I didn’t often meet Sylvestre Philip, but the last time we met (outside the Castries provisions market) I sensed he was probably not all that well.
However, what was to be our final Meet-and-Greet was much too short to accommodate more than just a brief Howdy-and-Goodbye.
I’d followed his penmanship in his VOICE column ‘The Open School’ in which every article exuded the writings of a teacher who read, watched and listened quite a lot to what was happening around him, at home, school and play.
Without pretending to be a fancy retired but active principal or ‘headteacher’, lecturer or preacher, he quietly gathered and shared his facts about national issues, from government programmes to community realities, focusing instead on educating readers openly and fairly, without rank or rancour.
Like me, he made no bones about which political party he supports, but didn’t unfairly attack the other party just-like-that.
Instead, Sylvester offered facts for study by his learning readers and learned followers in the local, regional and global open school, always catering for his innumerable invisible online and home-based students provided by IT exposure of his weekly submissions.
Where advocates for the other side used equal access to the same spaces to engage in multifarious forms of misinformation and disinformation regarding government and ruling party programmes, The Open School teacher studiously concentrated on fighting fiction by presenting facts that simply couldn’t be denied, or erased.
Allowing criticisms of the things he praised to slide like water off a duck’s back or a dasheen leaf, Sylvestre ensured that while others majored in minor matters, he’d mastered the art of ignoring fake news fibs by providing Smart answers to foolish questions.
The simplicity he exuded followed the locally-schooled scribbler everywhere, from party and constituency conferences to quiet discussions with whosoever willed to listen with respect and respond with equal emphasis on facts instead of fiction.
Not one known to stand on The Open School’s platform with stick or strap in hand and threatening corporal punishment, he instead tried to understand why those who didn’t just couldn’t see what he and others in the writing business saw from their side of the national political fence.
He knew that everyone’s different and thinking always differs in politics, so he avoided measuring others by his own yardstick.
Sylvestre wasn’t in the realm of the 1st Century ‘Scribes and Pharisees’ rebuked by Jesus Christ and condemned to inescapable Hell if they didn’t take his teachings to heart.
Instead, he ranked alongside the ‘Poto Legliz’ scribblers like Monsignor Dr Patrick ‘Paba’ Anthony serving selflessly to save and rescue the souls of the left-behind and broken-hearted members of the national congregation and connecting their teachings with Biblical stories.
Every nation has those unsung heroes and sages whose words and actions join to change lives through dedication to causes of prayer and politics with equal passion, caring less (but not carelessly) about being misinterpreted by Prophets of Doom and Gloom than about connecting with at least one student they’ll educate through open schooling.
Each who’s gone has left a legacy of boundless acts of kindness and words of wisdom shaped by life and living in our part of the shared world.
Sylvestre’s Open School offered no paper certificates or degrees but excelled in providing weekly classes on topics of interest beyond the regular curricula, utilizing non-literati literacy to communicate his messages in the simplest terms.
He didn’t flaunt his support for the ruling party and government in anyone’s face but was as fierce a critic as he could politely and quietly be when it came to unfair partisan criticism of his Member of Parliament, Prime Minister Philip J. Pierre.
Sylvester didn’t wear a red shirt or cap every day because he simply didn’t have to, as everyone knew where he stood.
He was also a decorated Member of the British Empire (MBE) but hardly wore the medal except when required or considered the right thing to do.
Sylvestre simply taught by sharing the rich trove of information he accumulated through life.
In his last submitted column in The VOICE on November 29, 2024, entitled ‘The Open School — on Climate Change, Part 1’ he recalled “growing up in George Charles Boulevard”, “living at Arundel Hill”, “flying kites and playing wind-ball cricket and pitching marbles at Marchand Grounds”, while “attending the Marchand Combined School” – all during hurricane and holiday seasons in times of yore.
Explaining how Climate Change is reflected in hurricane patterns across the Caribbean in the past 50-75 years, he recalled everyone that hit the Eastern Caribbean — from Beulah in 1967 to Beryl earlier this year — noting the average 14-year intervals, to point out that, thanks to Climate Change, ‘Children of today are not so fortunate to enjoy their Summer vacation in the way that I and many other children did’ back then.”
He ended that first part of an intended series noting the constant rainfall in 21st Century Novembers is accelerating annually due to climate change, with ‘no end in sight.
But Sylvestre was called to The Great Beyond before he submitted Part 2 of what would surely have been another master class lesson from The Open School’s lone teacher and principal, in whom all his students cannot but be well pleased.
A fellow weekly scribbler told me about ‘The Open Schoolmaster’:
“He was a staunch Catholic and involved in much activity at Marchand Church also attended by his Party Leader, Prime Minister and MP for Castries-East.
“He was a silently fearless and committed supporter of his party and on the social and human side, he gave lay service at the church’s Home for the Elderly at Bishop’s Gap.
“He really cared very much for the fate of fellow humans condemned by the wrath of poverty and I will miss him, especially as one of the Last Mohicans, of which fewer of us are left every year…”
And I do concur.