I’ve been contemplating the overwhelming challenges in the Jamaican school system. From the tradition of lax structure and hands-off supervision, to the limited resources and shortened class schedule, the limited vaue in education among families, all the way up to the constraints on the Ministry of Education’s budget at the national level. There are so many symptoms and broad, deep root causes. The same is true with all issues, all over the world. The problems are overwhelming. To ponder them is important but it cannot become too burdensome. For me, faith is critical to keep on going and know that the burden doesn’t all fall in my hands. But more on that later…
Photos: Students who want to help me open the classroom in the morning. My walk to work along the main road. My classroom in the old teacher’s lounge. 
Simply Intentional 
Do kids write in Patois? Do they write in their first language?
Since school is taught in standard English and much of it is rote memorization and copying what’s on the board, I haven’t seen too much patois yet. But I would imagine that if the kids were to “free write” there might be some patois verions of words that are similar in English like “likkle” instead of “little.” There is no standard patois spelling system so they would just sound out the spelling, much like any little kid does before they learn to spell.