George Erwyn Goddard - A Big Man

19, Apr 1999
Those of us who attended St Mary's College between the years 1959-1965, were forced recently to contemplate the passing of an individual who touched our lives in very significant ways. He was George Erwyn Goddard, then English literature, language and geography teacher as well as cadet officer. To understand the role he played in the formulating and moulding of the character of his "charges", one has to first understand the times.

The PNM, conceptualised, built and led largely by teachers, came to power in 1956 as the vanguard of African and Indian middle-class elements who were fired by the sentiments of the 1955 Bandung Conference.

The then PNM, true to its modern tenets, demanded social equality, the establishment of democratic institutions and mass education. The Concordat was the framed agreement that forced the denominational bodies and the State to co-operate in the opening up of educational facilities to embrace all regardless of social status, race or religion.

Whereas before they were left to hand-pick their student population according to their own fancies, they now had to accommodate a percentage selected by the State. The Roman Catholics in particular tended at this point to regard the new regime in power as communist in intent. We were therefore 12-year-old pioneers storming the portals of social and religious elitism.

In such a scenario, distrusted and even despised by some within the managing authority, we walked into the College of Immaculate Conception to meet people like Goddard and others of a different ilk such as Fr.Ian"Knox by Day", Knox, who incidentally also passed away abroad recently, but about him we have elected to say absolutely nothing.

If we were 12 then, George Goddard had to be about twice our age. In retrospect it is difficult to comprehend how he could have inculcated and nurtured such a "bigness of spirit" at such an early stage in his life. But he did. And we must thank him graciously, even though posthumously, for the haven he provided us because of this bigness.

Zone of Comfort
Instinctively he seemed to understand the role he had to play, as though destined by the history of the times. Yet there was never ever one single word from George Goddard to us that addressed openly our predicament in such an environment. He simply provided for us a zone of comfort within CIC.

Our first contact with him was as literature teacher in Form 1Sp, doing the book Children of the New Forest written in 1847 by the British novelist and ex-naval officer, Captain Marryat, who had gone to sea at age 14 and gained a command at 23 after active service against Napoleonic France. The compassion and relish with which Goddard engaged the subject matter of this literary journey was indeed inspired.

The story involved children who through circumstances found themselves abandoned and had to fend for themselves in a strange environment. Their situation was not unlike our own. Goddard did not have to say so. We felt it and understood the importance, as in Marryat's story, to establish a social bonding as essential requirement for survival. We began to refer to Goddard as "Captain Marryat".

Horace Grannum who delivered the eulogy at George Goddard's funeral service, said: "I am told that he clearly understood the role of teacher for one so young... he understood that he was there primarily for the benefit of his students... he never criticised the students but, rather, gave positive critiques which could benefit all... he was able, in a word, to empower his young charges."

Undoubtedly, we are the ones who can best vouch for this and we would be hard-pressed to find today in this country teachers of such sterling quality.

In addition, Goddard sought to get us to join the St Mary's branch of the Trinidad and Tobago Cadet Force in which he was the leading light. Goddard was the only teacher at the college in this era who visited homes along the East/West Corridor as far as Sangre Grande, meeting parents to discuss our general welfare at CIC and to exhort them to facilitate us becoming cadets.

None of us ever regretted joining the Cadet Force and today we stand in full appreciation of all that we learnt therein. We were made to face Goddard on many occasions in the "Orderly Room" where he summarily but always fairly and evenly dispensed punishment for breaches of military regulations and discipline. But the fact that George Goddard took full responsibility for every cadet within the ranks, made us understand that we were dealing here with a benevolent father figure.

Faced today with the alarming level of violence in schools, teachers like George Goddard come to mind. We ask ourselves if he would have been able to cope today? We say yes, because he was instinctively democratic in his approach to everything and so compassionate in nature that social bonding became for him an essential but easy exercise.

We are indeed not surprised to learn from Grannum's words that Goddard's approach to all activity even as a youth at Tranquillity was "priest-like" or that he never pulled rank even when he became a major in the T&T Regiment where he was the first education officer, becoming famous therein for the education programmes he would introduce to uplift his so-called subordinates.

Social Breakdown
It is clear that the violence in schools today is symptomatic of the overall social breakdown in society. The demands of modern existence are bursting the seams of all the old relationships: the relationship between government and populace; parents and children; teachers and students; employer and employee; man and woman; husband and wife; religious leader and followers, etc.

The old pecking order and old social conventions can no longer suffice; the dynamics of power and property (ie ownership) considerations can no longer be the basis of all social relationships. No one is subordinate, no one is chattel, "nobody is nobody", says Shadow, whether wife, child or pupil.

If a man feels today that his wife is his property, such a conceptualisation can likely lead to murder either way. If it is the view that teachers must be obeyed without question and students are to be cowed by their supreme authority, violence shall prevail.

We need to reconstitute the basis of all relationships in society. Power and authority and control can no longer be wielded in this modern world by manipulation, subterfuge and coercion or threats. There must be an underlying social bonding that embraces all "the self-evident truths". Human beings like George Goddard understood this and were way ahead of their time.

Recent research in the USA proved that only Afro-American males can readily teach Afro-American male teenagers.

Next in line according to success rate were white American males, then Afro-American females and last of all were white American females who were the least capable of social bonding with black teenagers.

If we were to extrapolate these findings to the T&T scenario where, to a large percentage of teachers, encountering black teenage males today is tantamount to a culture shock, surely we would then come to understand much more about the underlying causes of the present level of violence in schools.

God knows we need more people like George Goddard. Never petty, never vindictive, even-handed in his wielding of authority, and blessed in his capacity to nurture self-esteem, George Goddard, may he rest in peace, was indeed, a big man.