I was listening to some men chatting on Facebook about Bermuda’s social problems, with an emphasis on the lack of the father figure, particularly in the Black community. While the problem is obvious, the degree to which society has been negatively affected over the past few decades is shocking.

I recall 30 years ago witnessing three generations — grandmother, daughter, granddaughter — all on drugs and facing street life, including prostitution. I thought then how horrible a situation that was, but to hear today that at the prisons it is not uncommon to see grandfather, son and grandson, or to see children and toddlers playing in the streets at night. All of this says that society has lost its health and is breeding dysfunction.

It isn’t good enough to be reminded of former days when society was ordered and structured. Those days will never return, but if we can extract the key elements of what worked and use them in ways that are possible to implement today ...

It has been quoted often that “it takes a village to raise a child”, but that is based on the presumption that the village is healthy. At the moment, the village is destroying the child. So it’s not just the village, it’s the positive and nurturing element within the village doing the work.

I had aspirations of turning Heron Bay Primary School into a private high school, starting with children from the age of 10 or 11. It would be a school of arts, specialising in music and sport. Yes, there would be the sciences, mathematics and language, but its speciality would be music and sport.

The role of the school would have been as a community centre where adults can further their skills in music. I say arts and sport because both offer a form of discipline and teamwork. Music can also be a lifetime hobby, which perfects itself in individuals like ageing wine, but can also give a sense of mastery at a young age.

I had envisioned real cricketers and footballers as coaches giving life lessons to the young, guiding them with the basics and skill sets that they can harness and develop. Supervised sport including athletics could be carried out as an after-school programme, which would assist working parents. The idea intrinsically is to have a community institution act as an organ that vitalises the entire community.

The impact of the lack of parenting has eaten away at the fabric of our society and put an added strain on educators who now must deal with children who are not prepared to learn. School is only eight hours a day, but it is what is happening for the other 16 hours that predetermines how that child will perform.

Every child needs parenting and guidance. Those who do have parents that ensure their children partake in extracurricular activities such as dance, martial arts and music see better results and a more rounded student. Children are born innocent; they did not choose to be born in dysfunctional environments. There is no village; therefore, society as a whole must bear the responsibility to create the instruments that allow the youth and toddlers to have the same opportunities that well-ordered families provide. Every child needs to have extracurricular activities regardless of their socioeconomic status.

Today we need surrogate societies whose role it is to look out for those who have been abandoned for one reason or another. We cannot hope for some form of amazing grace or an invisible hand to do the work. Nor can we look back for a return to yesterday; we must create what we need for today, even if it means starting from scratch.

Fixing the school curriculum, as though that can solve the problem, will not work because the biggest problem starts at home. I participated in a lecture recently at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and shared how I started school at the age of 4, graduated from high school at the age of 16, attended postsecondary and went to university at the age of 18. In my class were two Nigerian students who proved to be the best in just about every subject, outperforming everyone — but they started school at 14 years old! I asked the question, why was it that I went to school for 14 years and they for only four to five years and yet they were far smarter than me? My own answer is their ability to pay attention, ie, focus — what most of our children lack.

Our society needs to be transformed in so many areas. Workmen’s clubs that once serviced the community, built by workmen, are now filled by those who do not work, but who loiter and serve to denigrate the community.

We need to take back the clubs and turn them into useful instruments.