It is with reluctance this blogmaster highlights the death of 16 year old student who was stabbed to death by a fellow student of similar age from the same school. The taking of the life caused by an argument over $20 that arose from a gambling session.
Predictably the Barbados Secondary Teachers Union (BSTU) have scheduled a meeting tomorrow at 12:30PM at Solidarity House to discuss the matter – the only agenda item – Deadly Violence Within Our School System.
The BU family have been discussing the deterioration in the social fabric of our society from inception of the blog in 2007 and others beyond. The indiscipline playing out in our schools is mirroring the current state of affairs in the wider society. Why then are we surprised when tragedy strikes as it did last Friday?
There are calls for greater security on school premises, more counselors, improved parenting and the cries are endless.
For over 40 years we have allowed the PSV sector to run amok on the island.
The BSTU, BTU and other unions have been silent when bad apples in the teaching service have perpetrated unprofessional acts (sexual) on students.
Most parents do not attend parent teacher’s meetings because they are ‘busy’
Politicians do not lead by example, case in point Michael Carrington withheld an old man’s money and the then prime minister refused to fire the offender.
Senior teachers appointed to the service based on political affiliation.
The blogmaster does not have the emotional stamina to continue with this blog except to suggest we are finding out what it is “to sow the wind and reap the whirlwind“.
I endorse this message and would further point out adults are a bunch of hypocrites in the eyes of the youth.
What will the lazy self serving persons with powers to bring offer up as lame duck knee jerk reactions?
Most of Barbados problems if a critical analysis was done would most likely point to rampant Non Fit For Purpose Incompent Persons In Positions and Laziness!
Honest Conscience are now replaced by Deceitfulness for my mortgage must be protected irrespective of societal fallout!
Perhaps a day will come when most self serving Babyboomers will have all died out and are replaced by Gen Xers who have no fear of jail if it means standing up for their constitutional rights
if you plant potatoes you gine reap potatoes not yams or eddoes.
If we stand for nothing WE WILL FALL FIR ANYTHING!
These deaths WILL BECOME WORSE, because our authority systems are deluged with people without backbone STARTING WITH A PRIME MINISTER MIA MOTTLEY who delights in inviting drug lords to Parliament
May I very politely ask what solutions does Solutions Barbados have for our youth?
Re: Adults failing our youth.
Really???
In this instance I think that IT IS THE YOUTH WHO HAVE FAILED AND WHO HAVE GRAVELY DISAPPOINTED THEIR PARENTS, THEIR TEACHERS, AND THE ELDERS IN THEIR COMMUNITIES.
Put the responsibility exactly where it belongs.
If as is alleged these youths were gambling at school, no adult compelled them to do so.
If as is supposed a youth brought a knife to school. It is unlikely that an adult compelled him/her? to do so.
If as it appears these 15-16 year olds have not yet developed self control how is that a failing of their parents, teachers, or the “society”
I am certain that each of those youths knew right from wrong.
I am certain that they knew that they ought not to have been gambling on the school premises, in fact I am certain that they must have know that gambling is wrong.
I am certain that they knew that they should have been in their classrooms paying attention to their lessons.
I am certain that they knew that bringing weapons to school is wrong.
Some are proposing that we the adults let 16 year olds vote. Do we really want to grant the responsibility of voting to people who are not yet able to control their basest impulses?
https://youtu.be/ciUzAVVArzQ?list=PLf0Sp7jJwZzstE5lDjRolktq_VmGZsAvK
It seems to me that instances like this is the youth who have failed their parents, teachers, and society.
Surely 15 to 16 year olds had been told multiple times that gambling is not permitted at school.
Surely they had been told that weapons were not permitted at school.
Surely they had been told that when the bell rings after lunch they should immediately return to their classrooms.
So how have they been failed by parents, teachers or society?
One of my teachers who lived to be over 100 years old had a saying “hard ears you won’t here; own-way you will feel”
That saying is still true, because human nature is still the same as it has ever been.
Mr Blogmaster, you say with a seemingly inflamed sense of indignant ‘so what else dey gine do’ that the “Barbados Secondary Teachers Union (BSTU) have scheduled a meeting …”.
You seem not very impressed!
But as I understand it this death could be the proverbial straw that breaks the back of the teachers’ patience with school violence.
There is talk that in last month alone there has been at least two stabbing incidents at schools and other violent altercations.
There is talk of how the sons of drug barons control segments of a school and have minions doing their bidding for fear of violent reprisals….
— and when I say ‘there is talk’ that’s citing info from those DIRECTLY IN the school system —
As you stated the teachers’ unions have to properly address issues of student abuse by their members but that really has nothing to do with violence towards the majority of teachers or towards fellow students by other students.
The union and the government must alter this untenable state of lax security and safety in schools before there is a major vient altercation or hail of gunfire in one of our schools.
@Dee Word
Everything is related.
How can teachers, unions and government prevent a maladjusted student from indisciplined behaviour on the school premises before the act?
Do you know many of the schools in Barbados are located in villages and have little or no parameter fencing?
Many of our teachers work for the pay cheque. Many of our principals are square pegs in round holes. In many of our secondary schools there is no prefect service because the children have no interest or are afraid to perform what was a pride of function years ago.
More importantly what is unfolding in the schools is channeling wider society.
A few years ago BU posted a blog about lesbian gangs at BCC. Enough said.
Several years ago I started checking my son’s school bag as he was starting to behave in a negative manner at home.
I discovered a knife in his bag after a first search and spoke to him about it, and was told of being bullied by a boy in his school and he was taking it for his protection.
That morning I drove him to his Secondary school and met with him and the Principal who brought in the boy my son was being bullied by.
The Principal dealt with the boy and called in his parents because of what my son explained and the boy admitted to.
My son never took another knife or any other harmful object to school as the other kids in the school quickly learned his Dad did not play and would protect his son from himself and all others.
I must say the below is very true:
Barbadian society in denial, says doctor
“If a child takes a pencil and hides it in their bag and walks to school with it every day and there is no consequence because his parents never checked their bag, then that child starts to believe that he or she has not done anything wrong,” said Dr Belle.
https://barbadostoday.bb/2019/11/12/barbadian-society-in-denial-says-doctor/
Quote):
The blogmaster does not have the emotional stamina to continue with this blog except to suggest we are finding out what it is “to sow the wind and reap the whirlwind“. (Unquote).
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Lady Karma is too sweet a blind Bi***ch to be avoided; isn’t she?
From the list of transgression of unrepentant and unpunished ‘sins’ committed by the big-ups in the Bajan society you have omitted the likes of:
The CLICO policyholders’ grand heist aided and abetted by “professionals” sitting on its Board in association with a lawyer whose political life was scandalously cut short.
Where is the moral compensation due to Ms V. Braithwaite whose lone voice of action was like that of the boy on the burning deck of the Ponzi sinking ship?
What about the lifting of that $1.5 million in “legal fees” (by a friend of the Big nose boss) from the already dry coffers of the BWA thereby forcing the much needed maintenance programme for that vital tap to public health to end up as seeping se(a)wage in the Graeme Hall nature reserve?
How about the miming of a gunfight around the Palmetto Square O.K. Corral by two politicians representing each side of the imaginary political divide?
Did the pretend investigation into the Hollywood shoot out see the light of day?
Where is Lady Justinia for the mother of Abijah whose life was cut short (having not seen a star pitched) by the flouting of planning regulations of another untouchable money magnate (MM) the nemesis of the ‘fair’ dealer of the financial card game?
The inside man, Mr. Whistleblower for the B U Ethics Committee, has it down-pat to a ‘P’ & ‘F’ when regularly he spills the nasty beans of high society ills by opening a can of Baygon to expose the moral worms.
Where is that Mr. Greene the foreign-trained sleuth of BU when you want him to be that ‘needed’ complainant in the Donvillegate kickback affair instead of being that small-fry ‘green’ greedy fella grassing on the boys trading weed on the block but still able to watch the pantomime of hypocrisy played out on the stage concocted on a wooden yacht of luxury and prestige christened the “SS Herbert line of the white Bajan privileged class”?
Master Piece de Legend has been ‘cursing like Pater and ‘preaching’ like Paul about the pending social tsunami about to drown Barbados.
Why are we surprised at this addition to his statistical body count?
“Men are not punished for their sins, but by them.” ~Elbert Hubbard.
Simple Simon,
“They have been told” but what have they been shown?
Textbook definition of hypocrisy?
Add to the list of adults in authority whom the young people are TOLD to respect – the policemen who routinely relieve the boys on the block of their gambling money without following due process. I know a young man who actually made a complaint to the police authority. I have been told by a reliable former coworker that a policeman friend of hers actually admitted to her one morning that he had no lunch money but knew where he was going to get it.
No recourse means no respect for the system.
Add to that further abuses of human rights by those TASKED to protect them. Male police strip searching females by the side of the road on the basis of some bogus tip off. No recourse for the females, apparently.
They also strip down the men in public. Did it in Bridgetown on Friday. Down to his boxers. Found nothing. I am told they at least apologized this time.
No recourse means no respect for the system.
And do we really believe that most confessions in Barbados are gleefully offered up by the suspect in custody?
No recourse means no respect for the system.
We all know that even well meaning adults make mistakes. We also know that there will be bad apples in every bunch but when bad apple parents, teachers, policemen, political leaders, businessmen and even clergymen are allowed by the system to proceed with impunity and prosper there will be NO RESPECT FOR AUTHORITY!
These are YOUNG PEOPLE! They are BY NATURE impressionable, lacking in judgment and self-control. The job of THE SYSTEM is to create an environment that is conducive to the ABSORPTION of good habits almost by osmosis.
os·mo·sis
/äzˈmōsəs/
noun
1.
a process by which molecules of a solvent tend to pass through a semipermeable membrane from a less concentrated solution into a more concentrated one, thus equalizing the concentrations on each side of the membrane.
2.
the process of gradual or unconscious assimilation of ideas, knowledge, etc.:
“what she knows of the blue-blood set she learned not through birthright, not even through wealth, but through osmosis”
If the system operates by JUNGLE LAW survival of the fittest (read MOST CORRUPT) then society HAS failed the young people.
Young people learn by example. I often wait until the last minute to get dressed and have to hurry to leave home on time. I have TOLD my son to start early. I have SHOWN him to start late.
Which habit do you think he has developed?
Where is this instant uncontrollable rage that lives within the bowels of youth coming from
I see this type of violent behaviour exhibited and demonstrated by youth as a cry for help which went unattended by parents and the greater society in general
Usually there are signs of abnormal behaviour going on within these children which are signals that something is very wrong
Could it be that those who are closest to these children which includes parents teachers friends and some not so close could have seen these two children negative attitudes and abnormal behaviour and did and said nothing
I am reminded of a famous quote by Hilary Clinton which says “it takes a village to raise a child”
@Donna thank you. Do school children import marijuana and guns?
Was it a school child who said no to metal detectors?
Is it a school child who drives a ZR and Minibuses without regard?
Is it a school child who sits in parliament?
No wonder a 13 year old young lady at Dodds Juvenile, told a social worker adults are hypocrites and when asked why said” She listens to Brasstacks”
Is it the youth who fail to enforce the ban of the filthy powerful music on Zrs and Minibuses?
Is it the school child who puffs marijuana smoke in a baby face?
The same fingers we are pointing at the youth are pointing right back at the adult hypocrites.
How many of you have volunteered your time to mentor a child who is fatherless or motherless?
When last have you sat and had a discussion with a neighborhood child on life. Perhaps, your air conditioned car windows cannot roll down.
Children absorb what they hear and see around them…is it the children who draft laws that are soft on murder and malicious wounding, that see murders on bail and grievous bodily harm perps charge today and on bail tomorrow? No.
ADULTS NEED TO ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE FAILINGS OF OUR YOUTH.
School children did not ruin the Barbados economy or have failed to revamped the educational system.
Children have not failed to change legislation to allow Support In Kind for Maintenance rather than have it about #MoneyOnly. Many fathers turn to selling marijuana to meet child support payments.
Let’s continue to ridicule the restless children who have had their fathers erased from their lives!
A bundle of hypocrites most adults are.
I hear you Donna. But the youth have BOTH been told and been shown. I have been told that one of the parents of one of the many boys involved gave her son the last money she had that morning, did not know how she was going to get back home but felt that she wold ask for a lift for a collegue. So yes that youth was “shown love”
There are many, many good examples in the system. And indeed most youth CHOOSE to follow the good examples, but other CHOOSE to be hard ears. As for your son, the time had come for him to get up , get ready and walk out the door, leaving his “late-bird” mother behind.
He can then get to school early and tell his friends “my mummy, she is something else tho’ always late”.
Now grab your umbrella and go…because I am your elder and I have TOLD you so
Somebody needs to show these children that if you go out into the rain without an umbrella you WILL get wet and that is not because the rain does not like you, and not because you do not believe in rain.
Damn hardears children haven’t even learned to pee straight yet and yet feel that they are men and women and that they don’r have to listen to anybody.
HARD EARS YOU WON’T HEAR, OWN-WAY YOU WILL FEEL.
@Simple Simple
You should avoid moving the discussion to the trivial.
ADULTS NEED TO ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE FAILINGS OF OUR YOUTH.
Well said. The youth now are more perceptive and they are not seeing the leadership, example which we witnessed from those in positions of leadership in times past.
People in leadership positions of power in church in politics or in any other endeavour to whom the youth look for guidance should practice what we preach. the youth are confused by the mixed messages we send.
re You should avoid moving the discussion to the trivial.
WHAT IS TRIVIAL ABOUT WHAT SIMPLE SIMON HAS SAID THIS TIME KIND SIR?
@ SirSimpleSimonPresidentForLife November 12, 2019 7:22 AM
“Damn hardears children haven’t even learned to pee straight yet and yet feel that they are men and women and that they don’r have to listen to anybody.”
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Don’t you think that it’s time that you, ‘simply’, take out your castrating tool and make full use of it on the lads if only to cutout this large-scale violence from totally undermining your pristine Christian society called Barbados?
The seeds of the plants of current behaviours among the youth have been sown from the top of the society especially in the houses producing the greatest harvest of lies, deceit and hypocrisy.
Which one do you think a modern-day Guy Fawkes ought to visit first?
The Church or the other talk shop?
BTW, what are you going to with those 1,300 odd lawyers in Bim along with the 75,000 “voluntary idle”?
If there is no crime, black, blue or white collar, how would those ‘hungry’ attorneys-at-law make their living?
By processing immigration applications for the imaginary migrants from Guyana and Suriname queuing up (like the foreign investors) to come to Barbados to work and take full advantage of the best social services in the world?
Barbados, first, must take a long look into the mirror (starting at the top) and shed the cloak of sheer hypocrisy which currently defines its self image.
INTERESTING TAKE
http://epaper.barbadostoday.bb/html5/reader/production/default.aspx?pubname=&pubid=87ad6005-1972-4d63-92b0-8927eda53c7a
ALSO RELEVANT
http://epaper.barbadostoday.bb/html5/reader/production/default.aspx?pubname=&pubid=87ad6005-1972-4d63-92b0-8927eda53c7a
NOTE THEIR SOLUTION———ABANDON THE 11+ EXAM
I WILL NO DOUBT BE MOCKED FOR SAYING THIS BUT I HAVE NO APOLOGY TO MAKE
I AM HAPPY FOR THE NIGHT IN THE LATE 50’S WHEN I FIRST WENT TO CHURCH WITH MY GRANNY AT ST PAUL’S
I AM HAPPY FOR THE FRIDAY NIGHTS MY MOTHER CLOSED HER RUM SHOP IN THE EARLY 60’S TO WALK WITH ME TO CHOIR PRACTICE AT LAWRENCE TO FULFILL MY EARLIEST OF AMBITIONS
I AM HAPPY FOR THE U TUBE VIDEOS PUBLISHED BY ST LUKES CHURCH FEATURING MANY OF THE HYMNS WE HAD TO LEARN BY HEART AT “SINGING” AT PRIMARY SCHOOL TO SING AT MORNING PRAYERS IN THOSE DAYS. . WHAT GREAT MEMORIES!
I HAVE NO DOUBT THAT THESE SORTS OF EXPERIENCES WE ENJOYED IN THAT DAY CAUSED US NOT TO SLINK INTO THE DARK DEEDS OF TODAY’S YOUTH
Amazingly we are now admitting that we can’t plant eddies and reap corn. Some people have convenient ways of accepting the truth.
My dear friends , a simple sociological study will reveal the generational shift , going back to nearly two generations ago.
Starting in the mid seventies, the collective Duopoly carried out an assault on the teaching profession. Teachers warned about the lack of respect evolving from both students and parents.The incidents were mainly in the secondary schools. The response was to blame the teachers for everything.
Fast forward to the present. The students today are the children of those who witnessed the public and political undermining of the profession. Teachers had no choice but to start realizing that they were being ignored.
Both the BLP and DLP politicized the profession. Many were given high positions at all levels based solely on party card.
I really would not go any further other than to point out that all recent ministers of education from both parties have been comprehensive failures .
I wish Ms.Bradshaw all the best but she should not take any advice from any of her predecessors both in her party and the ones from George Street.
@William
You are aware some of the teachers involved in the unions to which you referred forgot positions after they were appointed elsewhere? Karen Best comes to mind.
100% CORRECT WILLIAM! 100% CORRECT
THERE WAS A SERIOUS DISRUPTION THEN SIR
NOW THE CHICKENS HAVE COME HOME TO ROOST !
and the horse has long left the stables !
@ Simple Simon
In my day when Hard Ears did not hear Hard Ears felt some hard lashes in his or her ” ask- no- questions”. It was irrelevant whether the parent,teacher, Minister of Education etc. were hard ears or not. Parental responsibilities were executed without fear or favour.
I followed the same blue print with my two children. The amount of floggings they received in total were less than the fingers on my right hand.
From my father I received less than three floggings one of which was for returning home at lunch time with a school mate’s exercise book. I was flogged and had to go all the way to my school mate’s home and return that exercise book. Not a grain of rice did I eat before returning that book. Rules must be enforced at all times . Practice makes for perfection.
We talk and children listen ;but our actions or lack of action deafen them. How can they hear us?
Mr Blogmaster, quite correct at 7:29: @Simple is being absolutely trite…..By her own admission “HARD EARS YOU WON’T HEAR, OWN-WAY YOU WILL FEEL” is at least 4 generations old…afterall she said she heard it often from a teacher who lived to 100 years …and in turn that lovely lady must have heard it from someone who was older than her (in her youth), one imagines.
So by logical progression it’s quite trite to grand stand on being hardears TODAY when clearly they were equivalently hardears eons ago TOO.
That to say that we CANNOT separate the absolute changes in society (sexual mores, ethics, standards of behaviour) and the impact of the naming and shaming, AND brazeness and knowledge awareness (maliciousness, in bajan speak) allowed by this thing called the internet…
… the youth who are hardears today where begat by youth who were hardears 20+ years ago…the hypocrital leaders today were schooled by high functioning hypocrites 25 and 40 years previously…
Thus when blogger @Skeete said above “The youth now are more perceptive and they are not seeing the leadership, example which we witnessed from those in positions of leadership in times past” I was amused.
I do not accept for one moment that today’s youth are ANY more perceptive that we were in our youth nor our parents were in theirs …
Neither do I accept that leaders of yesteryear were necessarily better meaning they displayed better leadership fibre (morals) than the current lot…
…But I fully accept that the youth today know MUCH more very quickly than we did about their leaders, their neighbors and the latest world news … and as historical records bluntly show revered leaders were sexual predators in private, female beating scalliwags among their clique and duplicitous policy prostitutes…just like today!
As you said Mr Blogmaster we have * sown the wind* and now we *reap the whirlwind”…started long time ago!
@ the Sage Annunaki
As usual, you dun know that I does read your every submission here pun BU.
Cause I am assured that you going give some cryptographic information that oft exceeds the ken of my Enigma machine.
And which caused de ole man to search for more knowledgeable minds to fill in my empty spaces (which aremany)
Do you recall a time some years ago when Mugabe made history to be the first lawyer to sue a teacher in the Barbados Courts?
It had something to do with a belt buckle, way back when Mugabe was just beginning her career.
I will try and find the details but would appreciate knowing if my memory is correct!
@David at 7:29 a.m.
David I am not being trivial.
In Barbados Today, Dr. Ermine Belle, a very experienced psychiatrist says that we have to teach our children that actions have consequences, which is a more sophisticated way of saying that if you go out into the rain without an umbrella you will get wet, or if you hardears and won’t hear, then your own-wayness will cause you to feel.
David I have raised children. I tell people all the time that I am NOT the Blessed Virgin Mary. That I did not give birth to Jesus Christ. My children are fully human, sinners like all human beings. I have had to teach them right from wrong, I have had to pull them back from doing foolishness. Even now i have to pull MYSELF back too. Because I too am a sinner, and prone to doing wrong.
https://barbadostoday.bb/2019/11/12/barbadian-society-in-denial-says-doctor/
Barbadian society in denial
in reality “HARD EARS YOU WON’T HEAR, OWN-WAY YOU WILL FEEL” is as true today as it was 4 generations ago and longer than dat !
in reality “HARD EARS YOU WON’T HEAR, OWN-WAY YOU WILL FEEL will continue to be true until the end time!
this is as factual as what Solomon said in Ecclesiastes chapter 1
What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun?
4 Generations come and generations go,but the earth remains forever.
5 The sun rises and the sun sets,and hurries back to where it rises.
6 The wind blows to the south and turns to the north;round and round it goes,ever returning on its course.
7 All streams flow into the sea,yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,there they return again.
8 All things are wearisome,more than one can say.The eye never has enough of seeing,nor the ear its fill of hearing.
9 What has been will be again,what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.
10 Is there anything of which one can say,“Look! This is something new”? t was here already, long ago;it was here before our time.
THERE IS MUCH MERIT IN WHAT SIMPLE SAID, AND THIS CAN NOT BE REFUTED
RE That to say that we CANNOT separate the absolute changes in society (sexual mores, ethics, standards of behaviour) and the impact of the naming and shaming, AND brazeness and knowledge awareness (maliciousness, in bajan speak) allowed by this thing called the internet…
2 Timothy 3:1-7 can not be refuted either………..and we are in the last days…….like um or lump um
3 This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.
2 For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,
3 Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,
4 Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;
5 Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.
6 For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts,
7 Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
About the last days also 2 Peter 3:3 says
Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts,
SEEMS THAT HE WAS RIGHT!
aBOUT THE INTERNET AND THE LAST DAYS, IT SEEMS THAT DANIEL WAS RIGHT TOO!
Daniel 12:4
But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.
THE FOLLY IS THAT THIS INCREASED KNOWLEDGE IS NOT BEING USED WISELY
IT SEEMS THAT SOME OF THE YOUTH—NOT ALL- ARE POORLY SELECTING THIS INCREASED KNOWLEDGE VERY POORLY
@ David
Yes. I can honestly say that some who ended up in politics on both sides did change positions. That is why I wish Ms. Bradshaw well. She will fail if she allows any of her recent predecessors to influence her whether they are from within her party or the DLP.
I don’t honestly think that after Sandiford and Dame Miller,that there are any to shout about.
I did not embrace their policies but at least they had the intelligence for the office they held.
The rest were complete failures.
I say no more for now.
@William
The truth regrettably so is that this blogmaster sees no light at the end of the tunnel at this time. This position is informed from being very close to what is happening in the school system.
Most of barbadian society are copy cats rather than following the cultural norms of their elders who had a ferocious appetite for moral values which benefit good child rearing
The society has adopted the social abnormalities of other countries which are all absent of a moral compass
U hear those anti social attitudes in the way they speak
In they music and the adoption of the rewiring of the mind with a belief that an adoption of anti social behaviour is necessary to fit and be accepted within the entire world
I laughed. What did you do?
Water shortages
Unemployment
A limeston base
https://barbadostoday.bb/2019/11/12/million-by-migration-economic-boom-says-stephen/
@DPD
There is talk of how the sons of drug barons control segments of a school and have minions doing their bidding for fear of violent reprisals….
— and when I say ‘there is talk’ that’s citing info from those DIRECTLY IN the school system —
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
What did people think was going to happen when Mia as Prime Minister elect and Dale Marshall proposed Attorney General and the other gang of idiots think would happen when they invited 5 of the biggest Drug Lords on the island along with the undercover wheeler and Dealer Freddie Hill Reggae Promoter to Parliament upon getting elected in 2018?
Now they are rushing to push Marijuana legalisation to reward their “BUDDIES” INCLUDING CHARLES HERBERT.
@Donna
Add to the list of adults in authority whom the young people are TOLD to respect – the policemen who routinely relieve the boys on the block of their gambling money without following due process. I know a young man who actually made a complaint to the police authority. I have been told by a reliable former coworker that a policeman friend of hers actually admitted to her one morning that he had no lunch money but knew where he was going to get it.
Xxxxxxxxxx
This is a petty criminal policeman who propably also robs them of small amounts OF DRUGS they sell for their survival whilst on the block.
For those who play blind local Police including Detecives are HEAVILY INVOLVED IN GUNS SELLING, DRUG DEALING VIA THE SAME DRUG LORDS, PLANTING EVIDENCE, BEATINGS TO GET FORCED CONFESSIONS, HUMAN TRAFFICKING VIA THE LOCAL STRIP CLUB OWNERS, RAPE, MONEY LAUNDERING AND FRAUD.
THAT IS THE REALITY ON THE ISLAND UNFORTUNATELY.
WHAT YOU REAP IS WHAT YOU SOW.
The problems in the school system did not start to germinate from last year.
Steuspe
I was a colleague of the dead DPP Charles Leacock one of the most corrupt previously functioning in his former role.
I will never forget one of his sons in the presence of other adults saying how much he hated his father who was alive at the time.
He went on to to say that he once sold drugs for a while for Ricky in Nelson Street and his father knew about this activity whilst he was in secondary school as a young teenager.
Ricky a Drug Lord living in Nelson Street also owned a couple strip clubs in Nelson Street and specialised in selling COCAINE smuggled from Guyana hence the connection to the deceased DPP orginally from Guyana. Ricky also had many local police on his payroll so he was well protected BY LAW ENFORCEMENT AND THE JUDICIARY.
@Mariposa at 1:32 p.m. “The [Barbadian] society has adopted the social abnormalities of other countries”
Which “other countries” Mariposa?
We like to think of ourselves as these nice, nice people. We are not nice, nice.
Barbados was conceived in violence and murder.
Barbados is a more murderous place than Canada, Congo, Haiti, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan, Somalia, Cuba, Rwanda, Iran, India, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Israel, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Significantly more murderous than the United States which has a murder rate of 4.9 per hundred thousand; while we have a murder rate nearly twice than at 10.90 per hundred thousand.
Young Bajan MEN are some of the scariest, most violent, most murderous people in the world.
If we murdered foreigners at the same rate as we murder each other we would have no tourist industry, no economy, nothing left to fight over.
But yes we hate each other, and murder each other at a ferocious rate.
Don’t blame “other countries”
It is us.
indexmundi.com/facts/indicators/VC.IHR.PSRC.P5/rankings
CORRECTION: Our murder rate is more that twice as high as that of the United States
@Kammie Holder at 6:33 a.m. “How many of you have volunteered to mentor a child…?”
I have every day for a 17 year period. And so has my sister daily as well for many years, and so does my daughter, currently on a part time basis, and so did my parents. And these young people are not related to us by blood or by marriage.
This year i started again on a part time basis I plan to continue as long as my health permits.
Kammie,
I did mentor one young man out of the Government Industrial School. It was part of a programme which ended when the leader left the island. I prefer to work through organizations.
Simple title. Simple truth.
We all have a part to play in the solutions moving forward. Unfortunately the horse has already bolted and is way way out of the gates.
Just observing
Unfortunately yesterday I received concrete proof that the RBPF is more a part of the problem than a part of the solution. Just as illogical and bombastic as the school children and even more gratuitously violent. And what makes it worse is that they think no-one can hold them to account.
These lawless policemen would turn a law abiding citizen like me into a serious lawbreaker. If the system doesn’t work…… I will not cower. Never have.
One question which should be asked is
Why are children turning to illicit activity for financial gain
https://barbadostoday.bb/2019/11/13/country-rapped-for-legislation-lag/
From top to bottom, Corruption with impunity. Why is this not a priority for the “powers that be’?
Who should lead the way? Should it be the children? Should it be the uneducated?
But our Attorney General does not want us to play the blame game.
Why is that? Is it because of the blame attributable to him and to his “esteemed” colleagues.
@ SirSimpleSimonPresidentForLife November 12, 2019 8:22 PM
“Young Bajan MEN are some of the scariest, most violent, most murderous people in the world.”
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Does that collective daubing with the same brush of violence include your cute cuddly mannerly “ZR boys” too?
What has been emitted from your forked tongue is ample justification for applying your cure-for-all’ prescription to nip in the bud those potential opportunities for violence among Bajan boys by turning them into castrated “men” of the emasculated variety.
According to you, “Barbados was conceived in violence and murder”.
What do you expect from the remnants of a slave society still with roots deeply buried in the moral past with the Church still’ a source of deceitful water and hypocritical fertilizer?
What do you expect from the human male or staff inheritors of that social gene of violence and murder the eponymous Cain passed his on to his mysterious sons through his dozing daughters still living in the Land of Nod?
Let’s turn Barbados into the land of Amazonia called Lesbos!
How about that, Sir Simple Simon(e)?
Many of our males are raised by single family homes, read women. However we must accept we have a problem that is of many colours.
@Donna & Simple Simon President For Life, never underestimate the impact your mentoring is having.
Donna, some laws can turn a law-abiding citizen into a criminal is a split second never forget that.
We have misguided priorities where many lack critical thinking and are drunk with power. Many of Hitler soldiers committed atrocities and justified their actions on behalf of the 3rd Reich by saying ” Just a civil servant following instructions”
Sadly, many persons have adopted that silly dictum of turning a blind eye to wrong and evil thus why we are in shit as a country.
Over 1600 lawyers and not one have the belly or guts to challenge asinine attire rules for visiting the government of Barbados offices to do business
1) Shirt tails must be tucked in
2) No Slippers
3) No arm Holes
4) No Short Pants
5) No Short Dresses
Yet, these same enforcers see corruption and turn a blind eye for its too much brainpower not to act as a mindless sheep.
Yesterday, I saw a lady at court to collect maintenance in a country that has the following laws. I enquired how come and my host a senior person said, its more about meeting the service needs of its customers. Oh, I was also told Barbados is about 15 years behind in how a business needs to be conducted and how to serve the public.
Speed Limit is 35KPH
No Bare Back in Streets
No Bare Feet In Streets
No Loud Music
All Houses must have concrete roofs
One Car Per Family
Zero Tolerance On Bribery
Opening Hours are Strictly Complied with
No Littering Absolutely
No Alcohol Can Be Sold On Sundays
The reality is the fakes and hypocrites in the dark will condemn those who stand up against ignorance!
@David, sadly we live in a society which believes man`s only role is an ATM and mothers own the children. Not all fathers are delinquent and some could not be bothered to fight the mothers as malicious protection orders and complaints follow just to be in the life of your kid.
Mothers in this disruptive age have a hard time raising children in the absence of strong males or fathers. Crime stats show most fathers are missing from the life of incarcerated young men.
Society needs all hands on deck irrespective of gender, color, class or creed.
Schools in England have powers to screen and search pupils for prohibited items with or without their consent and the power to seize and confiscate items from pupils.
@ Kammie Holder November 13, 2019 11:00 AM
“Over 1600 lawyers and not one have the belly or guts to challenge asinine attire rules for visiting the government of Barbados offices to do business
1) Shirt tails must be tucked in
2) No Slippers
3) No arm Holes
4) No Short Pants
5) No Short Dresses
Yet, these same enforcers see corruption and turn a blind eye for its too much brainpower not to act as a mindless sheep.”
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
You have omitted one Big Sin in the eyes of authoritarian jackasses passing for management.
.
“No males must wear earrings”.
What kind of sh**te lawyers are there in Barbados when such blatant breaches of ordinary citizens’ Constitutional rights take place daily and in plain sight of judicial officers?
Why don’t some of these young lawyers make a name for themselves as human right lawyers by working pro bono for these disadvantaged users of government services who are daily abused by these little tin pot administrative dictators calling themselves senior officials in the public service?
Now here is a worthy cause for Grenville P No.2 to take up like a cudgel!
Or are these ‘rules’ in keeping with his brand morality called manners ISO 9 to 99?
Kammie, i ain’t underestimating a thing. I have sweated blood to raise my children. I tell young parents that raising their children will be the hardest but the best job they will ever do. I have worked for 6 employers in my life, each more demanding than the other. Because the truth is even though my children call me a communist, i like money as much as any other person, so i was always looking for better wages, and when i saw such opportunities i moved on. However NONE of my employers have worked me as hard as my children have.
A paid job even for a demanding employer is a piece of cake, compared to the love, time, money, emotional commitment, and bare brutal hard labor required to raise children WELL
And you can give my “one car per family” car to another family. I haven’t had a car for more than 20 years, but my driver;s licence is always current. Not “paying maintenance” for a car is one of the best decisions I have ever made. It has permitted me to invest more money in my children’s heads than would otherwise be possible for a person of my social and economic class.
I have to thank my old man for this. Back in 1978 when i was buying a piece of land he selected it for me, based significantly on the fact that then and now it is on 2 bus good routes, but about 8 to 12 minutes walk from the main roads and pollution. My old man finished school at 11, but he was a very, very wise man.
@Miller.
I love good men, women and children.
I will correct the bad behavior of a child. I have NEVER given up on a child.
But to tell the truth i have no time to waste on bad behaved men and women.
And “no” i have no wish to remove anyone’s testicles.
And even so yours being 4,000 miles away are safe, so I doan know what you worrying ’bout.
I I I.
Sounding like Denis Kellman.
We know the benefits of good parenting.
The issue is why are we not producing the best parents and support structures to mitigate the issues at hand.
@ SirSimpleSimonPresidentForLife November 13, 2019 12:49 PM
“And “no” i have no wish to remove anyone’s testicles.”
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Is this a contrite plea for forgiveness for your sinful intention to carry out a King Herod-like operation on the male juvenile population of Barbados in order to ‘nip’ in their budding scrotum the spermatozoon of violence lying dormant but just waiting on its female equivalent to grow into an egg of fatal attraction?
Have you now matured enough to see the ‘dull’ error of your castrating proposition?
For without young males, with ‘irons’ full of vigor, what would sweet sexy cougars like you, SS, do other than buy mannequins with dicks like chicks raised in “whiteHill”?
@ David what percentage of the population are bad parents ?. It is the abnormal but low percentage that makes the news and the discussion groups. In short ,they are at least 95 % who are competent parents, using your unstated criteria.
@Vincent
What matters is a system that generates 40 plus murders in a year not completed.
What matters is a system that sees a growing subculture within the schools causing teachers to look forward to retirement and does not encourage aspirants to the teaching profession.
What matters is what is obvious, we have a problem to solve.
@ David BU at 2:11 PM
Do you honestly believe that lack of parenting caused these murders?
As a general rule one must consider that good parenting is the ideal and logically should result in a quality society.
Youth crime is a serious matter, but it does not take a sledge hammer to crack a nut. Any changes must bae proportionate. Schools are not prisons.
It is going to take more than metal detectors to restore confidence in the safety of Barbadian schools following last Friday’s fatal stabbing of a student on a school campus.
But the head of Crime Stoppers Barbados Oral Reid stopped short of endorsing teachers’ calls for the deployment of police officers and army soldiers to schools.
Reid, a security expert who is also the head of security at the University of the West Indies, described the slaying as a wakeup call for Barbadians to come to terms with the reality that the measures that worked for the school system decades ago do not have the same effect in 2019.
Oral Reid
The retired senior police officer, who is also executive director of the Caribbean Association of Security Professionals, has called for specially trained security officers to operate within the school plants, installation of cameras covering the blind spots of the school compound, smart metal detectors and the installation of panic buttons.
Reid argued that while the police and the Barbados Defence Force have the requisite skill sets to secure the schools, he was concerned that such a move will be a drag on police resources while the army was not designed to intervene in civilian matters.
Reid said: “We have never recommended the big metal detectors as if you are in some custodial institution.
“Instead, we are looking at the deployment of smart detector solutions, which could be subsumed within the metal structure of a door frame and nobody needs to know that it is there.
“We have come to the stage since 2016 when we first identified this as one of the solutions, we have now had several incidents where students used metal objects, such as knives and daggers, that have no relation to the subjects they are taking.
“Apart from the detection, you need the resource persons to carry out the necessary checks.
“The average security officers that we have here now are not appropriately trained for this environment.
“So we first need to discuss how we can train that cadre of security officers to provide the support that is needed for our teachers and for the protection of our students.
“These officers must have the added assistance of cameras place around corridors, as it is with this data that they can investigate any problems”
Reid stressed that none of these security responsibilities, which include searching students, should be thrust upon teachers. He suggested this is neither their responsibility or a task for which they are trained to handle.
He said: “A teacher that accepts a position to teach students in a school environment, should only be engaged within the context of their job description. Teachers must not be expected to be trained as military officers and there is an obligation on the part of the state to give them a safe work environment.”
Reid acknowledged that the measures he proposed would be expensive, suggesting that they could be implemented incrementally.
He said: “We cannot hide from these issues; we have to face them head-on and see what we can implement incrementally.
“We may not be able to do all of the smart detectors in all of the schools but let’s do some of the schools, we may not be able to train all of the security officers one time but let’s move towards training some of them.
“We must accept psychologically that the school is not the same place as it was in the 1970s and 80s; it is changing.”
But Reid, a former deputy commander of community policing in the Royal Barbados Police Force, is warning against taking security measures to the extreme, noting that any changes to come must maintain an environment conducive to work and study.
He called for the creation of programmes to deal immediately with children whose behaviour may pose a threat to school safety.
He told Barbados TODAY: “You have some students, and I strongly believe that it is a minority of students, who present with this kind of behaviour.
“From the administration’s perspective, they have to examine how quickly they can deal with those individuals who present with challenges in the school environment.
“We have been doing the same thing over a period of time and those things have not worked, so we need new and creative means of tackling these challenges.”(Quote)
I once met with a Jesuit Priest, Principal of a Christ The King Catholic High School, a Blue Ribbon School in the US.
The school maintained a ZERO TOLERANCE POLICY, mandating expulsion for any student found carrying a weapon to school. This even applied to a very bright student, found to be carrying a knife, which the student allegedly needed for protection on the way home in a difficult neighborhood
Surely, weapon(s) possession, gambling, sex and other sketchy conduct in schools, should be subject to such zero tolerance policy, mandating prompt investigation and expulsion.
When we expel problem children we must expel them to another school that is equipped to handle their problems. Releasing them into society does not make the problem go away. It just relocates it for about six hours. There the problems are magnified until they end up in Dodds Prison with the hardened criminals, often making a stop at the Government Industrial School on the way.
From what I know of the Government Industrial School this is not the ideal place to solve these problems and educate children at the same time.
We need something in between. Something with less of a stigma that adds to the problem.
When we expel problem children we must expel them to another school that is equipped to handle their problems.
Xxxxxxxxxx
AGREE 200 PERCENT
We closed Alma Parris?
I believe that children under the age of 16 are only removed from school when in school counselling and parental involvement has failed to end the disruptive behavior. Then the students are sent to the Edna Nicholls Center for behavior modification, pyscho therapy etc. Some students with parental consent are also treated as out or in patients of the psychiatric hospital. What we may not want to admit is that mental illness also occurs in children, especially children with a family history of psychiatric illness. There are some families with mental illness/admissions to psychiatric hospitals in and out of Barbados over several generations. Parents of course also know that they can seek psychiatric assistance through the polyclinics.
Children are not just thrown out into the streets.
@Simple
What is the role at Edna Nicholls?
@David at 1:29 “We closed Alma Parris”
Who is “we” David?
If you mean Ronald Jones and the yes men/yes women in the Ministry of Education why you doan say so?
Anybody ever ask the Alma Parris principal if he had an opinion on the closing.
When we were told it was because of low numbers did anybody ask the yes men and yes women in the Ministry of Education to provide the numbers.
I have a relative who worked in the bus stand adjacent to the Alma Parris. Relative was ourtraged because relative who saw the children coming to school everyday knew that the numbers were FAKE.
Maybe the media should have asked the Transport Board and the ZR and yellow bus men for the TRUE numbers.
The Alma Parris School should NEVER have been closed.
@Simple Simon
The government represents the people.
Dear David: Why do you think that the people cut the @ss of their representative government, 30-0?
Hint: Maybe by that time the government no longer represented the best interest of the people who had elected them, who were paying their salaries, and it galls me to know it , the same people who are still paying their pensions. That DLP administration will continue to suck on the sore nipples of the tax payers until death takes them, and foolish we, will have to continue paying pensions to their widows and widowers until only God knows how long.
It makes me feel real-real bad.
So doan gimme nah we.
Children under sixteen are not thrown out onto the street but where we throw them is not adequate.
Alma Parris should have remained open, with the Acting Deputy Head Andrew Skeete taking over. He is not perfect but he tries. He has a vision and is known for motivating children. He would also be good at discipline. The teachers also said they had no problems with him as they had with the Valdez Franklyn person.
Franklyn moved to the Grantley Adams School and was promptly embroiled in the canteen controversy. I believe he has retired and the same Andrew Skeete has taken over. We shall see how that goes but I believe some progress will be made.
Interesting comment from Faith Marshall-Harris, according to her there is a global trend of violence (youth violence included). She cited a steep rise in knife crime in the UK. Barbados has a chance to implement an aggressive plan to deal with the problem.
@ David November 13, 2019 5:14 AM
@Attorney General
++++++++
The Attorney General said now was not the time for finger-pointing or knee-jerk reactions, as all Barbadians needed to be “putting our heads together to see how we can deal with this issue”. (SC)
++++++++
“not the time for finger-pointing”:
When will that time come? Next death? Or do we point at the “Man in the Mirror”? Should we point to the sky? [ I recommend it!]
+++++++
“putting our heads together”:
Where? above or bellow the “sand line” ? And where will our “Bajan botsies” be pointing? To the sky?
++++++++
The AG’s phrases represent part of the psycho-social imprinting that crops up everywhere in barbadiana and which prevents us from doing the obvious or doing anything at all. It’s truly Bajan management culture!
Let’s add: “Metal detectors ruled out” (N.B. even before due diligence/ consultation has been done). Can’t get more “knee-jerk” than that!
How about “all options on the table?” Why selectively copy American culture?
I predict more deaths in the schools, precisely because, AS A NATION we have opted to remove religion from it like the Americans. But keep on looking for socio-economic causes! More power to the “made in America” brand!
The trending is not positive at all given the behaviour manifesting from the youth population.
Re: Ironside November 17, 2019 4:27 PM
Typo acknowledged: “bellow” should be “below”
@ David: November 17, 2019 4:30 PM
Agreed!
Believe me I am NOT trying to be sensational when I say: ” I predict more deaths in the schools!”
There is a spiritual principle at work here. We need to make a “U- turn”!
I am really getting scared for this country!