Troupe urges school leaders to ‘flip the curriculum’, engage in critical thinking

Western Bureau

Dr Kasan Troupe, permanent secretary in the Ministry of Education and Youth, is challenging principals and vice-principals to engage in critical thinking, rather than relying solely on the curriculum to ensure that teaching and learning occur in their schools.

“Colleague principals, we employ you, we deploy you because we have faith in your competence and your agency to make a difference. The ministry provides guidelines, and we have a responsibility to provide the resources to enable you,” Troupe said on Friday. “But we don’t want you to be limited [in] the creativity, innovation, or critical thinking that you should take to the space.”

The newly appointed permanent secretary was addressing the opening session of the 31st annual conference of the Association of Principals and Vice-Principals, held under the theme ‘Transformed Schools: Exploring Practicable Strategies to Create Effective Learning Communities’, and the launch of the Jamaica Association of Chairmen of Secondary Institutions (JACSI) at the Hilton Rose Hall Resort and Spa in Montego Bay, St James.

“We are relying on you to lead from the front with us; you are on the ground, and you are interacting with our key constituents, or students, as well as our parents,” she said.

Inspire excellence

The conference attendees, who included chairmen of school boards, were strongly encouraged to refute the misconception that their ability to inspire excellence in their respective institutions was limited.

“I don’t want you to feel limited, and I can say this because, as a former vice-president of this association, this is the kind of message we have been championing. As a former principal myself, I never felt restricted. Colleagues, I don’t want you to feel restricted in your thinking. It is you who are at the forefront,” Troupe told the audience.

Troupe emphasised to school leaders that they have the power to change the lives of their students, their institutions, and the country’s education system as a whole by ‘flipping the script’ embedded in the curriculum.

“You have the latitude of autonomy, and I want you to claim that within your spaces,” she encouraged.

“It’s not just about the academics. It’s about the critical thinking that we foster in our children’s social consciousness. So when I say you have the latitude of autonomy, I mean, you can flip the curriculum; we don’t have to instruct [how] you are teaching children; the curriculum is the guide, but who is in front of you matters. And so you have the latitude to flip. If it means that you suspend the one, two and three and focus on the social skills, you have that latitude,” Troupe told principals, vice-principals, and school chairmen.

“There is nothing that restricts what you do to customise the programme of learning for your children in front of you,” she noted.

Further, the permanent secretary reminded school leaders that the education ministry consists of some 16 agencies, seven regions, and all principals in the 1,010 public schools across the island, not merely those operating out of its Heroes Circle headquarters in Kingston.

“The ministry is you; the ministry is not the central physical body; it is you. It is us, so we are going to partner to make the difference together, our children are relying on us,” Troupe said.