'Teaching is a good job': Highly qualified young woman chooses teaching over corporate job

WITH two Master's degrees and a string of other qualifications, Roxanne Malcolm-Brown could fill any number of high-paying positions in Corporate Jamaica, but the svelte 32-year-old is satisfied with teaching reading at a little known, poorly rated primary and junior high school in a Kingston inner-city."I have two masters degrees with distinction. I'm not being paid for that, but it doesn't matter," she tells Career & Education."I'm not one of those persons looking through the papers to jump at (corporate) jobs because this is very rewarding, very rewarding, and I enjoy doing my post tests in July and seeing the results. I am so elated."By 'this' she means her job as a literacy specialist who manages the enrichment and resource room at Melrose Primary and Junior High.The room is one of 27 across the island which were designed, outfitted with furniture and equipment, and financed by Digicel Jamaica to address the literacy and numeracy deficiencies among students so they can be taught at the level of the grade they're in. While Digicel did the initial training, the Ministry of Education organises annual sessions and monitors the programme. The telecomms firm also has 31 mobile enrichment carts in operation.At Melrose, the enrichment room, painted sky blue and adorned with charts, posters and samples of the students work, has had a 90 per cent success rate of moving the reading level up by one grade or more in an academic year. In terms of numeracy, it has an 85 per cent rate in increasing students' scores by five per cent or more in a term."We find that the reading levels have improved greatly," Malcolm-Brown says, referencing coloured charts that detail the differences between individual student's abilities at the start of the programme and their progress by the end of a given school year."Where the levels have not moved, where you won't see movement from say a grade one to grade three, within the grade one level where a child came in reading only five words from the grade one list, before the end of the term we have them reading practically all the words on the word list," she says, adding: "We always see improvement. A child has never regressed".But the success isn't only to be measured in terms of reading levels. Malcolm-Brown and her team, which includes another literacy specialist, Gloria Brown, and volunteers from the National Youth Service, also assess the children's behaviour and their approach to learning."We've had instances where children come very introverted, not interested in learning at all. They come into the room with a sense of intimidation because they are coming from a classroom where 'I am the one to the back'. They come with a lot of apprehension as well because now they have to be with children from other classes."But I find that after realising that this room is specifically focused on how you learn, your interests, your learning needs, we find now that their whole learning approach has changed so they are now coming to the room with more alacrity, more interest, more excitement, more enthusiasm," she says, pointing to the group already in the room."For example, it's now lunch time and many of them don't want to go to lunch. If they are leaving, they ask if they can come back. For many of them the room is like a haven, not just for the ones who are not functioning at grade level, but to those who are above grade level," Malcolm-Brown says.That holistic success is what drives her."When I have students coming in and they are so happy to learn, it brightens your day. You cannot then feel like what you're doing is not worth it, or that it lessens your worth," she says.The St Andrew High School alumna earned both her master's — one in English Language and the other in Tourism Management — at the University of the West Indies (UWI). Her bachelor's was also from UWI, while her teaching diploma was from The Mico Teachers' College. She also has a diploma in human resource management and certificates in data operations and information technology. She has been at Melrose, where she heads the Technology and Communications Department and does the school's public relations and social media updates, all her professional life — 11 years to date. Malcolm-Brown also coaches the debating team and is a member of the fundraising committee. Outside of Melrose, she lectures part time at the International University of the Caribbean's Mel Nathan College and volunteers in her community's homework programme.Once they get wind of her academic achievement, Malcolm-Brown says people immediately question her career choice: 'You're so qualified, why are you teaching?' or 'an yuh ah teach reading and literacy?'Her response: "Teaching is a good job... It is not a profession that you should undermine or something that you should feel that you're too good to be in life. It's an honest living, so do your best at it."I'm not the teacher type. I don't look the teacher type. I don't act the teacher type. (People) assume that because you're a teacher you're not supposed to look good, you're not supposed to speak well and I think that may have been one of the reasons as well that I decided to say here and do the best that I can here," she tells Career & Education.As she reasons it, her salary should not determine her quality of work, and that is especially important because she works with students who are at a disadvantage."I think that some teachers do that. They say 'this is the salary that I'm getting so this is the limit to which I'm going to work'. If it is that the income is not affording you the lifestyle that you want, there are other things that you can do in addition to that," she says.Malcolm-Brown, 32, says she became a teacher because she "always likes to lead and instruct"."I enjoy teaching. It's something that I always like doing in high school. I always enjoyed helping out my classmates, going on the board, and I had very, very good teachers at Andrews. So that was where the love for teaching was cultivated... Teaching is in my blood.That love is evident in her interaction with students in the enrichment room, which has helped 308 students since it opened in May 2009. When Career & Education visited two Fridays ago she was guiding a group of five students through a farm-based activity on the interactive white board. Even after the session ended, they lingered, some playing mathematical games on the computer, others doing word puzzles. All the activities, Malcolm-Brown explains, are tailored to meet the specific learning needs of each child."We have them do things that they like, and they are learning. With programmes like these they learn, They have to learn," she says."I'm not in here doing reading just for the sake of doing reading," she adds, explaining that her team uses phonics and letter blending to teach the students to read, not word drills or rote learning.So remarkable is the success that in some cases, once the child improves, parents transfer them from Melrose, which is known in some circles as "the reading school"."The students that are sent from the GSAT results are on the lower level of the scale," Malcolm-Brown says, "and once their reading levels have improved, their parents remove them.""I've had cases where five of my students last year... I was bringing them from grade three, brought them up to grade four and had them reading up to the grade six level, but they're not here for grade five. They have been removed and are attending other schools," the teacher reveals."Of course, it means the teachers are doing something, but it doesn't mean that you're to remove your child once that child has reached the level that you deem is acceptable for other schools," she continues.In spite of its successes however, Malcolm-Brown says the programme is affected by poor attendance rates and a lack of parental involvement."Sometimes even when a child comes, there is no follow-up done by the parents and one of the things that is essential for the success of the programme, or any learning programme, the parent has to be involved. That is one of the things that is missing here from the majority of our parents. We have absentee parents and we have parents who are present, but (who) are limited as well in their learning. They would like to help, but they don't know how to help. Some of the things the students go home with, they are clueless," she bemoans.To that end, she says the school operates an outreach programme for parents."I hope parents will work harder and become more involved in what is happening at school because it is very hard. It is very hard to bring a child in from grade four and that child can't read two words and we're expected that within two years to have them ready for GSAT. We try our best within that limited time, but at the same time, parents need to be more involved and the society needs to hold parents legally accountable.Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/magazines/career/-Teaching-is-a-good-job-...