Wednesday, June 20, 2012

The Mental Fence

When I was in primary school
And being smart was still cool
They'd group clever kids in one class
And  stragglers in the quicksand mass

The best they'd call Class Yellow or A
The worst class, D or Grey
They ran two tracks of intelligence
Separated by a mental fence

Class A reached the good high schools
To the rest, they gave hand tools
Nobody got a second chance
To outgrow the Childhood Trance

15 comments:

  1. joy adams20 June, 2012

    Please what's the lesson

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Joy,

      The lesson is it was not right, in my opinion, to relegate the slower kids to a class and to 'segregate' them from the smarter kids. It would not encourage them to aspire to be better. Many of them were late starters (the Childhood Trance) who stood a good chance of 'waking up' in later years if given the chance.

      Delete
  2. I regret looking down on & teasing some of the kids in the "F" streams. A bunch of them are very successful individuals today, with A+ performance in their respective fields.

    Is it possible that they put in more effort after being in the F classes so long, and that put them on paths to success?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Exactly my point. Imagine how many teachers on retirement would be eternally mortified on seeing these now-successful persons you refer to.

      Delete
  3. hmmmm one of the mysteries of life........things are not always what they seem on the face value.

    ReplyDelete
  4. the ''problem'' with conventional education...and many systems that are used to run the world

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'd rather say the problem with sticking with colonial education instead of situation-specific and situation-relevant education. Wouldn't you agree?

      Delete
  5. Joy Adams20 June, 2012

    Nana I agree. Some people are not smart with books but even become successfull in later life than the so called sharp brains. A typical example is the famous Bill Gate

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  6. This is absolutely the result of our enormous youth unemployment and failure, Nana i believe we need to reverse these actions and set the right pace for our educational system. Thanks for sharing your thought.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Good point, Emeritus, except that I believe it is the cause instead of the result.

      Delete
  7. I remember this so well in my JSS school in Ghana. I failed an entrance exam to the said school so I was put in Class "Bee".
    The A class were the smart kids. All the school prefects and whatever else were chosen from that class.
    Can you imagine, every teacher coming to the class and adding salt to injury by calling us dumb, Always. "Mute abon papa" is wht they say.

    If this still happens in some schools, it really has to stop.
    Does not motivate, or develop such students

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks. I am still waiting for anybody to say whether it is still prevalent or not. But those were such terrible times!

      Delete
  8. Kwame Mensa-Bonsu22 June, 2012

    A lot of talent wasted in Gh! Basically such people tend to employ the A and B students! Hope we learn to treasure and channel all talent SOON! Still waiting for your visit, Stella keeps asking. Wassup, NY?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Looking to be there on 3rd or 4th July, Kwame.

      Delete

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