Peace and Love in Society trainer Yorkali Walters with Calabar High School lower sixth-form students during a recent training session at the Red Hills Road, St Andrew school. - photo by Mel Cooke
Calabar vice-principal Canute Fagan had encountered the Peace and Love in Society (PALS) programme before it was introduced into the Red Hills Road, St Andrew school at the start of the current academic year.
"There is hardly a meeting I have gone to with the other stakeholders that PALS has not been a part of," the 15-year veteran Calabar teacher - plus seven years as a student - told The Gleaner.
These stakeholder meetings have included the National Transformation Programme and the Safe Schools Programme.
"They are really in touch with what is happening," Fagan said.
At one stage, though, he had thought that the programme was just for the primary level of the education system, what with students reciting the motto and the chirpy PALS mascot. However, in June, "I was invited to one of their meetings and when I heard what the offerings were I was really excited."
Exciting components
Among the PALS programme components that have excited him are classroom management, crisis management and conflict resolution for student leaders.
Fagan readily states that Calabar has a conflict-resolution issue - which is common to many schools. "Once you have more than one party interacting, you will have it," Fagan said, identifying a number of conflict permutations involving students, teachers and parents.
"This can destabilise the school, to a large extent," he said.
The Gleaner was allowed to see the potential destabilisation in one incident, where a cellphone dispute from the tail-end of the last academic year had resulted in threats and a parent being cursed over the telephone. The police were called in, one lawman wanting the students involved in the dispute suspended and sent to the station for the matter to be dealt with, but Fagan flat out rejected that avenue.
When The Gleaner visited Calabar on Monday morning, the lower sixth-formers in training sessions with PALS trainers, Yorkali Walters and David Pearson, were not in a dispute with anyone - at the moment. Separated into two groups and the training exercises running concurrently, they were examining the results of paired interviews, responding to hypothetical conflict scenarios and indicating their position on a number of statements about conflict by their physical position along one side of the room.
'Agree' was at one end and 'disagree' at the other, with 'borderline' in the middle. When Walters said "people should never fight", the 'disagree' side was crowded; it shrank when he threw out "if somebody dis you it is best to pretend you never hear".
Almost all agreed that "the world is divided into winners and losers". He whispered the final question to the young men on differing sides of the opinion line and some shuffling took place, with most clustering on the 'agree' side.
Fagan sees a win-win situation with PALS at Calabar, one of 12 high schools the programme has been introduced to under a memorandum of understanding with the Ministry of Education. The first phase ends in December.
"I wish we could move at a faster pace," Fagan said, saying that Calabar's timetable had been set over the summer and timetabling peace education for the first formers was posing a problem. Still, he is determined to squeeze it in somewhere.
Immediate effect
While he expects the effect of the PALS programme to be really felt in the medium to long term, Fagan said, "It is hard not to see it happening immediately."
He sees a change in mindset, to an attitude where there is a realisation that the school's culture was developed over time and it can be changed.
Fagan said "people have bought into it" and one no longer hears "a so Calabar stay".
They are now saying "yes, it was developed over time, but we can change it".
In August, all 90 Calabar High staff members participated in a PALS 'Changing The Culture' workshop, done at the request of the school's administration. Among the concepts they were introduced to was what constituted 'toxic elements' in a culture.
"Once you start to change the culture and you remove the toxic element, those who come in follow what is there. That is what is happening," Fagan affirmed.
The cellphone at the core of the dispute that lasted through the long summer break was returned the day after the discussion, and that matter has been settled.
Fagan said he did not see PALS' impact on Calabar ending even when the programme stops there officially - whenever that is.
"Once PALS has a foot in any school, even when they pull out, it remains. It is hard for them to leave completely. The programme is sustainable," he told The Gleaner.