PROFESSOR DAIZAL SAMAD

PLEASE HELP

GOOD teachers ask tough questions. Although those questions may appear to be self-serving, those questions may be still cogent and pertinent. For instance, they ask why are teachers not given the kinds of bonuses that are given to the police and the army. They ask: “Why do we have to struggle to be more educated?” And ask: “Why are we not granted leave to ‘pursue’ degrees at the University of Guyana?”

They are clear about their belief in our new government. But they also say with equal clarity that the words of our leaders are just words without substance, without action.

At the front of their minds, they believe the much-repeated words that teachers are the guardians of our nation’s future. And as this bleeds in their brains, there is the bitterness, the sense that the words mean nothing at all. They feel like cast-offs, the flotsam and jetsam of a national wreckage. The bitterness and political babble create a false competition with the perceived benefits enjoyed by the armed and protective services, the Guyana Defence Force and the Guyana Police Force.

In my own way, I venture that such comparisons are not really applicable. There are no consecutive orders of priority. Teachers, after all, do not put themselves between criminals and our citizens. Those teachers respond that the difference is that the only difference is between a quick death and a slow and painful death.

One teacher of a group of 31 teachers said, rather politely: “Professor, Sir. If you have a chance to speak to the Minister of Education, please convey a message.” I asked what would be the message and who is asking that this message be conveyed. I thought that it would be about salaries and conditions and promotions and such things. Nothing of the sort!

The message came through the teacher from a child of 13. It was simple: “Miss, if you have a chance to speak to the minister, please ask him to “HELP WE!”

In the face of such a simple plea, one must be silent. Teachers have no real authority over anything or anyone–not here in our nation. Not yet, anyway. The students that they guide (people say “Teach”) have even less say. So here is how it goes: teachers beg and hide to get higher degrees. They take their grief to our grand UG “lecktchuruhs” (in formal English, it is “lecturers”) who are princely or princessly kings and queens of their classrooms. Our children think that teachers have authority. Out teachers think that their lecturers have authority. It is a dreadful hierarchy of powerlessness, of hopelessness. And the pretence of authority leads, step by step, to boastfulness and bullying.

We must admire that child who, with elegant simplicity, begs” “HELP WE!” We must admire the teachers who bring such things up in UG classrooms, places where teaching and learning excellence has fled. This fleeing, in spite of the great dedication of a few lecturers.

So, to our policy-makers, we convey this thing from a child: HELP WE!