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| Young Teacher, Jeva Greenidge, from Charles F. Broome?? Primary School, receives a Certificate of Participation, today, from Minister of Education and Human Resource Development, Ronald Jones??at the closing ceremony of the three-day workshop on Creative Writing. (A.Miller/BGIS)?? |
"Teach with more enthusiasm!"
This was the underlying message sent today by Minister of Education and Human Resource Development, Ronald Jones, as he presented certificates to teachers who participated in a three-day workshop on Creative Writing conducted by the Media Resource Department, at the Elsie Payne Complex, Constitution Road, St. Michael.
Commending the 28 teachers for their full participation, Minister Jones stated: "Too many persons teach without enthusiasm and children are able to quickly discern if you are enthusiastic about what you are teaching. If you walk into the classroom and you are doing some creative piece in your Language Arts or whatever, and they (students) can feel everything dripping out of you and not pouring into you to pour into them, they are going to be turned off.?? As human beings we are more than flesh; we carry emotions, a spirit… we are beings… wrapped up in very diverse ways and as beings we feel each other."
Teachers were therefore urged to "dig deep into their being and souls" and share with children. "Children are not an object before you," said Mr. Jones, stressing that they were different in their own way, with some likely to be "even better creative thinkers" than their teachers.
The Education Minister also lauded the facilitators of the workshop – Phelan Lowe; Celeste St. Hill and Barbara Sandiford – and noted that creative writing was not necessarily handled easily by many persons. "They do not themselves realise the depth of their own individual creativity and sometimes it has to be drawn out, tugged out… persuaded out of those persons – then to realise that in fact buried deep inside your souls is a whole level of creativity but particularly a creativity that lends itself to expression in either the spoken or written word," he explained, adding that this was what they as facilitators were able to achieve.
Mr. Jones reminded teachers that they now had to "transfer the knowledge of creative writers to be creative teachers because it is the students before you who must benefit from what you have been taught", noting that the application of this knowledge was important to ensuring students became enthused.
The Education Minister also pointed out that classroom spaces had to change to encourage young students to draw out their potential and knowledge base as well as to expose their own skills and competencies. As the work of participants was shared at the close of the workshop, Mr. Jones said it was necessary to share the experience within schools.
"What must be at the heart of what we do is the ability to share our own knowledge, our best practices with our colleagues, for us to become mentors to those who are not so endowed and to lift the overall standards of each other because by lifting the standards up we are better able to be good teachers, good educators and pedagogues and to impact on the children that we teach," Mr. Jones maintained.??
Meanwhile, young teacher, Jeva Greenidge from Charles F. Broome, declaring her enthusiasm for the course, said it was beneficial and enlightening, and gave the primary school group "an insight on the various creative methodologies which can be utilised in the classroom and beyond.
"I recommend this creative writing workshop for both new and experienced teachers because in comparison to other professions, lifelong learning is a necessity for individual, professional and societal development," she said.