One of Bermuda's education pioneers who set many black Bermudians on the path to academic and commercial success, says she feels "very saddened'' by the violence prevailing in schools today.

"I find myself wondering what I would do if I were teaching today,'' admits Rosalind Robinson, who will be 87 next month. The widow of the late Kenneth Robinson, Bermuda's first Chief Education Officer, reflects that in her time, such problems were unknown.

"There have always been fights in school, but now there seems to be a total lack of respect. One of my old pupils came to fix my phone the other day and as he said, `We used to fight but we always respected you and the other teachers. You were never afraid to break up a fight and the kids would stand back when you appeared on the scene!' But it's not like that now. Yes, there have been a lot of changes for the good and improvements in my lifetime, but a lot of respect has gone. For instance, I remember my mother would never, never allow us to eat in the street. I think TV has done a lot of harm -- we seem to follow the US in everything -- and a lot of it has not been good for Bermuda.

"Another thing that seems to have been lost is the idea of the family unit and sitting down to meals together. When I was young, children would have to set the table, learning where to put the knives and forks. Sundays would mean a special cloth and a pretty pitcher and we would all say grace. It made children feel important, as well as teaching them routines and discipline.'' On the other hand, she says, there were many ills confronting Bermuda when she was a child. Racial integration, she says, had to come: "The segregation that existed when I was young was keeping the whole Island back.'' Mrs. Robinson, whose own contributions to education have, perhaps, been somewhat overshadowed by the achievements of her late husband, was the first black Bermudian to undergo formal training, in the early '30s.

"Before that, anyone could become a teacher,'' she chuckles. Having won a scholarship from St. Paul AME Church to attend Berkeley Institute (from Central School) she then went on to teachers training college in Jamaica for two years.

"I was told, when I won the scholarship, that I had to set a good example. I suppose, today, they would say `role model'! Anyway, I used to have special coaching from Miss Edith Crawford on a Saturday morning with another young man, Erskine Dyer, who was David Dyer's uncle. We had to go to her house and she used to suffer these terrible headaches so the teaching took place in her bedroom, and she'd be in bed. Finally she said, `just you both go ahead and do your best'. That was her blessing, I think.'' They were both successful, a double triumph too, for Miss Crawford whose two pupils had beaten all the other entrants.

"When I came back from Jamaica, I taught at Central for a while, and then I went to Hamilton Parish. At the foot of Crawl Hill was Temperance Hall, a one-room school, and I took over the headship there. It had a little stage and we had children of all ages. So many of them went on to be very successful. I won't mention any names in case I upset someone by leaving them out!'' That academic success, she notes, was in spite of primitive conditions, where there were outside toilets and water had to be dipped in a bucket. Later, she assumed the headship of Francis Patton School where her husband had been founding principal when it was first built in 1956.

"In those days, people used to call Francis Patton the `lollipop school' because it had so many things that had never been seen in the rural schools.'' When her husband went to the UK to pursue his first degree at University College, London, Mrs. Robinson went with him.

"I went over in 1937 and stayed a year. He made me go to school so I went along to his lectures so that I could help him with them. After that, I went to Pitman's and I bought a nice little typewriter which was useful for typing Ken's lectures and in fact, I used it for years afterwards.'' Looking back on her childhood, she recalls that, the eldest of seven, she grew up in a home that revered education.

Education pioneer reflects on past From Page 25 "My mother was one of Mr. De Costa's first pupils and she used to teach me at home and she was quite strict. My father, who had his own shoe business, believed in `ruling through love' -- in those days, I never knew that such a thing as child abuse even existed! Then I had an equally wonderful husband! How did I get so lucky? I was even lucky with both grandmothers, when I had my children Shirley (Pearman) and Kenneth -- I call him `Ed' because I get confused with all these `Kens' around. I stayed home with Shirley until she was old enough to attend school with me but I left Ed with the two old ladies and they gave him such a wonderful pre-school course that he could read before he went to school. That turned out to be a real nuisance because he could do everything before the teachers could get to him, so I pushed to get him into Berkeley as early as I could.

"With my pupils,'' she adds, "I tried to ensure that every child who passed through my hands learned how to read. There were a small handful who didn't manage it, but of course, at that time, no one had even heard the word `dyslexia' -- we just did the best we could. My schools were always very happy schools. I think that's important and everyone had a good sense of humour -- something else that you don't see so much of these days.'' In 1970, after being head of Francis Patton for almost 12 years, Rosalind Robinson retired and was given the Queen's Certificate for her services to education. One of her biggest tasks in her retirement occurred following the death of her husband in 1979.

"After his stroke, I knew he was worried about publishing the book he had written, which he called `Heritage'. I told him not to worry, I would do it -- and I did, and I found it helped me get through that time.'' As a child, Mrs. Robinson lived next door to the former convent of Mount St.

Agnes.

"The children at school there used to throw their rubbish over the wall and we would throw it right back. That's how I made friends with one of the young nuns there. My mother was a Fubler and my brother has the property now. In those days it was like a huge park. My mother never went out to work but she sold the fruit and vegetables that we grew in this big garden. In those days, the tourism industry was quite different -- very rich people would come here for the whole winter and I remember this one particular lady, very rich and very large, who would take up the whole back seat when she came in her horse and carriage to buy produce from my mother. We used to call her `the Duchess'.

We also used to pack up vegetables in crates and take them down to the boats on Front Street. I remember that Jim Woolridge used to come up to the property next door to us and I would watch them doing their picking. They used to grow celery and after they had gone we used to go down there and pick up any celery or small potatoes left behind -- it reminds me now of Monet's `The Gleaners'.

The celery was wonderful because it needs a lot of water and the Pembroke Canal used to run right under their property.'' Reflecting that she believes her mother may have been Indian, maybe Mohawk, because of her facial features and very straight hair, Mrs. Robinson's father was from Turks Island, although his mother had been Bermudian.

"She left here to go salt-raking in the Turks because at the time, farming was in trouble here. My father's parents had married and had 12 children and he was the youngest, so when they had this bad hurricane, she decided to come home and brought him with her.'' By this time he was a young man and, not having received much of a welcome at St. John's Parish Church, where he was asked, in those days of segregation, to sit upstairs in the balcony, her father soon joined St. Paul AME Church.

"That church had been founded in Philadelphia for just that reason. He met my mother sitting in the choir -- and I am the result of that meeting!'' Nowadays, this grandmother of five remains busy, devoted still to St. Paul AME and to the Berkeley Education Society, especially in this, the school's centenary year.

"No, I have no particular secrets for happiness. I believe in being happy. I don't hate anyone that I can think of and I have never indulged in quarrels.

Sometimes, if I had an argument with Ken I would walk away and decide I wasn't going to talk -- but I always forgot! I enjoy going out -- my daughter says I go out too much! I joined Age Concern when it was formed, sometime back in the '80s. I was qualified to be a member, age-wise -- but I joined with the idea of helping out the old folk! I have never thought of myself as being old!'' No caption