Yellow Poui

The Yellow Poui is one of Jamaica’s beautiful flowering trees, but its yellow blossom lasts only one or two days. I have long puzzled over how all the Poui trees in Montego Bay synchronize their flowering. They normally flower in March or April, at the end of the usual dry season. There’s a saying that if students haven’t started studying for exams when the Yellow Pouis flower, they are cutting things too close.  This would normally hold true, but this year and last Pouis have flowered again in August and September. In the worst drought in decades, they have been leafless for months. Then after some heavy showers over the weekend, they burst into flower on Thursday, so I presume that was the trigger. The pollinators of the flowers, insects and tiny hummingbirds, feast on nectar. The fruits, long pods, grow quickly, then dry and open releasing wind-dispersed, papery-winged seeds. They spring up all over the place, but their survival rate is low. Most of the Poui trees we see are planted for decorative purposes.      

                                                                         

Bad Girls in School - A Book Review

 "Bad Girls in School" by Gwyneth Harold is a title in Heinemann's Caribbean Writers Series, first published in 2007. It is available on amazon and in local bookshops in Jamaica.
     Badly behaved students are the bane of teachers’ lives. They sap our energy, demand a disproportionate amount of attention, and make life miserable for other students. We try to make our classes interesting and relevant, we stress the importance of grasping content in the reaching the goal of getting good grades, and the importance of good grades to future success. The school builds up a reputation. Most of the students conform to the norms and take pride in doing so. Various techniques and punishments from reprimands to detentions to suspension are employed to bring the wayward into line. In spite of this, there are always some who are influenced by neither the carrot not the stick. The ultimate sanction for them is expulsion.

This appears to be the fate of the “BadGirls in School” by Gwyneth Harold, in the opening chapter of this book. However, they are rescued by the chairman of the school board, Canon Rodney Pryce, and the young librarian, Elaine Mico. The school sets up a special one-year program for the rehabilitation of the girls. This was one aspect of the story which I found to be implausible - no school has the resources for a teacher to be assigned to a group of three students, even if  on a part-time basis and the teacher is the librarian. The story, set in Redeemer College, a fictional girls’ day school in Kingston, Jamaica describes the girls’ progress from the viewpoint of each of the girls, allowing us to hear their thoughts in a blend of English and Jamaican Creole, and learn about their home backgrounds and challenges. Sections are also written in the voice of Elaine, who volunteered to teach them and has her own challenges.

As a retired teacher, I found this approach interesting. The author allows us to hear the girls’ most intimate thoughts – their anger, resentment, frustration, hopes and dreams – some of which they don’t even share with their friends, let alone their teachers. While teachers are under pressure to complete syllabuses, set and grade assignments, keep records and make sure that students pass external examinations with flying colours, they hardly have time to listen to students’ problems. Even if they did, few are qualified as counselors or would be able take the kind of action for which psychologists and social workers are needed. However, a teacher could speculate that the badly behaved student in her class has similar thoughts to those of the girls in this book, and perhaps treat her differently. However, this very readable book is really intended for teenage girls.  Some, who are themselves ‘bad girls’, would hopefully come to the realization that their situations are not unique, and that it is never too late to make amends. Good girls will also be drawn into the story and may identify some the the girls they know in these fictional characters.

One thing I didn’t like about “Bad Girls in School” was the cover illustrating three girls, none of whom is pretty, as one of them is described in the story. It shows nothing of the setting – nothing which made me think I would like to read the book. In fact it had the opposite effect. 

Read Across Jamaica

Book display at St. James Parish Library

Read Across Jamaica Day is celebrated in May during Education Week. I thought it was simply a day when schools invited people to come and read to students, to highlight the importance of literacy. Now I know it is much more than that. Read Across Jamaica Foundation is a non-profit organization whose mission is to introduce creative methods of teaching reading to children, and encourage them to enjoy literature as an aid to changing future disparaging lifestyles affected by illiteracy. It places special emphasis on ensuring access to much needed resources in disadvantaged communities and stands firmly behind its motto:

“Share a book with a child and you have given illiteracy a dose of cure.”

Ms. Ja'nice Wisdom

Ms. Ja’nice Wisdom, its founder, first introduced the literacy initiative concept to the Jamaica Teachers Association in 2003 as a research paper while studying at the University of Maryland University College. Ms. Wisdom, who now lives in California, is a second generation Jamaican with strong ties to family in Siloah, St. Elizabeth. She is passionate on issues related to children and literacy.

Initially, she modelled the Read Across Jamaica concept after the NEA’s Read Across America Day initiative, otherwise known for celebrating the March 2 birthday of children's book author Dr. Seuss (Ted Gieselle) with a strong emphasis on the universal appeal of “Cat in the Hat.” However, this year she focused on Jamaican authors. Working in collaboration with the Book Industry Association of Jamaica (BIAJ) 10 copies of each of 50 titles of books by Jamaican authors were purchased and distributed to 10 schools and/or libraries. A big 'thank you' to Kellie Magnus for emailing authors, compiling the list, liaising with Ja'nice, and coordinating the collection and handing over of the books. Authors of these books were on hand to read from them at selected locations, during Education Week.

Following a church service in Trelawny on Sunday, May 3, Ms. Wisdom presented the Minister of Education, The Honourable Ronald Thwaites with a copy of  “Oh, The Places You'll Go!” by Dr. Seuss, to kick-off their Island Wide Bus Tour which began on Monday, May 4 and ended on Saturday May 9.

The schools visited were: Portsmouth Primary, St. Catherine; Mustard Seed Community–Little Angel’s Learning Center, Kingston; Hope Valley Experimental, Papine, St. Andrew; St. Benedicts Primary, Kingston; Port Royal Primary, Kingston; Harbour View Primary, Kingston; Sankofa Primary, St. Thomas; McIntosh Memorial Primary in Manchester; Siloah Primary and Appleton Basic Schools in St. Elizabeth; and finally St. James Parish Library, where I was privileged to be invited to take part in the activities. 

Ms. Wisdom, with the help of library staff, had set up display tables with books and activities for children to take part in.
 She started the program by playing the song ‘Education is the Key’ by TashaT. 

“Education is the key to success, Education is the way of survival,

  Without education you will be declined in this modern time.

“Education is the key to success, Education is the way of survival, 

  Education is the means of sharpening the mind, in this modern time.” 

 Children then sang along, moved to the beat, played tambourines and hit an exercise ball with drum sticks. After this ice-breaker, Ms. Wisdom talked about juggling different aspects of your life – self, family and friends. She illustrated this by juggling balls. As in life, if you drop them, someone will help you retrieve them.

She then read from “Oh, The Places You'll Go!” by Dr. Seuss, picking up two main themes. One tied in with juggling aspects of your life with its ups and downs. The other illustrated the way in which books can allow you to travel the world without leaving your home.

In keeping with this year’s decision to highlight Jamaican children’s authors, I was then given the opportunity to read from “Delroy in the Marog Kingdom”.  Starting with two boys acting the parts of Delroy and Mario putting the frog in a pot, and involving all the children in aspects of the story, I hope I have encouraged them to read the book, copies of which are available in the library. 

With Ja'nice and staff from the library

After my reading there were more activities for the children. Ms. Wisdom and the library staff assisted them in making wordless book bracelets. Then Ms. Wisdom displayed her artistic talents in painting the faces of the participants, one child at a time, meanwhile the others were supplied with paper and crayons for their own art work.

I applaud Ms. Wisdom for her vision, her generosity, her leadership skills and her energizing of the week’s activities for over 12 years in Jamaica. Read Across Jamaica Foundation Inc. is certainly an organization well-worth supporting.
CONTRIBUTE: Donate@ReadAcrossJamaica.com; 
BOOK DRIVE:  https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/read-across-jamaica-2015

Books by Jamaican Authors distributed by Read Across Jamaica Foundation

Little Lion Goes to School by Kellie Magnus
Little Lion at Bat by Kellie Magnus
Little Lion Goes for Gold by Kellie Magnus
Nancy and Grandy Nanny by Rebecca Tortello
Gammon and the Woman's Tongue Trees by Diane Browne
Every Little Thing Will be All Right by Diane Browne
Island Princess in Brooklyn by Diane Browne
Ash the Flash by Hazel Campbell
Miss Bettina's House by Hazel Campbell
Bernie and the Captain's Ghost by Hazel Campbell
Freedom Come by Jean Goulbourne
Jo-Jo's Treasure Hunt by Cherrell Shelly-Robinson
Jenny and the General by Jean D'Costa
Little Island, Big Adventure by Maria Roberts Squires
Forest Fever by Sharon James
Bolo the Monkey by Jonathan Burke
Irie Morning by Alison Moss-Solomon
All Over Again by A-Dziko Simba Gegele
Ptolemy Turtle by Melisande Potter Hall
Soon Come by Melisande Potter Hall
Lucille Travels at Christmas by Jasmine N'Toume
Kito in the Kitchen by Radha Poorhan
When the Sun and the Moon Ran Away by Maizle Goulbourne
Dale's Mango Tree by Kim Robinson
Beautiful Blue Shirt on Barry Street by Isabel Marvin
Saving Joe Louis by Isabel Marvin
Naughty Eddie Larue by Julia Wohlt
Suck Finger Pickney by Tracey McNair
The Adventures of Lumi & Twizzy by Gina Harvey Lewis
Fly Away Home by Andy Mead
Project Climate Save by Petre Williams-Raynor
Tilly Bummie by Hazel Campbell
Anancy's African Adventures by Beulah Richmond
Anancy & Friends by Beulah Richmond
Children's Basic Sight Words by Donna Reid
Drog: A Dreggen Story by Hazel Campbell
Juicebox & Scandal Bag by Hazel Campbell
Lally Mae's Farm Suss by Melanie Schwapp
A Boy Named Neville by Linda Gambrill
Miss Tiny by Linda Gambrill
Croaking Johnny and Dizzy Lizzy by Linda Gambrill
Marcus Garvey by Suzanne Francis Brown
Searching for Pirates: A Port Royal Adventure by Suzanne Francis Brown
Young Heroes of the Caribbean by Gwyneth Harold
The Turtle Tale by Latoya Newman
Children of Hopeful Village by Latoya Newman
Aiden and the Apple Tree by Johnathon Kelly
Prayers for School Days by Carolien Aikman
Delroy in the Marog Kingdom by Billy Elm
Errol’s Taxi by Helen Williams
Little Meeta by Jean Goulbourne
Mystery of the Golden Table by Suzanne Francis Brown
Blue Mountain Trouble by Martin Mordecai

Reading from Delroy in the Marog Kingdom and Beautiful Blackbird

The Montessori School in Montego Bay invited me to do a book reading on April 23, 2015. Since some of the children there are only 3 years old, I decided to read a book more suited to that age group than Delroy in the Marog Kingdom, which I read to the older children.  

I chose Beautiful Blackbird by Ashley Bryan which lends itself to actions in which the children can take part.

 I wrote out the story on 5” x 3” cards, so that one of the children could hold up the book for the others to see the delightful pictures. It also enabled me to maintain eye-contact with the children and show them the actions. These included a flap-flap-flapping of their wings, beak to beak – peck, peck, peck and a dance called the show claws slide. I had a feather handy to ‘paint’ the birds with spots, large and small, and stripes close together and far apart.

There are several possible follow-up activities to this reading. Younger children can be given birds  cut out of different coloured cartridge paper to paint with dots and stripes, and paste on to a larger picture. If the larger picture includes a lake, they could match the birds with their mirror images. Older children can draw birds and cut out their shapes. Children can be involved in a discussion about what is on the outside not being an indication of what is on the inside.

Crab Catcher at Treasure Beach

All children can be set a challenge to name and recognize Jamaican birds. They could start this activity before hearing the story. How many of the birds are found only in Jamaica? How many of them and which ones are migratory (here for only part of the year). What does migration mean? Where do the birds go in the summer (or the winter)? What colour are the birds? Are any of them only one colour? How many of them have markings of black on them?  What do birds eat? What connection is there between the shapes of their beaks and the food they eat? Make a humming bird feeder out of a plastic bottle to hang at the location – children can make their own to hang at their homes. 

Hummingbird at a feeder

The topic also lends itself to a discussion on respect for wild life, and whether it is wrong to kill birds with a sling-shot and steal eggs from nests.  

Preparing to put the frog in the pot
Reading from
Delroy in the Marog Kingdom
at the Montessori School

Ridiculous Math Questions

Mona Reservoir, Kingston, Jamaica

I thought Math was supposed to teach children to think logically and to use their common sense in assessing whether answers were possible or not. However, when checking math homework, I came across these questions in the Grade 5 “New Integrated Approach Mathematics Workbook” by Powell, Scott and Taylor, published by PST Central Publishers (Jamaica), on page 162:

# 1. The distance around a circular swimming pool is 4.42 km. How far is the outer wall from the centre of the pool?

The answer works out to be 704 metres.  The distance across the pool would be 1408 metres – approximately 5 times the distance between the groynes at Doctor’s Cave Beach. Suppose the pool is 1 m deep,  (a safe depth since anyone getting into difficulties would otherwise drown before a life-guard could reach them), the volume of water in the pool would be 3.14 x 704 x 704 = 1,556,234 cubic metres  = approx. 1,556 million litres  or 411 million US gallons. At NWC rates, this pool would cost Ja $554,641,797.60 to fill. This is a reservoir, not a swimming pool! This distance around the Mona Reservoir is only 2.74 km!

What is the point of this ridiculous question? For children to demonstrate that they can do complicated long division sums, calculate the radius of a circle when given the circumference, and remember to (and how to) convert kilometres to metres? 

Lucea Courthouse with German clock in the tower.

#5. A circular clock in the town square is 125 m in diameter. How far is the outer edge of the clock from its centre?

My questions: What would be the weight of this clock and the mechanism used to make it work? How big is the town square? Is the clock upright or flat on the ground? If it was upright it would be about a third the height of the Empire State Building and at its widest point would fill about half a city block. How far away from it would you have to be to be able to read it? If it was flat on the ground, it couldn’t fit into a space the size of the National Stadium in Kingston, Jamaica. What would be the use of such a clock, anyway? By way of comparison, the dials on Big Ben, one of the biggest clocks in the world, are 7 metres in diameter.

The purpose of this ridiculous question is for children to demonstrate that they know that the radius of a circle is half the diameter and that they can divide 125 by 2. Surely there must be a more sensible way for children to do so. Why not asks a question about the clock in Lucea town square? This book claims to have an integrated approach, why not include some interesting history too? The clock, in the shape of a helmet worn by the German Royal Guard, was intended to be a gift from the people of Germany to the people of St. Lucia. By mistake it was sent to Lucea, Jamaica which had ordered a smaller clock from the same company. The people loved  the clock and raised the extra money to pay for it. The clock was installed in the tower in 1817.

Writers of math text books and teachers, please write sensible problems with realistic measurements that children can relate to, and that can show how math is used in everyday life. These ridiculous questions must surely alienate students who already have a negative attitude towards math. 

Children's Books from or about Africa

This is the first of a series of posts I am writing for persons who would like to purchase multicultural books for Jamaican children, and would appreciate suggestions about what is available and appropriate. I hope that this list will also be useful for teachers, librarians, book distributers and corporate donors. This post has 20 books from and about Africa. I have been somewhat arbitrary in my selection, mainly from the website of Africa Access Review. One post cannot cover this vast continent, so there will be a part 2 at some point.

The first 10 books on the list are for younger children (aged 4-7), but not for them to read on their own, because of the level of vocabulary, the sentence structure and the concepts. They are, however, ideal for reading aloud and for discussion.    

1.     Ais for Africa by Ifeoma Onyefulu (Puffin Books 1997)  – good information about Nigeria, suitable for Jamaican Basic Schools.  Ifeoma Onyefulu has written many more beautifully illustrated books for this age group.

2.     The Magic Gourd by Baba Wague Diakite (Scholastic 2003)  - a folktale from Mali about kindness and generosity. Good for reading aloud to 4 – 7 year-olds. 

3.     A Gift from Childhood by Baba Wague Diakite (Groundwood Books 2010) - a story about traditional village life in Mali. 

4.     KenteColors by Debbi Chocolate (Walker Children’s 1997) - about the traditional kente cloth of the Ashante people of Ghana  

5.     Handa’s Hen by Eileen Browne (Candlewick 2011) – a simple counting story set in Kenya.   

6.     Catch That Goat by Polly Alakija (Barefoot Books 2002) – set in Nigeria, a goat gets away and runs through the town’s market. Grade 1 children should be able to read this simple story on their own. Younger children could tell the story from the illustrations.

7.     Babu’s Song by Stephanie Stuve-Bodeen (Lee and Low Books 2003) – with the help of Babu, his mute grandfather, Bernard is able to go to school.

8.     Muktar and the Camels by Janet Graber (Henry Holt and Co 2009) – living in an orphanage on the border of Somalia and Kenya, Muktar remembers the time when he lived with his family and the camels.  This book would also be of interest to older children who could read it for themselves. 

9.     Zeraffa Giraffa by Quarto Generic (Frances Lincoln Children’s Books 2014) – the amazing  true story of  Zeraffa, a giraffe who was sent as a gift by the Ottoman Viceroy of Egypt to King Charles X of France in 1826. 

10.  Circle Unbroken by Margo Theis Raven (Square Fish 2007) – the story of how the art of basket-making was taken from Africa to the Carolinas. Is there a similar story of the way in which the art of basket-making was brought to Jamaica?  

   The following 10 books are suitable for children aged 8-12 to read on their own.

1.     Sundiata:Lion King of Mali by David Wisniewski. (HMH Books for Young Readers; 1999) In the thirteenth century, Sundiata overcame physical handicaps, social disgrace, and strong opposition to rule the West African trading empire of Mali. A good book for teachers to read aloud to grades 2 & 3 children, and for older children to read on their own. 

2.     The Other Side of Truth by Beverley Naidoo (Harper Trophy 2002) – 2 children are smuggled out of Nigeria when their mother is killed in political unrest. The difficulties they face as refugees in London.  This story won a Carnegie Medal UK and many other awards.  

3.    Nelson Mandela The Long Walk to Freedom by Chris Van Wyk and Nelson Mandela (Macmillan 2009) – an abridged version of Nelson Mandela’s autobiography. 

4.     The No.1 Car Spotter by Atinuke  (Kane Miller Book Pub; June 2011) – No 1 is bright, plucky and resourceful – a fantastic character for Atinuke’s new series. 

5.     How the Leopard got his Claws by Chinua Achebe (Candlewick Press 2011)  – a fable about the dangers of power taken by force.

6.     The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba (Dial Books for Young Readers 2012) - the true story of how this author, as a teenager, built a functional windmill from junkyard scraps in Malawi.  

7.     Pharoah’s Boat by David Weitzman (Houghton Mifflin Books for Children 2009) - the story of how one of the greatest boats of ancient Egypt came to be built.

8.     Seeds of Change – Planting a Path to Peace by Jen Johnson (Lee and Low Books 2010) - tree planting movement in Kenya spearheaded by Wangari Maathai and other women, and opposed by government and multinationals. 

9.     Bintou’s Braids by Sylviane Diouf  (Chronicle Books 2001)– a young girl in West Africa is in a hurry to grow up, but she learns that she must earn her braids. 

10.  Mystery of MeerkatHill by Alexander McCall Smith (Anchor 2013) – one of several children’s detective stories, about Precious Ramotswe, set in Botswana.