Features

Aiming for the highest heights

Althea Bedward - Contributed

LIKE SO MANY other teachers, Althea Bedward joined the profession because she loves children.

In a recent interview with THE STAR, Bedward, now principal at the Old Harbour Preparatory School in St. Catherine, explained her affection for the young ones. "I just love children," she said. "I love being around them, I love spending my time with them. I love helping them."

Old Harbour Preparatory has 70 students on roll and four teachers on staff. Bedward, has been teaching there for the past two years and has held the top job for the past year. Prior to joining Old Harbour, she taught at the Marley Hill Primary School, also in St. Catherine.

Overall management

As principal Bedward says she sees to the overall management of the school. "I take care of the financial running of the school. I see to it that teachers do what they are supposed to do and that things run smoothly," she said.

She conceded that the job is challenging on many levels. "It is stressful," she said. "at times, but I try to cope. I don't let it get the best of me."

However, the challenging task of being principal has not dulled her passion for teaching. She still teaches reading and has developed some special insights about the subject. "Most children don't like to read. They prefer the other activities like drawing, and their dislike for reading comes from them feeling that it is too confining and they have to pay too much attention to what they are doing. Take for example, spelling. They have to focus because if a child is spelling and misses a letter, then the word is wrong," Bedward explains.

She subscribes to a school of thought that says children can love reading if they are made to become a part of it. "Use more pictures and help them to develop their own story. Say you show a child a picture and you have them tell you the first thing that comes to their minds and you let them create their own story. They would love that because it is more active. They are a part of that," she said.

The St. Jago High graduate remembers very well her own school days. "It was challenging and sometimes very rough, but it was good. The experience was really good."

Major challenge

A major challenge for Bedward was getting to school on time every day. "I lived in Boies Content, which was outside Old Harbour. (St. Jago is on Monk Street in Spanish Town) You would have to get up early and then when you got a vehicle to go into Spanish Town, at times there were 15 of us in the vehicle."

Not a laughing matter then, she now looks back on those days fondly.

But what of her future? This, she says, will be in teaching. "I want to reach the highest, highest, highest heights so that I can help children," she said.