-zone children."
"Don't damn the children. Mrs. Mason. why yu don't leave? You are the main one insulting the students and treating them like dirt. It's not their fault; they're products of this neighbourhood. Yu really shouldn't stay here, ma'am."
"After this is not Iraq."
"This is worse. Those people were attacked by America. We are killing each other. I hear the main offenders are under 20."
"Small boys and girls have guns."
"Girls?"
"Yes. Some of them as young as eight and nine."
"I've seen the police search the boys. The girls move off with the guns."
"These children live in the war zone and the war. Yu hear the names of the areas they come from? Babylon, Baghdad, Dunkirk, Jungle, Tel-Aviv.
"I want to know where the children get the guns from."
"From the big people. From Haiti, from Colombia, from America, I hear."
"We following them with the drive-by shooting. Those people have money. They can snap a finger, recover and rebuild higher towers. We have to struggle to fix one pothole in the road."
I sighed with relief when the elderly principal entered the room, apologised for the late start of the meeting, and, as if she had heard the discussion, said: "I want to know who's minding the newly-created orphans."
"That's right. We have a new breed of orphans."
"Are they in this school?"
"Yes. This is the most volatile area of the city. More murders are committed here."
"Are we prepared to teach them?"
"Where is the textbook to help us with these parents-shot-and-killed-last-night orphans?"
"Mrs.Telfer, will you give us the list of orphans in our school from grades seven to 11? Each child must be given special attention."
The principal looked at Mrs. Telfer, and I looked forward to getting the list from her. I wrote down her name.
"We should get risk pay for working in a place like this. I hear gunmen can run through this school on any given day."
"Not again. That happened sometime ago - before I came here," Mrs. Mills said. "A past student ran into the principal's office for shelter. A gunman chased and killed him in front of her. She fainted. Look at the security fence and gate house we now have."
Principal, Amanda Mills, and staff, lamented a slow September registration at Beacon Ridge High School, situated in the heart of downtown.
They say I must say the inner city. One reason was that no class-conscious, self-respecting resident in that depressed neighbourhood wanted to be associated with the school, which in itself was a modern well-equipped structure.
The school was mentally listed as 'bad'. The parents did the expected and usual July and August exercise of moving from 'good' school to 'good' school to get places for their children.
I know parents who paid teachers and ancillary workers of the schools to effect entry for a 'close relative', especially when the principals published their final list and put up signs which read: NO SPACE. DO NOT ENQUIRE.
Schools like Aztec and Carib High got students who passed with 90 and above. Schools like Yabba Hill and Valley High were sent those who passed below 50. The beauty of the GSAT was that everybody passed and every student was placed in a secondary school.
"Ah pass! Ah pass!" Ms. Angie's son jumped up and down in the yard.
"How yu pass an' yu can't read, Yanick?"
"Mind yu own business. My son was placed. I am glad and so is he."
"Pass GSAT and can't read. What a t'ing. Edication' gone to the dogs."
The neighbour had the last word.
Teachers grumbled about unfair and ridiculous allocations, like the Spence twins from Jack's Hill. They were sent to Beacon Ridge High School on Spanish Town Road.
They had to leave home at five in the morning and board three different buses to get to school. Sometimes they were late.
I had forgotten the sounds of a staffroom. The laughter was limited, the murmurs profuse, the complaintsabundant, the talk profound.
Nurse and I were visitors here and did not open our mouths unless we were asked to speak. We memorised some of the names.
Mrs. Mills came with her own agenda. She announced a guide to change, addressed us in a fiery fashion and invited those who could not stand the heat to get out of the kitchen. As plain as that.
She told us the school was not a democracy and we shouldn't fool ourselves into thinking it was.
"Change is not for the complaining weak," she said, and I agreed with her. She asked for one year of concentrated effort to change the image of the school.
"It's the image that counts. Let's announce every good thing that happens here. Get the media on our side. Most of you don't like the name of the school, so while we discuss let's come up with an acceptable name."
"Leave the name of the school alone. We have far more important things to deal with."
I volunteered to work with the public relations person while Nurse elbowed me to be quiet. She questioned where I was going to get the time to do any PR.
Half of the staffroom erupted. What in God's name was Mrs. Mills trying to prove? Who told her the staff would cooperate?
Mrs. Mills ignored the comments, asked the non-cooperative teachers to leave and invited free discussion.
She tightened her jaw, made a line of her lips, read the items listed, paused, talked, moved to the next one:
1 Change back from the shift system.
2 No class should have more than 30 students.
3Parents and guardians, as volunteers, should sit at the back of the class, follow the teacher's directives and assist the teacher.
4 Students who cannot read should not be promoted.
5 Students who cannot read should not graduate.
6 No free periods for students. Substitute teachers must be provided on a daily basis.
7 Teachers must stay with the class for its duration unless there was an emergency.
8 Teachers should not beg students for anything. For example, announcing your birthday and having students bring presents for you.
9Teachers should not join or throw 'pardner' with students. No such money transactions should be encouraged in the school.
10 Teachers should not bring items to sell to students. No sales should take place in the staffroom, from your car trunk, or under any campus tree.
11 Teachers should not 'send out' students on the street or out of class to purchase lunch or any item. Don't send out the people's children.
12 Teachers reported or found having sexual encounters or intimacy with students will be physically handed over to the police. This will be treated as serious police matter.
13The extra lessons business must stop. Poor students must no longer be punished because of their inability to pay for after-school extra lessons.
14The staffroom remains out of bounds to the students.
Many of the teachers were not pleased. They resented the sudden changes and the way the principal charged into them during the discussion. She had to win to effect the changes she wanted.
Two young teachers walked out. They did not like the school's control over the extra lessons issue.
The burly-looking PE teacher-coach stalked out; he seemed to have identified himself with number 12. The teachers' eyes focused on him. We looked too.
Mrs. Mills had asked the vibrant PTA to provide funds to pay teachers to work after school with those students who were slow learners.
The PTA found two empty warehouses and the merchant owners furbished and maintained them as classrooms.
The principal and staff heaped praises on Abe Habeeb. Mr. Habeeb cursed the day the shift system was introduced.
"The dyam shif' system was a disaster from day one. We lost business. Kids in uniform invaded the stores. They barged in as soon as we opened the shutters. They hung around for the afternoon shift. Then, when that set left for 12 o'clock classes, the released set invaded us again. The children couldn't go home at 12 because the poor mothers worked till after five. They may reach home at seven, if they're lucky. There was wholesale pilfering by idle children."
Mr. Habeeb's store was nearest the school - he knew what he was talking about. He organised the merchants and they brought about a transformation.
'We'll keep them in school from 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., and later if possible.'
They agreed.
I'd never seen this level of cooperation before. I decided to begin the PR exercise. I contacted the radio and television stations, and the three newspapers, and told in exaggerated language what the downtown merchants were doing.
They broadcast it, and Beacon Ridge High School had its debut on television. Newspeople were everywhere in the community.
The businessmen were smart. They knew their gain from investing in these apparently deprived children. The PTA and the merchants built and renovated classrooms and laboratories. They provided lunch for the school and dinner for the homework centre.
The president of the Chamber of Commerce stepped in and encouraged the business community to help the school.
He told me they were terrified at the killing of so many young men by young men. His colleagues had been murdered.
'The random shootings is proof of the level of illiteracy and unemployment in the country. We have to stop them by way of good education and skills training. Put books, pens, pencils and musical instruments and tools in their hands and they'll have no time for guns,' the Chamber of Commerce President said.
The business community downtown, a mixture of good sense, fear and fright, and a drive to get rid of the old extortionists, pumped money into Beacon Ridge High School. The president was publicly praised for a job creation programme which saw 11th Graders getting after-school and weekend jobs.
The principal was pleased. Her appeals had worked. The physical changes were furious and fast.
The workmen and women lived in the area; we frequently photographed them shoveling, hammering, plastering, tiling. The best dressmaker in the neighbourhood got the contract to sew uniforms ina specially designed sewing room.
The Chamber, the businessmen, the merchants especially, undertook accountability. Not a penny was put in the principal's hands. Not one cent passed through the school. And Mrs. Mills was pleased. Nobody could accuse Mrs. Mills of financial mismanagement.
I'd never seen civic involvement of that magnitude. When the officer from the Ministry of Education visited, every detail was check-listed. No money, apart from the cost sharing dues, was collected. No money was misplaced. No money was missing. The staff cheered when the visitor left.
The excitement of working in an upscale environment of this kind took over, and some who'd grumbled and criticised joined in the drive for image change. We learned to spin. We highlighted the good things. When one of our girls was photographed on the Sex For Sale auction block and identified as a Beacon Ridge student, PR quickly advised that she was a past student. She later went into counselling.
The outstanding past students were few, but we featured them over and again. They were the guest speakers and key motivators. One, the famous artist James Jennings, hung paintings in the assembly hall and put up signs wherever he felt.
I AM IMPORTANT
I AM MADE IN JAMAICA
I AM THE BEST.
WORK OR LEAVE
FIND SOMETHING TO DO
I CAN
WHERE THERE'S A WILL, THERE'S AN A.
We preached. We implored. We motivated and built self-esteem. This was not easy.
The member of parliament would not be left out. He, with the help of friends of Jamaica abroad, provided instruments for a big band and arranged part-time teachers. Music was worked into the time table. Choir was compulsory, even for the tone deaf.
Before the two-day marathon staff meeting ended, each teacher was asked to take an area of responsibility and report once a week. 'Committee' was a bad word here. Nurse settled with the guidance counsellor. At least she would get the names of diseased children.
The main verb used by this principal was 'entered'. The notices read: 'Beacon Ridge High School entered J.C.D.C speech, drama and culinary competitions, Schools' Challenge Quiz, Boys and Girls Athletic Championships, Sunlight Cup. Manning Football Competition.' The principal made sure the students entered. She said with effort and enthusiasm, gold cups and shields would come. She was determined to make things happen.
What a hell of a woman! I'd never witnessed success at work like this. I noticed she was always in a hurry, this small, wiry woman. At lunch Mrs. Mills didn't seem to chew her food. She rolled it in her mouth, swallowed and gulped as she put the glass with the drink to her mouth. I wonder if was nerves or what. Good God. Such a fine-looking woman to eat like that. She cleaned her plate, pushed it to the side and picked on Mr. Thomas. That's the man I would work with. He was to assist students who had questionable and conspicuous names.
Mr. Thomas passed the paper with the names. Some teachers were familiar with names like these and did not react. Some laughed out loud. Others stared stony-faced.
"The RGD officer has this list, Mr. Thomas?"
"Yes, ma'am."
Nurse and I exchanged glances of disbelief.
"Do you mean parents still have not registered their children? In this day and age?"
"It's no point complaining. I take the children in. I try to explain the importance of registration at birth or soon after. They can't be bothered with the RGD's tedious process."
"Mrs. Mills, this is last year's list. These kids are in Grade 8."
"Holy Father. You mean to tell me young parents who wear designer clothes give names like these to their children?"
I had already known a level of suffering, and I recoiled at the laughter that accompanied the reading of the names. I was vexed. Why would anybody call a helpless baby Gun Butt? This was child abuse.
The teachers told me that, of late, September registration had been slow. It took time to write unheard-of, unpronounceable and fabricated surnames.
Some names were African, like Mbeeto and Sheeibo, but there were more Moslem and Aramaic ones. Kareem, Shadeem and Hussein were common. Three boys in Special had part-biblical names: Noah Oglimak, Zack Gunnman and Daniel Shotta. The school had called in the parents.
"Where you think I get my name from? My mother made it up," a parent said.
I learnt many of the parents were illiterate and unemployable. I wondered why, with free education, many young people had had no contact with books. Mr. Thomas was right. It made no sense lamenting after the fact. He would try to change some of the names.
"God bless you, Mr.Thomas. Who feels it knows it."
"Why doesn't Disco Mama shut up," a teacher said, looking in Miss Tessa Green's direction.
I looked too. She was throwing words at Mr. Thomas and it seemed that nobody liked her. She should be passing remarks about nobody.
Most teachers were aware that many mothers in the school's neighborhood, like their mothers and grandmothers before them, were long known to make up surnames for their children when they didn't know who the father was, when they were vexed with 'de man', and when, under threat, they could not reveal the true names of the fathers.
"I have worked here for over 20 years and I have seen a number of foreign last names given to children when there was absolutely no connection with family or country," an older teacher said. He told us some of the mothers gave their children names of well-known men in the community. They'd pick a name at random because it sounded important. Look at Miss Anglin, sitting at the corner with her box o' biscuits. She gave her daughter the name Kennedy and the impression that the honourable minister was the father of the child.
"That's an old trick. I believe that's how I got my name, Fitz-Krantzon - after the Custos who I learnt (when I was in my thirties) was impotent. But that's that. I like my name and it has opened many doors of opportunity for me," Miss Elizabeth Anne Fitz-Krantzon said.
"Good for you. I'm going to help these children change the names they don't like. Many of our kidsare unhappy, or angry, or self-denigrating because of their names."
I heard another set of women claim the fathers were killed in cold blood and, in a bid to protect their fatherless children, they'd given them bad-sounding names.
"Dem wi fraid o'dem at school and people wi run from dem when dem grow big," a mother said.
When the small boy, Babilon King, entered, a couple years ago, I'm told the school took action. It listed the unusual names and called in the RGD.
Virginella Mc.Farty
Ongle Mee Wan
Bulgaria Romania Puzey
Tafari Safari Hoilet
Shallalah Lue Lee
Afrika Deadman
Sirce Fadaless
Hardrive Bullett Brown
Shootout Simit
Shotankill Tygra
Cheva Baggyloo
Cherry Batti
Wray Nephew Tomson
Facility Fipps
Dildo Mc.Eye
Omeal Gravy
Shittim Jacas.
After the laughter subsided, one of the newcomers began a discourse on the inner city.
"Shut up!" I shouted. "What the hell yu know about inner city people? Don't laugh at these people! They have to use any means they can to protect themselves in their jungle." But one of the young teachers pointed to the last name and repeated Shittim Jacas and the room erupted again.
I didn't laugh. I've lived with "Fly".
I looked at her. She had pretty teeth but she didn't know that the 'J' was pronounced aitch, as Hakas. They continued to laugh and Mr. Thomas became impatient.. He, the senior mathematics teacher, undertook to change lives.
"This is not a joke play. It is life and death for these kids. I know how they feel. I know about low self-esteem. I had to live with my name Rassmus. It should have been Erasmus after my grandfather, but a knucklehead relative registered me. Teachers laughed openly at my name. Some adults chuckled, patted me with 'what a R-ss'. I was teased mercilessly until my last year of Teachers' College. I worked hard and was first or second in class, and I believe they respected me, but I always felt mocked. I can still hear them on sports day as I ran. 'Go Rss, go!' Thank God for Prof. Reid. He helped me tochange my name by deed poll. A weight was lifted off me when I saw a new birth certificate with Ronald James Thomas. Now I'm called Ron.'
The staff clapped.
"Thank you, Mr. Thomas. You have our full support," the principal said.
"Tell me something. Are these children christened?"
Nobody answered.
The staff meeting finally ended and I, Fly, can't wait to tell you what I saw in school.
