The Editor, Sir:

I read Mr. Seaga's article, 'The School of the Future', in the July 1, 2007 edition of your paper and I feel compelled to make a few comments.

Mr. Seaga is right, "There is an urgent need to reform the curriculum of the education system to include character-based education, to reinforce the need for good citizenship." What strikes me, however, is that so much of what we are expecting from our children is lacking in too many of our political leaders.

Yes, we need to grow our children up in the right way and our schools have a vital role to play in this regard, but children learn more from what they see than from what they hear and read. Our political leaders should be modelling the kind of behaviours we want our children to display. Go into any primary or high school and ask any group of children to role play a parliamentary session or a political rally and see the kind of lessons they are learning by watching our leaders.

Six 'pillars' of character education are outlined by Mr. Seaga, namely: trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring, and citizenship. It would be beautiful if most, if not all, of our children displayed these characteristics, but are our politicians measuring up and modelling these for our children?

When politicians make promises over and over again and do nothing to fulfil them, are they being honest and trustworthy? When politicians verbally abuse their opponents, are they being respectful? When projects are started, with all the fanfare in the world, and suddenly stopped, or when projects are forever in the 'pipeline', is this responsible behaviour? When political leaders can say that 'those who play by the rules are shafted', and when they can say they are not 'shackled by the law', is this promoting fairness? When jokes are made about the misfortunes of others,is this being caring? When our leaders allow destruction of the environment in the name of development, is this a good example of citizenship?

If significant changes are to take place in the behaviour of our children, and the population at large, the change has to start from the top. There is a popular saying that the entire stream will be dirty as long as the head of the stream is dirty.

Is it any wonder that so many of our young people are not even interested in participating in general elections?

I am, etc;

GARY GARDINER

garyogardiner@yahoo.com

Kingston 3