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Recapturing Lost Values- Caribbean Literature in the Caribbean Classroom

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Recapturing Lost Values- Caribbean Literature in the Caribbean Classroom Recapturing lost values- Caribbean Literature in the Caribbean Classroom ABSTRACT Caribbean literature like English literature has been used in the Caribbean classroom largely as content for developing critical and analytical skills in students who must sit local (CXC) and foreign (GCE) examinations at the general and advanced levels. The human/humane content of the material has to a great extent, been underplayed. This paper contends that a hidden resource for the teaching of values now at risk in these societies thus remains unexploited. It examines two short stories (" Country of the one-eyed God" by Olive Senior, and "Bella makes life" by Lorna Goodison) and indicates how they may be used in the classroom as triggers for bringing specific values to the attention of young people. It suggests that if the artist is the conscience of the society, this is one way in which she/he might profitably be used. Velma Pollard Faculty of Education University of the West Indies Mona, JAMAICA 2 There are those in the communities of the Caribbean who say there is a crisis of values in the region as a whole. A number of ills are thought to be the result of the crisis which affects the tone of the societies and eventually affects productivity. Older people, frequently place the blame at the feet of the lack of religious studies in the school, studies which were compulsory for everyone fifty years or less ago. Recently schools have tried to include guidance counsellors in their complement of staff where human and financial resources allow it. These teachers are expected to help counter the influence of the larger society and help young people deal with the processes of their own physical and psychological maturation. The ratio of counsellor to student however, is invariably high. Besides there are educators who point to the non-functionality of the counsellor and suggest that the best guidance counsellor is a subject teacher to whom the student relates positively. But those teachers tend to have heavy schedules so their time is at a premium. The schools which have a satisfactory student advice system are few. This paper discusses the possiblity of exploring a hidden resource for helping to treat the crisis of values. It recommends, without suggesting that this might be a panacea for all ills or that it should replace other means, that the literature which emanates from Caribbean societies and which comments favourably either by implication or by open statement on the very values which are said to be lacking now, be utilized in the effort to affect the youth. At present, where Caribbean texts are part of the recommended reading for high school students, they tend to be used in the teaching of critical and analytical skills which have to do with the form of literature and are rarely used to examine the values which are part of the content of literature. I wish to look at two short stories by Jamaican writers with a view to indicating how the literary text might be used to satisfy not only the need to be aware of the craft of writing but also the duty to alert young people to some of the values considered to be at risk in the region. "Country of the one-eyed God"' is the story of a grandson turned criminal, who in his flight from justice, returns to the house of his grandmother who brought him up and orders her to give him all the money she has Ironically the money which is carefully hidden away represents a life-timers saving towards a rich funeral to counteract the poverty of her life. The story ends with the boy poised to destroy the 4 woman unless she hands over the money which she is intent on protecting. In making the protagonist a grandson brought up by his grandmother, Senior uses a Caribbean, certainly a Jamiacan stereotype of absentee parents. In the playing out of the story the selection has the added impact of pointing to the lack of respect for elders which is one of the foremost of the lost values in modern Jamaica. In a recent conversation with a high school principal I found that the lack of respect ranked highest on her list of disappointments with the present generation. The boy Jacko arrives at his grandmother's house at dawn. She has heard on the radio that he has become, in her words, "big wanted man". Her opening gambit is "So you came?" His response is impolite beyond anything the situation could possibly warrant: "What yu expect?" Ma Bell had in fact expected him and the emotions she felt as she opened the door to the boy turned animal and stranger, were mixed. The authorial voice comments ...Ma Bell was pleased that after all the call of blood remained so strong , even as she feared to open her door to this stranger" (my emphases) The disrespect is in the way that Jacko addresses her. The response might have been "Yes grandma I come" or its equivalent. Nothing in Ma Bell's experience prepared her for this. As the initial conversation continues the reader discovers that Jacko has lost not only respect but a number of other things like trust in his friends. As far as his grandmother is concerned, friends inviegled him to leave home and should be around to protect him in trouble. But that is not the case for the conversation continues: "Dont you have friend?" "Fren a dawg." "Is free you run away with from here" "01 lady, that time so long ago it long like from here to the moon" (p 19) The suggestion is that his life experience has taught him that "dawg eat dawg". His friends may well have turned against him. One cannot be sure. All we have is his statement "Fren a dawg". And in referring here to Ma Bell as "01 lady" there is a hint of contempt for her naivety. There are circumstances under which "01 lady" is a term of endearment but this is not one. Ma Bell offers Jacko the food she has prepared against his coming. He gobbles it down and asks "Nuh have no rum?" For those who know the MaBells of this world the very request is disrespectful. No child admits to his grandmother that he might drink such a thing or that she might keep it except for medicinal purposes. But he knows where and why she keeps it and stretches for it over her reprimand: Rum? Listen no bwoy. Just because yu is bull buck and duppy conqueror 2 everywhere else yu is still bwoy in this yard. So just know yu place. Rum in this house is big man sinting. The next request is for money in the brusque manner of a thief: "A need some money" Ma Bell s objection here is evident in her manner if not in her words. The author comments: Ma Bell shrank away. Never before in her house had anyone shown such a lack of manners, for if the children she raised acquired nothing else, it was manners that she hammered into their heads from birth. 7 (p 20) Jacko wants the money to escape from Jamaica. He has his passport and is going to "foreign" where he has mother and father. Ma Bell is outraged. Would he dare embarass his parents "them and them family" in foreign? Jacko's response articulates what is at least one possible response of offspring to the parental neglect resulting from the migration which has been the scourge of island societies certainly since the turn of the century. Migration has been described in positive ways by economists who write about the place of foreign remittances in the Gross National Product of Caribbean islands. It has been less highly touted by those who write about the brain drain. But it is to the social workers and in Jamaica to those who read the newspapers that we must turn to see what happens to children when one parent, sometimes both parents migrate. Even there the comment from the child him/herself is rare. The artist however, the conscience of the society holds out the response for our pity and our education: Oh. So me not family? Them never shame me? Them never shame me when they walk way leave me? Look how long I wait for them to send for me and all I ever hear is next year next year. Next year never did come for me for every year them breed up a new pickney. They never could afford to send for me. Well, long time now I decide to start take my next year this year. I couldn't wait no more. (p 21) The value system that allows parents to lose a child in their search for a better life seems short-sighted in the light of what can happen to the child. it is true that parents sometimes flee dire poverty and hope to find a better life to which to take the child, eventually. But in so many cases as in this, that time never comes and the child gets lost in the parents' search for material things. This brings us easily to the second story which this paper considers- Lorna Goodison's "Bella makes life." In this case the mother goes after the material goods available in the foreign city,New York. Significantly, when she returns on a visit she is wearing a necklace with a huge pendant which reads "Material Girl" This story makes its case in a more obvious fashion than the other.
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