Desmond Green - Photo byPaul Williams

Truancy, abuse of illegal drugs, underage sex and teenage pregnancy, illiteracy and death by the gun are suffocating life here in Jamaica. Many reasons have been proffered and many policies and laws have been put in place to curb all these social ills, but there seems to be no significant abatement.

This failure to effect behavourial changes, according to retired research psychologist Desmond Green, is so because a most important factor is missing from the problem-solving template.

This is what came out of a recent discussion with Green, who has spent many years researching and working with juvenile delinquents. Unskilled parents and teachers and students, an inadequate school curriculum, a lack of commitment to results by some correctional officers, and the Church's non-involvement in the correction of social problems are some of the factors he said which were contributing to the escalation of unwholesome practices in the society. But, it is the educational system which he believes is the primary root of the problem.

"The educational system, through the curriculum, is set up to focus on the three Rs (reading, writing and arithmetic), but what that does is ... marginalises the child in the process, and circumvents the child's needs ... the child's social reality ... the better they read, write and count, the more you promote them and give them scholarship because they can read, write and count, not because they have an understanding of themselves, and their circumstances, and their realities."

The missing fourth 'r'

This has been the case throughout the history of education in Jamaica. Teachers themselves have overlooked this important element and the problem persists because the fourth R is missing from most school curricula, and the vicious cycle is allowed to continue because parents and teachers themselves are not aware of it, they being products of the same deficient system. What then is the missing link?

Reverence for life, he said, is the skill required to rid the country of crime and other anti-social behaviour. If children are taught to respect their lives and the lives of others as an integral part of the school curriculum, then their attitude to life would be different. It is not about occasional motivational talks. Reverence for life as a skills set should be a curriculum course coexisting with academic subjects. It must not be an adjunct, but a key curriculum component, critical to students' well-being and welfare.

There are eight steps that must be taught and practised:

1. Breathing. You are your breath, so get familiar with it, and respect it, embrace it and cherish it, because breathing is life.

2. Monitor and analyse your thoughts, work with them, flush out the negative ones.

3. Eat food that is compatible with your biological system, because bad food can affect the thought process.

4. Be playful at times and relax.

5. Your self-image must be consistent with the reality of who you are, dispense with false notions of self.

6. Acceptance of self is key because the self is the only thing you really have.

7. Be generous. Children should learn to share and care.

8. Trust and be true to yourself.

"The fourth R is what is lacking in the curriculum in Jamaica. That is why the country is dysfunctional. It doesn't matter where you are, if you didn't get these skills set you will be dysfunctional because you do not know how to express who and what you are, and it's not a good or bad thing, it's not about morality, it's clear and straightforward."

This is the conclusion he has arrived at after years of association with the correctional services in Jamaica and in the United States.

After leaving Mico Teachers' College with a diploma in education he went straight to St Augustine Boys' Home in Clarendon in the capacity of assistant superintendent, because he had always been concerned about the high level of dysfunctional behaviour in the society, and he wanted to find out why it was that way.

Lacking in life skills

At St Augustine, he found that the boys were not inherently bad, but they were lacking in life skills. He eventually became their spiritual father, even at his very young age, and there were times when he would be alone with up to 80 of them, attending to their spiritual and emotional needs. Boys who would normally run away were now staying and those who had run away were returning to St Augustine, because of the approaches he was taking.

Still not satisfied with what he was doing, Green went to study psychology in the United States, where he obtained bachelor's and master's degrees. After doing extensive work and research in juvenile delinquency in the United States, he returned to Jamaica in the 1970s to teach, which he didn't do much of in the school system.

He returned to the correctional services to apply his learning, but realised that generally there were weaknesses in the system that could not be corrected unless certain psychological principles were adopted. He has been in and out of Jamaica, but at one point or another, he was involved with the correctional services. He said that department is not equipped with the human resources to address the needs of whom he prefers to call teammates, and not inmates.

Self-management critical

He is of the view that children, especially delinquents, are not to be blamed for their actions; the failure of the educational system to adequately train them to manage themselves is responsible.

"The child should be taught that the reverence that they have for themselves is the most important skill they could have in life."

Green added that if children are not equipped with the skills to manage their lives, they are going to be societal outcasts. "If Jamaica wants to rid itself of the violence, provide the people with the skills to conduct themselves properly," he said.

Parents, teachers, the Church and correctional officers themselves are not equipped with life management skills and, until the powers that be realise this, then it seems, we are going to continue in the rapid slide into social decadence.

"All that Jamaica needs now is to start breathing, and open our eyes, see our divinity, know that we are not something to be killed or destroyed, and live that way, because the universe is ours," Desmond Green declares.

For more on 'reverence for life', visit www.reverenceforlife.com.

paul.williams@gleanerjm.com

Reverence for life, he said, is the skill required to rid the country of crime and other anti-social behaviour. If children are taught to respect their lives and the lives of others as an integral part of the school curriculum, then their attitude to life would be different. It is not about occasional motivational talks. 'The child should be taught that the reverence that they have for themselves is the most important skill they could have in life.'