Commentary

Dunce or stupid?

LAST WEEKEND THERE was this huge hoopla over the list of high schools and how they are rated. As everybody realised and I have been saying all along, it's our boys who are the dumbest ­ which was not always the case.

Of the more than 100 schools listed only one all boys' school, Munro, ranked among the top 10. Many of the all boys schools are in the bottom half of the list, with St. George's College somewhere near the G category. To say then that our boys need help would be the understatement of a lifetime.

Based on the recent findings and a feature I saw on CNN last week about the same time the list was being published, our boys today lack focus. In the feature on CNN, the reporter looked at why so many black kids were failing in the United States. Generally speaking, what it suggested was that black kids saw very little future in education, seeking instead fame, money and glory in the form of a rap artist or a sports star. I use the CNN piece as an example, because our boys here are similarly exposed to the image of the rap artiste and the sports star.

It's funny, but when I was growing up the boys in my class all aspired to be doctors, lawyers, engineers and pilots ­ and most of them ended up as doctors, lawyers, engineers, and pilots. I never intended to become a journalist, but hey, not everyone can become a doctor.

Like these kids today we had our sports stars both here and abroad. In sports in Jamaica and the Caribbean we had Donald Quarrie, Michael Holding, Viv Richards, Hasley Crawford, Silvio Leonard and Alberto Juantereno, among others. Abroad it was Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Magic Johnson, Allan Wells, Houston McTair, Marco Van Basten, not to mention Pele, and a host of others. It's just that, I think, we understood that not everybody was going to be a great sprinter, or footballer, boxer or basketballer. Sure, we wanted to be like them ­ but not exactly like them.

Boys growing up nowadays are either very fickle or very stupid. Many want fame overnight without ever having to work for it. They want to drive fancy cars without having to break sweat, not realising that when things come too easily they have no appreciation for what they have. Hence, they are prone to lose them just as quickly as they got them.

Meanwhile, many of our girls seeing our boys dig their own financial graves and burying their futures, are looking out for themselves. They are getting themselves educated and reaping the benefits.

And the boys keep fooling themselves, thinking that when they see a woman these days pushing a BMW, she got it from her man. The reality these days is that the vehicle may belong to her man, but she bought it for him.

In the case of rap artistes and, closer to home, dancehall artistes, what boys today need to look at is what happens after the career is done and the hype dies down. How many of these deejays and rap artistes go back to school, now that they have the money to afford an education? Just so that when the accountant tries to rob them, they will know before all the money is gone, or how to get the best return on an investment.

Isiah Thomas, the former Detroit Piston and Hall of Famer, said it best years ago when he was in college. When asked why he did not have an agent or a manager, he asked why does he need either when he can do it himself. That, after all, is why he went to school. How many deejays, rap artistes or sports stars today can say that?

I am hoping that some of these kids today will read this and learn something from it. But then, what am I thinking?

They might not even be able to.