“The word education is not even a part of the conversation for some of our young men,” said Joseph Heron, the dean of student discipline at the school. Much of this, Heron said, is because young men in Jamaica, like many of their U.S. counterparts, are struggling with an identity crisis.
In Jamaica, many educational endeavors like reading and mastery of English and other modern languages are considered feminine pursuits. “I was confronted many times by students as if I were lesser because I simply do my school work and answer questions in class,” said Akeem Edwards, an 11-grade student at the school.
Edwards, who will be graduating this year and hopes to attend Yale or Carnegie Mellon next fall, said he sees education as his ticket to a better life. “Without learning and education, you won’t be able to survive in this world,” he said, adding, “I have gone to bed without food, so … I know the value of education.”
Many educational endeavors like reading and mastery of English are considered feminine pursuits. For many of the students, education is not emphasized at home and certainly not as much for boys as it is for girls. “Parents are more strict on the females based on what they see in the news and they don’t pay attention to the boys,” said Rico Christie, a 10th-grader at the school. Christie said this tendency to ignore and set lower expectations for the male students “leaves a scar on the boys mentally.”
“When we call parents to address these issues, the parents are also having similar identity crises,” the dean said. “If the conversation of education is not within the parents, it cannot be within the students.” Parents may instruct students to go to school, “but there is no process of caring” or investment in ensuring the students receive an education.
But Heron quickly clarifies that the education level of the students is not reflective of their intellect: “Opportunity is the issue, not intelligence.”
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