Young teacher develops geography workbooks for high schools
DEROLL Barrett, 26, a teacher at Glenmuir High School in Clarendon, has developed five workbooks for secondary school geography students.
“This is my first time designing geography workbooks for grades seven to 11. They are going to be used in six schools in St Catherine, Clarendon and St James,” Barrett told Career & Education.
The schools include Cornwall College, Montego Bay High, Mount Alvernia High, Glenmuir High, Clarendon College, and Old Harbour High.
Barrett said he was inspired to develop the workbooks as a complement to the information students get from the textbooks.
“At Glenmuir High, I realised there were workbooks that the students used and I realised that if I wrote a workbook it would benefit the students because it would help to reinforce the knowledge and skills that they are taught. So at first I wrote one for third form last summer and we tried it at Glenmuir earlier this year,” he said.
He now intends to approach the Ministry of Education to have the workbooks included in the national secondary school curriculum.
“I have expanded the projects to the six schools and I plan to target many more schools next year. I intend to bring them to the Ministry of Education in short order; it is just individual schools using it to test. Within a month, I will go to the ministry,” he said.
Barrett, who is from Barrett Town in St James and graduated from Cornwall College in 2000, lauds the Edmund Bartlett East Central St James Education Council for assisting with tuition fee while he was studying at the University of the West Indies and has now pledged to assist with the printing of his workbooks.
“I really appreciate the assistance of Mr Bartlett and his committee. When I was a student at UWI, Mr Bartlett gave me a sponsorship towards tuition and I approached them with form assistance to print the books and they have pledged to give some assistance. I don’t know the amount, but they will be helping me,” he said.
Barrett attended Mico Teachers’ College before moving on to UWI. He later taught at Spot Valley High School for a year before securing a position at Glenmuir in January this year.
