IN their fight for increased salaries, teachers, throughout last week’s protest in Linden, stressed that one of the main reasons they deserve increased remuneration is that they have to go into their pockets to transform their classrooms into child-friendly and conducive environments.

Many teachers face hefty bills to purchase stationery needed to create visual aids, learning corners, mobiles, banners and other works of art in their classrooms.
This is a yearly, sometimes termly exercise for teachers, especially at the nursery and lower levels of primary school, since the smaller the pupils, the more colourful and child-friendly their classrooms need to be.

The teachers noted that what is provided by the Ministry of Education to aid child-friendly classrooms is very limited. One Linden teacher, who goes above and beyond to make her classroom a colourful display of learning, is Jenaicia Halley- Holder, of the Watooka Day Primary School.

Halley has been teaching Grades One and Two. She noted that for this new academic year, her classroom preparation costs her over $100, 000, all from her pockets.
Holder, who has participated in protest action for increased remuneration, believes that teachers, like herself, who go beyond what is required of them to make learning fun and easy for their students, should be significantly compensated for their dedicated service.
Holder went as far as painting the furniture in her classroom and even constructing a partition wall for her classroom, all in transforming what she described as a dull atmosphere to one that brings life, brings a renewed feeling of zest for teaching and learning.

“The building was very dull and so I had to first cover the entire wall with bond paper, before placing the visual aids on it; most of the aids I had to make myself, while some were ready-made and I also placed learning mobiles in the classroom,” she related.
When asked why she goes the extra mile to make her classroom full of colours, numbers and words, she said, “When the children come in the classroom, the atmosphere must automatically put them in the mood to learn and most importantly, it helps with the actual execution of the lessons. It now becomes sight words, numbers and lessons, because they are seeing it every day and it is embedded into their memories.”

Describing the process of making the aids, she noted that she started in July, sourcing all the materialsl and stationery and then spending long hours during the day and nights preparing them, giving each manually created one her personal touch. Some years, she normally uses a colour theme, but this year she opted for an array of bright colours as it would catch an eye from a distance. “It takes a lot of patience, the cutting, carving, pasting, writing, colouring and designing; in fact, it is as if there is no holiday time at all, but in the end, it is worth it.”

Her satisfaction comes when she sees her children perform well at their end-of- term examination, or at the National Grade Two Assessment, especially in the area of reading.
Apart from making her classroom child-friendly, Halley also takes time to redo topics with the weaker children, giving them that individual attention they deserve to excel. She noted, as many of her colleagues have, that teachers are selfless and caring, giving their all to see their students succeed in more ways that academics.