Help students realise potential

I am always disturbed when I hear someone say “our children have great potential”. Why does this bother me? Because it makes me nervous waiting for the “but” that is sure to follow.

“Our children have great potential, but . . . .” But what? But our schools lack the funding, lack the personnel (guidance counsellors, security guards and so on), lack the specially-trained teachers, the Government needs to do this and so forth. Isn’t it about time that we took care of the part of the sentence that begins with “but”. We know what we need to do and we need action now.

I pondered on the above as I read the perfectly laid out Page 5 in the DAILY NATION, dated Tuesday, April 10, 2018. Captions follow:

Shepherd: “Nothing to keep out principals”. 

Call for Common Entrance revamp.

BUT: National forum on violence needed.

Can we all begin by agreeing that we want a school system that will stop short of nothing less than excellence; and that we have a healthy diversity of ideas and opinions, but we share a common goal: to provide the best educational experience for our children.

Let us not lose focus of the objectives of these discussions, but join to protect our children’s future. Our schools face many challenges and our teachers and the administration deserve our vote of confidence and our gratitude.

However, we must create a school system that teaches compassion, civility, altruism, empathy and how to be emotionally intelligent and so on, while also preparing our children to compete successfully in an increasingly competitive world.   

– FAYE A. WOOD