VOLUNTEERS NEEDED: In order to achieve our goal of petitioning the Ministry of Education, and doing so with as much information, advocates, and petitioners as possible, one of the main sources of information needed is a complete list of all of the High or Secondary Schools in Jamaica, and along with that list, as many contact people at each school as possible.
Bearing in mind that we are still in the brainstorming process, the general idea is that we would feel it more beneficial to our project and ultimately our goal, if we had voices in the form of letters, poems, and essays from the teachers at the schools, as well as the students themselves. Imagine the sheer magnitude of the impact of thousands of letters, poems, essays and even songs, from students and teachers across the entire island, petitioning for the opportunity to have more choices in their education, and thus more areas and opportunities opened up to them.
The only way that we can bring this about is to actually establish and maintain contact with one or more teacher at each high school in the island. We would have to then use our mighty persuasive powers to them ask these teachers to themselves become active participants, as well as encourage students to become active particpants.
This does sound rather overwhelming, but each journey of a a thousand miles begins with one step.
Again, I will repeat that we are still in the brainstorming stage, but it is getting a little lonely up here on this stage. (Smile). With that said, here is what my brain has stormed so far, and I am attempting to lay it out in some semblance of order in which would be logical.
Determine Goal - Our Goal is to appeal and win over the powers that be to have 'The Arts' be offered as part of the curriculum to the students at a relatively young age in the schools in Jamaica. Status: Decided by all that this is a worthwhile cause. (Of course this status was evident by the mere fact that all the particpants became fans and are going to participate in this project).
Spread the information about this project, and increase participation as much as possible. This can be accomplished by inviting as many people as possible to our Business Page, and for those who do not have Internet Access, by inviting as many people as possible through regular correspondence, visits to the schools, visits to the relevant office of education etc. This will have to be elaborated upon, and planned so as to reach as many appropriate personnel as possible. In the interim, please continue to invite people to join this group, so that we will have as many helping hands when we need them. Status: Still in planning state - with the onus on growing this group initially through Facebook.Note: We can plan to utilize the same group growing methods through other Imternet mediums such as LinkedIn, MySpace etc. When this happens, we will need a generalized Internet prescence that is available to all with Internet Access, and not just a Facebook presence. TO DO: Develop a website for the purpose of beocming the centralized focal point of Internet Communications, as well as general planning site and project update site. By far the most accessible media to collect and dispense information will be a website, as the hope is that this is going to be an effort partcipated in not only by people living in Jamaica, but Jamaicans wordwide, as it is for the benefit of the youth of Jamaica, who are the future of Jamaica. As a sidenote, I can provide assistance (or perform) the development and maintenance of the website as needed. This will need me to rely heavily on support from others to collect the information etc. as this project will have to share time with my jobs, and my continious raising and guidance of my son. (Smile).
DEFINE THE ARTS. This is an extremely important phase in this project for we need to bear two things in mind - a lot of people are not necessarily clear on what 'The Arts' consist of; and also we have to be realistic in the initial introduction of the Arts into the schools (assuming we will be successful in our goal, which we will be if we move forward in a unified manner with the desire to achieve our goal). Status: Incomplete. To Do: Set a time time frame / deadline for us all to submit a list of what we consider the Arts to be, and which ones do we consider priorities. Once we have the complete listing, then I will set up a poll where we can all vote on perhaps three of our priorities each in the order of our priority. This can and probably should be done in the near future with the group members that we have now, and will have in the near future. Having a concrete and agreed upon definition, as well as a voted for list of the arts to begin with, will allow us to move forward in a more direct and less vague manner, which will become more and more important as we begin communicating with the teachers and students.
Determine the appropriate people that we would need to approach with our initial plan, and request that we be allowed to undertake the task of communicating with initiallly the teachers, and taking surveys on what their interests were. A 'conference meeting' using email, Facebook, website, and whatever means available would then have to be done to determine which of our group would be the appropriate representatives to speak on our behlaf. Then we would have to determine who our representatives would need to communicte as far as getting permission to soliciit the interest and the help of the teachers within the schools. At this point, we would be seeking input from all possible schools in an effort to show the support of the idea. During our communications with the teachers, and after having received their initial feedback, we would then ask them to solicit the interest of the children that they teach. Please bear in mind that initially we will encounter some hardship with convincing the teachers of the positive outcome of the possible opening of more opportunities for the students. Change is never the most welcme guest especially change which perhaps being more work. This section alone would require more planning and breking down into smaller sections.Once divine interventation had occureed, and the teachers were more receptive to the goals, and the positive outcomes that it would have for the youth and inevitably all across the island, the teachers would then have to be asked to share the idea with the youth, as well as have the youth write petitions for these opportunities. Fair being fair, the students would have to understand that one must creep before one walks, and their school might not necessarily be the recipient of an immediate pilot project trial, but the best hope that there exists to ensure that some schools do get the go ahead to have the arts introduced into the day to day lives of certain students,and that it was contingent upon these chosen students at the selected schools to be the pioneers unpon which the program would grown and foster and become a part of the curriculum of other schools. This section alone would require more planning and breaking down into smaller sections. One idea would to have student requests of these opportunities be ade through song, poem, plays and dance, in an effort to show what can be accomplished.Being realistic, we will need to understand that there is not going to be a complete overhaul of the educational system in Jamaica, where every single school will automatically begin to offer three subjects grouped under the Arts as part of it;'s everyday curriculum. From our standpoint, from the standpoint of the personnel in charge of making such decisions, most of all from the standpoint of what will be the most beneficial to our youth, there will have to be certain schools which will be the pilot projects for this drastic change. We must admit that what we are proposing, although it will be of tremendous advantage to our youth, is not by any means a simple change in schedule, but will require a lot of planning by the powers that be. Also, we will have to be prepared to argue and persuade many advocates to argue and persuade alongside with us for the go ahead to try this as a pilot project in some of the schools. We would be far too optimistic if we think that there would be more than fifty schools across the island that would be in the line up for the initial pilot projects. In the event we were successful in kicking this off of the ground at all, we would strive for fifty but expect twenty at a maximum. Status: Incomplete. To Do: After we have had the input of as many schools as possible, from as many teachers as possible, and as many students as possible, planned our strategy and arguements, then be prepared to argue for fifty schools strategically located around the island in order to have an reasonanly equal distribution, as well as be able to provide the argument that success of the polit projects island wide would indeed indicate that the entire project needs to be carried out island wide. Please bear in mind that in the actual detailled planning, this step will become at least twenty steps.
This is where I am at in my brainstorming efforts. I am asking for help in as far inviting as many people as possible who would be positively interested in these efforts, as well as collecting some unput and ideas from others in the group, and as well as people to begin compiling lists of schools and contact people and their contact information. Additionally, if you have any contacts in the day to day administration of the school system, and the powers that be, please share them with us.
Unless anyone has any objection, I will continue to be the "collector of information", the adding to the 'business plan' as we see fit, and eventually developing and maintaing a website where we can have all of this information accessible to us in one location. I would recommend that we keep Facebook and any other mediums open, and they should all be very similar and serve the poupose of collecting and dispensing information to be assimilated in the central website.
Please feel free to come back with any suggestions, additions, editions, criticims, and any other ideas or steps to the plan - expecially the beginning stages of it. This is not a project to be rushed, but we do need to get it off the ground so hopefully we will see some good come of it.
There is no distatorship here, and anything written here is all just suggestions thus far, and all subject to change. Looking forward to receiving comments and suggestions soon. PLEASE invite people who you feel will be interested and also who will be of some help to us, to our group.
Thank you -
Each One Teach One.
~~~~Yvonne Michelle Harris
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