Opinion: Education In The ‘People’s Manifesto”
[Opinion column written by Rayki Emery] Once again the Bermuda public put on another demonstration of public solidarity outside of our most honourable house of Parliament.
I declare those involved in that showing to be demonstrating the one core value that is lacking in our society today – unity.
I salute those of you who included yourself in the process of what we perceive as being the beginning of change. However, we are attempting to change a system, when we should be fighting to create and implement a new system, based on logic and rational decision making.
I propose the following to be drafted into the People’s Manifesto.
On Education
The removal of the middle school system is key to achieving the goals listed below.
1. The implementation of a Bermuda University.
Radical, but why not? As a society we must educate ourselves by ourselves. We can by doing this begin to produce citizens with specific purposes that benefit our society economically and socially. An example would be:
A graduating class in sustainable environment being drafted directly into a centrally held company [owned by the people not the government], let’s call it environcorp, which sole purpose is the environmental sustainability of our society.
In the early years of these programs we will need to employ foreign administrators from cities that already implement these programs until we can groom Bermudian born administrators to fill the post.
We have already made campuses in CedarBridge, Berkeley and the Old Berkeley. Many more can be found in the numerous abandoned buildings on Reid Street and St. George.
The cost of this will be staggering, and the Bermudian tax payer will have to give up many of his luxuries for this to happen. But without sacrifice there is no reward.
2. The Bermuda School for Sporting Excellence.
We are plagued by a syndrome unique to Bermuda known as “getting a bike syndrome” where our young athletes during the ages of 14 and 17 tend to lose interest in pursing careers in their chosen sport. This tends to occur mostly with team sports.
A question should be raised as to how many more Nahki Wells can our society produce without a physical environment that caters to the psychological, educational, and physical needs of our sportsmen and women. I use Nahki Wells as an example because of the financial gains that can be made from producing atheletes in that manner. This is how it would work.
We train and educate the athletes until graduation, with a view of making large compensation revenue when the athlete signs a professional contract.
To again draw reference to Mr. Wells, Western Stars Sports Club made 83,000 dollars for a player they had developed until 19 who continued his education at a university level once leaving the club.
That’s nothing compared to the 3.5 million pounds Chelsea were ordered to pay Manchester City’s youth academy for a 19 year old Daniel Sturridge.
You see where I’m going with this. If we had an accredited sports institution in our society we can, other than, educate our population; but charge large fees for the signatures of our promising athletes.
3. The Bermuda Institute of Bermuda Studies.
My part time job is washing dishes at a restaurant. This restaurant employs foreign workers. One day, one of the foreign workers, a chef from Bangladesh asked me “what is your national anthem”. I replied with “God Save the Queen”, he then proceeded to sing his national anthem before asking me to sing mine. I kindly told him I didn’t know the words, but I would ask another Bermudian co-worker of ours to sing it. It turned out that not one of the Bermudians that we asked during our shift, customers mostly, knew our national anthem.
This is frightening, this is the reason why one can legitimately raise the question as to what a real Bermudian actually is. We lack national pride, and until we form an institution with the sole purpose of studying our complex and unique history and society we will never portray a society of truly unified people.
If you want to know my ideas on how we would fund this, check out my next opinion piece!
Rayki Emery is a graduate of Bermuda Institute, a former Juris Law Chambers Pupil and currently the executive director of MasterCraft LTD. Mr. Emery has no stated religious or political affiliations.
“We lack national pride”….I can agree and relate to this. As a student, Bermudian history was only a small part of my history education as the focus was more on European and American history. I know more about the history of other people and countries than I do about my own.
Plenty of materials out there to read and find out. Perhaps you are lazy. Perhaps Bermuda is somewhat small compared to world history. Hence the smaller coverage.
We don’t lack national pride !!!! Please identify what you think would make us proud to be Bermudian ???????????
I am not lazy, I was just pointing out the fact that Bermudian history is taught relatively little in the school system (at least when I was there).
Yes, Bermuda history is small compared to world history, but most countries do emphasize and put focus on their own history….however in Bermuda, we do not.
We do lack national pride compared to other countries, in many areas. Heck the July 4th festivities, here, are comparable to those on May 24th….with Bermudians eagerly participating in the July 4th events. No where else in the world would another country’s ‘independence day’ be on par with their own ‘national day’.
4th July is nothing special here. Except for the Americans.
Thanks young man, we need your Generation to lead such changes and stand firm to ensure it happens. Movement requires you and others stand to ensure change and work towards it taking place. Your Generation must come forward and put the work behind these changes. I look forward to that happening.
Thanks for your well thought out comments. Well done and great ideas, now lets get beyond the writing, and put it into action. Connect with those who share similar views and get it moving forward. I waiting for the young Generation like yourself to step forward and DO IT !!
Great article.
Those young people will hopefully learn that they were plaued, and used a pawns, I SAID USED as pawns to try and cause disruption. The OBA scholarships provide opportunities for a greater number of students.
PLP shame on you for USING schoolkids to do dirty work… Child labour is vile.
‘Hail to Bermuda” is the national anthem.
The fact that he didn’t know enforces his point.
I didnt know either
Technically that’s not correct. Hail to Bermuda has become the unofficial adopted national song, but as long as Bermuda remains a dependent territory, the anthem will remain God Save the Queen.
Folks, go online and learn it if you’d like. NOBODY is stopping you from learning your national anthem…
We can then sing it before every sporting event, public gathering and otherwise… Why not sing it instead of saying good morning, before engaging in conversation.
Come on where is your sense of pride.
Acutally Hail to Bermuda is the National Song. God Save the Queen is the National Anthem as we are still a commonwealth country
Not that it matters, and only because of your obnoxious name, but God Save the Queen is the National Anthem because Bermuda is a British Overseas Territory. Canada, Australia and India are a few examples of Commonwealth countries with their own national anthems.
Thanks for validating what I have been saying for quite sometime…hopefully those that can bring it to fruition is reading and listening…
Oh, I see , you want someone ELSE to do it, but will complain until it’s done. Go do it yourself…. Maybe you’ll be proud of something YOU have achieved and has not been handed to you.
Hmmm, you want me to single handedly change the educational system… you are brilliant…. just brilliant….
No, you want someone else to do it.
You can’t force kids to become great athletes. It just doesn’t work unless you’re China or East Germany.
Frankly, if you want great performances from athletes you need to support those who show great promise, not spend a fortune on schools hoping a few come good (and how does that benefit the country as a whole)? As-is we provide less support to our adult elite and Olympic hopeful athletes than virtually any country in the world and worst of all is that we probably can’t afford more.
interesting letter emery you make some good points especially about the sports academies & bermuda studies, maybe one of these politicians might take you up on figuring out the details & financial viability of your suggestions…..
couple of things – first bermuda is still a british colony (sad 2 say) so de national anthem is still british =’god save de queen’ (should be god save us from de queen – but i digress)… while ‘hail to bermuda’ is our so-called ‘national song’ it aint de official anthem! if one of de royal family paid a visit to bermuda & de governor & de premier played ‘hail to bermuda’ instead of ‘god save de queen’ then them byes would be looking for a new job by de end of de day! lol!!!
focusing on bermuda studies is a problem for a colony because if de people were proud of themselves & knew more about the international achievements of their own ancestors then maybe they wouldn’t feel so dependent on foreigners to ‘supervise’ their government. colonial control requires colonial education about others & not about ourselves…
check out a book called “pedagogy of the oppressed” by freire & a bermuda book “black power in bermuda” by q.swan
Bermuda needs its own space shuttle program. We are plagued by a syndrome unique to Bermuda known as “teenagehood” where our young astronauts during the ages of 14 and 17 tend to lose interest in space exploration. In the early years of this program we will need to employ foreign administrators from NASA until we can groom Bermudian born administrators to fill the post. The cost of this will be staggering, and the Bermudian tax payer will have to give up many of his luxuries for this to happen. But without sacrifice there is no reward.
Wait…
Because YOU didn’t learn the national anthem, something is wrong with our society?
What about the vast numbers of people that DO know our national anthem? How do they work into the formula?
Wow.
Its not just About who knows the national anthem, im sure that was just one of many examples.
Ask any Bermudian who was the first Premier of Bermuda, then ask who was the first president of the USA. Same principle.
Sir Edward Richards.
My question still stands.
WAH WAH WAAAHHHHH!!!! Yet again you are incorrect. The first Premier was Sir Henry Tucker. Sir E. T. Richards was the second.
Although I do agree that knowing the anthem has little to do with cultural loss. I know the anthem from beginning to end but singing about God saving our nobel & gracious queen & wishing her to be happy, glorious & to have a long reign doesn’t make me anymore of a patriot. I was forced to sing it in assembly to avoid a canning & even when I did sing it I sometimes still got a canning for not singing it with enough bravado. This is how it stuck in my mind till this day by physical force.
Our structure may be built on a British background but our national culture is a meld of that background with West Indian & Portuguese cultures. The anthem is just a song that does nothing to symbolize this meld.
Wrong !!!!!!!
Richards was the first Premier
Tucker was the first Government leader.
Seriously. You have GOT to do some research before you blow the trumpet.
And take a look at the glee with which you posted this!
“Yet again you are incorrect”? This bit was a lot of fun, especially coming from you! I’d as you to point out other times I’ve been incorrect (even though I wasn’t this time), but I know the whole idea of “backing up your claims” is anathema to you, so… why bother.
I love how you agree with my premise… but then go on to spew a bunch of negativity. Seriously? It is THAT ugly up there in your brain?
Do better, man. Seriously.
(I don’t expect a response. You usually run away when you’re shown to be wrong. Care to surprise me?)
Thanks Mr. Emery. They do not teach Bermuda history at BI? Suggest you start constructing a business plan for the sports academy and take it to Sir John Swan to review. I agree with about closing all the Middle Schools – could save a pack of money. Could sell most of them to private sector and keep one to use as sports/performing arts academy with a large board of trustees to oversee it. Use money to pay off some Govt. debt and retrain teachers some teachers. Our population is too small for University. Stick
I have been a supporter of An independent Bermuda for years. So much so that when the PLP under the late L F Wade called for a boycott of former premier Swan’s referendum; I said no; I am not going to support the PLP on this and I was a supporter of the PLP since age 18. At the time I had a newspaper column and I use it to be an advocate for independence for Bermuda. But how much national pride do I have in seeing my country becoming independent? Am I any different from an American’ a Canadian or an Australian when it comes to having national pride?
Well the test came for me in a very unusual circumstance; I had to go all the to Africa to find out how badly I wanted to world to know that I am a Bermudian. I had visit three countries in West Africa and the last one Ghana was going to test in this regard. It was a late flight getting in and I guess this particular immigration officer wanted to finish his shift and go home because he was manning the line that process citizens of his country. So he called me over and looked at my hybrid British/Bermuda passport and stated British? Because that Bermuda passport does not state that I am a citizen of Bermuda; rather it states that I am a British Overseas territory citizen. But I stated no I am a Bermudian; The immigration officer looked at the passport again and stated British’. I said again I am a Bermudian; silence; stalemate. Than I spoke up the reason you see British at the top of this passport is because Bermuda is still a British colony; But I know the history of your country; I know you were the first black African country to gain it’s independence from Britain and like you I want independence for my country. He smiled and stamp my passport and let me into his country. I still think about that and I am still proud that I insisted that I was a Bermudian and that I wanted the whole world to know that fact.
Maybe Mr. Emery should of asked someone who went through the public school system about it before he prepared his piece. Public schools have a social studies class where nowadays they may not learn the anthem as they did in the past but it’s still more robust than when I went to school. I’m very impressed with the social studies text book my kids learn from. The book covers every part of our history up to present times & has been updated over the years to keep it current.
Mr. Emery also would have found out that the middle school system is not the problem if he did the research. The problem is having only two public high schools to educate all the kids coming from each middle school. There should have at least been one more high school built to cut down on the overpopulation of the two others. Maybe the third could of had teachers who specialized in disciplinary issue kids so problem kids. This would be a lot cheaper to do than a full revamp suggested by Mr. Emery.
Lastly Mr. Emery needs to realize that many Bermudian athletes other than Nahki Wells have excelled in a sports carrier without having a sports school in Bermuda. Much of the sports clubs here already have camps locally & abroad to hone in skills. Many of the worlds greatest athletes never had the opportunities we have & still excelled. Only thing that stops kids here from making it to Nahki’s level is their lack of perseverance which no school can help. More focus on academic interest is what’s lacking in the public system not sports focus. If more Bermudian kids were pushed more to focus on academics than they are on sports we would have more university graduates.
Actually…
I did attend public school my entire life and was awarded a scholarship to Bermuda Institute by Colonial Insurance after I scored 96 percent on the Warwick Accademy entrance exam. Also I scored close to 100 percent of the Bermuda Institute entrance exam. I only attended Bermuda Institute for three and half years.
I noticed that as a public school student I had never been fully educated towards Bermuda’s socio-economic past. We were taught absolutly nothing of the Black Berrets, Longshormen and the Belco Riots.
Also middle school is the problem. Middlschool is the reason we have a “gang” issue in Bermuda. As someone who has lived in the “hood” his whole life and a graduate of the middle school system I am more than qualified to speak on this. The middle school system seperates Bermuda into districs. I stay ord road, I went to paget primary, and spice valley, I played cricket for warwick workmen and football for phc. All of my friends did the same. Which is the reason why we became “country”. The same of MOB, Parkside/42 and the MiddleEast/297 crews.
Also, I used Nahki Wells as an example for the pure fiscial gain that his former club made from his signature. Also, what world class atheletes do you know of that played football on fields of our quality? Or ran in organizations as unorganized as ours?
Pele? Maradonna? Hell no, Bolt, Blake? Hell no again.
Get your facts up.
Thank you Alvin for letting us all know about you lovely trip to 3 African countries. Thanks to your beloved PLP ruining our economy I’ll probably never be able to afford a trip there.