Principal of the St. George Secondary, Dennis Browne.
Teachers at the St. George Secondary School have been eagerly showing
up for online classes, ready to teach those students who turn up on
the online platform, but some pupils have been missing classes due to
a lack of electronic devices.
Principal of the St. George Secondary, Dennis Browne, indicated the
above as he extended thanks to the Sunshine Optimist Club recently
after the Club presented the school with a donation of 30 tablets, to
assist students with online learning. The donation was made possible
via a partnership with First Citizens Bank, which made a generous
donation of $10 000 towards the tablets as part of its efforts to
assist in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The programme has been going well for teachers. All teachers are
engaged. Unfortunately, all of our students are not engaged because of
a lack of devices and that is one of those things that has placed a
little damper on the whole online teaching and learning situation…I
started to see my students blossom, I started to see them bloom, I
started to see the progress that they were making and then came the
pandemic and then with that happening, many of them then were
disengaged because of the lack of devices,” Browne told The Barbados
Advocate during a brief interview following the presentation.
He continued, “Nevertheless, my staff and I continue to engage those
who come online. Only yesterday I visited an (online) classroom but
there were no students in the classroom – only the teacher – but
nevertheless the teacher would have still demonstrated if they had
come online what she had planned for them. So teachers are still
planning, despite the fact that the students are not coming online
because of the lack of devices, but they are still preparing for the
ones and the twos that attend the class.
“So the teachers are still continuing to ensure that whoever they are
able to get in touch with, that they still gain some academic or
meaningful instruction,” he stressed.
The principal later revealed that some teachers whose students have
been logging on seemingly prefer the online platform, and have been
adapting well to the change from teaching in a physical classroom as a
result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I must say that despite the lack of devices, teachers have accepted
the new change and as a matter of fact, some teachers, they like the
online school. Some prefer now to be at home, doing the online school.
It allows them to utilise their technical skills and they use
educational games, educational videos, quizzes etc. Some teachers have
even set up a little classroom at home with their own whiteboard and
with the students, they actually do teaching on their white board and
with a camera facing them, so that students can actually see. So they
are enjoying it and we will continue to plea to corporate Barbados for
further assistance (so we can assist more students),” Browne remarked.
(RSM)