As the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) organisation prepares for the 2015 STEM summer camp, hosted at St. Martin’s Secondary School in the July-August Summer vacation, the director, Petrus Gumbs, decide that it was time that STEM starts assisting teachers in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
During the schools’ Easter break, the STEM organisation invited 25 teachers representing five schools, namely St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Primary, Kingstown Anglican Primary, Kingstown Government, Lodge Village Government and the Buccament Secondary, to a special workshop.
The workshop was held for three days, March 30 to April 1, at the St. Martin’s Secondary School campus in Kingstown and was spearheaded by Gumbs, the founder and director of the programme.
Gumbs stated that as a fellow teacher, he knows that the job is a challenging one especially when it comes to schools’ spending capabilities.
“In this challenging economic time all of us are feeling the crunch and the most common term you can hear from principals is ‘School nah have no money for that!. That is where STEM comes in and that phrase ICT become relevant,” Gumbs said.
In the current situation, although it is a challenging job and economy, we still have to produce work and work quality of the highest standard with little or no overhead cost to our institutions,” he further said.
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The skills that were delivered to the teachers attending the workshop was not to be taken back to their classroom but was intended to help teachers make their administrative work a less hectic and frustrating. “The main goal here is if I, can help teachers reduce our administrative workload and improve our supervisory capability and quality control role especially when it come to grades, teachers can have more time to spend with the kids under your care,” Gumbs said.
“I am hoping that with teachers’ support and the continue blessings of the administration of St. Martin’s Secondary School this could be the first of many such workshops.”
Teachers were invited as a team so that within the nine hours they spent at the workshop they could coordinate as a group and improve their work process at their institution at an administrative level.
Gumbs pledged to continue working closely throughout the year with these schools to continue to assist them in implementing the various applications that they have learned.
“We are in this together, we are moulding the minds of tomorrow and if we don’t try to improve our self or assist each other in doing so, we will keep wondering how the kids are ahead of us all the time,” he said.
“If I help you (teachers) a ‘tiny bit’ and you are able to have more time to assist the kids a lot, then there is a possibility we will receive more well-rounded kids here at the secondary level,” he said.
Gumbs noted the assistance of Richard Smith, Soyini Clarke, Simonique Harry, Marneen Oliavir, Lucy Theobalds, St. Martin’s Secondary School Administration, Wendell Edwards and T’sah Farrell in the execution of the workshop.
The 2015 STEM summer camp is now available for the primary school as well as student age 8 and older. Registration deadline is July 4. More information can be gathered on the STEM Facebook page or by calling 784-434-6847.