Lessons about successful literacy in creole languages from islands such as The ABC Islands, Jamaica and Haiti in the Western Caribbean

Abstract

This article identifies and analyzes attempts that people of the Western Caribbean (specifically in Jamaica, Haiti and Aruba) have made thus far in addressing serious problems in the Caribbean due to the imposition of European colonial languages as languages of instruction in the education systems of territories where most of the population speak a creole language to envision how the peoples of the Eastern Caribbean (specifically in Statia and St. Croix) might begin to transform a formal educational system whose language policies have reduced their children to failures and victims into a system that equips children to be powerful agents in the learning process. The elements of the informal educational systems which have emerged organically from the feminized, Africanized, Indigenized creole cultures of the Caribbean are presented both as a foundation stone as well as a source of inspiration for the design and implementation of education policy and practice.