…academically
Your Eyewitness feels this Lall fella – who keeps pumping out those letters with their convoluted prose – was quite mean-spirited with his backhanded “compliment” to the kid who passed 25 subjects at CSEC!! He at least had the grace to admit his “congratulation” sounded “lame”. So why offer it in the first place?
Well, now that Roopnaraine’s banished, Lall’s the flag-bearer of the brigade that insists that kids should be limited in how many CSEC subjects they can write. Lall dubs the ever-increasing number of subjects written an “insane trajectory”; but why is this so? Your Eyewitness can understand if kids were forced to write these double-digit number of subjects, but the kid said clearly this was HIS choice. In fact, his teachers discouraged him from writing the 25, and managed to bring him down from the 27 he’d originally contemplated.
Lall asks: how many subjects next year? Your Eyewitness thinks the limit will eventually be the number of subjects CXC offers! What is it? 35?
How come they don’t complain about FORCING kids to write AT LEAST five subjects? Aren’t there thousands of kids who just can’t cope with that number? The fact of the matter is that this whole argument’s a tempest in a teacup, since there is already a system in place to evaluate and determine how many subjects can be taken.
In all schools, the students have to get the specific subjects and number of subjects APPROVED by the teachers, HoDs, and eventually the head-teacher. In the case of the latest exceptional performer, the teachers’ assessments were obviously vindicated, since he passed all his subjects with such flying colours.
But Lall revealed the flawed premise of his “limit” brigade when he asked: what’s the point proven by a batsman who scores 1000 runs when the team mightn’t be doing so well?
But we can see the falsity of this premise, can’t we? When the kid wrote and passed 25 subjects, he didn’t PREVENT any other student from performing as well – or even better – as would’ve happened when the 1000-run batter didn’t possibly allow others on the team to bat. Kids writing many subjects aren’t preventing teachers from teaching others, are they?
The demand that CSEC subjects be limited comes from a misguided urge for an “egalitarian” outcome wherein no kid’s allowed to rise above others – even through his/her own efforts. This is the dumbing down compulsion that will perpetuate Guyana’s mediocrity.
The hero Mallory who ultimately perished trying to scale Mt Everest was asked why he persisted. “Because it’s there!” he said. We always need heroes who can push the envelope.
Congratulations, Michael Bhopaul!!!
…in Cricket
Your Eyewitness is in Cricket Limbo…you know, that state of uncertainty when you’re caught betwixt and between (and not him slithering backwards under some low-slung pole!). On one hand, he’s ecstatic the Guyana Amazon Warriors won their match against the Barbados Tridents and kept hope alive. But on the other hand, the West Indies’ test side was ignominiously bowled out TWICE IN ONE DAY by England; and lost the match by an innings and some 200 -odd runs.
Can there be more shame than this? But who’d send out these inexperienced youths like lambs to the slaughter to play the English on their home turf? And therein lies the problem, doesn’t it? The WICB, that’s who! How many years hasn’t your Eyewitness been joining some of the most prominent citizens of the West Indies demanding someone get rid of this poisonous Board? CariCom’s tried.
Because its member boards fear setting a precedent that would seal their own doom, the ICC has firmly opposed CariCom getting involved.
So maybe they can do so themselves?
…in comedy
Jerry Lewis and Dick Gregory – American comedians who entertained several generations with their specific brands of humour – both passed away this weekend.
But Gregory, who didn’t ignore the African American condition in his routine, is barely mentioned.