Jamaica Day is so important!

I AM a sports fan and appreciate the fact that, on Monday, a number of media houses visited several schools to report on their sports day. It is excellent that we continue to accept the importance of sports to our national life and to recognise the role that our schools play in this important field.

But I had a wry smile on my face when I remembered that, on the Friday before, schools celebrated Jamaica Day, and this went without much media fanfare. In fact, when a major media house visited St Jago High, it was mainly to feature a visit by one of its newly famous alumni, Yohan Blake.

But, despite the importance of the achievement of our athletes and the role this plays in the development of a culture of achievement and in the growth of feelings of self-worth in our young people, we should never allow it to overshadow the larger picture, which the celebration of Jamaica Day highlights.

It was good to note that when focusing on developing pride in things Jamaican, many teachers think that it is important to look to the past, and not only to the recent fantastic achievements of our sporting heroes.

Celebrating heritage

The idea the teachers had was to involve students in traditional activities that were particularly - and in some cases, uniquely - Jamaican, and to develop their appreciation of these. The students at Innswood High School in St Catherine were engrossed in learning to do the maypole dance and hearing about its origins, in playing 'chinese skipping' and other 'ole-time' games. In some schools, traditional Jamaican dishes and candies were served, much to the students' delight.

When I was principal of a high school in St Catherine, I attempted to develop a programme the aim of which was to develop in the students an attitude to themselves which would counter many of the negatives with which they are bombarded. The aim was for most of them to be able to say at the end, 'I am a black teenager from a peasant family in rural Jamaica - and isn't that great!' I found that the way to develop this positive self-concept was to have them value the things that were theirs: their blackness, their rural roots, their Jamaican heritage. I found, interestingly, little opposition from the parents and students who were of Asian ancestry - so much for any fears of upsetting the 'out of many' in our motto.

The philosophy of Marcus Garvey was an underpinning of this programme. Young Jamaicans have to begin to believe that they belong to a 'mighty race' for us to achieve all we can as a nation. Those of us who truly believe that there is beauty in black features have to work constantly to counter those images portrayed in the media which continue to encourage our young people to, as Oliver Samuels says, 'Kartelise' their complexions. We also must value our ancestral folk forms and teach our youngsters how many of them evolved as successful strategies for survival as whole people. The attitudes of our ancestors to community, to family, to life, must be extolled and passed on. This is the only way to bridge the gaps in our development, which are a direct result of that era when our young women joined the flow to the metropolis in an effort to 'make a better life for their children', a movement that resulted in the generation of 'barrel children'.

The achievements of our sportsmen must be constantly kept in mind. But it is vital for us to teach our young people of the day-to-day heroism of so many of our 'ordinary' ancestors. We must instill in our children a reverence for their amazing survival of the horrors of slavery and the self-denigration of colonialism, their deep spiritualism that clings to ancestral values, their maintenance of an innate sense of humour which has resulted in the people of this impoverished, crime-ridden country still being among the happiest in the world. It is this that has made the Jamaican and the Caribbean man, the beacon for black persons in America, Europe, and even in Africa.

This is why the goals of Jamaica Day are so important.

Keith Noel is an educator. Send comments to columns@gleanerjm.com