Orville Taylor | Upper-school spaces for boys versus pretty entrances

A 17-plus-version of me approached Fr Lawrence Burke, principal of St George’s College (STGC), with the slightly vain idea of painting the school crest on the Winchester Park entrance on North Street. An anomalous desire during that period, school signage was generally limited to a metal sign on the inside of school compounds. In fact, it would have been easy to miss the bus stop and end up on South Camp Road because there was no marker on the exterior walls of the other great school on North Street, Kingston College (KC), either.

Perhaps to the chagrin of my former nemesis, immediate-past principal Rev Maurice Feres, Burke acquiesced, and with brushes provided by my mentor and part-time employer, Herbert B. Riley, on the nearby Lissant Road, I painted the first emblem in morning-glory emulsion, proudly writing, Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam, ‘To the greater glory of God’.

My artwork was plastered all over the school: a mural on the old cafeteria, the name of the school in Old English on the Toyota school bus, and even STGC in Old English on the newly painted rubbish bins.

It was school pride, and for more than a decade, successive generations of boys were greeted by the image of their shield and motto.

It gets more interesting. Months later, my ‘bench and bench’ KC ‘bredda’, Alvin Anderson, a.k.a. ‘Natty’ of the Class of 1979, took the inspiration and spun the idea to the KC principal.

And the rest is ... never history ... it is sociology.

With techniques and use of the pounce wheel, learned from Riley, I painstakingly drew the outline on KC’s wall, and Natty and I painted the purple body of the crest over several days.

And no, it was not bragging rights. Rather, a then 18-year-old upper-sixth former simply understood the impact it would have on the neophytes coming unto the hallowed street.

Nothing about the act then was intended to provide ammunition to beat my chest decades later, like some sycophants who live in the eternal yesterday, depending on the current crop of boys to give significance to unfulfilled egos or lives.

Perhaps because Sylvester Walker gave me his lower-school art classes to teach, or because I was quartermaster sergeant for the cadets at STGC and, by extension, at KC, nothing felt unnatural, especially since upper-school boys used to regularly congregate and reason at the shop across the road, eating cornbread, butter and cheese, as well as patties of dubious animal content.

Whether it was KC or nine, we bonded over meals, discussed upcoming exams while playfully teasing the Fortis ‘man dem’ that we have turned the tables on their mascot, which certainly could no longer eat our supper. Sixth form was pivotal to our development.

After successive generations, the entrances across schools kept becoming more and more elaborate. More children were doing Common Entrance, GSAT, ROSE, and PEP, but classrooms barely increased in size or numbers.

Some schools added sixth forms without new classrooms.

Now, 46 years later, Natty reminds me with pride that we started this signage thing on schools. Funny, except for a sobering punch to my KC bredrens, who love to taunt me but have never done anything for their school, my mood is more one of reprehensibility than boastfulness.

You see, this sociologist understands that the single most important variable in reducing male social pathology is education beyond Grade 11. Each additional year of post-secondary education reduces the proclivity towards: (i) being involved in violent crimes; (ii) becoming victims of violence; (iii) unplanned parentage; and a range of other negative social outcomes.

We on the plantation have long recognised the growing social problem of ‘Men at Risk’, which is why, in the late 1980s to early 1990s, Prof Errol Miller wrote a major treatise on the subject.

With university enrolment being 70:30 female to male and graduation rates at 75:25, there is no mystery as to what the problem is.

Sixth form, though not the complete answer, is a critical crucible for the personal development of boys and for the overall socio-economic development of the society.

True, there is an intangible called school pride, but apart from it being taken to a ludicrous, almost cultic extent, it absolutely does not fall into the same causal category as having a place in pre-university or even CSEC classes.

Now, there is a sort of elation I personally feel when driving into the campus, and I thank the distinguished Hall of Fame Georgian who gave loads of money for the construction of the beautiful landmark.

Yet, when I am told that there is not enough space for boys who benefited from the filters which kept me and Alvin from out of the ‘other’ category, one cannot help but wonder whether the money could have been better spent.

My conversation starts with my alma mater, Jamaica’s loyal ‘son’, because I pick out the log from my eyes first, ‘wussalackahow’ I did the first edition.

However, the exact concern is for KC, Calabar, and Jamaica College, which never have enough places for the boys who either want to attend or stay in the school.

True, the money spent on the ‘Arcs de Triomphe’ might not be adequate to build large numbers of classrooms or even a single good one.

Nonetheless, ‘every mickle makes a muckle’ and we cannot be fickle.

And yes, we elitist old schoolers like to keep our gates partially closed to preserve our bragging rights. But if that is the objective, then shut up when the social problems come knocking at your door.

Orville Taylor is senior lecturer at Department of Sociology at The University of the West Indies, a radio talk-show host, and author of ‘Broken Promises, Hearts and Pockets’. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and tayloronblackline@hotmail.com.