Principle is positive about
O-21 Bibles

Brenda Bullens, principal of Rousseau Parish Primary School in Kingston, displays a Bible Society poster encouraging the island’s educators to switch from the King James Version to the Good News Bible for use in their devotionals and religious education classes. Jamaica. Photo: UBS/Larry Jerden (JAM01DJ-37.JPG)

KINGSTON, Jamaica — Brenda Bullens is on the ‘front line’ of education in Jamaica. The 1,400 students at Rousseau Parish Primary School, of which she is principal, are from poor neighbourhoods. Many of them she describes as ‘traumatised’.

But she is proud of the way most of them turn out, and believes that the Bibles in her religious education classes do make a difference.

“The children face a lot of challenges,” she says, “but they come out very well. You go to the higher education institutions and they are there. I am proud of them.”

But getting there is not easy. “So many children come to school traumatised and aggressive,” she says. “But somehow, they begin to realise that you don’t give to your brother what you don’t like.”

The Bibles are particularly important. “The Bible is very important – the first thing we have in the morning is devotions, and we read the Bible together,” Mrs Bullens notes. “We really depend on it for teaching morals and for discipline.”

The principal feels that even with the change in the school curriculum from ‘Bible Knowledge’ to ‘Religious Education’, the Bible will continue to play a primary role in Jamaica’s schools.

“Religious Education now centres on different types of religion,” she says, “but we still use the Bible to bring out the different points. When we have devotions, it is definitely from the Bible, because we are by and large a Christian nation.”

Like other schools, Rousseau Primary has traditionally used the King James Version. However, Bible Society Promoter Dalbert Laing has encouraged Mrs Bullens to make the change to the Good News Bible (GNB) as part of the O-21 project.