I arrived at the high school with trepidation. What did I know about teaching, especially on a tiny Island in the Caribbean?? I had no teaching experience, just a brand – new BA in English and History from a Canadian University. I was welcomed with open arms as the school was woefully short of teachers; as a matter of fact, not one teacher had been to a Teachers’ College! There were two volunteer teachers from the United States, six from England, two from Canada ( my sister and her husband ) and just a few local teachers.
St. Vincent and the Grenadines was still an English Colony back then, and the classes were referred to as “forms”. I was assigned form 4B, and it was made clear from the start that these students would most likely not pass any “O” level exams. I didn’t understand what this meant except that form 4A would be studying in a different manner. Most of the students in my home-form were “repeaters”, and therefore older than I had anticipated. Evidently as long as the parents could pay the school fees ( $40.00 EC per term = $45.00 U.S. per year ) they were allowed to attend the school.
My class was crowded, 30 plus students squeezed into a small, windowless room. Having been on the Island for just a couple of days all the faces were strange, and I had a hard time understanding what the students were saying. I decided to use a floor plan with assigned seating, an idea that for some reason caused great glee! No-one in that class went by their given names, and my use of the baptismal names produced loud laughter each time one was uttered. David’s island name was “Chicky”, Alphonsus was really “Shoes”; I realized with a sinking heart that I would have to know both names as well as the family name and that it wasn’t going to be easy. It would also be helpful if I could understand what on earth they were saying! The island dialect was a whole different language to me, a dilemma that seemed to amuse my students enormously.
I was expected to teach English from a rather confusing booklet, and Caribbean Geography with no textbook at all! On that first day, I passed out paper and asked the students to write a short paragraph on what they would like to do when they finished school. This produced a round of hysterical laughter (they laughed at me a lot in those early days) before they put pencil to paper and started to write. I took those papers home and was shocked by what I read. The students (most between the ages of 15 – 17) had no concept of grammar, sentence structure or punctuation, and the spelling was terrible. However, each student except one aspired to a career that would require many years of University whether they knew how to spell the chosen career or not! The lone student with humble ambitions spelled his name correctly and had written two words, “A Fisherman.” That student, who was the only one in the class to be given an “A” for his paper, became the Captain of one of our Island ferries.
