Introduction: This I.A. is meant to identify an irony: there are many, many parallels between Caribbean Contemporary Art and the
Caribbean studies syllabus, yet there is no mention of Caribbean Contemporary art in the Caribbean Studies syllabus. A brief scan and the syllabus’ main topics, hybridisation, nationalist identity, external influence, and many more, are addressed by contemporary artists quite affectively, so why is there no mention of contemporary art? The Caribbean Studies Syllabus was developed to “develop
Caribbean citizens with a keen awareness of the potential and challenges of the region”; to produce individual with knowledge of their “identity”, however broken, indefinable and mutated. What better way to do this than to encourage interpretation of something tangible? Encourage discussion with artists that aim to categorise
Caribbean “identity? Would this not be effective in developing a “
Caribbean identity” in individuals? Alas, this cannot happen. They mythical “they”, “them in
Jamaica,
Barbados, wherever”, the dreaded examination board, have provided a syllabus and an exam based on wrote: define this, examine that, give and example of this. It is mindless; one only has to learn off the material in the textbook, it is not necessary to place things in context. Of course not! That would be
preposterous! To develop the student’s ability to identify and analyse the effects of “hybridization”, “tumultuous history” etc. in his/her day-to-day life? What would happen then?
We will never know, for this is definitely not encouraged, in fact, more like repressed with this syllabus. A great example of this disastrous shortcoming is this I.A. itself: with a word limit of 2,000 and strict marking schemes based on processes of research, it is clear that the aim of this assignment is not that the student must produce anything substantial, not at all, but for the student to perform the exercise of research, so that the student is “better prepared for the rigours of tertiary education”, namely thesis-writing. Data-collection methods must be identified and justified; data must be recorded; data must be presented in multiple forms—tables, graphs and charts; said tables, graphs and charts must be interpreted; blah, blah, blah. A past-student’s paper was brought to class and given as an example: turn to his data, and he had constructed a line graph of four different criteria, all on the same graph. It looked as if he had drawn a histogram, drawn dots in the centre of the top of each bar, erased the histogram and connected the dots. Nonetheless, he had been given a passing grade.
Got distacted; no more to type.
