ACCEPTING REALITY can at times be jolting. This might well have been the case for many when a former principal at one of our secondary schools gave advice to primary school students about what to expect when they entered secondary school.

Auriel Beckles, a former head of Deighton Griffith School, told students from Ignatius Byer Primary School they would be meeting other students from all over Barbados about whom they would know nothing. He advised them to "be watchful and wait before you select friends and select only those who will lead you on the right path".

Such advice might have been familiar to many of the students, but it was in identifying those to avoid that Beckles could have made his listeners uncomfortable.

In warning about who to avoid, Beckles' advice reflected the enormity of the challenges posed by the behaviour of a number of our students at the secondary school level.

He told the children "to avoid those persons who may want to encourage you to become involved with illegal drugs and other illegal activities, such as illicit sex, stealing and the misusing of the computer and the cellphones". From whatever angle we view the advice given, it has to be seen as coming from someone who would have known, from his experience, why this warning was necessary.

This realisation was further reinforced when Beckles summed it up for the children by telling them: "The secondary school is like the real world; you will meet the good, the bad and the ugly." He then stressed how important it was for them to focus on excellence and other positive behaviour.

In spite of the new experiences our children undergo in moving from primary to secondary school, it must still be said that for the most part, there is no serious trauma in the transition. This is partly because in recent years especially, more and more family members have benefited from a secondary education and these in turn know how to help siblings or their own children cope with the challenges of the teenage years.

We might still agonise from time to time about some parents or guardians not taking as great an interest as they should in the children's progress at school. Adult enthusiasm in this regard can be influenced by how the child performed in the Secondary Schools' Entrance Examination.

The hope is that as we grow in understanding the roles we all must play as a people in nation-building, our respect will also increase for the many skills required to achieve this goal.

We would have come nearer to achieving this when we become less emotional about the importance of catering to "elitism" in our education system, and be more reasonable in accepting that "elitism" is not all that matters.