Streaming in schools

Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself – John Dewey

Seeing the (amazing) spike in the number of subjects the high-achievers wrote this year, I was particularly interested to see what exactly were the subjects written by these students. It was no surprise to discover that several wrote subjects across “streams”. I’ve had time to think long and hard about our system of streaming in our educational system in Guyana.
I’ve always liked our system of streaming students into groups of subjects centred on an endeavour of life – like science or business – by fourth form. Some would say that forcing kids to choose a stream is tantamount to have them make career choices at that early age. That this just makes “education” all about training you to get a job later in life, when instead, you should want to learn, for learning’s sake. And it’s good to learn.
I love to read, I love learning. But realistically, in the future, I’ll have to work, I’ll have to earn money. I’ll need to prepare myself as best as I could to be best equipped for whatever field I choose.
It’s no good for me to just float around aimlessly with no sense of direction until ‘I find myself’. Picking a stream in fourth form and sticking to it gave me a sense of direction.
And by the time I reached sixth form, I knew my choice of career would be the natural science stream.
So to the parents of secondary school kids, I encourage you to have discussions with your kids about possible career paths so that by the time they reach fourth form they’ll have a general idea of what stream they’ll want to be in.
The other day I realised (with a start!) that my parents have known me for over 17 years.
Every day since the day I was born, they’ve been there to see me grow up, to see my personality unfold, to see my habits and preferences. So as parents, you’re in the best position to advise your child, to encourage them to realistically pursue career choices or streaming choices that they’ve always seemed partial to.
I’ve always felt that it’s important to be well-read and not one-track. I did all three social sciences at CSEC, both because I was interested in them and also because I didn’t want to fall into the stereotype of doctors just being able to carry on conversations about medicine.
But at the same time, it wasn’t necessary to stray so far out of my chosen field and do subjects that I’ll never really use, and still I was able to widen my knowledge base.
So I’d like to encourage students, parents, and teachers to remember why we streamed kids in the first place – it gave us structure and order. Choose your stream, stick to it, and be the best in your stream and later, be the best at your career.
Don’t spread yourself too thin. Choose a stream you like, choose subjects you like, things that seem important to you as a person, and it’ll be much easier to get through.
In all aspects of life, when you do something just for the sake of doing it, it’s much duller than if it was something you cared about, or were passionate about. It’s never too late to start thinking about your future.
Make your choices wisely; because we’re the children of Guyana, we’re the future of this great nation; especially the great majority of my fellow students who may not have done as well as they may have wanted.