St. George East District "Solo Virtual Convention 2021

[Music] is [Music] and i don't mean [Music] [Music] [Music] sign me up if you are [Music] [Music] [Music] i feel like a drink [Music] me is [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] join me [Music] yourself a chance [Music] [Music] maybe everybody [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] long time now i feel so nice [Music] no [Music] [Music] [Music] man in my head [Music] driving me crazy education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world words from the late great nelson mandela the feature speaker mr curtis tusa second vice president miss keller robertson thomas industrial relations officer miss crystal premdas channel teacher of the year 2019 miss ronda jones members of the executive of the saint george's district principals teachers good morning this in georgie's district brings to you our viewers teachers friends around trinidad and tobago a packed program that will arouse your interest grasp your attention and expose you to long-term investments i am your mistress of ceremony for today betty anne daniel i now invite miss alicia govara mirage who is a member of listen georgie's district executive body she's also a staff representative at her school malabar rc primary she's also a zone convener for the school's malabar government primary and arima new government ladies and gentlemen i introduce to you ms alicia govara mirage to do the opening prayer good morning let us get ready for the tutor prayer almighty god you are the beginning and end of all things and the source of everything that we have and everything that we are we thank you for having allowed us to be members of the teaching profession and for entrusting to us the education of our young people we recognize the greatness of our vocation as well as the serious responsibility placed on our shoulders and while always mindful of our own limitations we promise you oh god always to strive to improve our skills with which you have endowed us strengthen us when our ideals seem to be falling or when we tend to look at things in a negative way help us oh god to be true examples indeed as well as in wood to our students and to have a special care for those whose family life is defective or non-existent bless our association and give all our officers and members joy in the work of education help us finally oh god to be true friends to our fellow teachers and grant when you call us out of this world we may come to you to receive the eternal reward which in your infinite mercy you have prepared for us i now invite you to remain standing teachers at home please stand for the national anthem of trinidad and tobago and this will be played by mr tristan mcconnell a solo pan soloist [Music] so [Music] you may have your seats i now invite a long-standing member of the trinidad and tobago unified teachers association this young lady as we like to put it her career in tutor she is involved as has been involved as a star staff representative from 2000 to 2015 the district secretary 2016 and 2017 and also 2018 and 2019 district assistant secretary 2010 10 and 2011 district field officer from 2017 to present zonal convener from 2000 to present she is also a member of the central executive from 2018 to present alternate to central executive 2016 to 2018 general council member from 2015 to present and conference of delegate member 2001 to present i would like to introduce to you ladies and gentlemen the chairman of the st george east district miss romeo miss roxanne romeo valentine to bring the welcome thank you very much betty and good morning to all it's betty and daniel mr ceremonies for this morning's event featured speaker mr curses tucson second vice president miss killer robertson thomas industrial relations officer miss crystal prem das chan teacher of the year 2019 miss rhonda jones members of the executive of this in george east district principals teachers well-wishers good morning the theme for this year's district convention teaches at the heart of education recovery recognizes the creative ways in which teachers have navigated the teaching and learning challenges presented by the corporate 19 virus to ensure that our students receive quality education the theme for the district convention is consistent with unesco's theme for world teachers day and unites educators globally under a common message the value of teachers and the teaching profession parents certainly would have understood the difficult task that teachers face daily and would have definitely come to value teachers highly as parents struggled with the responsibility of educating their own children when schools shut their doors to prevent the spread of corvette 19 and homes became classrooms i applaud all teachers for our commitment to the task of educating children in these historic corporate 19 times teaching will forever be changed by this experience i look forward to our feature speaker mr curtis to sense perspective on the theme i welcome all participants to this in george east district convention and i sincerely hope that the program will be a memorable enjoyable one for you thank you very much thank you madam chairperson the minister of education doctor the honorable nyan galsby dolly is not present with us this morning but she has sent her greetings so we would now play the greetings for the members mrs antonio take any creature president of the trinidad and unified teachers association and other members of the executive tutor fellow speakers teachers non-teaching staff and specially invited guests a very pleasant video to you and thank you for the opportunity to bring greetings at your annual convention under the theme teachers at the heart of education curriculum it is indeed out given the challenging experience in education as a direct result of the pandemic while we all acknowledge that challenges existed in the education sector before march 2020 certainly the pandemic has presented a slew of new challenges calling for a paradigm shift not only in how we as educators deliver but administration of education at this time the ministry of education is cognizant of the many challenges faced by the teaching opportunities and will continue to be open to continued dialogue on finding the best solutions for trinidad and tobago as we continue to work together to mitigate the challenges that have affected every sector we have students teachers and parents who are dealing with corporate loss with job loss with learning loss so many challenges the impact of all of this extends into the education sector and our teachers as the point of the education despair are grappling with many challenges every day teachers have required support to be able to deal with these circumstances not only mental health as is offered to them through the employee assistance program but also in upskilling to be easily and confidently able to navigate the online platforms which have become their classrooms and the provisional tools to do so as of august 2021 167 varying online courses have been hosted by the ministry of education to facilitate training of teachers across primary secondary and or special schools and our teachers almost all of them have grasped these opportunities with both hands webinars have been provided to train and support educators inclusive of teachers principals vice principals heads of departments and senior teachers and collaborations have been established to facilitate the training of 1219 tv educators in online methodology the demand for training or trips the supply and that's a good thing but the ministry of education remains resolute in its trust to continuously provide training and professional development to teachers just last week 100 prime school teachers from trinidad and to people commence the nine-month regional training diploma program titled digital education and distance learning pedagogies in the caribbean this program is a wonderful opportunity and it comes to us through a collaboration among the time period university of applied sciences in finland the ministry of education technological and vocational training of barbados the inter-american development band and it is coordinated locally by our very own teacher education performance and professional development division of the ministry of education in trinidad and tobago recently another cohort of teachers completed their training in blackboard with over 1700 teachers already accessing this unesco training the ministry's teacher education performance and professional development division continues to source develop and provide training to this nation's teachers in areas needed to expand and deepen their digital and pedagogical competencies and different modes of applied additional pedagogy whether online hybrid and in-person classroom that type of training is provided because the future of education is blended online is here to stay while the part of the transformation and the education system is fought with many challenges it is not unusual through careful and collaborative planning agility and execution dedicated funding and continued dialogue with all education stakeholders we can be assured that not only will the education system recover from the challenges of the pandemic but it will provide the digital ecosystem and the skilled citizens to advance this nation's development agenda and let me use the words of one of tutor's own vice presidents when we see from this challenge we will build back better i wish to thank the president and the executive for the opportunity to share these brief remarks with you and i wish you as always a successful convention god bless thank you minister nyan gadsby dolly we will now have a message from the president of the trinidad and tobago teachers association miss antonia tika de freitas she too is not here with us this morning in the room but has sent her greetings comrades i welcome you to district conventions 2021 these conventions are occasions organized by the association to allow all education professionals the opportunity to engage in professional discourse on matters of interest this is the second year that the conventions are being done virtually due to circumstances arising out of the pandemic i sincerely hope that while we are participating comfortably from our homes we will be giving the activity our undivided attention at the start of this week as tutor launched the month of the teacher i shared some elements from the 16th meeting of education international's research network on the status of teachers and the teaching profession i would just want to recap those here firstly pay is low conditions are deteriorating infrastructure to support teaching and learning is not a priority for government investment second there is a lack of respect evident in the ways teachers and teaching are represented by governments and elements of the mass media and the society thirdly work has intensified and many unions report concerns for their members well-being due to the stress of a more complex job which is compounded by more and more being expected of teachers finally the precarious nature of education could very well see higher rates of attrition which will stymie the education recovery process and therefore at this time i take the opportunity on behalf of the executive of tutor to say thank you thank you to all our members all educations at all levels in all sectors for the job you have done in supporting our students and our nation education recovery must be more than simply putting students back into schools and trying to pick up from where we left off before the pandemic hit at the heart of education recovery at the heart of learning recovery must also be a commitment to support education professionals not only with the necessary resources and tools and infrastructure but also by keeping morale high we all know that both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation boosts productivity fix your business fix the increments that have been owed to persons for as many as 10 years fixed upgrades of people awaiting permanent appointments for 15 years fix the miracles that people need to get their permanent appointments fix the transfers fix the ecce teachers and bring them on to the system fix the situation at cost act and establish the faculty senate so that the college can produce a high quality of education learning that we desire fix all of these things and the nation will have motivated educators treat us with respect and dignity and pay us our just wages do not leave us living on wages from 2014 and the employer will then have motivated employees give us safe school buildings school plants where there's no mold school plants that are not leaking and crumbling give us school facilities where all areas of the school have a proper electrical supply and appropriate internet bandwidth throughout give us safe school facilities where social distancing can be correctly applied and there will be willing and healthy employees do not i say to the government do not use us as pawns in the vaccination game do not deny our students equity of access to education are we as educators of trinidad and tobago expected to deviate from the united nations convention on the rights of the child or are we expected to deviate from the convention against discrimination in education is that what's expected of us are these policies really about equal and equitable education for all as a union tutor believes that education professionals must be at the heart of education recovery where will we begin what will be our guide what will we discuss permit me then to share two projects that have been properly detailed for action by unions and can provide us with the roadmap that we need firstly is an auditing educational equity project in light of the covert 19 pandemic established by education international as a rationale for this project ei suggests equity audits are systematic assessments of levels of inequity and the extent to which they are exacerbated by existing policy priorities lack of equity is one of the most pernicious barriers to achieving the universal human right to quality education ei continues as inequities deepen as inequalities are made worse by the corvette 19 pandemic additional resources and support for education staff and institutions are urgently needed to address them education unions tutor included all of us included are therefore duty-bound to protect and advance the right to education and continuously do so in this so-called new normal triggered by the pandemic union's advocacy efforts become all the more important and we look forward colleagues to your support and your input in that advocacy the second project is a caricom or ecs initiative titled let's reap learning recovery and enhancement program for caribbean schools and this is a project indigenous in nature that seeks to treat with learning recovery meeting the specific challenges and identifying specific goals in our caribbean schools the premise of this project is that schools cannot function in isolation but rather need to operate within principles of interconnectivity into subjectivity and into operatability this project which our local minister of education as well as the caribbean union of teachers have fun has found valuable requires not only the plan for the goals and the objectives but also a strong disposition attitude tools and skills for communication collaboration problem solving and networking as necessary for this project to work tutor embraces this project and i encourage all of you go online seek out the projects and let us start hearing your contributions about how we can make these initiatives work in our schools at all levels as we seek to promote education recovery we do not believe it must be returned to schools at all costs and pick up from where we left off before the pandemic hit we believe that there are many situations that have to be addressed that tutor and its members must address in order for our country's education system to recover and for all students to be able to access quality public education as i close i encourage you comrades as you engage in professional discourse today let it not be a singular activity where you listen today you close the laptop you exit the meeting and you walk away rather let today be the start of your orientation into what it will take what our roles would be in education recovery in this country we all have a part to play now more than ever your union needs your support and your input now more than ever we need to be united as professionals in the course of recovery and national development what we as tutor do over the next few months to facilitate and support education recovery will in the long run support our nation and its development this is our future let us make sure we are at the heart of education recovery i extend best wishes to all educators i say thank you for your contributions and do enjoy your district conventions [Music] thank you madam president of tutor for those that invigorating message and as we tutor continue to work towards the rights and welfare of all teachers throughout trinidad and tobago members viewers from at home before we continue with the program i would just like to let you know that we have an email address set up where you can submit your questions on this morning's event so we have our feature speaker as introduced earlier we have our second vice president and our ir officer present with us so i am going to call the email address for you and you can copy and send your questions accordingly so this is the email address s as in snake i as in ink n as in net q as in quick u as in under a as in alpha 7 6 at gmail dot com s i n q u e 7 76 gmail.com so send your questions in we will now have a cultural capsule this is a poem and it is done by mr barry design he is a teacher of the saint augustine south government primary school he's also a member of the dsre and ladies and gentlemen i introduce to you mr design saying the poem i see you hello there it's been a while since we last spoke you probably haven't even noticed me here but i want you to know that i see you i see you every day all the time everywhere when you wake up on mornings still weary because you need more sleep i see you when you force yourself up because of your dedication to your charges i see you i see when your coffee jewels your senses and perk you up so you feel so bold but i also see those times when you just don't want to get out of bed to face the world you may not have thought of me much in the past year or two but in my mind's eye i always see you when you're up late searching for youtube content preparing extra work for that unappreciated student uploading information into google classroom or edmure when you think no one notices i see you when you are frustrated trying to grade those incomplete incomprehensible undecipherable student assignments i see you during the day when you're zooming exasperated from constantly asking are you there students please turn on your cameras hello anybody there i hear you believe me i feel for you as you smile through your rage when those without expertise dictate how you should gauge your charges as though you are novice just out of school when in reality you know so much they don't know what i know you're not fool and when you dress in your best i feel your disappointment from the hovering parents who uncaringly come in is that a robe she is wearing i hear she's a little crazy why shouldn't girl in i find she too lazy when you feel downtrodden unappreciated and oppressed uncared for incapacitated despondent and hopeless should you feel alone lost overwhelmed or confused and you know we're all in this together is merely your rules when your spouse can't understand or don't even care to know or your boss and your colleagues won't even show regard for your turmoil your challenge your fight lift your head high you are still in my sight should dark clouds overshadow you when you feel invisible befuddled and bewildered and into your darkness you stumble when whirlwinds threaten to blow out your existence i see you i have you maintain your resistance don't be discouraged but stand strong stand fast the tempest is raging but pillows don't last my love is eternal invincible and true you will be triumphant because i see you reality as it hits most of us teachers going through this pandemic i see you thank you very much mr barry lizzie i now invite our 2019 teacher of the year miss ronda jones to introduce our feature speaker for this convention ms jones fijian speaker could use to say second vice president miss kula robertson thomas industrial relations officer miss crystal prem das chan teacher of the year on the jones members of the executive of st george east district principals teachers well-wishers good morning according to nelson mandela education is the most powerful weapon that we can use to change the world and our theme is clear on teachers being the heart at the heart of education recovery so this morning my task is one that i'm gonna just introduce a dynamic dynamic sorry speaker professional summary management professional with 12 years of experience in the caribbean and latin american region member of the national community recovery committee 2020 project implementation partner for multinational and foreign agencies since 2015 conference speaker jamaica employers federation 2018 author what nobody says about w-o-r-k with 2018 corporate citizenship corporate recovery responsibility practitioner stakeholder specialist training and development facilitator skills in strategic corporate responsibility stakeholder engagement critical thinking negotiation proposal writing policy design training and development and the list goes on technology skills and technology active crm hubspot crm microsoft shares sharepoint microsoft office suite and so many others in that field lord my device is not moving why is that that's a minute technology or maybe i need to call him just a second all right sorry i must so it's quite intensive professional experience national community recovery committee strategic planning officer management multi-stakeholder collaboration with corporate and state organizations activities include community engagement and government relations develop stakeholder engagement policies it's quite extensive education national training agency train the trainer adult life skill education angela raskin university lord astra ascot graduate school of business master of business administration 2017 leadership and innovation and where he covered courses like marketing design and innovation organization organizational development strategic management managing transformation leadership project development and i know he's it's quite extensive and it's for me to give you everything i know we will be here until tomorrow so i would love to introduce at this time our future speaker mr curtis tussey let's welcome him lastly hi good morning hi i i don't know if you could hear me but i'm not hearing any any audio from from your end great thank you so again pleasant good morning and it is really a pleasure for me to have this responsibility to you know just share a few thoughts as we look at your theme teachers at the heart of education recovery when i first got the theme i looked at the whole idea of teachers being the heart of education recovery and even in looking at this morning's program you you use a double heart to represent the word heart in your theme and i felt that that was very appropriate because even in my preparation i i consider teachers and teachers being the heart from two perspectives one the heart being figurative as we talk about you know the whole idea of love and t-shirts their love and passion and commitment for students and for education and learning but also looking at the heart in its truest sense as a vital organ for the survival of a body and from either one of those perspectives teachers at the heart of education recovery is a serious matter it is one that i think the the the tutor is aptly looking at that and it is quite appropriate at this time one of the things that i was guided by however is obviously covet but not from the standpoint of saying that the recovery of education or the recovery effort that teachers are now being asked to play a role in is exclusively related to the covet i do not think that teachers being at the heart of education recovery deals exclusively with recovering from covet 19 because clearly issues surrounding education did not begin with kovit and if ever there was a day that covered would end it will not end with those conditions so then what can i say to you as as a teacher or say to teachers in general about their role in being the heart of education recovery what i'd like to call my presentation today if i wanted to give it a title i would say that teachers are required to try t r y try so try in itself is a word that we use very often in dealing with young people um i'm sure teachers use it with students and even as a parent i used it with my own children when they would have a task in front of them and they uh you know wondering how are they going to approach it and sometimes all we can offer is saying well just try try because you wanted to see them take that first step and make a valiant effort in terms of trying to execute a skill or demonstrate competence in a skill you want to see them try and so from that perspective it is a word that we're all familiar with but i would like to use the word try as a very loose acronym because if we think about the whole idea of covid and what may have what has transpired in education and what has transpired in the world we could look at the periods that we've been dealing with and say that try means the roughest year and i know many teachers many students and more so parents could attest to this that the past experience with education and trying to deliver education with covert it has been a rough year and so no one will fault you if you say that t-r-y for you means the roughest year but there's something else that we could use this acronym to talk about we could talk about try being the revealed view the revealed you as you now look at your theme and the role that you're asked to play in terms of education recovery what were some of the things that this past year or your years in education revealed to you about yourself for some it might be we thought that we were very much on top of technology and that's because we were using it periodically and more so we were consumers of technology are not necessarily required to be producing while using technology so what did that whole scenario reveal about yourself and your level of skill there's another way that we could look at a try we could say that t r y a now means the refined u we're one year into the pandemic we're one year into virtual blended learning all the different types of learnings that we would have attempted or that would have been pursued during this period what how did that help refine our processes how did that help us refine our approaches to education but there's another try that i think is aptly important particularly when we consider that education and the recovery of education goes beyond it goes way beyond kovid there are situations and scenarios in education that you would have encountered as a teacher that parents have encountered that students have encountered that didn't start in 2020 but for some reason or for by some mechanism we were able to continue soldering on and getting things done and what i like to think about that is that reveals the resilient you try the resilient you and this is where i want to spend the rest of my time talking about the resilient you what does that look like what does the resilient teacher look like what is the resilient teacher who is now finding themselves at the heart of education recovery what does that look like you see when we think about resilience i i like to say it very simply like this think about a spring a spring which we may compress or stretch but whether you compress it or you stretch it it reaches it returns to its almost original form think about a rubber band we stretch it and while there will be some change in the shape depending on how long it has been stretched the thing is it comes back almost to its original form and so i want us to think about resilience or to talk about resilience from that standpoint not so much that we are trying to return to some bygone era of education because in terms of recovery we are thinking about recovery as a way forward not a way to go back but recovery from the standpoint of what will education look like or what would a recovered education look like with teachers at the heart of it and for me i would like to offer that that means that our education system that the way that we deliver education that the teachers the students everybody involved in education we would have developed a certain level of resilience meaning that even though we've been stretched we've been pulled we've been pushed and we've adjusted we can find ourselves centered again we could find ourselves ready to go forward and execute the responsibilities that are before us you see in part of my journey recently i'll say as far back as 2017 was looking at the whole area of productivity and productivity for us you know trinidad and tobago is one of the things that we often say of ourselves we are not productive you you you go to different agencies or or offices and organizations and you just get a sense that somebody is not trying to give you their best and so you know productivity has been one of the areas that i've focused on um but not just simply to say that we have a productivity problem i wanted to find a solution and looking for this solution there is a model that was developed called the work model w-o-r-k where w speaks to warfare or organized effort our resilience and k knowledge and it is from this model for productivity i want to extract our as resilience a resilient educational system is one that is able to flex adjust improve and also stand the test of time the only way that that can be achieved is by building the resilience of the individuals that are responsible in the education system building the resilience of teachers how do we help teachers return to that sense of normalcy or one of the phrases that we've been throwing are wrong how do we establish a new normalcy and i'm not talking about the things that we do um you know whether vaccinated or unvaccinated i'm bringing it down to the very individual level to the granular level what does a resilient teacher look like what does that look like and what are the implications for our personal resilience and our role in education recovery one of the things i like to share when i talk to audiences about developing their own personal resilience is always having a very good concept of who we are and what we are aiming to do and so as we look at recovery and we look at what we are expected to do and how we are expected to perform and remember this is the resilient you there are a couple of things that i would like to offer one we must have a strategy the resilient you is one that understands what is lying ahead of them even if it is to say i know that there is uncertainty so i have to be even better at planning and that is one of the strengths of being strategic so what will be your strategy for ensuring that you become more resilient how are you being more engaged how are you engaging with the outside world outside of and and when i talk about the outside world how are we perceiving and and how is our worldview being changed in terms of what we expect education to do so we look at the strategic side and in looking at the strategic side one of the other things we must look at is how do we organize or efforts you see and i like this perfect example very simply tutor as an organization is one way that the efforts of teachers in bringing change or being part of the change is being organized you see because you have a central representing unit that now speaks to your issues and that can organize your effort to bring about the changes that we need for an education recovery then we talk about knowledge what is it that we now need to know that we will not not we will not necessarily require to know previously is it technology is it the ability to now create learning material using technology because we are now in a totally different environment that's new knowledge that we need to pursue and we need to gain then there's another level of knowledge that a lot of us would have had to encounter i'm not sure how well we all may have dealt with it but another level at which we must encounter knowledge or consider knowledge as a component for being the heart of education recovery is knowledge of yourself knowledge of self very critical to being at the heart of education recovery one of the things that defines resilient people is understanding your breaking point one of the things that defines resilient people is understanding your breaking point you see we we can be we can be fooled into thinking that a resilient person is one who can take on any challenge regardless of the circumstances and come out on top and in a perfect world maybe but we know we do not exist in a perfect world and in a perfect environment so knowledge of self what does that look like if it is really saying it requires me to be knowledgeable of who i am and understanding my breaking point it means that at some point in the rota recovery if you are not able or you feel as though your limits are being pushed it is quite fine to push back if on your journey to be the heart of education's recovery requires you to be resilient one of the key areas that we have to be resilient is knowledge of self and knowledge of self allows us to push back it allows us to say no it allows me to say to anyone i'm nearing my breaking point i have to resist and i don't say this lightly because i'm not advocating for the religion of duty i am not advocating for bad behavior i am advocating for your self-care for the preservation of your mind and your mental state because a teacher who has reached breaking point needs themselves to be recovered and cannot adequately be part of a recovery effort for education and so in summarizing everything that i've said we know that the past year or two has revealed a lot it has revealed what the real view is it has also been the roughest year it also means that you it you need to be the resilient you and in looking at the resilient you we need to understand we must have a strategy for moving forward at a personal level at the class level at the school level and at the national level there must be a strategy this strategy must take into consideration organizing the efforts of the resources and people at our disposal and the example that i would have given tutor as an organization is one way the efforts of teachers and individuals and the administration can be organized to bring about the results that we're looking for but the most important one and if you do not remember anything else that was shared today is about your is about knowledge knowledge of the task that you're being asked to perform do i know can i find out can i do it can i better myself at doing it that's knowledge from the external in terms of what we execute but more critically knowledge of yourself understanding when you are approaching your breaking point and what needs to be done to keep producing and keep being effective so remember try the real you would have experienced the roughest year but now as part of or as the heart of education recovery you need to be the resilient you resilience again not meaning i am going to accede to every request but when i am approaching breaking point i can say stop no no more because we do not want you you cannot be a part of the recovery effort if you yourself now require some level of recovery and so that this morning is my brief presentation i i hope i was clear i i do not believe that there were any audio issues so i i guess i'm handing over to the moderator or chair thank you very much mr curtis to sir thank you for having me and yes that's what we are going to take away from your message this morning from your feature address resilience knowledge of self understand your breaking point and push back but teachers not push back in a bad way but push back and find your strategies for moving forward but remember you can't do it alone so tutor is there to get you through once again thank you very much mr tucson now ladies and gentlemen we will have another cultural capsule and this is a soccer medley tristan mcconnell and christian taylor will now do the cultural capsule [Music] [Applause] [Music] wow [Music] oh [Music] [Music] candy [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] i want to know [Music] [Music] teachers we are now to that point in the program where we are going to have discussions on the theme and questions and answers this morning leading the question and answer segment is our moderator a teacher at bartaria south secondary school former vice chairman of the saint george's district present assistant secretary of the district a dedicated soldier passionate about his task as a teacher and a comrade in the union ladies and gentlemen i introduce to you our moderator for this segment mr kofi applewhite good morning to those who are physically present and those who have tuned in to a live streaming transformed environment today as we mark our convention i do trust that you were good students as some of us were and it took copious notes of the lesson and i also trust that we were good students prior to today in that we would have done some reading to further massage the theme and give us a greater sense of understanding as to why we are doing what we are doing it is my pleasure to moderate this pro this aspect of the program and we'll be fielding questions and directing them to our second vice president vice president we have our iro present as well and our district field officer and our future speaker any questions the question is on who will be held reliable for students teachers becoming infected with covid19 at school i guess uh miss premdas good morning all and thank you so much for being part of your um activity this morning and so i seek to address the question can you put it backward please okay so the question is who will be held liable the first part of it is that i think liable might not be the most appropriate term but responsible in terms of teachers student teacher becoming infected with cove at 19 at schools and um it must be first stated that tutor is not in full agreement with the guidelines that was put forward by the ministry of education however based on those guidelines there is a procedure that has been put in place should any such occurrence take place with the introduction or the reintroduction of students and teachers um back in physical school so that is um the best submission i can give at this time thank you miss firmness you are reminded to email your questions to sun sun island nothing [Music] coming understanding attention 76 at gmail we'll take your questions from there and hopefully answer them as satisfactory as we can yes next question regarding physical school guidelines for students how could three feet masked for all classes become three feet unmasked for lunch unmasked requires greater so spacing relation to that we understand that the ministry of education would have laced with the ministry of health and making decision to reduce the six feet to three feet within the classroom with masking during the luncheon period yes people will be on master eat and enjoy their meals but it is not expected that the students will continue to keep their mask off for the entire luncheon period and yes it will require teachers principals middle managers having to constantly remind some of them to keep re-masking after they have eaten or taken a drink from their beverage as is what is supposed to happen in the general population when one is going to consume anything where they are so it will require some monitoring and some advice throughout the day thank you madam vp and i just wish to remind us that we want to ensure that our questions are specific to our theme teachers at the heart of education recovery that's where we want to massage the topic thoroughly today so that by the time we would have completed you would leave with a greater sense of understanding and appreciation as to why we do what we do and we are also reminded of the words of our calipsonian we can make it if we try do we have another question we have three questions will negotiations conclude soon what is tutor doing to help teachers in acting positions what is tutor doing to help teachers waiting for interviews for promotion all right so negotiations are not anywhere near to being concluded since they have not commenced you heard the pronouncement of the minister of finance when he was giving his budget speech indicating that he has now given permission to the cpu to commence negotiations with all public sector unions tutor will have to wait its place to get its schedule for when they are to appear what teachers can recall is that the cpo had given tutor the guarantee that he would start doing some of the background work and we had subcommittees doing so we had the market survey completed we had twitter submitting some of its data to the cpo's office and they in turn returned some there are still some positions that have not been factored in as yet because the data was unavailable that is some of the backgrounds negotiation is not going to be a one day event it is a series of meetings that will take place and the exchange of data and information so we still have to wait until we get our written schedule because it's all public sector we have to see where we will fall we of course will write to find out us when we would be able to start so the um conclusion we'll have to wait until the commencement which is supposed to begin in 2022 um tutor continues to do what work it has to do on their end to ensure that we are prepared for when we are called to the table thank you madam vp teachers are the main stakeholders in education why then are our voices not heard and why are we not an integral part of the decision-making process good question tutor can only speak to its members when tutor has a forum such as this we have control over this once members attend tutor continues to extend to the ministry that we are available to partner with and remind them that it will be best if they would collaborate with the union before rolling out any of their initiatives so that we too can get from the practitioners in the field they feed back the evidence the facts that will have some of these legitimate rollouts rolling smoother but it is up to the employer to invite encourage and to take on board what you have been seeing is that the association has been indicating that there is no meaningful consultation because coming to a meeting one day after you have already developed a guideline document does not really give the union the opportunity to submit what they believe will be the best way for things to rule out so until the employer does not accept that we are here to partner with to make sure that education happens seamlessly for all involved then there will be little we can do other than come to the media and constantly have to correct remind guide and um cajole our members into doing what we understand to be what is in keeping with their terms and condition thank you madam second vp moderator if i could go back to one of the questions about the acting and so on and what is tutor doing um that's an ongoing issue that tutor has continued to treat with at the level of the ministry the commission and the cpo in fact we were finally able the cpo was able to get the ministry in the same room with cpo tutor and the ministry officials to treat with that there are number of factors that prevent or have been stymieing persons who are in acting to find their get their confirmation or their upgrade and it requires those three entities that i spoke about um the cpo has asked the ministry to do its part to work harder at having recommendations and so submitted to the teaching service commission so that with a more rapid availability these acting positions can become solidified but it is work that needs to be done on those in those departments that have been lacking but we continue to submit names for people who have submitted them to us ask for status on what is happening and to encourage the employer to do what they need to do to ensure that they ease the burden on these teachers and have their acting and their positions ratified as soon as possible so madam vice president is it safe for us to leave here today with the understanding that the union has been resilient in looking after the interests of its members and even those who are non-members of the union that will be accurate mr alpha white because there are certain things that have not left the agenda with the meetings that we have with the ministry of education and at the table with the cpu and will not leave until we have some manner of seeing that it is really optimal and that is one of them thank you so much madam vice president do we have another question but that question would have been dealt with already has tutor approached hdc ttmf or home mortgage bank for special allocations and packages to suit the needs of teachers who would like to acquire a home tutor has engaged the hdc and other private home stakeholders through the office of the third vice president to arrange or have discussions about this we have not been successful with hdc in particular to allocate specific housing for teachers as has been done for some of the other unions especially the protective services but the discussions continue to happen there but they have brought on private contractors and those those contractors information and names have been shared with members of the central executive and the general council so districts by now should have gotten information on these private entities that are willing to broker mortgages and so for teachers thank you madam vice president and again i wish to remind you that our theme is teachers at the heart of education recovery and we want to look at the condition of the heart one man said the heart of the problem is the problem of the heart and we want to treat with the heart this morning and clearly i am wondering if some of the questions that are coming in are really coming from our members who are actively involved in our district because i think if people are involved in at the district level these things would have been massaged sufficiently and so we would be treating with the root of the problem the heart do we have another question classroom teachers are now data entry officers how can this practice not affect teaching learning activities and we i also wish to remind you that we have our guest speaker on the line as well so again he's the heart specialist this morning so anybody with heart conditions we'd like to of course ensure that the services of our heart specialists are fully employed iro i guess you may want to okay to that question um with respect to the question before us in terms of class teachers now having that added responsibility of collating and projecting data um it's one of the points that we have raised even up to recently with our meetings with the ministry we have said to them that once there are any variations in a substantive terms and conditions of employment such discussions has to come about with the recognized majority union and cannot just unilaterally be imposed upon teachers and so tilta has been very instrumental and vocal in saying that these introduction of tools to assist with this new method of education has to first be discussed with the rmu which is tutor before imposing on teachers and yes i do agree that it's going to take away from the substantive duty of a teacher and that is the primary purpose of educating students and that is the type of discussions that the ministry the government needs to have with tutor in the best interest of the teachers the students and the progress of the education system so those are some of the discussions we have been having we are aware of the consequences of such data entry functions yes thank you mara mayaru do we have any more questions to be fielded can the government legally mandate all teachers to take a covet 19 vaccine in order to work yes um we listened to coroner deborah thomas felix you would understand that it's not as simple as mandating vaccinations as a requirement for work for those who are already in a system and it will take some discussion and so on to get people on board however if one is entering as her honor indicated a job for the first time it may now be one of the prerequisites but for those people within the teaching service in particular which we are speaking about it will not be a manner of just making sure that mandating you to take the vaccine it will go in keeping with anything else in terms of you are still required to consult with your medical practitioner and make that decision on your own if government were to move to do that it would require them taking this the cabinet and making that a policy decision of the republic of trinidad and tobago and not just for any specific place of employment thank you maramaero would you like to make a further comment on that question okay well just just add to what my second vp would have said um the only means in which such an action can be mandated through legislation anything else can be constituted as a constitutional breach so um just uh just to solidify what my second vp would have said any such action can only be mandated through legislation thank you do we have another question oh okay so i guess we'll be able we should be able to pull in our heart specialist this morning how can teachers who are the heart of education or who are at the heart of education be expected to recover a failing education system when the hearts are losing heart i think i would like to hear from the guest speaker and then maybe somebody else from the head table may wish to comment on that all right um so one of the things that we look at if if in even sharing about you know where teachers are being at the heart of education recovery i just want to revisit really briefly um another element of the work model that i spoke about and and i share this because you know as a tutor convention and i know that you all are the ones or you're the organization that literally goes to war for teachers and um one of the things that i can say is when we conceive what this fight to recover education would look like and how teachers are to get involved there are three things that i would advise the union the teachers anybody who has a fight on their hands that they need to take a look at and i call it the three a's of your fight one you want to understand what are the assets that you have or don't have to make you better at what you do so look at the access that you currently have how they can be utilized are they being fully utilized and and if that is a yes then what are some of the additional assets that we need to bring to this fight um both in your fight to deliver quality education virtually or in a coveted reality as well as your fight to receive the level of respect and parity that that teachers and union want from the ministry of education what are your assets the second a will be understanding your allies who else are you enrolling in this fight teachers uh somebody said it and in the preamble to their their substance in a question teachers are one of the main stakeholders but they're not the only stakeholder how have other stakeholders been brought in as allies in the fight to achieve quality education and a recovered education system so we have the assets we have the allies and then you need to also understand the adversary so the three a's of war assets allies adversaries so even though you're the heart of education and you are the ones that that you know heart of the recovery you have to understand these three things in order to equip yourself to fight for that recovery or to fight for the recovery to happen in a way that does not injure you and so even looking at the adversary one of the things that one of the approaches that i find to be useful in in a universal sense is the whole idea that the adversary is always impersonal and external impersonal and external so you're never already fighting people you're fighting ideas you're fighting systems you're fighting ideals you're fighting world views if you understand what that is if you understand what your adversary's world view is or how they view the problem because a lot of times we're dealing with issues where things collide how does the ministry houses the minister how does the executive at the ministry of education view the challenge and where does it differ or where does it intersect with how i view it if you understand how your adversary sees the problem you're able to strategize better one of the other things in terms of being in personal and external the fight is always with the outside the fight is always with the outside so it's never about teachers fighting tutor it's never about tutor fighting teachers and and sometimes when we're in a fight and we're not sure who the target is or we're not sure you know let me put it simply if we are not all shooting in the same direction we're gonna be people gonna be dying from friendly fire and so one of those are the three things that i think in terms of looking at how teachers could be a part of this fight how tutor could really strategize in in pushing um getting that organized effort and getting everybody on board is by understanding the three a's of your fight understand what are your assets what do you have and what do you need understanding your allies who else is going to advocate for me who else is going to stand alongside the union you know which other union which other organization is going to stand alongside us and share similar ideals because there's strength in numbers so you want to have allies in this fight you can't fight without allies no one country goes into war single-handedly you have to enroll people who are willing to put themselves on the line for you for for a a unified cause and then understanding the adversary is never personal the minister will change people you know the education ministry as an organization will be there and in 20 years nobody that is currently in that building may be there but the problems might still exist so your adversary you always have to appreciate that they are impersonal there's not a person there's some ideals there's some gaps you know things that people don't understand about what you do and the better you are at knowing who are these people that share differing opinions and understanding those opinions you could strategize to to really be at the heart and be the driving force not be one that is being pulled along but to be the driving force behind education recovery and the key thing understand the fight what what are your assets who are your allies understand the adversary you so much mr moderator i don't know if the ir officer the vp or the dfo would like to add anything to that what we can see is that as mr tusay said it's always very easy to identify who the adversaries are in any kind of relationship you're talking about so it's very easy for us as teachers who are in the kitchen who feel in the heat to be at war with the employer to be at war with the parents to be at war with the general public and they're with us because they perceive us to be enjoying a certain type of living while they are not there what we as teachers what we as tutor need to do is you'll be very vocal where we are because we're very vocal in social media you have to bring people to our level of understanding because unless you live with a teacher unless you are a teacher unless you work within the education mainframe in a school you then understand what it takes to be a teacher and we need to start to educate not with bitter words but to just show give up give a little snapshot of what it requires for a teacher to discharge their duties in today's world as opposed to what it took for us to do our duty pre-covered and even that any teacher would tell you it is not about getting in front of a classroom taking a meet a rule and pointing to a whiteboard or blackboard you have to plan you have to prepare if you're going to execute that duty and whereas with other professions when you dunk tools at four o'clock your time is yours you go home you relax you stop at the nearest refreshing hub it's yours with teachers you always have to think about how do i reach little paul tomorrow because he didn't grasp the lesson yesterday what am i going to employ now what am i going to go home and take from my home as a resource to make it personal for paul to understand what he missed yesterday how am i going to project for the new group that i'm going to meet next term because they are different group from the ones i had last last school year so these are the things unless you don't educate people they will continue to be bitter because their reality is not your reality and they perceive you to be sitting on top of this mountain with everything prepared for you without realizing as a teacher that is your life it's your calling it's your vocation it's not a job for you to be an excellent teacher you have to enjoy what you do and you have to do it with passion and heart and you have to take all of the time required to fit those things in so teachers don't have sunday evening walks and so they have saturday to do chores at home because they have to discharge their duties at home and they have saturday evening to sit down and start a craft and design and look for material so that's what we need to be using our social media platforms or when we go to our small groups at church or whatever community we we're in to try and bit by bit by size portions give them a snapshot of what it takes to really do what you need to do yes strategy is important and we will continue to try we can make it if we try just a little harder i think we have an in-house or two questions which we'd like to field at this time yes i like that question how can we ensure that the lines between our personal and professional lives are not blurred i don't know that i have the answer for that because as someone who sometimes works from home i think i have put up her at work sign on the the door that i used to work out of but my 14 year old does not recognize and she says it does not apply to her not applicable yes you just have to be resilient you have to you need to mentally try and fix it remember the heart specialist said self-preservation so we don't know how to tell you to preserve yourself well um i am more afraid of that 14 year old than any other body and you have company i respond well you have company you're not alone i have the same challenge to face every day yes in-house question yes my check to mr curtis tusa our handsome sexy future speaker i have one i have two questions actually okay um we commend tutor for all its effort in terms of partnering with external personnel to ensure that there are support systems in place for teachers my question to you today is do you believe that more external partnership with ngos and specialists especially in strategy and training would be essential at a time like this for recovery allow me to comment after um mrs robertson thomas yes mr tusa okay um yes i do one of i i do agree that um or believe that more partnerships would be vital to um the issues that that teachers that teachers face uh if you think about one of the things that i'd like to share everything about the world and and how things have revolved you know we had the ice age then we had you know the stone age and you had the different ages or phases in which the world would have gone through and then you also had the industrial age or the industrial revolution and then you had the information age we are actually in the age of connectedness where more and more we are able to identify or able to trace some of the loose connections that that that really keep us intact or keep us connected to other things and and education is no different when you consider what the education ecosystem is a lot of times we we think about it from the perspective of teacher parent student and and i've seen that that triad in in in many instances teacher parent student but think about it the role of education and educators is really preparing a society teachers and education is preparing a society the society is made up of the people we are dealing with our future leaders while they're very young and impressionable and is it that we and i don't think in a scenario like that we should be bringing less people to the table to help us prepare for what our society or what we intend our society to look like in the future so from that very very very practical standpoint we need more people to be involved in what happens in education we need to be bringing more people to the table having conversations you have ngos that have that that are special purpose for example so where a teacher might be struggling let's say you're dealing with a social issue around drugs or abuse or something like that and and while you're doing your best there are agencies that are tasked solely with dealing with those things how could we either get the information from them or even bring them into the classroom to share in in delivering in an area where they specialize you know it is for me i i don't understand i think gone are the days when we are trying to have a teacher be the specialist at everything you know and and it it doesn't it doesn't work it hasn't worked you know so so bringing more people to the table is also about bringing people with specialized skills in the area that teachers may not have those skills and i'm not just limiting that to the classroom because as i said there's also a challenge for tutors and organization to find the agencies that will partner in terms of making the kind of representation you need to make your point so on the areas of teacher burnout you know who are the psychologists or the the social worker associations that could come to do something that's comprehensive something that is compelling in terms of making a case for teachers um and what their challenges have been what the fallout has been for teachers on a personal level and and how that fallout has impacted education on on on a bigger scale so i'm i'm i don't see i don't see progress happening in in in the way that it has happened that we have approached it before in terms of um and forgive me it it may come across offensive in terms of thinking that only teachers understand that what what teachers struggles are if you take that approach you're not bringing allies to the table because you're saying my needs are so unique and so special nobody else could understand nobody else could help me so then everybody take their hands off but if you share what they are and you start reaching out with purpose in terms of saying these are some of the challenges and we're looking for collaborators people who have ideas that they or people who could help us you know collate our ideas in a way that that allows us to represent the situation better bring more people to the table gather more allies to win the war thank you so much mr tucse yes one more question from i think oh somebody had table wanted to give a comment just to add um that's one of the reasons as well that tutor is part of various bodies you heard the president in harm messaged us would have represented education international and the cut the caribbean union of teachers we also are part of the joint trade union movement and our president in particular who is responsible for public relations would be attending to meetings there and it doesn't stop there we have partnered with other teacher unions throughout the world and we try to get information that can be shared and we also make sure that we have dialogue with other stakeholders so we have met with the primary school principals association the association of secondary school teachers we have also met with the the the nominational boards and the npta who are all part of this fight and that is the reasoning for doing this and we do also reach out to other social groups to bring to you we are celebrating the month of the teacher in october as we did last year as well some of what we have on the sunday school sessions would be bringing people from outside to give us their perspective on how we could move forward and so we have that understanding that we cannot be our or we can't be the only cause it's not a one-man thing two hands club and we have to and we must not ignore that within the teaching service and tutor also gained recognition in 2019 for the schedule three members so we do have our social workers we do have guidance counselors and officers and members of dre and planning and other members who are not just classroom teachers to bring their skill set and to give us some feedback and advice as to how we should move forward we need to just start embracing and respecting each other and what we bring to the table so that we have a complete meal and not just have one item that we're trying to digest so it is good advice to bring in everyone so we can safely say that in this resilient mode in which we are as we continue to seek allies to fight the fight and to champion our causes as teachers we are not alone we're not we are not alone and i think that that is very encouraging and heartwarming to all of our members and non-members who are tuned in today that we are not alone we are resilient we have allies with us and they are embracing us and we are embracing them so it's a reciprocal activity we take the next in-house question quickly okay the next question mr tusa has to do with breaking point if teachers are very passionate motivated and they're going beyond the call of duty however in the environment that they work they are faced with so many challenges from administration and they have sought you know external support support from tutor but they feel they are their breaking point but they love teaching they want to make a difference they want to continue making a difference what would you advise them to do push back but if they keep they have been pushing back but they love what they do they are passionate about their job they are resilient however they feel at a point where they are broken but they don't want to you know resign from teaching what would be your advice thank you okay um oftentimes i hear the phrase going beyond the call and that looks different for everybody one of the things that they say now about um you know in in other words in other areas of work and other spheres of work one of the things that that they look at as a productivity measure or something to measure performance is the degree to which you you have to you require overtime or the degree to which your your their work you know the work that you do between your working hours now spills over into your personal life and your private time and that's something that at large multinationals and bigger corporations that's something that's frowned upon but yet still we wait or we seek to wait like a badge of honor that we're going beyond the call and and what typically that means is that when you talk about going beyond the call it it is often as a result of you doing somebody else's job in some instances or trying to do a job that you have not been equipped for or prepared to do so you find that the time that is required to do it you know you require more time you you you have to move a little bit slower because sometimes you're doing things that you should not be doing and so you're unsure and so you have you take a little bit more time and that you know we all have the same 24 hours is a finite day and if you are trying to do things that are not your responsibility and this is where some of the pushback could come from start as i said you know start saying no that is and the thing is some of the things that that will trade marks of good workers or good employees in the past we've come to understand now from organizational behavior and and performance management studies you've come to understand now that those things ultimately erode the quality of work and the efficiency with which that person could continue to perform at that level so to to to to avoid that burnout that that feeling that you know i'm passionate about what i do but the way that we have been doing it is not sustainable and so it really requires you sometimes to take a hard stop now what i would say though when i talk about taking that hard stuff put yourself in a vehicle and you must a sudden break you being the person that's applying the brakes you you saw you're mentally prepared to for the stop everybody else that's in the vehicle not so prepared so there's going to be that jerk reaction and you're going to get some push back or some negative feedback as a result of you making a sudden stop but just like driving a vehicle most times that sudden stop is because you're trying to you're trying to avoid a bigger crisis so what i would what i can advise is this apply the brakes make this certain stop be prepared for the backlash or the negative feedback but also understand don't be burdened or don't be too worried about the negative feedback because i once you truly believe that that sudden stop is to avoid a bigger crisis it will be worth it you see nobody could nobody talks about the accident that didn't happen you know nobody talks about the accident that did not happen and so it's difficult for people and it will be difficult for people to appreciate you applying that sudden stop because the the opposite though is if you don't apply this certain stuff one of the main casualties would be you so i continue to advocate that part of being resilient is the ability to say no thank you so much mr two say i guess on any count you will die [Laughter] we take one last question from the electronic platform and then we have one final in-house question to bring down this morning's segment of question and answers is it up on this screen how can the private enterprise assist or become involved in the recovery of education at this time okay so with respect to private enterprise that has to be a contribution of love basically there is nothing binding them to give such a support but if we are all interested in the education of our our future our youths our community our life our country where we are heading we shall all see it as part of our role to contribute to such things so endeavors like um we would have approached this technological approach to education there are some private entities that would have donated devices assisted with connectivity things like that but that is really just a contribution of love really um it's it's for all of us within the country to see that this part to reshaping and maintaining sustaining and promoting education along this path is it's not just for teachers it's not just for tutor it's not just for the ministry of education we are all parents we are all um this generation that is projecting a new generation that has to be given all the tools and equipment necessary to make a better brighter future for trinidad and tobago and that's how we have to look at it we continue to try last question for the day okay before i go to the question i'm a teacher at heart some teachers experience moments when they can hardly hold the joy in their hearts our heartbeats are dropping we are navigating technology when can teachers navigate self-discovery and care when we are told to teach the child another curriculum but the heads are not listening to those at the heart of recovery sorry please forgive me i i did not get the first part of your of of your question um could you mind repeating for me okay the first part of the question when can teachers navigate self-discovery and care when we are told to teach the child another curriculum but the heads the powers that be are not listening to those at the heart of recovery okay um i i i don't have my easy answer for that what i would simply say is that if if i go back to the the analogy that i use about applying the breaks previously i would i would then answer your question with a question when can you afford not to engage in health care when can you afford not to take care of yourself and still expect to do a good job so again as i said it it it really has to start with um you know taking stock of your of your time um understanding who you are um because again i do not if we can't if we can't perceive that that you know everybody is alike and that what i am experiencing at my school or with my students is the same as what somebody else is experiencing with their school and their students there's a sort of uh um i don't know there's a sort of a homogeneous way that we think things operate you know that that all teachers are like this or that all students are like this so that all schools are like this i'm a parent and i i have so i've navigated three secondary schools three primary schools among my children and i know that the differences between teachers schools administrators everything is and really it was down to the individual teacher understanding where they are understanding their own breaking point because there's no collective breaking point true everybody is is going to be unique and and rightfully so as you said this is where the the the fascinating of allies is is really critical and i'm going to address the second part with you know talking to administrators about what the needs are and i'm going to link that to a question that was asked previously about how can the private sector be more involved the private sector has their their hands on the pulse of the productive world or the working world they understand what are some of the changes that are that are coming the private sector understands very much what are some of the new technology needs the new um the new needs that that that exists within their various fields and one of the ways that they have partnered and i know this happens usually at secondary at a tissue level and maybe less so at the primary school level once there's an understanding for what is needed they then put their money into those industries think about the energy companies that have continued to support faculties of engineering in in tertiary level institutions why is that because they understand they then make the inputs in tertiary into engineering is is also directly related to inputs that they need in their sector and when we can i think you know if we take a look at what are some of the changes or inquire of the business community what are some of the changes that are perceived for the next 10 15 years that that that we can start making the adjustments for now because let me tell you if we if we go strictly looking at the dollars and sense of it businesses pay taxes on based on profit the prop the taxes that are paid is what government depends on for revenue if a businessman could make a case or make a claim by saying the fact that we have not been preparing students for these industries means that it is going to impact my productivity in 20 years the government has to listen because if my productivity is projected to decline over 20 years the quantum of taxes that i would pay based on my profit will decline so think about that conversation as opposed to a teacher or a union saying to a government or a minister of education or you know listening to me you see telling telling an administrator or administration that you're not listening it's something that they hear all the time but when you involve as i said the collaborative effort when you involve the business community that's that could now say if you don't listen this is how it is going to impact everybody you see what we have to understand is we have to start showing people how their outputs become part of somebody else's inputs and where that falls apart nobody survives true so i again i know i didn't answer the first part of your question it you know give you a pure answer it was really a question back to you but but you know i i hope that something that i said in my answer you know was was meaningful it does suffice i don't know if any other member of the panel would like to make closing remarks on that last question and any other remarks that you'd like to offer basically um i would say be still and let god and before covert i would advise teachers you sometimes need to take a mental health break drink of it you need to take a mental health break and you know and i know when you need that break we all know don't ignore the signs sometimes you just need to stop put your tools down and regroup because there is no way that you can teach a class from six feet under so all they go and you're going when stop reach you don't want to be forced to stop as mr say you don't want to be a passenger in the car where the driver going and match the brakes and you're not prepared so you take control of the steering wheel drive your own vehicle and determine when your stop and brakes will be so i please said thank you again to our future speaker and for leaving us with the keyword i think for today to be resilient we don't have to try to be resilient we'll be resilient we will be resilient we will be resilient in all that we do and thank you as well of course to all the participants for the questions that were fielded and i trust that you enjoyed the responses and that you would leave today being a better person as we seek to have our lives and be resilient in our work thank you thank you very much mr kofi applewhite for presiding over this segment of the program i now invite back to the election ms roxanne romeo valentine who will announce the winners of the saint george's district staff representative award so before i hand over to roxanne i just want to tell teachers you know normally when we are online with the students we will tell them okay you can get up stretch walk around teachers don't go anywhere we have a lot of giveaways in store and a lot of awards to present you might even hear your name so stick around and i now pass you over to our chairman thank you very much betsy ann and i am dealing with this award in my capacity also as a district field officer of sin george east the sin george east the sre award was conceptualized to honor the exceptional service of staff representatives who embody the spirit of trade unionism we in the sun george east district recognize a valuable contribution that staff representatives make to the strength of the district and to national tutor today we honor two staff representatives who by their unwavering dedication to serving the tutor members of the saint george's college uphold the ideals of selfless service it therefore is my privilege to acknowledge and to pay tribute to the staff representatives mr anthony pierre and miss donna trill the recipients of the sin george east district staff representative association award 2021 right so thank you very much thank you miss romeo valentine and congratulations to the winners of the senjoji's district staff representatives award teachers viewers at home i have a message for you i was asked to let you know that our tea lady miss karen greene asked that you get your cup of tea sip your coffee munch on your biscuits and hopefully next year god's willing we will all be able to meet face to face once more where you will be able to avail yourself of all the services of our tea lady thank you moving right along in our program i now invite miss ronda jones once more our teacher of the year 2019 again we have awards the young teacher of the year award again teachers don't go anywhere your name may be called so let's tune in as i pass you over to miss ronda jones oh yes it's me again the young teacher award but look at me well then tell you how i am it's like this one isn't me oh boy okay okay okay all right all right i love to share so let's hear what we this person would be recipient this year for the young teacher award the teacher a young teacher of the year award is an honor that is bestowed on a teacher that fits the following criteria financial member for at least two years i've seen some people put another hand 35 years or younger but their hands go on downloaded they're keeping that you know teaching at an ecce primary secondary or tertiary level must be practicing in a school well for this one from september 2020 to june 2021 display outstanding service in culture education classrooms sports association activities association activities that people get involved please this year the district attracted four outstanding nominees and they are mr cash mr kashin ali of sinbad sinbad spiritual shelter baptist primary mrs mr stefan b desi of hillview college mr travis roach of center augustine secondary mr michelin taylor of san juan north secondary i'm a drum roll drum roll drum roll drum roll and the winner and pull it out and the winner for this year yes so it gives me great pleasure to announce the sin george east young teacher of the year 2021 mr michelin taylor of the san juan north secondary school so let's find out a little bit about him now mr taylor is known as the drama teacher extraordinaire mr taylor is truly at the heart of education recovery he has supported all tutors called to action participated enthusiastically in all school tutor related activities and empowered his students to rise above each challenge and focus on their creative passions yes this attitude of determination to success especially in the face of teaching and learning challenges through brought about by the covert 19 pandemic instilling students under mr taylor's tutelage would undoubtedly have resulted in students achieving the um the inevitable feat of dominating the cape 2020 merit list in unit 2 performing arts drama cup in five top 10 places the sun one north drama drama group has gained numerous honors in acting music directing set and costume designs and on some performances both locally and rigidly regionally sorry it is no surprise that his pass rate for theater arts remains at a steady 100 100 percent come on people are here you all celebrate come on one hundred percent you know much more you can get from that nice we salute mr michelin taylor for the passion energy and enthusiasm that you bring to the teaching profession the saint george east young teacher of the year 2021 will be receiving well we're going to team of course this lovely pluck from our association can you see yes can i take it with me no okay okay so congratulation again to the winner of the young teacher mr michelin taylor thank you so much everyone he also gets a hamper where i got to see mr jared krikshan of the pan american life insurance group maybe i wanted to take it sorry sir yes all right thank you again you very much miss rhonda jones but don't go too far don't sit i need you back at the front so teach us at home viewers friends supporters we are we have organized an exercise for you yes you are not here face to face but nevertheless we have a challenge for you and this aspect of the program is called teachers can spell [Music] anti-ronda now in the character anti-ronda is going to take us through all the proceedings for teachers can spell oh ready right so teachers get ready get ready get ready remember when you see me remember that it's something exciting teachers can for those of you who have been following so auntie ronda i was just reminded teachers can't google so let's hope that we would have no one googling this morning we shall see how far they can google because there's a timer and a cobalt for their tail today oh sorry for you all today right so if they could google i'd have a google or hell fast no right so get ready get ready as we said now you're going to be given a link in a little while so you need to listen first this link would be shared with you and you have to fill out your basic information after which you have only six maybe relatively long words 13 letters and so on 15 letters easy man watch me teach us to be bright like that if i look at google and a little bright anyhow so it's going to be your challenge today just unscramble some words within a certain time you get like four minutes and when you hear the bell goes the timer sorry and then there's cowbell it's time for you to submit now you must get at least four to six of these correct qualified we're looking for six persons we have prizes for six of you so six of you will be feeling really happy right so don't worry it's nothing that you cannot do it's nothing that you cannot do are you ready ready ready ready ready ready to spell are you ready to spell right so are we ready to share the link so no let me just tell you it will be someone read the bell now and then over here nice time to submit business specs no cheat today no googling well it's not enough look for it look for clues and um unscrambly simple words no man so what's your annealing ready think of your words think of your words to spell you could unscramble them it's coming to you just know get ready get ready get ready get ready y'all know it's good so when you're good don't worry all right ready all right so so don't worry we have a link for you all you have to do is open the link fill in the information and using only lowercase or common letters to answer with the um unscrambling so ready oh okay so i was told that that is a link for you to press on all right so teachers can fail yes auntie randall so and i'm gonna set my timer and it's you may begin the timer is set for four minutes so here we go let's see who are these fellas here come on i'm seeing people oh whatever's on the hole in their hand stop holding here come on okay okay let's say that i think they sent it on the chat it will be sent on the chat i was told i'm not sure what's happening oh lost and you know all i could really spell in the meantime let me tell you easy spelling is there mr lee living up by me it's a farmer so i just fell farmer lee hey all i can spell like me no way no way not at all yes so we're going come dj in the meantime bring our little chick now man i'll be waiting we mustn't waste good music you know so yeah no no no it's always in the hand he's like playing in the head he's explaining the head now yes so so are we getting ready so i'll all right i'll have to take off the time man check waiting come to each other let's check our legs oh listen to know all this time so get up shake your legs shake your leg walk around watch outside make sure your castle park outside you know right call your neighbor out and say hey come on we are spelling come on let me spell somebody's here come on come on come on call in no oh no don't call anybody nice i forgot to scope at 19. social distance saying sorry all right hey it's ready [Music] all right so press the link fill out your information almost anytime again quickly right said all right and then unscramble on your site [Music] [Music] i know it's very easy [Music] from the same place so we must push one from an intention for a better life in the region for the woman and we children that must be ambitious [Music] come on presents two of those words that places in church and tobago that's what i'll tell you [Music] you say that the federation [Music] given [Music] from the same place [Music] [Music] well it's happening you know we have three persons inside already come on people spelling is good spelling is great so come on keep it coming you have a little time still man the time i will go just now but if we have some time [Music] won we fell on the views and they cost and they said this is a trip yes the dam and the blast and they say we hope isn't true they won't dare to cancel we jump up 1972 [Music] [Music] [Music] we have great prizes perfumes ladies handbag car wash and other prizes so your time will be worth it so come on use a little grey mata all right i was told to give you one extra minute one extra minute one one the begging for y'all one all right three right so come on come on come on come on people come on use the grey match matter elizabeth teachers can spell come on [Music] [Music] mama where [Music] on the street [Music] [Music] me [Music] when the news is [Music] so they have to try and save us this embarrassment [Music] we have lots and lots of responses so what's the problem what's the problem [Music] only one more time to celebrate i'll try and get google so i think i'm gonna ring my cowbell because if those persons next time y'all look at a little more time to unscramble scramble unscramble thank you so much hey so we can see they're coming in so you all got a little black i hope that blind works for you right so come on hey but look at young man things rolling in like thunder that's what we're talking about as we talking about yes so come on i'm loving the responses coming in like that man great and fast come on so teachers can really spell i know that teachers can spell yes and we have the lovely dj in the house [Music] all right so we have nothing higher definition all right and they're keeping us really really nice and cozy here today so it's all about that so we got them just 30 seconds again and then we close it up completely nice so see how fast you can get that information in 30 seconds and then we gonna know how well you can spell don't worry all winners will be contracted with great prizes oh dj could you give me um i want a song from let's get education from sparrow you have that as we are the heart of education i know we're reading getting ready to close up and all of that but why don't you just keep when i'm a little blind here i know you have something really really wonderful there yes [Music] and i know you had a grand timer as always saint george east it's a place to be east east who's east who's east who's a east east east east so come on teachers can spell man come on yes oh yes so while we wait there quickly and we're getting ready to close off i believe so uh you know we're just giving you an election a little money about this yeah so dj bring it up a little bit hey we are the heart of the education recovery foundation our rising population needs sound education to be recognized anywhere you go anywhere you go have your certificates to show to enjoy any kind of happiness knowledge is the key to success children go to school and learn well otherwise later on in life you won't catch real hell without an education in your head your whole life will be your misery you're better off dead for there is simply no room in this whole wide world for an uneducated little boy or girl [Music] all right so we are closing the curtain on teachers can spell at this time so i know you know with technology but those who had the opportunity it was wonderful for you to give a try and unscramble and spell these words remember you must have four and more to win a prize we have lovely prizes or winners remember education is the key the most powerful tool powerful weapon i should say according to nelson mandela the most powerful weapon yes the most powerful weapon education yes to save this world so i now turn you over to mc i'm not the mc3 bye thank you so much thank you very much miss ronda jones and we have been reading the comments teachers and we know that some persons were unable to access the link to take part in that segment so we do apologize yeah we really really do from our hearts we apologize that we were unable to get to you to get to everyone because we received almost 40 replies from teachers so we are not sure what went wrong where so thanks to those who took part in the teachers can spell segment we now want to change it up a bit and we are going to a financial institution segment we are going to have a few videos run for you and teachers you can take note take the information write it down and make a phone call so we're going to have a video from admed from maritime guardian group where we are going to have miss gail singh and miss nadia bash as the presenters we're also going to have a video from pan american life and the presenter here is mr jarrod crookshaw and one more which might be also interesting to you is a video on housing and how to apply i i am not sure if the houses are being given away free but teachers please stay where you are view the videos and i am sure you will come away with something positive so we now go to the videos you're good to your family [Music] your friends even those friends too but when was the last time you were really good to you and not just like this either nothing says being good to yourself and taking care of your health that's why there's admit from maritime admed covers you for unexpected major medical bills at an affordable rate your ad med coverage includes accident and emergency approved medical surgeries hospital diagnostic expenses such as room and board lab tests and x-rays critical illnesses including heart attack stroke and cancer and death once you're covered you'll receive your very own admed card if ever there's an accident or emergency simply visit any of our 10 admit accredited hospitals with your admit card and receive immediate assistance find out more about our admed plan by calling us at 674-1617 or contacting your financial advisor today taking care of you helps you take better care of everyone else so get coverage when you need it most with admed from maritime strength on your side so good day everyone it is my great pleasure to briefly address you today at your annual teachers convention even though it's done coaching my name is gerald crookshan an agency manager at pan american life insurance based in arima my company has been in existence for the past 110 years operating in over 22 countries china and tobago being one and many other caribbean countries as well we offer top-rated life insurance as well as group insurance excellence and health insurance critical illness insurance cancer insurance as well as retirement plans and education plans for children for your future education my company and the agency the shanks agency is very proud to support you once more in your endeavors as true professionals in your field as qualified teachers on behalf of my senior executive agent that's barbara rinales i applaud you for your continuous efforts on a daily basis and trying to help mold the minds of our children while the future of our internal republic of china and tobago as members of tutor you continue to do your job with great care and commitment which is why the award for the young teacher of the year is such a fantastic one because it exemplifies the young teacher who is very vibrant and passionate who cares and truly is committed to getting the very best out of their students each day whoever the winner is i just want to say congratulations in advance and continue to show how much you truly love and care for your students since i suspect many of them look forward to that from their teachers every single day sadly we cannot all meet in person today like you did in the past but like the rest of children and tobago underwood covert 19 has caused us to adapt as a people so that meetings workshops and seminars are now done virtually which i might add will definitely continue into the foreseeable future because this virus isn't going away anyway anytime soon once again ladies and gentlemen i want to say thank you and please enjoy the rest of your convention [Music] hello friends i am no stranger to this convention greetings from my team guardian life the gilson unit teach us at the heart of education recovery and this you are we commend each and every one of you today on the phenomenal job you continue to do against all arts you make tremendous sacrifices to get our children in our classroom the gilding unit is here with you at the heart of your future while you take care of our children let us take care of you here's our senior advisor miss nadiya kumara bach to share with you about our support for this event thank you missing bigger prizes this year many hampers a self wanted to see gms phones and a three minute shopping spree at massey stores awaits you for a chance to win all you have to do is hop on over to our website and click the tutor convention banner if this doesn't work what's up your name and number good luck i pray god continues to bless you our teachers the heart of our education recovery thank you [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] thank you so teachers i am sure from the videos you would have been able to take away something some bit of information and the numbers are there and you can give them a call and maybe get a free house who knows we now have a door prize a giveaway you may ask yourselves a door prize but we are not there but it's a virtual door prize this is our invention a virtual door prize and this door prize goes to the first teacher to register for today's convention i don't have a drum roll congratulations to miss karen green the first person to register for our convention today for those of you who don't know that's our tea lady yes at this time i would like to give some good news miss green has decided to pass her winning prize to the person who no miss scanford not the person who arrived first here on location but the person who registered second for the convention so we are talking about seconds apart so i'm guessing miss green just press the submit button just before mr estrophil as the ali aziz he's a teacher primary one at the five rivers islamia t.i.e we have your number sir and we are going to give you a call to collect your door prize your virtual door prize teachers viewers at home supporters friends well-wishers sadly we have come to the end of our program for today but of course before we end we must say thank you and i would now hand the mic over to mr kofi applewhite who will give the vote of thanks just by way of announcement the palig representative who usually graces her us with her presence wishes to inform the participants today that one prize will be given to the young teacher of the year award coming from palig and palig is also giving a door prize mrs barbara and alice will contact this successful door prize entrant and make the necessary arrangements for the collecting of your prize likewise the young teacher of the year we also have a door prize coming from our third vice president mr lee him he will also be giving a dope prize and when that person is selected we will contact you and make the necessary arrangements for the collection of your token and also we have some other prizes coming from an executive member of the district and some other persons who deemed it prudent to make financial or tangible or other contributions to participants today for those of you who are tuned in to us we are glad that you did and i just would like to inform you in all earnest that there is a rhapsody of emotions coming from this room that has been transformed into a live studio our theme today is a very apt one in the environment in which we are called upon to function teach us the heart of education recovery in breaking with convention i've realized that it would be very difficult for me to identify every individual and the contribution that the person or persons would have made in a very stilling manner to ensure that today's activity was a success words about lame vehicles to adequately express our heartfelt gratitude to the conception of a most befitting theme our hearts are glad our minds have been renewed and our spirits are refreshed as we have been reinvigorated to continue giving ourselves unreservedly in the vineyard of education the success failures and all other emotions experienced and expressed today could have only been made possible because of the sterling conscientious pure and unrelenting desire and determination of the collective resources of all members of st george east executive [Applause] as well as those who have consistently and faithfully embraced the ethos of our great district to every individual and corporate entity who would have contributed tangibly and intangibly who would have been monetarily rewarded and who would have volunteered and used all that you had with relentless passion from the inner recesses of our being our hearts resoundingly resonate in varying throbs and vernaculars [Applause] mercy gracias i told you there's a rhapsody of emotions in the room you know agra decido in english we say thank you in trinidad for want of the use of the local pralangs we say tanks [Applause] thank you once more mr kofi applewhite so we have as we wind down we have four videos to show you and the last video as we normally do at our conventions when we are face to face we socialize after and we have planned for you an after party where our 2016 2017 2018 and 2019 soccer monarch winner will bring the curtain down this evening teachers viewers friends well-wishers wherever you are we thank you for your time today supporting the saint george's district convention we look forward for we look forward to seeing you face to face next year god's willing i now invite all of you to stand even at home as we sing the tutors anthem who is going to be led by so as we remain with protocol we will come around to sing the anthem social distance masks on at home you can sing lusty without your masks upbeat [Music] we know [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] we know we know [Music] is [Applause] [Music] [Music] foreign [Applause] [Music] is [Music] we know we know [Music] yes [Music] we are [Music] whatever you may do do your tutor be true [Music] is [Music] three chairs [Applause] um indoor laundry and private parking starting at 1.275 million home is digital home is where you can foster new memories home is where you can rejuvenate home is where love is home is a peace of mind home is a house with land to expand home is at the serene huacano park or the gated sanctuary of ella vista gardens three bedrooms two baths indoor laundry and private parking starting at 1.275 million home is dg homes sangri granny nine nine 691-5659-721-9186 tg homes modern and luxurious living for all they are here we don't want them [Music] blessings on my nation [Music] [Music] like a laughing me [Music] [Music] [Music] do [Music] do [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] the one who invented music it's got to be very big [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] everybody [Music] do do melodies [Music] [Music] a blind man can find a melody [Music] music fills the world with happiness plenty sweetness and togetherness music has no friends everybody [Music] [Applause] [Music] you could still jump up [Music] young baby everybody [Music] energy you don't need [Music] [Music] everybody [Music] um [Music] signal everybody [Music] everybody [Music] foreign we are going home [Music] end up in trinidad [Music] i've been here all right 375 jump jump jumping here [Music] do [Music] [Music] in a party [Music] and we started she couldn't take me is blessings [Music] feel my love [Music] [Music] taxi taxi airport [Music] lauren you better wake up i need a chat plane to take me non-stop i can't stay in new york city when there's sunshine and fun in my country lions is the place where they're jamming with carrion and charlie's roots clashing everyone happy partying and i'm freezing [Music] come and join me [Music] lauren you'll take it easy i don't mean to hurt you baby me shiva and back home he like fire that is why i said you next chaplain must take me [Music] me my mind is would be my next stop [Music] blessings my name is voice and i'm here to welcome each and every one of you to the save and song the at-home concert series right blessings to the music app did you sell it revives it voice you grow your feeling you say good vibes you say good energy and to each and every one of you looking at this right now we see more success more prosperity and most importantly peace our mind [Music] [Music] stronger [Music] if [Music] and you are some different [Music] so [Music] please 2020 [Music] is [Music] i swear [Music] is [Music] is [Music] if [Music] is [Music] yes [Music] [Music] it's a pleasure to be here i want you to know this concept is far from finished [Music] [Music] [Music] for sure [Music] [Music] and i can't believe [Music] said [Music] [Music] is [Music] and i can't believe i can't believe [Music] i said [Music] see i'm fine [Music] anybody here grateful for life anybody here grateful for health or strength for family [Music] [Music] me [Music] boys [Music] [Music] everybody [Music] please [Music] [Music] [Music] is [Music] oh yeah yes [Music] oh yes ladies and gentlemen this is the official dancing segment right you knocked back just now we are not alive but now it's time to dance so it's very simple just get off your coaches get off your chair dance in your living room [Music] [Music] yes [Music] [Music] i [Music] this next song is for you you done dancing already oh my goodness [Music] [Music] don't even [Music] [Music] just makes me [Music] i [Music] [Music] don't even know [Music] [Music] [Music] your love just makes me feel [Music] [Music] yes yes yes yes give me a moment it's upon wicked people all bad mind people or envious people all jealous people all crutchful people all deceitful people [Music] wicked people [Music] that night [Music] [Music] give me away [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] simple instructions very simple anything i say you say fire very simple anything i say you say you're so good anything i say you say lovely [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] of course [Music] [Music] [Music] tell me [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] me [Music] is [Music] my enemies [Music] already [Music] me [Music] [Music] me [Music] i see a police [Music] is yes [Music] yes [Music] is [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Music] [Music] anybody celebrating our body right now beyond for the music up did you sell happy birthday enjoy it have a time [Music] you see me boy i see her grateful [Music] [Music] is [Music] sometimes i wonder where i am [Music] [Music] i [Music] very good please have fun [Music] your fate is nice boy boy is nice [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] is [Music] [Music] yes [Music] [Music] yes [Music] once you reach anyway [Music] ladies and gentlemen this is the end of safe and song stay at home concert series powered by digital and the music upright i'm gonna do the song a little different for you all voice was swiss pandemonium a different vibe right [Music] blessings i'm in life that i [Music] is [Music] it looked like bunny [Music] [Music] fling everything up [Music] is [Music] [Music] boy [Music] is [Music] is [Music] [Music] up [Music] is [Music] is [Music] we [Music] start to [Music] is [Music] [Music] do [Music] [Music] foreign

Channel: Richard Ahong

Views: 7,312

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Id: XYsLhqIfx8s

Length: 233min 48sec (14028 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 08 2021