Hartley Neita, ContributorTHOUSANDS OF children in Jamaica lost two days of their education this past week when our teachers decided to withdraw their services. A few went to the staff rooms of their schools and probably did some preparatory class work, but the majority seemed to have stayed at home, perhaps listening to and participating in the radio call-in programmes. Some might even have gone to the beach. A few demonstrated in public, hiding their faces from The Gleaner's photographer behind placards.
And I am sure the President and General Secretary were not holding placards. After all, like George Bush, some have to remain in the White House.
My father was a teacher. His circle of friends included teachers in the parish, and elsewhere. As a child the dictum was that I could be seen but not heard, but there was no instructions that I could not hear their discussions about the problems of education and their profession.
Teachers at that time lived beside or close to their schools. They were the secretaries of the villages' citizens associations, the cricket clubs, the Jamaica Agricultural Society's branches, the literary societies and the 4-H Clubs. They were also the Lay Readers and the organists and Sunday school teachers of the churches. They kept the Government Savings Bank's account books for parents. They wrote wills and letters for those who were not literate, and mediated quarrels between husbands and wives.
Like today's teachers, their pay was shameful. My father, for example - like many other teachers - supplemented his income by growing vegetables and selling lettuce at One Penny (1d) a head and Oxheart and Marigold tomatoes at Three Pence (3d) per pound I don't remember what the cabbages were sold for. He also raised chickens, so we had an egg every morning, and scrambled eggs for Sunday breakfast. Every morning we searched the bushes around the yard where those eggs were hidden, and then sought forgiveness from the fowls by scattering coconut meal and corn for them to eat.
My father also killed a chicken once a fortnight which my mother cooked for Sunday lunch. He never ate his chickens; they were too personal to him. He was also The Gleaner correspondent and was paid something like Three Pence (3d) per column inch for the news he wrote and which was published.
Before World War II (1939 to 1945), he like the other teachers in the parish I knew such as E.J. Whiteman, U.C. Wolfe, E.L. Allen, P.W. Broderick and R.L.M. Lewin (the only one with triple initials), wore a suit every schoolday. Some also wore a waistcoat. Unlike Kingston where there were Edith Dalton James and Ethlyn Rhodd, the head teachers in my parish were all male with women as their assistants. These women were either married - and so were helped financially by their husbands - or they lived with their parents.
It was rough financially for these educators. My father, like some, was provided with a Government-owned teacher's cottage - that was the only benefit he enjoyed. He did not get a Government loan to purchase a car and saved his shillings for over 30 years before he bought a Ford Anglia. When I was 30 years of age I was earning more than he did at 50-odd, and was driving a Government-five-year-loan car.
Keeping quiet, as was expected, in a room while he and his teacher friends discussed education on the verandah, I never heard the word strike once. I cannot imagine seeing Lauris Burke-Green, Edna Vassell, Zada Webley, Ivy Hamilton or Icis Clarke at the Four Paths crossroads singing "Me Mama no want no yam no rice no coconut oil" and waving placards cursing the Government. Teachers did not behave like viragos. It would not be an example they would want to set for their students. And they would never "withdraw their services" while their students were preparing for Pupil Teachers Examinations and Scholarships. Never. Never. Never.
Of course, the standard of life, then, was different from today. There were no television sets and triple-door refrigerators. There was no keeping up with the Jones as everybody regarded themselves as Jones.
A strike must be the last resort. So what can be the next step? Another strike? My impression is that the teachers have lost friends among their students and their parents. They have also lost two days' pay.
But the big losers, and I am angry about it, are our children whose education has been interrupted. And I tell you, too, I am angry at 103 per cent or 89 per cent increases and the "fat cat" salaries being paid to some of our public servants. Some have even enjoyed weekend holidays for themselves and their families and once coerced free First Class tickets on Air Jamaica and free accommodation with meals at our hotels.
I remember when, in another time of crisis, our political leaders voluntarily reduced their salaries and members of Boards served without remuneration. Let us abandon this 80 per cent target of private sector salaries as it will never be realised. Let's pull together and put Jamaica first again.
