Asked for comment at a recent educational conference on dropout prevention, Glen "Kwabena" Davis sang his answers in calypso, strumming his guitar. As the Virgin Islands’ perennial culture bearer, singer of songs, storyteller extraordinaire, dancer, historian, community cultural activist, how could he have done otherwise?
In lilting calypso, Davis explained to the educators at the Regional Educational Laboratory North East and Islands conference earlier this year, how he sees it.
The question he was asked was: How do we know who is considering dropping out? How do we ID them before they do?
He sang this answer.
"Teachers, parents open your eyes not your mouth
And see who might be a potential dropout
Your student or child, disruptive, like to dis’
Showing you the signs of dropout risk.
Be alert from now, long before intervention
Learn ’bout dropout prevention
The signs of dropout prevention
Habitual absent, low grade achievement and grade retention
Learn ’bout dropout prevention."
Storytelling comes naturally to Davis. He sees the stories in daily life, and he has an abiding love for the Anansi Caribbean lore.
"When I was 10 years old in Polyberg, a guy called Pepe Charlie would tell us the Bru Nansi stories, the pure mischief. Then, I would get to practice on kids younger than me, the little boys of Polyberg corner."
Davis’ own story reveals a life of concern for local traditions, of preserving Virgin Islands culture, passing on the stories to youngsters.
"I teach them to teach others, to tell of the evolution of the stories, to pass them on."
That is just one aspect of Davis’ many-faceted career, which has always had youth as its focus. He is now director of cultural education for the U.S.V.I. Department of Education.
After graduating from the College of the Virgin Islands (now UVI) in 1974 with a bachelor’s degree in social studies, Davis began his career as director of the government’s Youth Development program. He continued with youth-focused work, including 10 years with the Law Enforcement Planning Commission as a juvenile justice specialist, and, after a 25-year hiatus from education, wound up teaching history and cultural heritage at Inanna Adhere Kean High School for 10 years.
In fact, coming full circle, Davis now occupies an office in his the former J. Antonio Jarvis Elementary School Annex in his old Polyberg neighborhood.
The small room is filled with art, artifacts, costumes, V.I. history books, a laminated photograph of Alton Adams’ first Navy Band from the 1920’s, another of the District Court building, circa 1930.
A tall, lanky 60-year old, with a youthful enthusiasm and grace of movement, Davis talks about his material treasures. Atop a cabinet sits an array of Carnival feathers and masks.
"These are left over from Carnival parade," he says. "I used them in a summer project with Glen Elskoe at the tramway with high school students. We taught them the quadrille and to perform a mini-carnival parade for the tourists, and it gave them a summer job."
Davis says his academic career was greatly influenced by professor Lesmore Emanuel, who had recently returned from Howard University,
"He involved me in a cultural renaissance," Davis says, "a black studies program teaching a variety of disciplines, law, social studies. It was an exciting time, an age of enlightenment, black power, the free beach movement."
Meantime, Davis came into his own as founder and director of the choral group Voices of Love, and, among other things, an accidental calpysonian, earning the Carnival Calypso King for three years running in the mid 1970’s.
"I’d never really though about it, when a friend asked me to enter the contest."
It was a natural for Davis, who crowned himself Kwabena, a Gold Coast king, a name he carries to this day.
The second youngest of 10 children, Davis lauds his mother, Caroline Agatha Davis, who raised the brood on her own, and whose musical genes he inherited.
"She loved to sing," Davis says, explaining that before she started her family in the 1920’s she formed a musical group with some friends.
“She was my inspiration for starting the Voices of Love,” Davis said. “It was always her lament: ‘If only there were caroling today.’"
Davis launched the choral group. which is now an island institution, in 1978. The carolers, in long sleeved sweatshirts, big smiles, heads held high, march in step led by Davis with his guitar, to almost any musical occasion. They are a fixture at the Frenchtown Christmas tree lighting and an essential ingredient at the Challenge of the Carols Christmas morning at Emancipation Garden
Carefully removing his ever-present guitar from its case, before playing a few notes, Davis says the carolers gave it to him.
"It’s a Don Pablo, a beautiful instrument," he says. "And if it weren’t for my friend Euken Frederics, I wouldn’t be here playing today. When I was just 14, he taught me chords, taught me how to compose."
Using that talent, Davis talks about the fungi bands his department has started in two schools.
"It’s the old fashioned scratch band music," he says. "Just to see the excitement of the students wanting to introduce the history of the song before they play. When I look at some of the attitudes, I see changed behavior. It’s so fulfilling."
Davis and his wife, Wilma Aline, have two daughters, Detra Akyewa, 27, who inherited the musical gene with a beautiful voice, and Shandis Brenya, 19, a nursing student at UVI.
