TENTH ANNIVERSARY CONFERENCE OF THE CARIBBEAN RESEARCH CENTER, MEDGAR EVERS COLLEGE, 1997 CLOSING ADDRESS: LOOKING AT THE OUTCOMES
INTRODUCTION
Thank you, Dr. Taint, for your kind words of welcome and introduction. It is a pleasure to be able to participate in this conference. It is my honour to represent Sir Alister McIntyre, Vice Chancellor of the University of the West Indies, who was scheduled to give this presentation. I am speaking in his place but not in his name. I take full responsibility for whatever sins are committed in this presentation.
The Reverend Dr. Devon Dick and the Organisers
of the Boulevard Baptist Church have conferred on me the great honour to
deliver this first Eric Downie Memorial Lecture. While the task is awesome, it
is not one that I could decline. We are inaugurating the commemoration of the
life and work of a remarkable son of Jamaica. Loving husband, devoted
father, bedrock of the extended Downie family, teacher, a Mico Man to be exact,
college lecturer, historian, teacher leader and Baptist deacon are but some of
the areas in which he excelled. But then we would have left out dominoes, of
which he was a master.
JAMAICAN
EDUCATION: SUCCESSFUL PATTERNS OF THE PAST, STRATEGIC DIRECTIONS FOR THE FUTURE
Your Grace Archbishop
Emeritus Donald Reece and members of the clergy, Mr. Anton Thompson chairman of
the Board of Campion College and members of the Board, Mrs. Grace Baston
principal, and members of staff, Professor Trevor Munroe past presenter of this
lecture, Drs. Wilson and former and present members of the Faculty of
Humanities and Education of the University of the West Indies, Dr. the Hon
Lloyd Barnett, Head-boy and students of Campion College, and distinguished
ladies, gentlemen all, it is a signal honour to be asked to deliver the
Archbishop Samuel Carter Distinguished Lecture.
Distinguished ladies and gentlemen all let me thank the University
Centre, and particularly Mrs Jane Bennett, for inviting me to give this public
lecture this evening. I welcome the opportunity to speak in Belize on a
subject with which I have been engaged continuously in the Commonwealth
Caribbean for the last 35 years. Having retired from the University of the West
Indies last year and having worked with teacher educators in Belize over the
last 26 years I am approaching this lecture from the perspective of an oldster
exiting the scene having a conversation with the generation that must continue
the work that some of us took over from our elders in the profession. More than
giving the Lecture I look forward to the question and answer session.
Keynote Speech delivered at the 2012 Annual Conference of the Jamaica Teachers’ Association held at the Ritz Carlton Hotel, Montego Bay, Jamaica.
President Paul Adams, President Elect Clayton Hall, Immediate Past President Nadine Malloy-Young, Past Presidents, Parish Presidents, Secretary General Dr. Adolph Cameron, Members of the Executive and Council, delegates to Conference invited guests, colleague teachers and ladies and gentlemen, the Association has accorded me the high privilege of addressing our Annual Conference in this year of Jamaica’s Jubilee. This is the third and most likely last occasion, that I will have this great honour of being the Keynote Speaker at an Annual Conference of the Jamaica Teachers’ Association of which I am a founding and lifetime member. Further, my professional career almost perfectly spans the period of Jamaica’s independence. Probably most importantly as a teenager faced with choices of careers I felt called to be a teacher and have lived my life always striving, by the Grace of God, to be faithful to that call. In addressing the Theme of the Conference I will therefore speak with the passion of a teacher by choice, professional understanding gained through research and lessons learned by experience as a practitioner.Continue reading →
