Retired Educator Says Faithful Teachers Can Influence Children for Good

Retired educator, Carmen Louise Samuels, believes that faithful classroom teachers in Jamaica are capable of influencing the country’s children for good.

Miss Samuels was among 80 educators who were awarded with the Prime Minister’s Medal of Appreciation for the 2021 and 2022 cohorts, at a ceremony held at Jamaica House on September 8.

“Teachers can make the difference that Jamaica needs now,” says Miss Samuels, adding that she is the product of the care and interest invested in her by her teachers at different stages of her journey.

“In primary school, Mrs. Sylvia Plowright, her sister Mrs. Barnell Jackson and Mrs. Enid Gallant at Lethe All-Age and Friendship schools never gave up on me. They challenged me, made me believe that I could achieve my goals and inadvertently influenced my journey into the classroom,” she tells JIS News.

In fact, young Carmen harboured dreams of careers in nursing and accounting, but her best efforts always landed her on the doorsteps of a teacher-training institution.

“There were times when I thought that my dream of becoming a teacher would not materialise. I applied to Sam Sharpe Teachers’ College but got no response, and so I migrated to Kingston and was accepted into St. Joseph’s Teachers’ College. Fortunes changed and I could not muster the finances to take up their offer,” Miss Samuels says.

“So, I headed back to Montego Bay and convinced Sam Sharpe Teachers’ College to accept me. Half-way through my studies there, I found myself in another financial roadblock,” she adds.

It was the kindness of then lecturer, Mrs. Lorna Stephenson, that hurdled her over that blockade on to her graduation in 1987.

Miss Samuels started her career through a “baptism of fire, at [then] Mount Salem All-Age School,” yet she launched her career with high hopes of making an impact on her charges in the junior department of the school.

Being the third of 12 children, she was confident that she was prepared for the task ahead. She later found that she had no clue of the stark contrast between life in her slow-paced rural communities of Lethe and Friendship and the tough turf of Mount Salem.

“I felt like I was thrown in the deep end teaching the remedial streams,” she recolle’cts.

This was to become the hallmark of her 30-year career as she notes that except for a short time spent at Bethel All-Age School in Hanover, she was always assigned to teach students who were deemed ‘slow learners’, and others with behavioural problems.

“Not much was expected of [the students in the remedial class], but we proved [the administration] wrong. Time and time again, we had to fight to get my students promoted to higher grades, in higher streams,” Miss Samuels says.

The retired educator tells JIS News that she discovered that the children were attending classes with empty stomachs.

“My years in the classroom were marked with sharing my lunch with as many as I could, then that arrangement upgraded to me giving all of my lunch to my students,” she adds.

However, even in the midst of her frustrations, Miss Samuels found solace in the fact that there were students who were striving against all odds.

She notes that failing health forced her to take early retirement in 2016, after “29 years, 10 months and 29 days” in the classroom.

“I miss the classroom and my children. I am overjoyed when I happen to see them on the streets or at an event. They are the high point of my career and life,” Miss Samuels tells JIS News.

Deeply saddened by the violence being carried out by some students in schools, she believes that “there are teachers in the school system who can inspire our youth and help them to ‘change their minds’.”

She is encouraging teachers not to quit. “We all can’t leave our stations; someone has to stay and build,” Miss Samuels says.