The Spirit of Clovelly Park: Learning and Teaching at Kingston College

Copyright © 2020 Frances-Marie Coke.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-5320-9080-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-9079-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019920129

iUniverse rev. date: 01/03/2020

Contents

Author’s Note

Foreword

Acknowledgements

Me? A Teacher?

Another Giant of North Street

A Meeting over Lunch?

What! Those Boys?

On the Edge of My First Staff Meeting

The Room with the Column in the Middle

Settling In

Me, the Troublemaker

Tensions and Tantrums

Taking Miss Barnett to Form 3D

All These Books We Must Read, Miss?

A Whisper in the Clamour

Big-Man Debates

Gathering Myself

Downstairs Hardie House

The Job I Always Wanted

Back to the Classroom

Every Rose Garden Has Its Thorns

Discovering the Fortis Phenomenon

Forward to Schools’ Challenge Quiz!

Down to the Wire

Back to the Mona Campus

Spreading Our Wings

Defending the SCQ Title

Mr Johnno and the Crew Versus Dreadlocks and Smoke

The Worst and Best of Times

A Bigger Picture

Fire Burns Wood but Tempers Steel

The Blue Room

Separation and Discovery

Something Bright and New

Sometimes, Behind Their Eyes

I Felt a Parting

Epilogue: 2014

Author’s Note

This story reflects the author’s recollection of events. Some names, locations, and identifying characteristics have been changed to protect the privacy of those depicted. Dialogue has been re-created from memory.

Foreword

One day, they cleared a space and made a park

There in the city slums;

and suddenly came stark glory

like lighting in the dark … ¹

—Dennis Craig

Frances-Marie Coke has given us a personal and a professional memoir which shares her memory of events and the emotions generated by those events as she navigated her teaching career at Kingston College (KC). The book has significant historical value: it not only captures the KC environment in the 1960s and 1970s, but also provides the context within which the education system in Jamaica, including schools like KC, functioned and survived during this time of considerable social, political. and economic change.

The opening chapter paints a graphic picture of the author as the reluctant teacher, the physical reality of the school setting with its boisterous boys, her near panic, and the possibility of her retreat. Throughout, the reader shares glimpses of her life through vignettes of her own school experiences and significant events in her adult life, providing an intimate glimpse into who she is, why she sees things in a certain way, and what motivated her to make certain decisions about her life and career.

The writer’s first meeting with the headmaster of KC, Mr Douglas Forrest, takes place in an unusual setting and establishes what became an indelible reminder to her of what KC was established to be—a rose blooming in the arid earth of inadequate schooling opportunities for poor Jamaican boys.

Observations of classroom interaction provide insights which should resonate with teachers everywhere. The writer identifies students who represent types inhabiting every classroom. She uses flashbacks to her own schooldays to analyse the differing ways in which boys and girls approach the authority of the teacher, the work of the class, and the behaviour they display. What makes the recounting of the writer’s KC experience real is that it is not all plain sailing and instant success. Her frustration at the various challenges and the strategies she employed provide guidelines for teachers who are facing difficult classroom situations, but who realise in the final analysis that what will work depends on the personalities and the needs of the students facing them in their classrooms.

Most interesting is the discussion of the physical, mental, and psychological drain of preparation, delivery, and interaction involved in meeting the needs of a classroom of boys, the extent to which this can almost take over one’s life, and the constant balancing of one’s personal emotional state with these demands.

When the author leaves KC and takes on The Job I Always Wanted, she realises the extent of the attachment she had established with KC. Also, she recognises that in this private-sector world there were no mud-splattered rose petals!

Her return—Back to the Classroom—is now her choice: a reflection of her value system and her need to make a difference. The chapter Every Rose Garden Has Its Thorns provides a contextual analysis which is very powerful. It succinctly yet graphically captures the social complexity of the 1970s and how it laid bare the troubling issues of skin colour and social class.

A central focus of the teaching and learning experience which the author describes is the television programme Schools’ Challenge Quiz (SCQ). She and KC both needed SCQ. The novel, innovative way in which she approached this new challenge engaged the true KC Fortis spirit, previously demonstrated mainly in the sporting arena but now transported from sport to the academics and demonstrating excellence in both!

Her Back to the Mona Campus experience marked a transition both personally and professionally. The writer’s elaboration and inclusion of her feelings help readers understand the introspection, thought process, and final decision-making in the next phase of her KC attachment.

The analysis of the teenage awakening and student revolution teachers faced in the 1970s accurately depicts the interplay of factors operating in the school and the wider society, instigated and fostered by the Black Power Movement and nurtured by the music of the time—Tosh and Marley’s lyrics and the rhythm of reggae. The bold statement of the author’s feelings about the revolution taking place at KC reflected, as she acknowledges, the feelings of several of her colleagues.

I identified with the new-found self-awareness of the young men around me. I empathised with their passion about the new beliefs and alliances drawing them away from tradition. But I also saw that some boys were slipping towards the edge of a precipice that nobody understood.

The Worst and Best of Times is a case study of how a stimulus like SCQ can be used as a catalyst for achieving educational objectives which extend far beyond a classroom setting or extracurricular club. The description of effectively dealing with teaching and learning in a nontraditional fashion, victory and loss, and the involvement and development of the boys as team members as well as shining examples of school spirit will stir readers and inspire teachers.

KC’s role as a safe place or refuge in the economic, social, and political upheaval of the 1970s is vividly recounted in the chapter A Bigger Picture. The tragedy of the fire and the disruption it brought to this safe place, coupled with the disequilibrium of the environment external to the school, policy changes, and other factors, made the safe haven less effective as such in the lives of the students.

The personal response of the author to this disruption, as well as to other unsettling factors in her life, leads us to the chapter The Blue Room. Here she shares with readers not just the day-to-day experience of being alone in a country overseas, but also the recognition of the value of separation from the familiar in self-discovery and her own emotional growth and development, despite doubts and concerns.

The description of returning to a changed physical environment at KC, assuming a new role, and facing new challenges gives the reader a valuable historical snapshot of the Jamaica of the 1970s and the apprehensions experienced by most Jamaicans, who were witnessing and living through rapid and discomfiting change. It also communicates the sense of dissonance which the writer experienced: the recognition that KC and Jamaica had changed, but that she had also. Her narrative describes her need to recapture the thrill and excitement she felt before The Blue Room, but also recognition that the changes in herself and the school made this nearly impossible.

I Felt a Parting reveals the evolving feelings of disillusionment and betrayal she experienced and exposes her need for new and different challenges to energise her—challenges similar to SCQ maybe, but in a different setting and with different players. Sadly, separation from KC was justified.

Throughout the narrative, the author paints vivid word portraits of special teachers and acknowledges their significant roles in her journey as learner and teacher. She captures very well the atmosphere of the staffroom and the varied personalities and activities which created that unique environment. Mrs Riley, Peter Maxwell, Missa Johnno, Helen Douglas, and of course Mr Forrest loom large in the tapestry she creates.

Epilogue 2014, so many years later, brings the readers back full circle to the writer as teacher—in the new tech-driven world, but still a learner and a teacher. Then comes the SCQ recap—a reiteration and analysis of the true educational value and impact of SCQ in the cognitive and affective growth of the young men who participated. She rounds off the narrative by allowing messages from former students to reinforce the centrality of SCQ and its catalytic role in the education of the grown men who became the writers of this string of emails. They give meaning to her statement that, from the very beginning:

The boys sitting before me were promises the world was waiting for. I could be their poison, causing them to droop and wither, robbing the world of what they could become. Or, I could be their nurturer, feeding their hunger for knowledge and growth.

That the writer fulfilled her initial (and consistent) objective of being their nurturer is clear.

The author is to be commended on her memory of these chapters of her life, the emotions evoked by the significant events, and the nuances of meaning which surround the period and create a depth and texture that permeate the entire manuscript. The writer holds the reader captive throughout.

This book should appeal to a very wide audience: the KC Fortis community, parents, and aspiring, current, and former teachers in all schools. The chapter on Schools’ Challenge Quiz in particular should be required reading, analysis, and discussion for teacher trainees. Frances-Marie Coke must be congratulated on providing a fascinating self-reveal, a valuable resource on experiences rarely documented, and a significant stimulus for thought and analysis among those who are interested in or involved in the education of young people.

Elsa Leo-Rhynie, OJ, CD, PhD

Professor Emerita

The University of the West Indies

August 2019

Acknowledgements

This memoir would not have been possible without the hundreds of students of Kingston College who walked with me on the journey to becoming a teacher. Nor could I have written it without the numerous Schools’ Challenge Quiz enthusiasts (team members, reserves, question writers, cheerleaders, teachers, buzzer builders, timekeepers, recorders, and assistant coaches) who contributed to building our foundation and making KC a force to be reckoned with throughout the life of the competition. I am grateful for all the alumni who were moved to share their feelings in numerous email messages on the occasion of KC’s 2014 victory and ever since. It was their words that planted the idea that became the book. It was their anecdotes and their detailed records of matches that allowed me to write the chapters describing our exploits each year. To the teachers, coaches, students, and numerous old boys (the name for all past students of KC, no matter how old) who have kept the tradition going all these years, I salute your spirit and appreciate your respect for what you inherited from the earlier campaigners.

I am grateful to my friends and colleagues from KC, some no longer with us, who made it possible for me to learn and grow in the environment of support and collegiality that contributed to the environment in Hardie House and the spirit of Clovelly Park.

I commend the then Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation (JBC) and its successor Television Jamaica Ltd. (TVJ) for its role in bringing the Schools’ Challenge Quiz competition to the region over all these years. Congratulations on the celebration of the fiftieth year!

To my sisters who were there from the start, always supporting and encouraging, thank you. Thanks also to my daughter, Kimberley, who shares her initials with KC and who inherited the spirit. And to Isabel, thank you for always asking Did you work on your project today, Grammie?

To Miss Barnett: You know who you are and what you did. I am forever grateful.

To my friends who read the manuscript and gave me both the encouragement and the constructive criticism necessary to bring it to its final state, I will always appreciate your feedback.

To Professor Emerita Elsa Leo-Rhynie, thank you for being who you are, and for the foreword.

Me? A Teacher?

It was 11:25 a.m. and still no one could find him. The heat bore down and my blouse stuck to my skin. I alternated between perching on the edge of the chair and pacing the floor helplessly while a couple of uneasy ladies came and went, embarrassed and flustered that they still couldn’t find the headmaster for my interview. Being stuck there between grey walls hugging a narrow passageway made me claustrophobic and anxious; my slender frame felt as if it had no substance. I longed for the oats I’d left on my kitchen sink before rushing to catch the bus earlier that morning. I struggled with why the waiting area felt so familiar—could it be so frightening just because I didn’t want to be there?

The answer dawned on me as I felt all five feet seven inches of myself shrinking into someone half my height, cowering in a similar setting where I’d sweated and wrung my hands so many times, so many years before. Of course it feels like I’ve been here before! It’s exactly like that other corridor outside that forbidding door at my high school!

I had been in my third-form year at Alpha Academy. and one teacher or another had made a habit of sending me to the office for being in some kind of trouble. Now, all these years later, I could hardly distinguish between the cold sweat from memories of waiting for trouble outside Sister’s door and the cold sweat of waiting for this headmaster.

Trouble was exactly what I felt coming on that blistering August morning of 1970. The feeling had hovered over me from the moment I’d stepped onto the Number 22 bus at Cross Roads. It had only worsened as the bus trundled along South Camp Road, taking me closer and closer to the destination I never wanted to reach. Walking along North Street and through the rusty iron gate dislodged from one of its hinges, I’d felt no conviction, only a large dose of trepidation about what lay ahead.

The long wait for the missing headmaster had given me all the time to worry about how crazy my curly brown hair must look after the breeze through the bus window had gusted through it like a storm. I glanced down on my dressy, size 10 patent-leather shoes, borrowed from their box for this occasion that was nowhere as happy as the few other times I had gently removed them from their light wrapping paper. Now their shine was covered with dust that had settled over them as I walked all the way from the gate. I stood up every few minutes, shaking out the numbness in my legs and running my hands over my wrinkled black skirt, trying to restore its ironed look.

But those worries were nothing like the concerns that were rattling in my brain. My best efforts to dress the part and assume a quiet voice and sober facial expressions were steadily failing. I felt out of place, and I guessed I looked the same in the eyes of the two earnest women who were fluttering around me. What am I doing here? How did I get myself into this?

My exciting venture into television news had come to an abrupt but unavoidable end after just a year, leaving me shaken and without any moorings. Broke and lacking job prospects, I’d had no choice but to follow the halfhearted advice of my university’s career placement officer to go and see if the headmaster down there will consider you for his English teacher’s job. My meeting with that chilly woman had unnerved me from the start. And my response was an immature, ill-considered outburst that started tentatively and suddenly picked up speed.

I’m sorry. I really don’t want to seem ungrateful, but I just can’t be a teacher. I wouldn’t know where to begin. I hated school for a long time, and I got in a whole lot of trouble. I didn’t do all that well, so—

Stop right there, Miss Phillips. Let me see if I understand you. She rose deliberately from her desk and walked around in circles as if trying to protect herself from an imminent conniption. By the time she spoke again, her sarcasm dripped like ice cubes carried in bare hands. I suppose you think there are hundreds of employers lining up out there, waiting to hire English graduates like you? Her withering look, along with the recollection of my depleted savings account and the months of rent ahead, was what finally shoved me onto the bus that brought me to 2A North Street.

My eyes stung every time the mild breeze whipped up a whirlwind of dust from the expanse of drought-stricken earth that swallowed up the occasional patches of grass. They glazed over more and more as I sat, hungry and perplexed, in that reception area that was no more than a dreary passage with a small, littered desk and two metal classroom chairs with rust peeping out from their joints. I squirmed and sweated, wondering what I was doing waiting for a missing headmaster in a place that was anything but inviting—the last place to which I’d wanted an invitation. Me waiting to be interviewed for a teaching job—how in the world can this be real?

I could just see the faces of my grandmother; of Sister Bernadette, the first Jamaican woman to be appointed Alpha’s principal; and of the many other teachers at my old school. Every one of them would question mightily what I thought I was doing. Frances Phillips teaching? they would ask in absolute shock. Frances Phillips, who was the bane of our existence during her turbulent years between third and fifth form? Frances, who spent hour after hour kneeling in the school office as punishment for hurling her shoes into the Sweetie-Come-Brush-Me mango tree, and more often for ‘staring impertinently’ at sundry math teachers frustrated at her refusal to try with algebra?

The secretary returned, bewildered and embarrassed, I am so very sorry, Miss Phillips. Something must have come up. Can you wait a little longer? The small voice was a surprise coming from the five-feet, nine-inch tall, extremely church choir type of woman who couldn’t bring herself to look me in the face.

Thinking this was an act of God to rescue me from my decision to attend an interview for which I was completely ill-equipped, I answered in a rush, It’s okay. I understand, (Of course I didn’t.) I have a little time … but wait; you know what? I think I will just go. I can call and make another … I can just come back—

Come this way, miss. I will take you to Mr Forrest. The older of the two women had come up so quietly that her voice startled the secretary and me. In her pale, pristine blouse with its tiny pearl buttons, pintucks, and frilly collar that almost brushed against her chin, she could have stepped right off page 183 of a George Eliot novel and landed by mistake in Jamaica. She guided me under the cobwebbed staircase, through corridors whose splintered wood floors longed for a broom. I was no more encouraged as I gazed at broken sash windows, aged paint peeling from dingy walls, orange juice boxes tightly rolled into crude miniature footballs, and little piles of garbage huddling in the corners. The lumps of curdled milk leaking from a blue-and-white Cremo box almost made me head straight for the bus stop. I checked off another reason to regret that this gentle lady had found the missing man. And as we journeyed to wherever she was taking me, I encountered more than enough reasons for that regret.

The determination to walk away was rising in my throat when the sound hit me: thundering footsteps from what sounded like two hundred boys in a small space just above my head. Where are the deathly quiet classrooms I remember at Alpha, where the least outburst of noise would result in a Sit down and be quiet! command from whichever teacher was in charge? Instead, these footsteps sounded like the beginning of a stampede. How can the school allow them to make all that noise? They don’t have teachers in charge?

I got the answer to my unspoken question in an instant. A horde of bodies came barging down the stairs, rattling the old wooden walls like an earthquake and me right along with them. I pressed myself against the flimsy partition as a mass of white shirts and khaki pants stormed through the crammed corridor, ties flying and hands gesticulating as their owners shouted out their lunch orders.

Two patty and one orange juice!

"One bun an’ a box a milk, Rasta!"

Don’ forget the cheese, Star—yellow cheese, not the pale, bilious one!

You better come get it yuself if you goin’ fuss ’bout cheese colour!

I was still shaking from the stampede when my George Eliot character and I walked out of the building and made our way to the side. She pointed ahead to a narrow space between two buildings that were as bedraggled as the one we’d just left.

Nearly there, she said. He’s right around the corner there. She quickly stepped past me and made her way around the building, calling out to someone I couldn’t see. Sir, this is the young lady who is here to see you; I brought her along as you said.

Douglas Wrexham Eric Forrest unspooled slowly from his collection of body angles crouching over the square of damp earth. Stretched to what looked like my father’s full height, he towered over both of us, his eyes twinkling from his sunburnt face like the lights atop a country lighthouse. I craned my neck and mentally decided he was about six feet three inches tall. My eyes fell to his feet, planted next to the reason he’d been missing from his office—a shock of red, yellow and orange! Yes, roses, in a glorious space surrounded by parched earth, dried-out grass, rocks, and rubble. Three or four boys were weeding and digging, tiptoeing around a leaky old water hose that snaked its way around the building and suddenly disappeared.

Oh … Is this Miss Phillips? Thanks for bringing her around. Welcome, welcome, Miss Phillips! I’m sorry I didn’t wait for you in the office, but I know you will understand now you see what I’m up to.

Luckily, he didn’t give me a moment to get a word in; what could I have said?

Come, boys. Tell this young lady what we are doing around here! His fingers were muddy, one shoelace was undone, and a once-white handkerchief hung from his back pocket, its mud-stained edge sticking out, finishing off the image of a man who cared nothing about appearances. Excitement enlivened his voice, and I was stunned at the difference between what I saw in him and the demeanour I considered the birthmark of every headmaster or headmistress I had ever met or heard about before that moment.

Mr Forrest looked like an ordinary man—someone anyone could approach and speak to without shaking all over. His eyes were warm and comforting, the smile beneath his manicured moustache an invitation to tell him how frightened I was. Still, he was a headmaster, and I was there to be interviewed. I was overcome with worry that the scorching heat of the sun, now directly above us, must have added two more crescents of anxious armpit sweat to my sticky blouse.

Ten minutes later, after I’d listened to his lecture about the character and formation of each bloom, I reached down to grasp a long-stemmed orange rosebud thrust shyly at me by the smallest boy, now perched on one knee.

Okay, back to class now, boys. Come with me, please, Miss Phillips, the headmaster said, gathering his