Dreaming of a White Christmas

Do you remember the warm fuzzy feeling that Christmas songs would evoke? Songs such as Jingle Bells, Frosty the Snowman and Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire, made little school children wish to celebrate Christmas in countries where there was snow.  Traditionally the expatriates and their families as well as those educated in North America and Europe would make the trip to visit friends and experience snow. Those left behind would feel that they were making do in the heat and faux snow.

But there is another side to the story.  The cold weather means inconvenience as the heating bill increases, the roads are blocked with snow and fallen trees and the airports are snowed in.  In those conditions it becomes a miserable Christmas.

Note that this is the second time this year that there has been chaos at major airports across the world because of natural hazards.  There was the Icelandic volcano eruption that spread ash clouds across Europe and today, the weekend before Christmas, many travelers are stranded because of the blizzards. Flights across the world are once again delayed or cancelled.

I am glad to be here at home in sunny Trinidad and Tobago and I would like to extend warm wishes to all the teachers and children this Christmas season.

Expensive sand castles in the East

At school vacation times children would accompany their parents to the beach, as at this one in Manzanilla on Trinidad's east coast.  The children would invariably build sand castles.  They gave much effort to the task and had a lot of fun but we all knew what would happen to the sand castles in the end. 

This person is obvisouly concerned about his investment.  Should it be in the sand?  Should he be mining sand from the neighbours to fill behind his rubble wall?  What do you think would happen to this sand castle?

Fearsome environments in rural communities and the education of the young

These couple of weeks we witnessed the fear and hysteria experienced by some children at Moruga Composite.  The education authorities have dismissed the incident but one of the teachers there cautioned that we require more explanation and understanding of the problem.  I am inclined to agree with him.

http://www.trinidadexpress.com/news/Moruga_school_holds_emergency_service_-107376848.html?corder=reverse

The fear of the wild forest environment emanates from a belief in the activity of unknown spirits that can harm the unsuspecting.  The same type of stories was circulated in Cedros Composite a few years aback.

Cedros and Moruga have in common that they are deep rural communities.  The education facilities in these areas are few.  The general population is no less educated than the remainder of the country but the truth be told, many of the educated persons have migrated to the towns where there are jobs, cultural activities, libraries, and a regular supply of electricity, water, etc.

There are very few students who attended Cedros Composite or Moruga Composite or any other of the rural schools who have gained national scholarships.  The majority of the students attending these schools attained less than 80% at the entrance examinations.  The problem is worsened as while attending these schools they have lost valuable class time because of the lack of teachers, half days because of no water, and the disruptive activities of students whose learning disabilities are not being addressed. 

Now we have to add to the list of class time lost, the effects of food poisoning and the activities of malevolent spirits, or should we call this the power of suggestion in an atmosphere of fear?  In all of these instances we need to examine what exactly is the quality of education that these children are receiving.

Regarding the hysteria and fear, we have to include a proper environmental science programme to have these students appreciate the environment rather than fear and destroy it.

The school environment and things that go "Boom!"

Time was when children had respect for the environment.  They went to church and expected that God would see their hearts and they reverenced the place.  School was a place of learning and teachers were super-heroes (or close to that).  Those days are gone.  Half of the students at Gasparillo Secondary School go to school and lime in the corridors instead of going to classes, if we are to believe the Trinidad Guardian story that reported the statements of the Security Guard at the school.

http://guardian.co.tt/news/crime/2010/11/05/teachers-save-day-students-set-fire-school
The difference in the attitude of the teachers and the students present when the incident occurred is telling.  The article said that one teacher kicked off her shoes, raised up her Divali ethnic wear and sprinted for water to put out the fire.  She and other colleagues sustained burns and were later congratulated by the Minister of Education for saving the school from burning down.  They limited the damage to approximately $20,000.  A few students created the mischief and the others panicked. 

What would prompt children to set fire to school property, creating panic, while the others try to get out of the one exit? Does this sound familiar?  Here is a clue: remember the mad scramble from Port of Spain when we expected the visit from Tropical Storm Tomas.

But really, what kind of school environment would tolerate half the students liming in the hall instead of going to classes on any given day or, to be precise, on a day before a holiday?  Unsupervised children with dangerous toys, a product of the imported advanced technology, leads to the possibility of damage to school property, to themselves and to other children.

Several children have been maimed over the years.  The bombs shatter the quiet and can upset classes.  They are at least a nuisance and, as the article showed, a fire hazard.  Yet teachers taking a stand against the use of scratch bombs at schools are considered to be too extreme.  Some parents and students consider these scratch bombs as innocent noisemakers.  They say that these scratch bombs provide harmless fun, such as making people "jump".

I wonder, were the children at Gasparillo trying to capture attention and make us focus on the fact that half of them are liming on the corridors on any given day when we think we are spending our limited revenue to support their education?

Has enough been said about scratch bombs?  They are illegal and should not be brought unto the compound but the Minister asked "Can we search every school bag coming into the school compound?" 

If we teach the children to respect both the natural and man-made environment then there would be no need for the searching.

Natural Landscape helps to moderate the influence of the weather

Haiti, still suffering the effects of an earthquake and a cholera epedemic, is now faced with another major catastrophe, that of Hurricane Tomas.  It is common knowledge that most of Haiti's forest have been removed thereby offering little resistance to the effects of pounding rain and raging mountain rivers from storm water.  A major part of long term solutions to Haiti's problem lies in re-forestation. This should be aggressively pursued so as to help alleviate the disasterous effects which nature seems to be having on this country. There is a lesson for us here too in Trinidad and Tobago if we do not manage our forest reserves.

Important man-made environments must also be preserved

Mt. Pleasant Government Primary School, Claxton Bay, is having accommodation issues at present.


http://www.trinidadexpress.com/news/Protesters_demand_new_school_-106494338.html

http://www.newsday.co.tt/crime_and_court/0,129714.html

Clearly the blame cannot be put on the students nor the parents or even the Teachers of the School. It is the job of those involved in maintenance and the construction of new school buildings to manage the situation so that those who make use of the facility are not at risk. Clearly they have failed and immediate action should be taken to remedy this situation.

I must commend the newspaper for bringing this situation to the fore. We must place each child high on our list of priorities so that in this land of plenty, they will not be at a disadvantage.

Tropical Storm Tomas Blows Over

From mid-day to late afternoon on Friday 29^th October there was a great state of panic amongst the residents of both islands.

Traffic was gridlocked.  Supermarkets, gas stations and stores were crowded. The bars and fast food restaurants also benefitted from the increased patronage of stranded and frustrated commuters.  Some private companies wanted to remain open but the worried parents among their workers wanted to collect their children.  Tempers flared and the phone network was jammed with anxious callers.

The great tragedy occurred in the schools.  Acting on the advice of the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Management, the Ministry of Education gave the order to close the schools at 1:00 p.m.  Thousands of frightened children were released into the general melee as their parents tried to reach but many were caught in the traffic pile ups.  A great many of them eventually reached home at about the same time as if school had remained open, after enduring inconvenience, frustration and bad weather getting there.

Had there been a more direct hit by the storm then public opinion would have focussed on the general lack of preparedness for the copious rains and high winds that would have devastated people living near the river banks and on the hillsides.  Tropical Storm Tomas instead took the always unpredictable path towards the north-west.  This spared Trinidad and Tobago, or did it?

We have persons in authority taking decisions that have unstudied effects on the children.  It is my view that the children should have been allowed to stay home on Friday.  It must make sense to avoid the ridiculous gridlock and panic by considering the timing of the announcements for preparations for the storm.  If the authorities were indeed planning to give the population 36 hours advanced warning to prepare for a credible threat of an approaching Tropical Storm then they should have considered not allowing the children to make the journey to school on that day. 

As it was, the panic and the resultant inconvenience was not a life lesson that our children should be learning or allowed to endure in the future.  I do not believe that this was the intention of the authorities.  Rather there should be a controlled response when people are told that there are 36 hours before a likely hit by a powerful storm and they should use the time before to batten windows, fill drinking water, secure 3 days supply of food and to assess whether they should find alternative accommodation away from low lying areas.  Four to six hours of that time should not be spent in traffic jams with frightened children.

Preserving important natural environments

In our efforts to grow more food, produce more timber, develop land for housing and mining of natural resources, much of the reserves and ecological sanctuaries are at risk.

Hills are cut down, river courses are changed and shrunk, extensive lakes are created and soil erosion is the order of the day; not to mention pollution.

http://www.gstt.org/Geology/Todds%20road%20quarry.htm

The average citizen is not fully aware of the magnitude of the problem but from time to time may come across some of the symptoms of the problem, such as flooding, landslides, road damage and carelessly disposed garbage.