February 19, 2007Dear Sir,Earlier in the history of education of Bermuda, when resources were limited and facilities were not pristine, the one element that made a difference was the teacher. During that time the ‘principal’ was called the Head Teacher in recognition that he or she was the master teacher or educational leader of the school. It was on that foundation that a strong provision of education, academic and moral, was built. Those times have passed but we can recall a host of teachers who made the need for education of children, their vocation and who gave to education a sense of urgency and pride. If we would do a review, we would discover some timeless principles which underlie success. One of the critical principles is effective teaching. It is still true that the teacher and the principal are the heart of the education process. The strength of Bermuda society today is due to the tremendous contribution of principals and teachers who produced academic results in the past, in spite of adverse conditions. The launching of commemorative stamps on Thursday, February 16, Dr. Kenneth E. Robinson Day, was a fitting tribute to some of the outstanding educators of the past — Millicent Neversen, Edith Crawford, Matilda Crawford, May Francis Smith and Adele Tucker. Dr. Robinson was an outstanding educator in his own right.

Over the last 20 years the focus of education has shifted to the Ministry and Department of Education, and though this was done with the best of intentions to improve the system, this process has robbed the school house of its essential role and corresponding responsibility. Principals have been turned into managers of Department programmes and teachers, implementers of the same. It must be frustrating to principals as well as teachers, who have entered this noble profession, with a desire to nurture and develop the youth only to find that they have been hired to implement a successive stream of imported programmes. In poorer countries, teachers would have greater opportunity to impact the education process because the government would not have the financial resources to provide the abundance of programmes that we adopt. They would need to use whatever limited materials they have and with their initiative and creativity produce academic results

In Bermuda today, many are complaining about our education system and they have a right to complain when we consider the systemwide failing results that are being produced. Principals and teachers also complain but they are complaining, not only about having to deal with challenging children, resulting from our social problems, but also about a lack of freedom to respond in creative ways to the needs of children under their care. Under circumstances where teachers are forced to serve the system rather than serve the children they teach, teachers will be robbed of the satisfaction and joy of seeing children learn. That satisfaction and joy is the teacher’s greatest reward and motivates them to commit more fully to the education process.

A debate on education has continued for over half a century; millions of dollars have been poured into education and several commissions and reports have been done. The last one was supposed to solve most of our problems, both educational and social. However the results have not improved. And now we are going to bring in another expert. The last one was from Canada; this time, from England. When will we learn to take our destiny into our own hands, examine and acknowledge where we have gone wrong and develop our own programmes, based on the abundance of expertise among local professionals? Educational reviews and commissions are noble efforts and important in finding causes and offering solutions to problems, but results lie in the ability to implement the recommendations effectively.

We recognise that education rests on three pillars: the home, the community and the school. In our attempt to find the reason for failure, we lay blame on all three. There is no doubt that all three areas contribute to the failure. If we listen carefully, politicians explain the failure as resulting from poor preparation at home and the negative impact of our society. If we listen to parents, who are in fact the clients, they lay the blame at the Ministry of Education. Thus education happens to be the kind of profession in which it is difficult to hold anyone accountable because everyone is involved. My personal view is that educators, principals and teachers do not mind taking responsibility for education as long as they are given the resources and freedom to carry out their responsibility. We cannot charge our educators with the task of educating children without empowering them to do it.

Education is a complex and difficult task but teachers love children and they will rise to the occasion and produce good results, often in spite of adverse social circumstances, suffered by children. Therein lies the real satisfaction of being an educator and the only hope of enhancing the individual lives of children and the improvement of our society.

We must remember that the reason we have schools is to provide a safe place for the nurturing of children, the developing of their intellectual ability and preparing them to become gainfully employed. We cannot ignore the influence of the family and society on the results of the schools but as long as we have schools which are mandated by society for the purpose of education, we must give to principals and teachers, the practitioners of the profession, the necessary tools and freedom to carry out the task with which they are charged. They can do it. They will do it.

Finally, teachers are central to the learning process. Let us free them to be creative in meeting the needs of children so that they might be the professionals we expect them to be. Let us free principals of administrivia, so that they might have a clear vision of success for the children under their care and provide the kind of instructional leadership without which there can be no real success.

DEAN FURBERT

Former Chief Education Officer

Hamilton Parish