Frederick Haughton Awarded For Outstanding Service To Education

Growing up, Frederick Haughton had dreams of joining the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) to become a soldier, but after working as a teaching assistant on leaving high school, he fell madly in love with the profession and decided to stick with it.

The 65-year-old son of Wales Pond, St. James, who went on to serve in the public education system for approximately four decades, has no regrets about his decision to enter the classroom and helping to shape generations of learners.

For his service to education, Mr. Haughton was on Friday (August 6) presented with the Spirit of Independence Award during the St. James Municipal Corporation’s Independence Day Flag Raising and Civic Ceremony, held at the Montego Bay Cultural Centre.

In an interview with JIS News after the ceremony, Mr. Haughton said he was grateful for the recognition, noting that it shows that “someone appreciated the fact that we (teachers) do a lot of work for the community”.

Outlining his journey in the education field, the former Cornwall College student said his first sojourn was at Anchovy Secondary (now high school) in 1974. He served there for an initial two years as a National Youth Service (NYS) worker and another two as a pretrained teacher.

In 1978, he attended the Jamaica School of Agriculture (now the College of Agriculture, Science and Education) where he studied agricultural science and in 1981, he was hired to teach chemistry at Herbert Morrison Comprehensive (now Technical High School) where he remained until retirement.

Mr. Haughton told JIS News that initially, he was offered a job at another school, but it was a fateful visit with his mentor and then principal at Herbert Morrison, Lloyd Whinstanley, who taught him chemistry while he attended Cornwall College, that influenced his decision to return to his alma mater.

The chemistry teacher, who spent some 35 years at Herbert Morrison, was elevated to the position of vice principal in 2008, and served in that capacity until his retirement in 2016.

His reputation of being a strict disciplinarian was legendary at Herbert Morrison, as he not only maintained order in the classroom, but he could be seen policing the compound during class time, to ensure that students were not skipping lessons.

Tall in stature, Mr. Hughton was a constant presence in the lunchroom, ensuring that students were orderly while having their meals. He also made sure that pupils were appropriately attired at school.

Mr. Haughton told JIS News that he did not mind having a reputation for being strict, as sometimes “somebody needs to maintain order and if I was the person to do it, then so be it”.

“I found [that] at the end of the day, it is the students who you were strict with, who come back and say, ‘Sir, thank you, if you had left me alone, I wouldn’t be where I am now’,” he said.

Mr. Haughton, who has a bachelor’s degree in education from Western Carolina University in the United States, believes that teaching is about more than having qualifications.

“You cannot teach…. competence over qualifications, because some people are qualified, but not competent, and some people are very competent but not as qualified,” he pointed out.

He opined that teaching is not an easy profession. However, he enjoyed the challenge, noting that “school would never be a place of interest if everybody was as quiet as a lamb”.

“The world is made up of a mix of people and it is [the] ability to really reach some that makes the big difference. Some you see going by the wayside, if you can bring them in, hold them, get them back on track, [then] all the better,” Mr. Haughton said.

During his tenure at Herbert Morrison, Mr. Haughton also served as a physical education teacher, as well as a cricket and track and field coach.

He noted that his favourite thing about teaching is “seeing (students) excel, seeing them in positions of responsibility”.

Today, the father of three girls is focused on his duties as a Justice of the Peace (JP) in St. James and remains an active cricket umpire and domino player.

Mr. Haughton also supports students whom he has taken under his wings as a mentor.