Masaryk University Faculty of Arts
Education A Brief introduction to education in the Caribbean
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EducationA Brief introduction to education in the CaribbeanIn the colonial era, education of slaves in the Caribbean was solely in the hands of their masters. At first, the Europeans thought of their slaves only as instruments of labor rather than as human beings, and for numerous reasons, it was not deemed necessary and practical for the slaves to be educated. First of all, the most straightforward reason for not making education available to the slaves was that it is a long-term process that generally costs a lot of time, and the less time a slave spends learning, the more time they can spend working on a field or a plantation. Not only the slaves were not provided with any means of educating themselves, they often were even forbidden by their masters to learn to read and write. Education and literacy were attributes that were considered undesirable in slave workers, because it could raise their awareness and cause unrest and rebellions. The slaves were not supposed to learn philosophy and ethics that are often dealt with in literature, because the masters did not want them thinking about their own lives, about their right for freedom and search for happiness. At this point, the most desirable kind of slave was a subservient, mindless worker, whose only concern is to work on a field or a plantation, living in a day-to-day stereotype of never-ending labor, with no time and energy left to even think about a change in their lives. Among the whites, there was a general opinion that slaves do not possess the mental faculties necessary for intellectual growth. Europeans would look down on their slaves as inferior human beings, labeling them as “savages” who are either not worthy or not able of any change for the better (meaning a change towards the European way of life). This philosophy of keeping the slaves illiterate and uneducated only resulted in a vicious circle of inequality, and the fact that they were forbidden to achieve any kind of education has made it extremely difficult for the slave communities to restore or establish their culture, and therefore, to form a cultural identity of their own. In the 19th century, the tendencies towards slavery were slowly shifting, and the abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire in 1834 gave legal freedom to several hundred thousand inhabitants of the Caribbean region. Although the abolition ended slavery only de iure, and there still was a large number of people in the Caribbean who were working under conditions that made them de facto slaves, there was finally an opportunity for non-whites in the Caribbean to receive formal education. As Campbell states in his study on formal education in Trinidad and Tobago, the main impulse for educating the former slaves came from England, a combination of the general idea of philanthropy that emerged under the influence of the age of enlightenment, a certain missionary zeal of the Anglican Church, and perhaps a dirty conscience of the British government. (Campbell, 3) Providing non-white people in the Caribbean with an opportunity for receiving formal education was certainly a step for the better, but the situation was not exactly ideal for the edification of the island folk. Most of the young islanders were encouraged for apprenticeship and taking up their jobs early, rather than receive any higher education. Since the school systems in the Caribbean region were modeled after the English system, huge part of the curriculum was considered unimportant and impractical by the island folk. For example, the children on the Caribbean islands were not taught about agriculture and trade, which were important aspects of life in the Caribbean. From this stems the general attitude that the curriculum the Caribbean children were subjected to did not prepare them for the life on the islands. Instead, they were taught what was considered important in the academic circles of the European society. The children in the Caribbean schools were taught European history that was so distant from their world that it seemed more like a fairy tale. They were taught about European literature, which was of no interest to them, because they simply lacked the context to fully understand and appreciate it. At the same time, history and culture of their own ancestors represented only a small portion of their school curriculum, and history of colonization and slavery was mostly avoided. If it was taught at all, it was mentioned only vaguely. It is also necessary to point out that Caribbean teachers used European history textbooks. Therefore, the children learned history of their own country through perspective of a European. As Lamming states in his essay on the Caribbean identity, from the earliest stages of education in the Caribbean, the pupils are infused with English education so extensively that it suppresses their own identity, even before it can be formed. (Routledge, 254) The result of such system of education is a pervasive aversion to higher education in the Caribbean. Children were often encouraged to become apprentices and take on jobs early, not only because of necessity to provide for the family, but because education was ultimately not perceived as a worthwhile endeavor. Moreover, for the people in the Caribbean, education was strongly associated with the image of their former colonizers. Firstly, the system of education was brought to the islands by the English, and secondly, education was one of the pretenses the English exploited to establish their superiority over their slaves, calling them uncivilized savages for not having received the kind of education Europeans would.
“They ain’t got no chance to go to high school an’ get the sort of job respectable people gets, but you can give them something as good. A good trade and some facts ‘bout the world.” (Lamming, In the Castle of My Skin, 102) It is apparent that the shoemaker still believes that no matter how hard the villagers try, higher places in social hierarchy are reserved for the “respectable people”, which he uses as an opposite to a common villager. In his eyes, higher education is of no use for the common folk, because it provides knowledge about the world that is not open to them. The shoemaker thinks that in preparation of one’s children for life, it is better to teach them the art of trade or craft, rather than enlisting them in high school. The reason for the negative attitude towards education that is depicted here is the problem of race and complexion. It is a generally acknowledged rule that in a modern society, proper education is a gateway to advancement in the social hierarchy. However, in the Caribbean society, many of the ordinary people do not consider higher education worthwhile, because they feel that even if a non-white person did receive higher education, their social advancement would have been hampered by the color of their skin. As C. L. R. Campbell argues in his essay, in the Caribbean, there was a chance for a white boy to get a good job and a respectable position in society, but not for the blacks. As hard as they tried, the non-whites, even if they were smart and educated, could at best achieve to be civil servants, handling meaningless paperwork. (Routledge, 164) Download 92.9 Kb. Share with your friends:
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