By Wandeka Gayle, Freelance Writer

Rosette Chisholm-Salazar - Wandeka Gayle

After high school, Rosette Chisholm-Salazar contemplated two professions, teaching and nursing. Little did she know that she would be doing the former for 13 years and loving it.

Salazar, 34, of Belgrade Heights, Kingston, has taught both at the secondary and tertiary level. She has taught language and literature at Dunrobin High School and several Kingston-based high schools including Hydel Junior High, The Queen's School and Ardene High. She has been teaching communication courses at the Northern Caribbean University in Mandeville, Manchester, since 2004.

Chisholm-Salazar earned a diploma in linguistics and literature and secondary education from Shortwood Teacher's College in 1993. Four years later, she upgraded the diploma to a bachelors degree in linguistics and received her masters in communication studies from the University of the West Indies (UWI).

In comparing the levels she has taught Salazar conceded that she preferred teaching at the tertiary level because of the obvious challenge of absorbing as much knowledge as possible to impart to her students.

"I love the wanting to know more, grappling with new ideas and doing research," she said.

But she admitted that she enjoyed the secondary level as well. "I liked making teaching aids and since I was just coming from teacher's college, I was eager to try out what I had learnt," she said.

She said that as a teacher moves from one level to the next, the course load becomes heavier and heavier, but, said she did not see this as a downside but rather a challenge.

Rewarding experiences

She said that despite this, teaching could be very rewarding. "I remember that one of my high school students called me after she graduated, broke down in tears and thanked me for everything," she said, "She was one of the problem students who believed I was picking on her because she thought I did not like her, but she said she was now in the world and was grateful for everything."

Chishom-Salazar wears many hats, one of which is as an official marker of the Caribbean Examinations Council's english language papers. "The procedure is that all the markers meet and discuss the marking of a sample script and then we individually mark a number of copies over a two week period, sometimes hundreds of scripts," she said.

Chishom-Salazar stated that while she enjoys her job, she hopes to become a communication consultant, to open a business to assist people in public speaking, to conduct research in communication and perception and to earn a post-graduate degree in educational administration.

Yet, teaching is but one facet of her life. She has to balance being a mom of two, Ramiro, two years old, and five-month-old Rodrigo, and a wife to musician and lecturer, Rafael Salazar, as well as singing in promotional tours with Father HoLung and Friends. "I don't think hard about it," she said chuckling, "I just segment my life. I just do it!"