Retired Educator Honoured with Prime Minister’s Medal for 39 Years of Sterling Service

A teacher’s role in positively shaping and developing a knowledgeable society is not an easy undertaking.

But retired educator, Radcliffe Knox Gordon, was more than up to the challenge, given his 39 years of sterling service to the esteemed profession.

The 66-year-old former Principal of Keith Primary and Infant School in the district of Keith, St. Ann, where he also resides, was among the recent recipients of the distinguished Prime Minister’s Medal of Appreciation in recognition of his decades of outstanding dedication to education.

The ceremony was held at Jamaica House on September 8, where a cohort of longstanding educators and school leaders were honoured.

“I was really excited, really happy [and] I think it was more than deserved, because I’ve worked. I just want to say thanks to Jamaica and the Prime Minister’s Office for recognising me,” Mr. Gordon says.

The husband and father of two sons tells JIS News that he began his career in education at age 21 as a pretrained teacher at Keith All-Age School, which is also his alma mater.

Although initially reluctant to become a full-fledged educator, at the behest and inspiration of his superiors, Mr. Gordon stayed at Keith All Age for the next two years, before enrolling at Moneague College in St. Ann in 1979 to pursue formal teacher training.

There, he studied for two years before following up with an internship at Runaway Bay All Age School in St. Ann.

“I then taught at Ocho Rios Primary School for eight years, from 1982 to 1990. I then moved on to Stewart Town All Age in Trelawny from 1990 to 1993, teaching grade six. At Ocho Rios, I did part of the time in grade four and for the rest of the time, I did physical education for the entire school,” Mr. Gordon informs.

“From Stewart Town All-Age, I moved on to Eccleston All-Age in Aboukir, where I picked up my first Principal position. I taught at Eccleston from 1993 to 2006, and then I picked up another Principal position at Keith All-Age, where I did my final nine years in the system… ending in 2016,” he adds.

Mr. Gordon’s rise to the position of Principal not only came through his teaching experience, but also his academic achievement.

After graduating Moneague College, he then studied physical education at G.C. Foster College in St. Catherine, where he obtained a diploma.

Thereafter, Mr. Gordon enrolled at the University of the West Indies where he attained his Bachelor of Education before travelling to Halifax in Nova Scotia, Canada, for a 10-week school leadership diploma.

His accomplishments in improving the lives of students and staff at the institutions he served were also widespread and merited for Mr. Gordon, who is a devoted deacon and lay preacher at the Keith Baptist Church.

“At Eccleston All-Age, I renovated a cottage that was out of use for years and made it habitable once more. I fenced the entire school compound as well as refurbished a canteen and equipped it so that the children could get lunch. I rebuilt the sanitary facilities that they had at the time, put up a building from scratch for a library and computer lab,” Mr. Gordon outlines.

“At Keith Primary and Infant School, I saw a building that was intended to be a multipurpose building, started. It was in foundation when I went there and when I left, we had completed the bottom floor, part of the top floor was roofed and we had started using the building as a library. The sanitary facility that was there when I went was the one that was there when I was [enrolled] at the school. So, I got a brand new flush toilet system while I was there,” he adds.

The humanitarian also refurbished the school’s canteen with new equipment to facilitate a lunch programme.

Additionally, Mr. Gordon oversaw the partitioning of classrooms at the school, which once had an open building concept for learning.

Through assistance under a Jamaica 4-H Clubs special project, he helped to establish` a major poultry unit to rear chickens for the canteen and even sold some to the wider community.

“We need to give all the support we can to our education system, because I firmly believe that education is the only way out of where we have found ourselves now. I’d want to challenge our young men especially, because what we notice is that the young ladies seem to be making it, but our young men seem to be satisfied where they are at,” Mr. Gordon points out.

“Where I came from, my social background was not the best… my parents were among the poorest. But I am here today because of education,” he adds.

The veteran educator urges young men to take a page from his book and endeavour to become positive examples for others to emulate.

Mr. Gordon contends that the education system is now different compared to previous years when he says students were disciplined, teachers were more responsible, and parents were more cooperative.

He, however, believes schools are currently more equipped to provide a healthy and inclusive learning environment for students.

“Today, I am proud that I’ve been a teacher and, truth be told, if I [were able to] be young again, despite what is happening now, I would go back in the classroom,” Mr. Gordon declares.