Retired educator honoured

"Literacy in the full context is not to be limited to the ability to read and write, but must also mean the ability to understand and to translate this understanding into action."

For retired educator Monica Cammock, this extract from Prime Minister Hugh Shearer's World Literacy Day speech in September 1970 remains as relevant today as when it was delivered more than 40 years ago.

"I don't think there is any substitute for reading. Even though this is the computer age and it is getting more advanced everyday," the former president of the Jamaica Reading Association (JRA) told The Gleaner at a recent function hosted by the JRA to mark its 40th anniversary at the Four Seasons Hotel.

The 84-year-old who was honoured as special guest, was just as passionate about the importance of reading as a building block to wider education, even with today's advances in technology.

"If you can't read you can't appreciate the dynamics of the computer. You need to be able to read to know what the computer is telling about, that is why there is a manual," she insisted. "It takes strong literacy competence to get the maximum benefits from this mechanical device," she told the audience in her acceptance speech. "So computer or no computer, if you are not able to read you are still at a disadvantage."

Speaking with the Gleaner afterwards, the former principal of Franklin Town Primary in eastern Kingston where she served from 1952 to 1987, the last 15 years in the top post, Cammock underscored the importance of getting an early start, as well as a detailed and comprehensive understanding of the basics.

"We need to make a concerted effort to teach our young people to read. Reading is not just to call words how you feel like calling them, you have to know the different intonation of words," she charged.

commitment to reading

In paying tribute to the octogenarian who is still an active member of the JRA, some of her peers and protégés recalled Cammock's dedication, commitment and zeal in getting students as well as their teachers to understand and appreciate the need for getting an early start at reading.

Cammock's comments were reinforced by guest speaker, professor Emeritus of Literature at the University of the West Indies, Mona, Edward Baugh who noted that books have been coming under increased pressure from other rapid developments in electronic information technology.

"The changes I've been speaking about - the exciting, alarming, revolutionary changes, and there are more we can't even imagine that are bound to come - these changes obviously have implications, not only for reading, as we've already noted, but also for the teaching of reading and the acquisition of the skill of reading. We need to be alert and proactive," he warned.

Using a number of personal experiences to highlight the seeming ascendancy of technology and its eventual replacement of traditional written communication, Professor Baugh made a case for the complementary use of both systems, even where at first glance they may seem to be diametrically opposed.

He quoted from a 2006 article which looked at the use of cellphones by students in school.

The article began like this: "Cellphones and schools are not usually associated, at least not in a good way. But this form of technology is one that has been undergoing great leaps and improvements, and perhaps one day soon teachers will be reprimanding their students for forgetting to bring their cellphones to class …." The writer went on to suggest "that teachers start thinking about using the communication tools that students already have … and are quite comfortable with. Let's start having our students use their cellphones also as a reading tool."

Professor Baugh also cited the case of two young boys on local television who listed surfing the Internet and reading as their hobbies, responses that evoked mixed feelings in him.

"My first reaction to the fact that surfing the Internet and reading were coupled by the boys as their two favourite pastimes was to regard those two interests as being at odds with each other, the one frivolous, mere play, the other serious and developmental, though also pleasurable. When I heard "surfing the Internet," I thought, "Yes, the new in-thing, fun and games, being with it. Boys will be boys." On the other hand, when I heard them say that they liked reading, I was pleasantly surprised and congratulatory, especially to think that they were boys."

Striking the right balance between both media was the solution Professor Baugh offered. "While we have to guard the children against the dangers and abuses of Internet and Kindle and cellphone and iPad, at the same time we have to seize the opportunity they offer of actually promoting and encouraging the skill and satisfaction of reading. This project must involve parents, because the most desirable time at which to inculcate the habit and love of reading is in the pre-school years, and the parent is, or should be the foundational teacher. We know about the crucial role played by reading to children from even before they are able to read. Anything later is remedial, and increasingly so as time passes."

christopher.serju@gleanerjm.com