Champs 2014 is now over. We are still amazed at the accomplishments of our youngsters. They are truly the best in the world. Sadly, there is one outstanding athlete, a national representative with tremendous potential, who did not participate. The reason for Vashon McCarthy’s absence was that his grades were not up to par. The amazing aspect of all this is that this decision was made by educators.
It is known that young people who do not graduate from high school face more problems later in life than those who graduate. Dropouts are more likely to be unemployed, have poor health, live in poverty and be single parents.
Jamaican classrooms are littered with children who are underperforming for a variety of reasons – most of which are not of their own doing. Apart from poor nutrition, neglect and abuse, there are several learning disorders that are evident. Unfortunately, the resources do not exist to deal with the large number of cases.
Having said all this, it should be understood by our educators that poor academic performance does not mean the end of the world for the underperformer. History is replete with cases of persons who succeeded in spite of the fact that they were not good students.
Rising to the top
Sir Winston Churchill spent four years in first form. He became a celebrated author, winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953. Few historians have been able to do this. He became prime minister of Britain in the turbulent World War II years. Well- known mystery writer Agatha Christie was a poor student. Her mother took her in hand and whatever education she got was at her home. It has been estimated that four billion copies of her novels have been sold. UNESCO claims that she is currently the most translated individual in the world.
It is difficult to look around you and not see something that Thomas Edison has not invented or made better: incandescent light bulbs, phonograph, electric systems, motion picture cameras, telegraph, etc. As a child, his teacher quickly gave up on him and declared that he was “addled”. Again, it was his mother who refused to give up on him and decided to teach him as best she could. When he died at 84, this man who had only three months of formal education, had 1,093 patents to his name. He may not have had the entry requirements to enter Harvard but you will agree, he didn’t do to badly in life.
‘Magic’ Johnson was not the kind of guy you would ask to help you with your homework. The school security guard told him he “would never amount to anything”. He was struggling with dyslexia. Can you imagine what his life would have come to if the school had decided that because of his low grades, he could not play basketball? Because he won five NBA Championships with the Lakers and was part of the 1992 gold medal-winning USA Olympic team.
Today, he is a spokesperson for the Magic Johnson Foundation – which is a charity to help combat HIV – and a motivational speaker in schools. The last time I checked, he still struggles with dyslexia. Oh! And he’s worth almost a billion dollars – more than the combined worth of all the students in that class.
When a child’s grades start falling, it can alarm parents. While some teens simply stop paying attention in class once they reach a certain age, poor academic performance can signal a serious underlying cause in other individuals. It is important that the school handles the child’s poor grades in a manner that will prevent him from completely checking out, while giving him the motivation to do better in the future.
One strategy is to identify any particular skill or passion that may not necessarily put him on a path to becoming a rocket scientist but he could become a world-beater at something unusual. Or maybe just have a happy, fulfilled life. And what’s more important than that?
n Glenn Tucker is a former coach at Holmwood Technical School.