Retirees, let’s help our young people

I wish to salute him for the several initiatives he has put in place to ameliorate the standard of education as it obtains today. From day one he has hit the road running, and like Usain Bolt he has not stopped. His latest endeavour to deal with the inadequacies of mathematics and language arts, inclusive of creative writing, could not have been more providential and opportune.

I would like, however, to humbly suggest, in addition to the extensive teachers/principals/supervisors/ district teams workshops already conducted, several retirees who are willing to come aboard be invited to share their skills, knowledge and expertise with deficient students in their communities. Thus these young people could access additional help to bring them to an acceptable standard.

I had been offering free lessons in English language, creative writing and “broughtupsy” to several students from my community since 2009. I even wrote two books, Caribbean Sunshine For Mammie’s Children and Mammie’s Folklore Stories, using the children themselves as the protagonists in the stories to encourage them to enjoy reading, build their vocabulary, English and sentence structure and writing skills. Unfortunately, I had to stop because of cancer treatment for some time. Today some of these young people have progressed to university, and those from the primary schools are now at Hillview, Holy Cross and Northeastern Colleges, to name a few.

I marvel at the way in which these unmanageable teenagers were able to come to terms with the realisation that they are indeed important, and that there are indeed people who really care about them, and want to see them become good citizens, no matter what obstacles they may encounter.

A bit of “tough love” helped tremendously.

They were pleasantly surprised at their success in their exams, especially in English and creative writing. As such, I would like to exhort other retirees like myself to offer themselves in this nation-building venture for our young people, and posterity.

Eva David-Swain Sangre Grande