Richard Casimir: TIMOUN or LITTLE WORLD • Cleaver Magazine

Richard Casimir
TIMOUN, or, LITTLE WORLD

There is an image etched in my childhood memory from Haiti, which I find hard to erase. I admit I never try to block it out because it looks like a natural backdrop in my field of vision. It is indeed a troubling view but one from which I cannot escape. Therefore, I grow accustomed to it, absorbing it, despite myself, into my world of thoughts, dreams, and aspirations.

My vision of the image has altered over time, dimming some details, such as the age of the little boy it features, sitting on a school bench, sobbing inconsolably, under the menacing eyes of an exasperated teacher waving a leather whip. I do not recall the circumstances which prompted his punishment. But I remember the mournful tune of his lament, hovering over the dissonant sound of a merciless whip searing into his flesh. Finally, when his agony subsided, this desolate soul stretched out his little arms to feel his battered posterior. His short blue pants adorning a pair of skinny legs were soaked in blood, sticking to his skin. For days, he refused to take the pants off, dreading the discomfort of peeling his skin. Soon after, his wound got infected and did not heal for many weeks. Following his recovery, he suffered several epileptic seizures due to the constant stress he faced at school. One day, he recalled experiencing a seizure attack at the exact moment the teacher was about to hit him. He tried asking for help in vain, managing only to mouth the words without any sound.

Most victims of violence, namely children, suffer from three different kinds of pain: physical and emotional pain, and a feeling of guilt originating from their inability to rationalize their ordeal. They believe there is something wrong with them, which elicits deservedly the punishment they receive. I am the little boy represented in that image, and I have suffered from the same kinds of pain. My parents later told me that the school would have terminated the teacher who had so cruelly punished me had they not intervened on his behalf. They conceded they were indeed distraught by the ordeal, but they did not want me to lose the opportunity to get an education, provided at the time only to a select few in the country.

For many years, the trauma of my childhood experience haunted me, not only in my dreams but also in my daily life. It altered my attitude towards people, towards love and friendship, leading me to reevaluate the purpose of knowledge. Hence, I predicated every enterprise in my life upon the operant conditioning of reward and punishment. Thus, I was afraid to fall in love, to go to college, and to start a family, dreading a chastisement that no longer existed. I did not know what fueled my fear to explore life and uncover its hidden promises until a peculiar incident happened in my final year of undergraduate studies.

Following an acoustics final exam, which I thought I had not done well, I went into the course teacher’s office to inquire about the results. Seated behind a small desk with his hand solemnly folded, the latter directed a severe look at me standing at the door before inviting me to come in. I burst out in tears, asking for his forgiveness, convinced I had miserably failed the exam. It was an impulsive reaction, prompted by the fear of reprimand I had come to expect for “missing the mark.” I was relieved to find out later that I had passed the exam. But most importantly, I discovered from that experience that my motivation for learning was sadly the fear of punishment.

I often wonder why we are so hung up about maintaining order, discipline, and the fear of authority in our schools. It is evident we have structured our educational system with a military approach, assembling students in a geometric enclave, requiring them to wear the same uniform, and teaching them antiquated knowledge to maintain order and continuity. If any of the students fail to conform to these conditions, they get severely punished.

The framers of early childhood education such as Pestalozzi, Friedrich Froebel, and Maria Montessori understood the fragility, the uniqueness, and the limitless potential of children. For that reason, they laid the foundations for an education that primed above all their humanity and their individualities.

In my native tongue, we use a poetic term to describe children. We call them “timoun,” which means: “little world.” That is because we believe that children hide within themselves an intimate world of thoughts, longings, and ambitions associated with the realities of their life. However, the endless potential for growth they possess is affected when they experience traumatic situations that are too complex for them to rationalize. When that happens, their memory often compresses that experience in a snapshot image. My snapshot image is that of the little boy sobbing on a school bench. To escape the anguish that vision provoked in me, I took refuge in teaching music. In that capacity, I try to repair the wrongs that I endured as a child. I see the face of that little boy in my students, who I try to provide with the love, attention, and understanding he did not receive. Even in the most stressful situation, I try hard not to injure their pride, crushing their motivation for learning. I repeat to myself, like a litany: they are just “timoun,” planted seeds entrusted to me for their cultivation and personal growth.

I learned two decades ago with relief that corporal punishment was no longer allowed in Haitian schools. Coincidentally, as if by magic, my nightmares and daytime visions suddenly stopped. Thus, the mournful lament of the little boy has turned into an aubade, which today inspires the adult he has become.

A native of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Richard Casimir graduated from Temple University in Philadelphia with both Masters and Professional Studies degrees in Violin. He worked as a violin instructor at the Preparatory Division at Temple University and as a String teacher in the Philadelphia Public Schools before moving to Spain in 2006. Until that time, Richard focused his attention mainly on teaching music and performing. But the recent social and political upheavals taking place in his native country have awakened in him an irresistible urge to write. Recently, his essays on arts and culture in education have been published both in his home country and in the United States. He believes that opening a debate about the usefulness and the adaptability of these topics to the challenges of our times can help foster tangible social changes.