Navigating a Change-Resistant Society

  

Recently, I was invited to address the anniversary celebrations at my alma mater (Gingerland Secondary School). In hindsight, I suppose it was endorsement of my speaking and motivational capabilities, or some indication of the organising committee’s ideas that I could speak to an audience of teenaged students, half of them uninterested, disengaged and bored, and the other half probably there on the promise of solidifying their independence someday.

Regardless of their reason– they were probably just forced to be there and I had to stand before them– I felt I had a duty to inspire them and give them hope that the world cares about them as much as they care about the world. Yet, recent events, global and local, would easily shatter that hope. Amanda Gorman, in her 2021 Inaugural Poem, said that the United States wasn’t broken, but simply unfinished. As I revisited her poem recently, I wondered if she would still accept those words, or would propose an entirely different perspective. After all, her poem has been banned in certain parts of her country, and I am not sure if she would be wrong to call it dystopia. So, I ask myself: can a nation’s youth still be inspired in spite of the obvious threats to their future?

Notwithstanding the obvious ego boost, I hesitated to agree to this speaking engagement, not because I would be lost for words, nor because of some doubt I had in my abilities to deliver. I most feared having to tell this probably tired, uninterested group of students (and teachers) the harsh truth. It is always so convenient to tell people some bent version of the truth. When we go to the doctor’s office, we often want the truth, but we are most afraid of that truth, unless it is positive, and as a Black Caribbean man, dabbling in the medical sciences, I know all too well that we often don’t present at the doctor’s for good news. Yet, we still hope for good news. That the persistent cough was just allergies. That the obvious lump on my neck was just a mosquito bite. We only take medications for chronic diseases when we feel unwell. We only face the truth when forced to.

So, I asked myself: these students and teachers sitting before me, are they here for good news or are they here for the truth? After days of cogitating on the best approach, I decided to strike a balance of the convenient truth and the actual truth (oxymoron, right?).

I was asked to speak on the theme Fostering Change through Education and Community Involvement and I knew I had to dissect what education in 2025 should look like. I had not stepped foot at my old school in eight years, yet I just knew that the anachronistic conditions (of plant; of learning) remained the same. We exist in a society resistant to (positive) change and our leaders have been inoculated with the things-have-always-been-that-way vaccine, which has created a herd immunity to change. Somehow, the extremely hot years we have experienced in the Caribbean and the stronger hurricanes that blow in and batter our shores, have not turned on the lightbulb that our curricula need to match our realities. Even more dangerously, the threats to our social existence, the fight for reparations, and the once latent racism now rearing its ugly head on social media, have seemingly evaded our leaders who are yet to frontally address this with their majority Black populations.

The world is racing in the direction of artificial intelligence (AI) and making tech a huge part of every imaginable thing.

Yet, my suspicions were confirmed. The responses to most of my questions in my address went something like this: No.

Technology in classrooms? No.

AI Policy? No.

Any reflection of the 21st century? No.

It all seems hopeless.

I think I raised good points for discussion and created a platform of change not only at my old school but in the society and spaces we occupy. But as someone who was an optimistic teenager, whose optimism was shot down by my own experiences, I know that a change-resistant society will need convincing and cajoling at magnitudes for which I have no energy. I also suspect that many potential changemakers have lost or are losing energy. They too, are becoming comfortable with being comfortable. Where then, do we choose our future leaders?

I therefore end with the Rex Nettleford quote I used in my address:

“I want to see a [insert country] that will be able to throw up people who are concentrated, integrated, well-rounded, productive and resourceful…a young generation of black people who will find a place in this society. I want for them never to feel less than good or less than equal in a society like this…we cannot allow the next generation to grow up with the same doubt and self-confidence.”