In this slightly edited transcript of one of the Institute’s working sessions we have italicized the larger interactive segments as an aid in following the flow of the main presentation.

J. ANTONIO JARVIS' "CHALLENGE FOR VI SOC. STUDIES"

(SH, C-U)

Gene Emmanuel, discussion leader

Participants are: Sele Adeyami, Janet Burton, Monique Clendenin, a media speiclist on St. Croix, Elaine Jacobs, a teacher and adjunct professor on St. Thomas, a teacher on St. John, a teacher on St. Croix, Lisa Forde, a teacher on St. Thomas, Olive Lettsome, a writer and cultural worker on St. Thomas (deceased), Gilbert A. Sprauve, a professor and institute coordinator residing on St. John and Mario Watlington, a retired Government and University administrator and adjunct professor.

Gene Emmanuel: When some research is done here in the Virgin Islands, much of the research does not utilize the skills of Virgin Islands scholars. And . . . she [Dr. Agatha Nelson] states that it is difficult to achieve self-esteem if everything written about a people comes from another place, another time, another people, instead of from the depths of our own soul searching. Now, this was an important bridge for me to Jarvis' work because in the article by Mr. Hill*, which is entitled "Social Studies Virgin Islands Style" the way that the editor framed Jarvis' work is also important. Essentially, he gave a very short introduction to the text, as you can see right here. And, what he did for the remainder of the time was to really give you Jarvis' introduction . . . In other words, it is almost Jarvis presenting his introduction and article.

When you look at it you will see that right away he goes to the crux of the problem by pointing out that children know more about Greece, Rome and England than they do about St. Thomas, Tortola and Puerto Rico. Naturally, they cannot appreciate what they see and feel. They are aware of the environment only in superficial way. And of course . . . there is a need for an outline of the content materials and methods of Social Science instruction in elementary schools, and what is the big thing? Jarvis utilizes what Mario Moorhead** calls the inside/out approach. Everything goes inside out, and this is what Jarvis is saying to us here. He's saying to us that we ought to start with the surroundings of the child and spread into the world.

Jarvis is very instructive in his words. He speaks about [education] on a formal basis. That is another important point. Because he says, "If we begin our formal Social work with a unit on the Virgin Islands and include the nearby Caribbean islands . . . ".

Now, let us, [consider] "formal," "the formal work." By that we mean, the very first time the child has Social Science. Because we should not get him unless he has first been introduced to it vis a vis his surroundings. Second, it is the Virgin Islands, but also the Virgin Islands and the nearby Caribbean islands. So that the content also has to be Caribbean. And there should be, he says, a greater opportunity for growth and useful living. "It is necessary to stress that one must begin where one is born and will have to live most of his life." Yes! Reinforced . . .

Sprauve: Throughout my education as a Virgin Islander, in the public school system Buddhoe's name never came up. I mean, not even a dot, not even a dialectics took place on the inclusion of his name. And I probably knew Toussaint L'Ouverture's contribution before I knew of Buddhoe's, coming through a whole other avenue.

Lisa Forde: I teach at the high school, and I know a lot of the kids here don't know their own history . . .

Olive Lettsome: Excuse! My son, he brought home a paper . . . old historians in the Virgin Islands, teaching people exactly who they were and the history and the contribution.

. . . Now, it was his work but I read it. I was home; I got the opportunity . . . I studied it. That information was there!

L. Forde: Maybe in that one particular school, because I was going to say in the school I teach, we have some teachers that are teaching it, but I was going to interject later on that before you even begin to think about infusing this into the curriculum, the teachers themselves have to have the knowledge . . .

Olive: But, Dr. Sprauve. What he said, that is true. I went through the same thing that he did. I didn't know! And it's only being taught now. We never had Black History Week. It was . . . [through] Dr. Lezmore Emmanuel . . .

E. Jacobs: I think what you're talking about here is an effort to bring things

. . . wider, not on an isolated basis. We want to see it throughout the system. And that is very, very important.

Olive: But, you know that it was done at the Eudora Kean [High School]?

L. Forde: But, I'm not saying that it was not done . . . in some schools. I am saying for the most part, and I'm speaking from my own experience with the children that I teach: they do not know! They'll know when they take Lezmore Howard's class. When they take that class, they'll come in my classroom afterwards and tell me. But, it's not being done across the board.

E. Jacobs: Because there is not a curriculum, not the guide to follow.

Adeyemi: The latest Social Studies curriculum guide, done in 1986, you have a section for V.I. History, you have a section for, I think at that time what they call Afro-American Studies and so forth. But, at the ninth grade level a semester of V.I. history is mandatory. And a semester of Caribbean History is mandatory. But, one of the things you've got to look at is the kind of material you have available for teaching that, right? For V.I. history what they have right now, last year at John Woodson, is Thurston Childs' from . . . the very early part of . . .

Gene Emmanuel: Nineteen thirty six!

Adeyami: The key point that I want to make is that you have to know the course and how wide is it, how systematic it is, and so forth. But even more importantly or of equal importance is the perspective. You have Caribbean history, but when you look at it, it's about the history of the Europeans in Caribbean . . .

M. Watlington: This is something that bothers me all the time, when I hear that they are not teaching it in the schools. Are you saying the teachers are not resourceful? Because the libraries have all this information. This library has so much information. If we're discussing the Organic Act. We're going through the status problem now. Does that need to be in a history book, for teachers to bring that forth to students at a specific time?

L. Forde: That's the point! A few good teachers will do that.

Watlington: Let me say, that I taught for fifteen years Business, in this school. The textbook that we got from the United States had nothing about Hills' wage and hour law, but I took those excerpts and presented them to the students. So, it bothers me when I hear: "Well, you know, it's not in the curriculum!" What about the currency of material that teachers are expected to bring? Is it that they do not have enough time? Or they don't know where the sources of reference are? They have a responsibility. Running through of material! We're going through a status situation now. Something should be said on the level that children can understand what is happening now. They don’t need a textbook to tell them that. This is what bothers me.

Gene Emmanuel: I think that what happens though, is that most, just about all the areas are governed by a set of guidelines which are inclusive of these things. That is where I think Jarvis is . . .

Watlington: But what guidelines?

Emmanuel: Units have guidelines, lesson plans. They are complete with lesson plans and evaluations

L. Forde:...evaluations. And we're evaluated according to how much we teach . . .

Emmanuel: They teach those units.

Watlington: But, they do those lessons from the lesson plans?

L. Forde: But I think we also have to recall. To say that material is available, that is wonderful. Yes, it is. I speak from experience. I have [to use] my own photocopying machine and my own computer if I want to get any work done for my children. Yes, the textbooks are obsolete. But I don't have the resources to photocopy a story that's ten pages for a hundred and thirty-five students every day. I don't have it! Rockefeller may have it. I don't. Yes, it's wonderful to say we should be resourceful and . . . the many good teachers that we have in the system do it, but . . .

M. Clendenin: I had a question, more than a comment. I thought that recently, within the last ten years there was a fourth grade text we could use through the library. Isn't that used?

Emmanuel: Clear de Road. It's used, but I think we get into filters. You see, there are the mandatory classes. And most of these texts are used in the mandatory classes. Outside of the mandatory classes, Social Sciences is going on. Now, what Jarvis is talking about is starting with a perspective. The teacher may bring information in, but how does he bring it in? For example, I might bring it in. How do I know if what I have is accurate, number one? It's a serious problem. In the information that's there, in the information that is available in the library, say. Accuracy of it. That's one of the things we're finding out from doing these presentations.

Another thing that we're finding out is that much of the information that we have on record is written--again, as with Puerto Rico. Let's look at Oldendorp***. Certain things that we find in Oldendorp are going to be prejudiced by the same kind of issues that we raised earlier about the Puerto Rican. That is why I raise the Puerto Rican situation. There is a parallel there, to show that we have these same issues.

Now, it's not a mountain that we can't conquer, but I think it is best conquered through developing the kinds of material so that teachers could get trained and that this kind of seminar be continuous and be [repeated]. So that the teacher now is not going to have to go to the library.

And there is a problem, because when I'm doing my research and I go to the library . . . when I go to the library, I need to take my students in the Caribbean room. Because of policies and so forth, only one could go at a time. Or, you may not have your ID. You have to have this, a set of mitigating circumstances that if Lisa's waiting, she may have to wait two days to use a chapter of a book. I mean, there are many serious problems that we need to be making some recommendations about.

But, if the material is available in a manual or in a series of documents, there is a need now to suggest which books are dated. I mean, something should have come out by someone, some one of us saying that Childs is dated. Though we know it. But, there should be some article, some document, and point out what are the limitations of its use. You can use it, but what are the limitations. What areas? Don't put that into the curriculum any more because that is now passé.

But, we don't even have that kind of refinement. So that basic material that we have, we have not developed the means to continue their use, so that they remain accurate, and those that are accurate can be utilized by the teacher and the students properly . . . Janet had a comment . . .

Janet Burton: During the break I was talking to Leba, and I was telling him about how, once when I was little in our reading books we had "See Dick run! See Jim run! And Spot," and those kinds of things. And it was totally divorced from our culture, and then we had Miss Jennie Wheatley from Tortola who has written some books. Well, one particularly about Boysie, his experiences: picking geneps, cutting wood and swimming, and so forth. And I read it to my students. Every two weeks I would have students at Guy Benjamin school. I would read them one story. And every time I went back, they wanted to hear more about Boysie. I was thinking, why can't we, just in first grade or kindergarten, while students are learning to read, just have them read material that is done locally? We can make textbooks, and we can have them start with this. Maybe they'll learn to enjoy reading more, than if they are reading about things that they are unfamiliar with.

Emmanuel: The other danger with reading about things that are unfamiliar, is that they develop some very different kinds of faulty perceptions, and again, according to the accuracy of the information they receive on the streets or wherever they receive, they get some wrong ideas about what their culture is. What it's not. They may want to divorce themselves from it. They may think it's just a pile of so and so.

Sprauve: A case in point on that is his last paragraph here. "In social services for fourth graders [they] should understand how the hospitals, schools, newspapers etc., etc., function." The child growing up in the Virgin Islands today, with everything being shot past him: five-thirty news, Daily News in the morning, his parents talking over it and grumbling and fussing and so on. What is to happen, in terms of the ideal that Jarvis had? And the preponderance of the media, which is generally negative on every one of these issues. And we know we can't be prescriptivists about it; it's a democracy, the press is a free press. The question is what could we dedicate ourselves to that counters and gives this child some sort of confidence about himself and the people that are his parents, his grandparents and what not. In a way, you wonder if it wasn't easier for Jarvis, at the time. The polarization in the press was what: Daily News and Home Journal. One of them a grassroots paper and the other an elitist paper. But I doubt that there was anything close to a fraction of the kind of bombardment on one target, which is people who can't get their act together. That wasn't happening. It was--correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Watlington. It was a question of which option do you take? Do you have culture based on grassroots interests or culture based on elitism? It wasn't an attack on the identity of the Virgin Islander in terms of his competence in the forties. Was it?

Watlington: I would say you're right in what you say. I want to say one thing on Jarvis though. I want to point out too, he was one of my teachers. I had Social Studies with Jarvis. He started a course called Contemporary Civilization and he traced the Blacks coming here from Africa . . . Contemporary Civilization. I remember it as if it were yesterday. He taught that course. But he himself was not an original researcher. It is only practically about a year or so before he died he went to Denmark and accumulated a whole body of information to come out with. Basic research. And when he came he died right after that. That information is still lodging in his son's place. Jarvis was not original. He was quoting Oldendorp and all these other characters too.

Sprauve: We don't hold it against him though!

Watlington: We don't hold it, but what I am pointing out is that even in his own report. (That is why I say that we have to be balanced in what we are saying.) Even in his own report about several of the outstanding persons there, he didn't mention one Virgin Islander. Even in his report here [in] which he is mentioning that we have not mentioned certain of the people, he did not mention Rostchhild Francis, he did not mention . . .

Sprauve: But he mentioned Buddhoe. Right?

Watlington: Right? But what I am saying, he's talking about local. He did not mention two important characters that ran through that period.

Emmanuel: All right!

Sprauve: I do not mean to protract this. I just want to respond. If we were

. . . this very act that we are engaged in today. If we were to take the folk hero in Virgin Islands politics and say that we were dedicating any part of what we are doing overtly, this project would be shot down immediately, the whole project would be shot down! Immediately!

Watlington: If what?

Emmanuel: I would say, if we dedicated the program to Adelbert Bryan.

Sprauve: I can understand why D. Hamilton Jackson or Rostchild Francis had to go unnoticed. They were close to the present battlefield. And so, it was easier to talk about Buddhoe a hundred years back. Right? Than to mention his contemporaries. That was a red flag in the face of the Navy government.

Emmanuel: Let's go a step further. I think that this curriculum, the reason why the curriculum is unpublished up to now and the reason why Jarvis--this is a prime reason that Jarvis had the difficulty he had with the Department of Education . . . this is a revolutionary curriculum. In academic circles today this is a revolutionary curriculum.

Olive: It was. In the old days whoever get that close to publishing?

Emmanuel: Not just that. In terms of his techniques, the methodology, his techniques and the stuff that he's doing here. The theoretical considerations he's making. Look at the position he takes! Look at the aim! "To teach the Virgin Islands student as much as possible of the Social Structures for the Virgin Island, integrated with history." He's talking about interdisciplinary studies . . . He's talking about something that we in the university are struggling [with] right now. And it's a hallmark of many quality type institutions. Number one. Now, he's talking . . . at the level where our children--at the fourth grade level where they would be completely prepared. Look at the vision! Look at the model he's suggesting! And furthermore, he goes on: "To teach tolerance and understanding of other West Indian peoples through comparison and contrast of their methods and manner of living." He's talking about ethnic studies; he's talking about folk studies. He's talking about cultural . . . he's talking about Comparative Literature. Comparative Social Science. That is what he's talking about.

M. Clendenin: I just want to [speak about] how you get this material in, and I want to talk about my own experience, my learning of V.I. History. I went to Catholic School. My learning of V.I. History came mainly through Doctor James program on Saturday mornings. [Laughter] Really, that's where I learnt most of it, because whenever there was a local holiday or something dealing with V.I. history he talked about it. He brought on people to talk about it. And as a child listening to the program, that is where I learnt about it. In addition to the fact that my mother was a teacher in the public school system. She at the time--in the seventies--must have taken some course here at CVI . . . She had a lot of books on the subject. So, once I heard it there, it sparked my interest to read more. That is how I learned it. [Things] haven't changed much. Media can play a role, and there's a way, and we have to figure out what that role is going to be. Again, you pick up the Daily News today, and there's an editorial talking about the need to eliminate Supplication Day as a holiday. It's more than an economic issue. It's a cultural and a social issue as well.

Emmanuel: That is a good point. I'll tag on that for one second. Puerto Rico, in their school system, there's a whole book written on this whole issue of the holidays. Because, what they did, they marked their school calendar by deciding which holidays they were going to celebrate . . . If it was Puerto Rico Constitution Day or George Washington Day, they chose Puerto Rico Constitution Day. So, they made some very serious decisions for their school calendar. And that has served as a very important measure of cultural strength and cultural identity and direction for the school system in Puerto Rico. So that holiday is a key issue that has been treated too cavalierly all along.

* Mr. Hill. Here reference is made to Mr. Valdemar Hill, Virgin Islands historian, statesman and author of several books on Virgin Islands history, including A Golden Jubilee.

**Mario Moorhead, contemporary Virgin Islands historian and a founder of the United Caribbean Association (UCA).

Oldendorp, C.G.A. the Church historian of the Moravian mission in the Virgin Islands who in th late 1760s did extensive fieldwork and note gathering relative to that mission and enslaved Africans in the then Danish West Indies.

QUESTIONS:

1. What does the presenter mean when he states "they cannot appreciate what they see and feel?" Does this statement imply a functional problem the children have or the "system's" inattention to the local landscape?

2. Where is the child situated with respect to the world, according to the "inside/out" approach mentioned here?

3. What is the "blind spot" that Jarvis targets, according to this account?

4. Does the word "formal" here relate to a way of dressing? Explain your understanding of the word in this context.

5. Why would one say of Jarvis, in retrospect, that he was a pan-Caribbean man?

6.What is participant Lettsome saying to the group concerning whose responsibility it is to educate the child and ones self

7. What do you understand the problem to be with the text used to teach Virgin Islands History at the Woodson School?

8. Does participant Watlington appear to take sides with the teachers, the Administration or the parents? 9.In what way is Teacher Forde to be seen here? As resourceful or as resigned?

10. In terms of supplementing classroom material and experiences with the library, the presenter cites problems that are both practical and procedural. List two of these problems and indicate which problem is of what sort?

11. How does participant Sprauve see the inclusion of local issues as possibly backfiring and creating problems?

12. What does participant Watlington mean when he declares that Jarvis was not original?

13. What is the gist of the discussion when inclusion and omission of Buddhoe, D. Hamilton Jackson, Rotschild Francis and Adelbert Bryan are discussed by the presenter and participants?

15. At what level of the child's education, should the reforms start taking effect, according to Jarvis?

16. Do you think that Jarvis' reforms would have produced more divisiveness in the V.I. community, or more harmony and exchange?

17. Participant Clendenin learned a good part of her V.I. History through a rather different channel from the conventional. Explain!

18. Explain how you see the elimination of Supplication Day as a holiday as a cultural and social issue!

ACTION QUESTIONS:

1. What is the significance of mentioning General Buddhoe's name in the same breath that one mentions Toussaint L'Ouverture?

2. What do you know about Dr. Lezmore Emmanuel?

3. Are there experiences that you have had or that you know others to have had that would make interesting local stories like the ones mentioned by Teacher Burton? Summarize one of them in a paragraph of about one half of a page.

4. Would Jarvis' ideas for curriculum reform be considered revolutionary today? Explain your response.