By Paul Andrew Bourne
I was named Paul Andrew Bourne by my parents Janet Green and Percival Bourne. The Victoria Jubilee Hospital, Downtown Kingston, is where I was born on December 5, 1968. Besides having lived with my mother, I was also raised by my stepfather, Alfred Beckford. Some people asked, "Can anything good come from the ghettos?" Despite that claim, I am the first of three children for my mother; and I was raised in the communities of August Town and Waltham Park. Those communities are volatile innercity areas and boast a rich history of criminality and social deprivation. As such, presently I hold a Bachelors of Science degree in Economics and Demography from the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus, eight (8) CXC/GCE ordinary level subjects and a Diploma from the University of Technology in Business Education. What are the main factors that have contributed and shaped that experience?
FAILURES
In retrospect, I was the only person in my family to have failed the Common Entrance Examination (CEE) on all three (3) sittings. As such, I hated the word failure. After my three sitting of the CEE, I worked assiduously to change my old reality. In that, when the CEE results were published in August 1981 without my name among the many successful candidates, I left the true meaning of disappointment. My heart sank to the floor in disbelief. I jeered by many as being a "dunce’. My mother wept bitterly and uncontrollably for hours. The smallness of the community and the popularity of my family made the experience even more difficulty for me. I felt a knife pierced through my soul when I realized what had happened. That experience reminded me of Christ experience when he said, "Father if this be possible let this cup past." I was not a good language student but why, why me, why for the third time? My disappointment reached its pinnacle when Ardenne High, Jamaica College and Kingston College said they were unable to offer me a place because I was too old. I was approaching thirteen years at the time. The end result to all that was I had to attend Papine Secondary (now High) School. The perception then was that the institution holds "dunce", highly misbehaved pupils, warriors, and the likes. I felt trapped in a cell of bewilderment, confusion, and I was utterly dump founded by that experience. Many days I cried to the point where I began disliking the concept of God. As I believed he designed a system that held me captive but was that the case?
The CEE was not to be my last failure. In 1986, I failed the CXC English Language examination in addition to four (4) of six (6) subjects that I saw at the time. That was to be another traumatic experience in my life. It was more embarrassment for my family in particular to my beloved mother. After graduating from Vauxhall Secondary School in 1986, I spent ten years trying desperately to pass English language. In those years, I spent all my available time practicing different essays topics and answering numerous comprehension passages but success hid in the wind. I was eager; I wanted so desperately to pass CXC language but I was unlucky at each sitting. I came to the realization that this subject held the key to my success. However, how was I to achieve this milestone within the context of not having a personal tutor or any teacher for than matter? I kept writing, editing, rewriting, researching and documenting various positions on different issues. I recalled voice of the eleventh grade teacher in my head "boy you will fail". Whenever I felt like giving up the words English teacher propelled by faint being to another mile. I had to make my mother proud and dispel the demon case on my being by the utterance of the Language teacher.
LANGUAGE TEACHER’S UTTERANCE
Ms. Green, the eleventh grade, language teacher stood at approximately 6 feet tall, petite, well spoken, confident and quiet. Despite her quietness and unassuming disposition, we reverenced her as though she were God. Although, we wanted so desperately to challenge Ms. Green because of her teaching style, we did not question her authority. Many persons treated us as outcast but the language class ignited in us a spirit of fire for success. Our English teacher was the icon of accomplishment in our world. She was the only teacher of her colleagues who had a Masters degree at the time. That fact of being the only teacher of a high academic class made Ms. Green our mentor. This experience was an irony but we had to find refuge in time of need. Our world was already filled with failures and frustration and so anything favorable was good enough for us.
It was the last day before the CXC examinations that all my friends and I became angered by a comment made to me by Ms. Green. She said I should go "buy and read a Junior English Revise" before would be able to pass English Language. That textbook is predominantly used in Primary school so why that comment at the time? She was public in her comment and so I was again disappointed and frustrated by my mentor. I was angered and very displeased that a teacher who for one year did nothing was able to say that instead of showing that she cared for me. The Language teacher was perfectly correct; I failed CXC English Language in 1986. However, I want you to understand the setting to my language experience.
I went to Vauxhall in 1982 as a pupil who was unable to read. I wanted so desperately a teacher to impart to me the fundamentals of reading, comprehension and essay writing. As this held the key in order that, I could make my mother proud. Nevertheless, the teachers were too busy teaching without understanding the students’ weaknesses. In final year, I spent that entire year in an eleventh grade class when it mattered most with a language teacher who saw the need on one occasion to write on the chalkboard. I vividly recall having promptly completed assignments without any personal supervision in a class of approximately forty students. I was not about to give up. I had a dream to make my mother proud. I visualized attending the University of the West Indies but as the days go by and life unravel in the process that dream of becoming an academia seem that it would never materialized before she death of my unburned children. I had vowed to make my mother recognized that I had potential and that I was intellectually ability to do academics. I had to succeed, but how?
MOTHER
Ms. Janet Green left one day when I was on the road hustling to make good of my life. I was only seventeen at the time without anywhere to sleep for that night. The merciful God slept with me one Saturday night on the playing field in Vineyard Town. My mother was my best friend before she ran away in 1991. She knew all my secrets and failure. As a domestic helper with a meager pay, she would come home in the evening just to assist me with reading. I would be given words to spell, to memorize, to write and oftentimes she would resort to physical punishment in order that I would learn. It appeared that some demon had blocked by capacity to read but I learnt to write legibly after long. The experience was oftentimes tiresome and gruesome but she would stress the importance of writing and reading. Everything that she did had to be written from grocery list, to things to do, to where to go and to comments. She was neither an academia nor a mathematician but she was a lover of writing. After having failed CXC English Language in addition Common Entrance, she made me left unwanted and abandon by her actions. Although that was a reality of the social experience, in my early years, her stance about the importance of reading and writing has helped to shape my love for writing. The process was oftentimes burdensome to say the least but it was a system that was set in motion without my realization. I felt betrayed and dejected when my mother left me for dead but that same year I began writing all my experience by way of poetry, essay and short stories.
In 1999, after only one year at the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus, I was honoured for being one of thirteen individuals on the Dean’s List for Academic Excellence. Come September 2004, I will begin postgraduate work in Demography. My victory is for every child who has been called a ‘dunce’, ‘worthless’, ‘good for nothing’ and the list is endless. We can, if we just believe: in the price of assiduous work and an unswerving faith in God.