Features

Changing lives through teaching

Chadwin Reynolds - francine black

CHADWIN REYNOLDS IS a young man seeking to change the lives of other young people through teaching.

Reynolds said he was interested in improving the country by contributing to its growth and development, and he felt education was the avenue that he could use to do so.

He has been teaching A' level History and Sociology at the Wolmer's Girls' school for the past five years, but he said his interest in teaching started long before this job. He said it was this interest that made his first time in the classroom a pleasant one.

"I was not nervous because I was not new to it (teaching). When I was in school, I used to teach the class when the teacher was absent and was also a tutor while I was in university," he said.

Reynolds said it was this exposure to teaching while still in school that finally led him down that path.

In 1998, Reynolds graduated from the University of the West Indies (UWI) with a Bachelor's degree in History and Economics. He then went to the University of Technology (Utech) where he pursued a post graduate diploma in education, graduating in 2004.

Reynolds says he still wants to go further and pursue a Master's degree and then lecture at a university.

He told THE STAR that although he has been a teacher for a few years, and although he is still quite young, this has served as an advantage.

"The students are very receptive and really enjoy my method of teaching, which is trying to make the students comfortable so they will focus," he said.

He adds that he also understands his pupils' culture and can better relate to them.

He says he finds teaching very rewarding, but it is not for persons seeking financial gain "It's rewarding, not in financial terms or in terms of the respect that you will gain, but in terms of the gratification you get from students who will come back and say 'Sir you touch my life in this way or that way'," he said.