Features

A rewarding career

By FRANCINE BLACK, Staff Reporter

Carmen Saint - Francine Black

CARMEN SAINT'S CAREER ambition was to be a nurse. She didn't become one but 'took up her second choice' to become a teacher.

She doesn't have any regrets however as she has found teaching to be quite rewarding.

"To see students come to you at the end of their tenure and achieving something is quite rewarding. Even if we were getting a salary of $100,000 per month it would not compensate," she said.

Her entry into the teaching profession started shortly after she left high school where she had done the third Jamaica local exams and then applied to Teachers' College.

She was accepted and in 1966 she started attending St. Joseph's Teachers College where she studied primary education with an emphasis on home economics, art and craft and music.

In her final year at St.Joseph's she did her internship at James Hill Primary school in Clarendon and in 1969 she graduated from the teaching institution with her diploma in education.

From 1969 -1970, she taught at the Anderson Town All Age also in Clarendon and in September 1971, she joined the staff of Muschett High in Wakefield Trelawny where she has been ever since.

Although she has been teaching for more than 30 years, she said becoming comfortable in the classroom took some time and effort as she was unsure of what to expect. "At first I was sceptical, nervous and kept to myself until I start to feel out the students and colleagues with whom I worked," she said.

She says she soon settled into the classroom and became a teacher that was available to the students for counselling. This responsibility she says still remains as one of the present day challenges that she faces in the classroom."Present day challenges are enormous because the anger out in the community comes into the school you have to do more than your job requires. You have to be mother, father, counsellor everything," she said.

Although she is a compassionate teacher she also values discipline which she seeks to emphasise among her students.

She also has a vision for the island's education system which includes having the minister of education teaching for a while. "I would like to see the government rather than being a mouthpiece would put action into education and I want to see the Minister of Education teach in a school for three months before taking up a post, preferably in a rural or troubled school," she said.

As for the rest of her teaching career, this native of St. James wants to spend it helping students in the rural parts of the island. "If I had ten more years I would like to stay right here because living with the community is wonderful," she said.