Reflections on Grenada: January 2010

Hello and welcome to the January blog! The cool, dry weather continues as we settle into the dry season in Grenada. Please remember cool is an interpretation of a norm and we are almost used to 30c with a great deal of humidity! Anyway, life at the manse is very pleasant as the sea's breezes flow around the balcony which overlooks Sauteurs beach and the reef that rings the beach quite extensively. Yet Dannie, who works in our yard, wears a woolen hat to keep him warm, though most of us Canadians would dehydrate very quickly if we were to work as physically hard as he does! Hopefully, the worst of the humidity, which arrives with the wet season, will not return until the month of June.

We promised a list of those who have won our White Glove Award for the year 2009 in last month's blog. First of all the list of nominees has the names of hundreds. White Glove Awards are symbolized for us by the white gloves the police force wear when they are directing traffic. Ever been winked at over the top of an immaculate white glove as you steer your car within a few feet of the officer wearing them? It's lovely! White Glove Awards are given to those who have been courteous, kind and downright caring to two Canadians as they go about their daily work. So, from our extensive list of those who have made our life here easier, allow me, please, to mention only a few and say a heartfelt thank you to them. To those drivers who stop their cars if we are stopped in our car somewhere and ask if we need directions to get where we're going; to the children and youth in our lives who fill them with so much joy; to the police force who still "pound" their beat in their big shiny black books, to the government officials who pause for a moment, smile and ask if they have made themselves clear; to the shop assistants at the store where we bought our furniture. They saved both us and the P.C.C. a lot of money by their continual search for "deals" for us; to those who adopted us and helped disperse the thought that we be seen as visitors to the Island, visitors who are both white and rich; to those who give loud shouts of joy around us as they recognize a friend; to those who trusted us with their faith in Jesus Christ; to those who say thanks to us in deep and personal ways when we do what we are here to do; to those who wave as we go by and yell, Hey Rev; to those whose smiles reflect the light and warmth of the tropical sun; to our Creator God whose flair for life is easily seen in the beauty around us, THANK YOU.

A teaching schedule has been finally set up and I am teaching, for the moment, six classes each week at MacDonald. They are four first form classes and two second form classes. The class rooms each have at least one other classroom attached. Dividing the two or three rooms is a white board and an inadequate wall. I have seen only one classroom so far that has an electrical outlet or light that is in working order. Graffiti is splashed across walls inside and outside the classrooms. Teachers who may be sick or are away from the school on business are not replaced and the class is left without any leadership or control. The behaviour of the first form classes, in particular, is atrocious. Where to start? The School Councillor who seems to be responsible for teaching such common place behavioural skills as acting responsibility, manners and how to simply be quiet has her work cut out. I should be clear that the teachers do their very best with the system that is in place. This system is the responsibility of the Ministry of Education. Among some discreet laughter the Minister of Education stood in the staffroom at the College the other day and said she was not aware that the College had any needs. Was this a convenient slip of her memory? Would she be more aware of the needs of Government Schools than Church Schools? She certainly was woman enough to go and look at the classroom of a teacher who expressed her disgust with it to her. There are many more questions that are begging to be asked. We have a retired teacher, Mrs. Sandra Smith from Port Alberni, B.C. with us. She is living at Dorothy's flat and has now taught at MacDonald for a month. She is here until the end of April. She is a skilled teacher of those who have poor reading skills. She works with many of the same classes that I do and her observations about the enormity of the literacy problem are both definitive and depressing. Her classes consist of children who are "slow" and "not quite so slow" readers, to use the local terms. She assists another teacher in the classes; this helps with class discipline as each group in the class take turns to disturb the other with inappropriate behaviour. At the last Presbytery meeting the hope was expressed that I would bring a "Presbyterian presence" to the school. It sounds more and more to me like something that needs to be defined more clearly in light of the situation in the school. Hopefully you will agree with me that there is much work to be done. I would also very much appreciate some prayer support. I wonder what John Knox might think of the Grenadian Educational System. He certainly thought poorly of the Scottish System in the sixteenth century. How can Grenada move from a "have not" Nation to one that "has" without a functioning educational system? Knox would argue that without education no country can be successful. More importantly, perhaps, no woman or man can function without having been taught the three "R's" and how to process thought. On one side of the debate I am having is Descartes, the French philosopher who thought that, "I think, therefore, I am." On the other is John Macmillan (a more recent Scottish philosopher) who taught that an individual was only able to define himself when there was some interaction with others. Grenadians are a warm, gregarious people. They "lime" or socialize together most evenings. Do they really need to be taught a formal thought process? The debate, for me, will continue over the next few years. What represents a formal thought structure? What would it look like? Firstly, however, the "need to read" must be addressed!

The Belair Church literacy programme at Belair Government School has just completed the second week in what promises to be a ten to eleven week programme. Is anything clear about the programme so far? The natural relationship between the eleven year old boys we are working with and their teachers is lovely. The absolute need of reading skills is apparent in the eight boys as they become more and more involved in the intricacies of phonics. The boys move onto Secondary School in September. Will we be able to teach them enough for them to become one of the "not quite so slow" students in their class? Four of the eight are struggling. One is doing very well, the other three are improving! God is good and infinitely patient with his children. Grant all of us "encouragers" a smidgen of that patience and with it grace.

Belair P.C. had its Annual Congregational Meeting two weeks ago. The Board of Managers were revitalized and given a gentle reminder as to who they serve. Some much needed repairs to the Church kitchen are underway as I write. We had a joint service on the 31^st of January at Belair. The congregations of Samaritan and St. George's were represented and, from all accounts, much impressed with the Belair Youth who conducted worship. Three of our youth preached; they were all terrific! Theresa, the closing speaker, preached on the lectionary reading from Luke. She got a Presbyterian ovation! Like – WOW! What a natural! What a joy they are to be with and to teach.

Let me be clear also that I have no questions about whether it is students who learn or teachers who teach that teaching is all about. Students who learn are the finest product of teachers who teach. I have also never doubted that students learn in diverse and absolutely unimaginable ways, including ways that drift right by the teacher and the classroom. Let me also be clear that it is only teachers who possess the ability to create conditions that can help students learn a lot – or keep them from learning at all. What part of you teaches? It certainly isn't the tongue as James 3: 1 points out. The tongue needs to be tamed. "Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly." Jesus said that if anyone loves him they would obey his teaching. (John 14). Jesus was judged harshly by a system that was both derelict and of the type that one size fitted all. The teachers of the law saw to that. So, what of the children of Grenada, the ones from the poorest parishes of St. Andrew's and St. Patrick's and the educational system they are tangled in. I never really grasped what Mary Jo Leddy was saying in her book Radical Gratitude when she talked about the poor and what it feels like to be dismissed as an acceptable loss in the great cultural scheme of things. She also insists that the poor know this ahead of time. She is right when she says where you live determines what you see. Now I see. Now a state of inertia could overtake me. But Jesus did say that if anyone loved him they would obey his teaching. So, in my frustration over the conditions that exist at a Church School in Grenada, I forgot that Jesus tied the act of forgiveness to the act of beginning again. Forgiveness is not a denial of the past but a way of making sure the past will not repeat itself over and over again. The circle can be broken. One way or another a circle can be broken. And James is right. Those who teach, particularly from a pulpit, will be judged more strictly. Would it not be nice to think that those who are church leaders are servants and not power brokers or politicians? Mary Jo Leddy wrote a poem I'd like to finish with. It's called Living with Purpose. It's from Radical Gratitude.

You are not

the recipe for living

The blueprint

for our future

the master plan

for the world.

You are

the Hope in spite

of ourselves.

The Love ever

unforeseen.

The well of Faith