Criminal neglect by 'small school' alumni

By George Davis

After listening to the education minister's presentation in Parliament on the link between specific high schools and criminal convicts, I felt ashamed. That shame germinates from the fact that my school, Jonathan Grant High, has not only been named among the 'Criminal 56' but has been listed among the 'Nefarious 18', a subset for which an urgent intervention programme is being implemented starting this month.

My sense of shame owed less to my inability to mercilessly lampoon those from my office who attended that mighty all-male institution on Old Hope Road and who were left feeling blue about their inclusion on a list with institutions lacking in history, glamour and solid achievement.

My shame was due more to the fact that negative stereotypes about my beloved high school had been reinforced by the findings of the researchers. It's not easy being a Jonathan Grant old boy in a Jamaica whose history has been shaped by the products of several great secondary institutions.

Past students of small schools such as 'Grant' are expected, almost as a matter of course, to feel inferior to those who learnt at any of the elite Corporate Area and rural high schools. This inferiority is bred by an unstated rule that those from the powerhouse centres of secondary learning are easily capable of reaching a level of perspicacity, reasoning and argument that will scramble your little bird brain, nurtured as it were at an institution without even a trace of academic excellence and scholarship in its blood.

A small-school product is almost tempted to succumb to the environment and believe these things until he or she reaches the tertiary level and realises there's no intelligence gap between them and their illustrious colleagues.

My shame from Jonathan Grant's inclusion on the list is not the kind that will translate into anger at Minister Thwaites' tabling of the report in the House and his subsequent comments on the findings. Ronnie did not author the study and was certainly not attempting to embarrass the leadership of the schools, as some, in a moment of dunceness, have asserted.

SERIOUS DISCOMFITURE

And though there's a rock-solid case to be made about the utility of the study, given the age of the data and the wild conclusions drawn, there's still plenty to cause me serious discomfiture.

When all is said and the crying stops, I really am ashamed because of the quality of my contribution to building the school since I left there in 1997. I look at how busy I have made myself, how busy I tell myself I am, and how this false position has prevented me from giving something tangible to the place where I grew into a teenager and started turning into a man.

This kind of dereliction of which I am guilty is, I believe, the major crime committed by those of us who used the footstool of the small school to elevate ourselves on the ladder to success.

Whereas those from the traditional high schools are deeply involved with events at their alma mater, even decades after they've graduated, we the product of the small schools forget where we came from.

The past students of the traditional high schools undertake various fundraising events and programmes for their alma mater, clear in the knowledge that the work on legacy building is constant. We from the small schools gladly support initiatives to make the traditional schools greater and don't even give a fart about improving the reputation of our own schools.

The pain of Jonathan Grant's link to criminality is not a problem for the current leadership of the school to bear alone. Those of us who've kept our head up since graduation have our own share of heavy lifting to do.

Sure, my efforts would not have made any difference to the findings of the current study. But I intend to work to make the reality different in 15 years' time.

I call on the graduates of small schools to return and help as best as you can. The energy you use to begrudge those who went to great institutions will be better expended making your former schools into reputable places of learning and socialisation.

Selah.

George Davis is a journalist. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and george.s.davis@hotmail.com.