(November 1, 2009) - ST. THOMAS PARISH,
BARBADOS - Danielle Ifill puts her hand on her hip and poses for her
friends as she dons the evergreen mortarboard that signals her
upcoming graduation.
In the auditorium of her worn-looking high school, Lester Vaughan
secondary school, teacher Wilma Wiggins makes sure Ifill’s matching
gown hangs the proper distance from the floor.
While Wiggins measures, the 16-year-old with mahogany skin and ebony
eyes casts a wistful glance at the school yard she’ll soon leave. A
few months from now, she’ll start a computer engineering program at
the local polytechnic university. With a smile, she says she’s
prepared, but nervous. “I’m going to miss it,” she says. “But I am
ready.”
If this were an American tale, Ifill would likely be cast as an
exception. The Black girl who made it out, who managed to find a
place among the 56 percent of African-American children who graduate
from high school, and the 40 percent of those who go to college.
But here in Barbados,
this tiny eastern-most island of the Caribbean,
Ifill’s story is instead the rule that defies notions of Black
educational inferiority and underachievement. Barbados
graduates 98 percent of its high school students; 53 percent go on to
college. This 90 percent-Black nation not far from U.S.
shores has the second-highest literacy rate in the world. With 99..7
percent of its population literate, it falls one–tenth of a point
behind the three nations tied for first in the world: Cuba, Estonia
and Poland (the United States
is ranked 17th).
That this developing Black nation has managed to create a
world-renowned education system offers a lesson for American schools
entrenched in what seems to be an irreconcilable Black-White racial
achievement gap: race doesn’t have to predict academic success. The
key to Barbados’
success is four-fold—high expectations for all students, strict
discipline, substantial education spending and a culture that
embraces education as a form of nationalism.
“I cannot perceive of meeting someone in my society who can’t read,”
says Dr. James Carmichael, a former secondary school teacher and
computer scientist. “Education is part of the national conscious.”
Expectations for achievement are perhaps most illustrated by a
nation’s willingness to spend money on it.
Barbados
funnels nearly a fifth of its national budget into education, and
spends 6.9 percent of its entire gross national product on education,
according to the CIA World Factbook, making it 24th in the world. The
United States
ranks 57th.
Students here attend school for free from pre-kindergarten to
university. The government also provides free breakfast and lunch to
all students, something the United States provides
only to low-income students.
But Barbados
goes further in on key area: health care. Barbadians of all ages have
universal free access to health care. If a child is sick, he or she
can go to a neighborhood clinic near school for treatment. The
schools have a referral system built in for children who need glasses
or dental care.
“Students don’t have to stay home if they’re sick in Barbados,”
says Dr. Dan C. Carter, a former official in the education ministry.
“This means they can be in the classroom learning.”
All of these factors help place
Barbados first among developing nations on the United Nations’ Human
Development Index, an indicator of not just a nation’s
wealth, but its quality of life.
For instance, the United
States has the second highest GDP
per capita in the world, but ranks 12th on the human development
index. Quality of life indicators for African-Americans, such as life
expectancy and infant mortality, rival that of some Third
World countries.
Tiny Barbados,
in contrast, ranks 39th for per capita GDP but 31st among all nations
on the quality of life index.
Another important factor that makes education work in Barbados
is discipline. Diana Wilson, principal of the Lester Vaughn secondary
school, calls it the “bedrock” of the school system.
The disciplinary conditioning begins with school uniforms and ends
with the distinct threat that if a student does something
particularly bad he or she can be flogged with a bamboo cane.
All students wear uniforms color-coded by public school. The skirts
fall below the knees, no jewelry can be worn, nor any shoes other
than plain black ones. The state pays for uniforms if parents can’t.
“Uniforms are a form of discipline,” Mary Ann Redman, the teacher’s
union president, says. “They help remove class distinction and are
less distracting.”
Teachers in Barbados
are held in esteem and relationships between teachers and students
are nurturing but formal. Disrespectful behavior isn’t tolerated, and
teachers use several forms of discipline, including in-school
suspension and even taking students to visit detention and drug rehab
centers.
But the ultimate tool in their disciplinary arsenal — one
that is increasingly controversial worldwide — remains corporal
punishment. Barbadians young and old recount the fear of floggings —
a seldom-used but effective threat. “I had a caning once in primary
school,” says Rudder, of the education ministry. “Never again. It was
a deterrent for me.”
It’s unlikely U.S.
schools would ever embrace such punishment. But other methods, such
as uniforms, parent involvement and creating an environment of
respect, Carmichael says, can be implemented and successful in
certain American schools where, like Barbados, nearly every
seat is occupied by a brown-skinned child.
“My mother preached to us every day, ‘You can’t get through life
without an education,’ ” Danielle Ifill says at her graduation
practice. “We hear it all the time from everyone.”
Nikole Hannah-Jones is a reporter
for The Oregonian.
