18 March 2017

Sir Derek Walcott

Global village has lost an accomplished poet in the passing away of Sir Derek Walcott.  Sir Walcott, Sir Vidyasagar Naipaul and many other West Indian writers will always be remembered by literature fans and enthusiasts for their multi-racial writings with good objectives.

I think that West Indian writing in English (English literature developed by completely local writers) has a longer history than our own Indian writing in English though we got independence from the British earlier than most countries in the West Indies.

One important reason for this is the fact that we didn't recognise our local talent until a few decades back. (As far as I can remember, when I was doing my school final, our English textbook contained only 2 poems by our own writers namely Rabindranath Tagore and Sarojini Naidu. All others were by British or American writers).  We should encourage local talent as well as respect others'.

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About Me

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Chennai, Tamilnadu, India
I am a retired K-12 Education Management Professional. I have worked at different levels in K-12 school systems, textbook publishing, elearning and Education NGOs. I have held memberships in The Association for Science Education (UK), American Association of Physics Teachers and The Malaysian Institute of Physics. I hold a 1st class B Sc Degree in Physics followed by B Ed [English and Physical Science] and M A [Childcare and Education] degrees. My published works include 59 articles in teacher development magazines in India and the US and a book entitled `Creative Classrooms and Child Friendly Schools' (listed in Amazon). This book is almost an anecdotal account of my professional experience in six countries (including Cambodia where I worked as Technical Adviser to the Ministry of Education, Youth And Sports). I served as mentor in the Certificate of Teaching Mastery Program offered by Teachers Without Borders.