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“…Teaching is a vocation; it’s not a job…You have to love teaching and you have to recognise that those children need to be inspired and motivated to see the importance of education.”Samuel Small AABy Gary EleazarThe greatest gift apart from that of loving a human being that a person can give another human being is that of an education.Samuel A. Small is Kaieteur News’ Special Person this week and it is fitting that he is the first person to appear in this series for this year for he is truly a special person.Born on July 20, 1925 in the cozy village of La Grange on the West Bank of Demerara,Cheap NFL Jerseys China, Mr Small has become one of the most inspiring educators in Guyana’s history.He didn’t spend much time in the village of his birth because his family moved to the East Coast of Demerara where he got his early years of schooling.His father, Joseph W. Small, was the Head Master of the then La Grange Methodist School.“When I really recognised my existence I was in Georgetown…I was at Kingston Methodist.”In 1933 Small left to go to Ann’s Grove on the East Coast of Demerara and attended the Methodist school there.This was a turning point in Mr Small’s life given that his father did not allow him to travel to Georgetown. In those days it was not as easy as today when a minibus is readily available.But as luck would have it,cheap nfl jerseys, the next few years of schooling for Mr Small was at home under his father’s tutelage until he completed primary school passing the primary school certificate examination“My father didn’t allow me to come to town…He said he is going to teach me himself.”Small,Jerseys NFL Wholesale, at the age of 17, then sat the Pupil Teacher’s Appointment Examination which he was successful at (passing with the second highest grade in the country at the time).Samuel Small (right) receives his Golden Arrowhead of Achievement from the Late Hugh Desmond HoyteFor one year after that, he struggled to secure a job as a teacher because of a difference between his father and an administrator.According to Mr Small, even at that tender age he felt that teaching was in his blood as his father was a teacher as was his mother and two aunts.His first appointment was at the Victoria Roman Catholic School but the manager of the school disallowed the appointment, which was a blow to Small.He was subsequently appointed to two other schools, all of which the manager of the school managed to have overturned.One year later, at the age of 18, he managed to secure a job at the School to which he was initially appointed. He obtained his first salary which was $10 a month, “and that was the beginning of my teaching career.”Small subsequently joined the Roman Catholic faith after realising that the manager of the school who blocked so many appointments and was a Methodist, could not really be a true Christian.In 1950 he left there to take up residence in Georgetown where he went to the teachers’ college as well as taught at the Sacred Heart Roman Catholic School which was an all boys’ school at the time.Small was a primary school teacher from 1942 to 1959.He began as a pupil teacher and rose to the position of deputy headmaster.He was a teacher educator from 1959 to 1975, beginning as an Assistant Master, Government Training College for Teachers and rising to the position of Deputy Principal of the Cyril Potter College of Education before retiring in December 1975 to assume the position of Coordinator of the Department of Extra Mural Studies on January 2, 1976.In addition, while serving as Master of the Teacher’s Training College Mr Small acted as Assistant Chief Education Officer for six months.He then left Guyana to pursue his studies, firstly at the Burmington University where he did the Diploma in Education and then he continued to the Leicester University in England where Mr Small obtained a Masters Degree in Education.Small then returned to Guyana and was immediately appointed as a lecturer at the Government Training College for teachers. The year was 1959.The career educator said that he returned to Guyana because at that time the powers that be were concerned and focused on developing Guyana and education is crucial to the nation’s development.He added that the lure that is there now to travel overseas to seek betterment was not there. This may be as a result of people losing hope in Guyana these days, he said.As assistant master at the teachers’ college he stayed there from 1959 to 1975 rising to the position of deputy principal.Greatest Achievement At this juncture in Mr Small’s life was another significant turning point in his career as he left the teachers’ college to take up the position of coordinator of the Department of Extra Mural Studies at the University of Guyana.The then Vice Chancellor of the University in recalling the establishment of that department in the Book “The University of Guyana….Perspectives on the Early History” Denis Irvine wrote that he had a long conviction that community outreach was critical to the role of a university and such a department would be the agent.Mr Small with some colleagues in Barbados“To make it happen we needed a head of department who shared my vision, and was prepared to make the commitment and put in the hard work needed to make the vision a reality. I was lucky to recruit for the task Mr. Samuel Small, an experienced and qualified adult educator who was working in the Ministry of Education at the time.”He also wrote,NFL Jerseys China, “Because I attached such great importance to university-community relationship, I was determined to make the Department of Extra-Mural Studies one of the center pieces of the University…The Department did not disappoint me,” he wrote.When asked what would be his greatest achievement over the years,Cheap NFL Jerseys, Mr Small said that it was his time and achievements at that department which has changed names over the years but as he said they managed to take university education into the communities where persons could not travel to attend the institution at Turkeyen.Under his stewardship the department expanded and is now known as the Institute of Distance and Continuing Education.The name of the department was changed twice, the first being in 1983 when it was renamed the Institute of Adult and Continuing Education,wholesale jerseys, and in 1996, after a further expansion and upgrade it was renamed IDCE.Small recalled that the department became so dynamic that the staff realised that the outreach could not be just be based in Georgetown and decided that it was necessary for centres to be established in different parts of the country. In 1981 the New Amsterdam Extra Mural Centre was established.One was then established in Linden and another in Anna Regina.Mr Small’s conviction that education was the key to developing the nation caused them to reach out further and started establishing sub centres in communities, eventually having a presence in nine of the ten regions in the country.Small credits his conviction for his drive to have persons educated, to the training that they received along with his family’s motivation.“If we were to expand and develop, persons in society need to be educated…You do not develop only on structures like building bridges and houses..People must be developed for them to appreciate the infrastructure…Education has to do that…It seems that we failing in some respects.”According to Mr Small there are a number of complex factors that are responsible for the breakdown as it relates to education in society.“Our homes are not as strong as they used to be…There are too many parents today who do not see that education is important.”He said that some parents these days see money as the important thing instead of encouraging and supporting their children in getting an education “the children are not kept in school.”Small said that many drop out of school because when they don’t perform they don’t have the kind of guidance and directions that the school needs to provideHe said that the school is another factor that has been failing the youths in society.Small said that he has been observing some of the comments being made by the Education Minister but he believes that the Minister is overcritical and not as supportive of the teachers.He chided the teachers as well,Cheap NFL Jerseys Online, saying that they themselves have not been demonstrating the kind of commitment that older teacher showed.Whilst interviewing Mr Small I made mention of a chilling realisation that in recent times the more violent criminals are younger and younger. To this Small drew a direct correlation to teaching methods and the gender balance among the teaching staff.Mr Small said that in the days when he entered the training college the majority of teachers were males but today it is the females that dominate the profession and as such in the absence of a father at home there is no male role model in the teaching system.“There is no father figure in the school; there are very few men…If the father is absent at home and when there is no role model in school then there is a problem…The school seem to have lost a lot and it will take some time to regain ground.”He also said, “If you don’t have the teachers who are committed and properly trained they will not be able to motivate the children to learn and to remain in school so between the home and the school there is a gap and until every effort is made to help these two to be reconnected again there will continue to be a problem.”He pointed to the fact that some parents blame poverty. “Poverty has been in the country all of the time but with the television and the media young people are exposed to quite a number of things some good some not so good.”The career educator said that if the methods used by teachers fail to hold interest of the children they will succumb to all of the distractions.Asked if in a hypothetical situation he would be asked to give the charge to teachers graduating today what would be the ultimate message he would want to get across Mr Small said, “I would want to encourage teachers that teaching is a vocation it’s not a job…You have to love teaching and you have to recognise that those children need to be inspired and motivated to see the importance of education.”Small said that at present all the learning takes place in the classroom and children are not taken out of the class to observe people and places and to get people from communities to come and explain the importance of education, “the school remain disconnected…Children just go to school and the children don’t see the connection to the rest of the world…they need to see that they must see the connection between school and life.”Small added also that the education programme must reintegrate skills training.He said that not all children are academically inclined. Some would be more successful at maybe home economics or wood work of some kind of handicraft and it doesn’t appear that those things are provided for, he added.He said that there is now a special effort being made to provide after they drop out of school but this should be a year round activity from a young age.“Human beings have all sorts of aptitudes and they need to be identified and nurtured at an early age”He said that if children don’t feel inspired to stay they will drop out of school and will be caught up with the get-rich-quick phenomena.Speaking on the automatic promotion policy Mr Small said, “If we provide a broad education, not just academic, you will give those children a chance to excel within the school system.”Small over the years have received many accolades and when asked how he feels each time he received one he humbly said that he is just happy that his contribution to society is recognised.In 1986 he was presented with the Golden Arrowhead of Achievement by the late President Hugh Desmond Hoyte for his service to the nation.