Turning average schools into centres of excellence

Below is the (exerpted) winning entry by Nahalia Carless, a grade 10 student of Seaforth High School in St Thomas, in the recently held Mutual Building Societies Foundation's Centres of Excellence programme essay competition.

"Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence; but, we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit." - Aristotle

Excellence means standing out from the rest. I think that there are many reasons why my school is not yet a centre of excellence. My school is on a shift system, which puts us at a great disadvantage. Traditional high schools across Jamaica get their full seven to eight hours, but we, at Seaforth High, do not. We only get five hours. We have limited access to our library and laboratories because of our shift system. Students on the morning shift may often want to use the library or laboratories; however, because the students on the afternoon shift are using the facilities at that time, students on the morning shift are not able to use them.

Indiscipline is also an obstacle. We are all from different backgrounds, and students sometimes find it difficult to accept others for who they are. At times, there are confrontations, but they don't always have to turn into fights. We need to learn to talk things through and allow some things to pass.

We sometimes judge other students based on their appearance. We ridicule them without even knowing them, and at the end of the day they turn out to be quite normal, and in some cases they become our friends.

Improving class relations

Truancy is also a problem at my school. Students will come in and get their names marked, but they do not attend some of their classes. Many times they are disrespectful to their teachers and argue with them. Some also believe that they do not need teachers' assistance, and this causes a big problem in the student-teacher relationship. The energy students use to argue with teachers could be better applied to learning.

Failing to study for examinations is another reason my school is not yet a centre of excellence. A lot of us are guilty of not studying. I sometimes fail to study for examinations. We also do not read our notes and, therefore, we are not prepared for our classes.

One would think that the reason we fail to excel at Seaforth is because we are slow learners. No! It is because some of us have not yet reached the stage where we can believe that mediocre results are unacceptable. We need to achieve scores of 80, 90 and even a 100 per cent. Can we do it? Yes, we can. We, the students of Seaforth High, can raise the bar. We are students with potential. What many of us need is an extra push.

The solutions

What my school can do to become a centre of excellence is to help students to develop a good work ethic. By honouring top students from different classes, they would be motivated to study in order to excel in particular subject areas.

Some students are not familiar with study groups, so this strategy could also be introduced. My school needs to implement more motivational programmes to build students' self-esteem.

As students, we often shy away from challenges. What our teachers should do is consider challenging us in a way that is fun. They should try to make discussion topics interesting. This would motivate students to sit in class and participate in activities and not become distracted easily.

Although we are known as underdogs among the other high schools in the parish, and I believe Seaforth High can change course and become a centre of excellence. We are shining in other areas, and we have students with the potential to change the world.

As students, we work towards doing well in school, but sometimes we meet people along our path to success who decide that they are not going to allow us to shine. They are roadblocks on the road to redemption. Sometimes we are so close to the top when discouragement faces us. If we decide that we are going to be victorious, we can achieve it, but we need the right mindset, friends who will encourage us, and parents and a society that believe in us.

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