By DAVID DUNKLEY,
Staff Reporter
Louise Barrett
LOUISE BARRETT from Coldingham, St Catherine believes young people ought to get into teaching as they will get the chance to mold a community or better yet an entire nation.
Mrs. Barrett retired from teaching last year after spending almost 40 years in the classroom.
"Yes I would encourage young persons to become teachers. It's a viable profession and you can reach children at every level," she said. "A teacher is centrally placed to teach morals."
Mrs. Barrett has six children, five of whom are teachers. Her late husband, Dodster, who died two years ago, worked for many years at the Public Works Department in Portland.
"At the time when I left school everybody had to be a teacher. Teaching was the hit," Mrs. Barrett said, explaining why she decided to become a teacher. "However I had told myself that if I didn't get into teaching, I'd do nursing."
Mrs. Barrett has some sweet memories of the many students she taught. These memories, she says, will remain with her. She recalled once she was leaving a school and her students wrote her a letter telling her how much they would miss her. She said another time she was leaving a school and an Indian girl cut off a lock of her hair and gave it to her as a memento.
"It chills me when I remember," Mrs. Barrett says in response to that memory.
"I still keep in touch with most of them."
On the matter of violence in schools, Mrs. Barrett said that in her day, violence was a rare occurrence. "Everything was sweet, there was no violence, none whatsoever," she said, admitting there were disagreements and arguments.
When asked about teachers striking she said she does not believe teachers should be involved in such actions. "It interferes with the child's way of viewing life," she said. "As a teacher even when the other professionals strike, we should stay put."
Mrs. Barrett began her trek to becoming a teacher after passing her Third Jamaica Local examinations. She had to wait a few years before going to teachers college as she was too young. During this time, she said, her mother bought her an organ and she learnt to play the piano.
She worked as a trainee teacher at Rose Hill for a year before going to the St. Joseph's Teachers College in Kingston. After her three years at the institution, she began teaching at Orangefield Primary.
After two years there she went to Constitution Hill All Age. She then went to Collington All Age in Trout Hall, Clarendon, where she was the Acting Principal and then to Blackstonedge All Age in St. Ann, then Hill All Age in St. Catherine, near to Coldingham where she now lives.
A year later she left that school to work at Trench Town Comprehensive High (formerly Secondary) and then to Rousseau Primary, both in Kingston. She then went to teach at other schools including Devon Pen and Clonmell All Age, St. Mary, St. Catherine Primary, Spanish Town, and Seaward All Age, Kingston, before returning to Rose Hill, where she stayed from the 70s until retirement.
