Features

Motivation, an essential ingredient to success

By ELGIN TAYLOR, Star Writer

Jeffrey Britton - contributed

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FROM AN EARLY age Jeffrey Britton had always loved sporting activities. However, this love did not blossom into a passion until he was a teenager in attendance at Tacky Secondary (now High) School, in Gale, St. Mary, in the 1980s. During his stay there he competed in track and field, cricket and other forms of sporting activities.

He related to THE STAR that while at this institution he was mentored and motivated by persons like Adolph Robb, and more so by his physical education teacher Dennis Mattar-Edwards. These persons were to have a profound effect on his decision to become a physical education teacher.

Propelled

They were the ones, he said, who prodded him to apply to G.C. Foster School of Physical Education to get the requisite training. He was successful in this bid, and he enrolled in that institution in 1990, graduating in 1994 with a teachers' diploma. His zeal for learning propelled him into the institution for the second time in September 2003. He spent one year during which he completed the bachelor's degree in physical education.

Mr. Britton, who at age 31, has spent 11 years in the teaching profession, has, for the past eight years been one of the physical education teachers at Linstead Primary and Junior High School in St. Catherine. His timetable assignment includes grades 7-9, but he said that in practice he coaches the entire school in various areas of sporting activities. He remarked that the Linstead area has a rich sporting tradition and he feels it is his duty to maintain that image.

Some of the competitions the school has been involved in over the past years include the Insport's St. Catherine Football League and the Western Union Under-12 Cricket competition. In track and field they have competed in the Annual Blue Cross/JTA Meet. In cricket, the St. Catherine Under-15 competition and the Windalco Under-12 competition, where they contested the finals. They have also taken part in the Insport Under-12 and Under-15 Netball competitions for the parish. Among the outstanding performances is their lien on the Western Union Under-12 Cricket Trophy for three consecutive years, from 1998-2000.

Essential ingredient

From the school have emerged some notable individual achievers. Among them are: Rasheed Outar, who represented Jamaica in an Under-15 Cricket competition in St. Vincent; Orlando Durma and Christopher Morrison National Under-17 representatives in cricket and Monique Reid, who was a national representative in track and field.

Mr. Britton views motivation as an essential ingredient in the success of students. He said that to do so, one has to come across as being true and sincere. He noted that it is important to listen to them, "to know their home backgrounds, their hopes and fears and even to know their nicknames." He describes himself as a disciplinarian and one who is result oriented. He also made the assertion that physical education can be used to motivate students to achieve in the academic subjects. He said, for instance, that when students are told to calculate the metres in a given number of standard athletic tracks, that is mathematics, and when they learn about their muscles and personal hygiene, that is science.

In a profession largely dominated by females, Mr. Britton is one male who is quietly making a positive impact.