THE EDITOR, Sir:AS AN example to all teachers who think their lives are going to be better if they migrate to the United States, let my own example be fair warning.
It was the ruinous influence of local politics in a public school system that, at the height of my teaching career in 1990, I left the U.S.A. and came to Jamaica to teach.
As you might expect, at that time, unspoken in my more trusting Jamaican colleagues minds, was the understanding I had already achieved what most of them could only dream about a successful career in a large, well-developed, and affluent country. Doubters and sceptics, on the other hand, were apt to think something must be wrong with me personally, that I was running away from some problem, or at worse, that I was just another sub-standard U.S. teacher who couldn't find a job anywhere.
INCOMPETENT
What most couldn't begin to imagine was that an incompetent local, U.S. District school administration had, through the corrupting influence of politics, destroyed one of its most successful, well-operated public schools, and my career with it.
So I came to Jamaica for no other reason than because I loved Jamaica and its people. Though many years have passed now, many still ask why I'm not teaching anymore. 'Politics', I say, and they say 'Oh, that's too bad, but I know what you mean'. Please, we can't afford to continue to alienate our best teachers. Let's get politics out of education.
I am, etc.,
ED MCCOY
mmhobo48@juno.com7
Florida, USA
