Fiat Lux

 is for Queen's College.

Can I really do my first A to Z challenge and talk about anything else at the letter Q? I am a QC old girl. QC. Queen's College.

Barbados like a few other Caribbean countries (most notably Jamaica, Guyana and Trinidad) has a school system tradition that mirrors the infamous British public school system. If you are American, or you are familiar with American culture, then think of the Ivy League colleges for a frame of reference. I am not going to trouble to explain that school tradition in this space. Feel free to google it or wikipedia it. In the history of learning, this system has some bright shining spots...and some rotten spots. 

In Barbados, there are about six (6) or eight (8) schools that we call "older secondary schools". Queen's College is one of these. It is formerly a girls school, now co-ed, and its official birth is cited as the year 1883. However, it can trace its origins back to a school that was started 300 years ago (that's for the folks from the "University" at Waterford...). 

The school motto is "Fiat Lux"- Let There Be Light. The lamp pictured in this post is one of the emblems on the school crest. The school song and hymn maintain the same theme. The school colours are royal blue accented by maroon and white. It may actually have been silver years ago (I have been planning to look into that). We have a long and strong tradition of academic and extra-curricular excellence that we maintain to this day. Kudos to the young people carrying that light in the here and now. We also have a habit of turning out firsts for women. Many of the first women to do many things that were traditionally the purview of males in Barbados are QCA alumni. Now, I could keep going and going and going. But these posts are meant to be short. Suffice to say that I am unabashedly a QC old girl and proud of our accomplishments.

I encourage everyone to appreciate the school(s) you attended, even if you can't rouse up a deep, abiding love. These are our formative years and what we learn in those years is largely responsible for our various successes, big or small, in adulthood. 

Once of these days this old school rivalry system will be over, perhaps to our betterment in Barbados. There are negative attitudes that result from the system in society, I'm afraid, mostly because adult people can't put things into a sensible perspective. But till then, and beyond, I will Carry the Light.