MAGGOTTY, St Elizabeth — New principal of Maggoty High School, Sean Graham, makes no secret of his own struggles as a student.

He told his audience at last month’s inauguration ceremony to mark his elevation as the fifth principal of Maggotty High that his five-year tenure as a student at prestigious Munro College ended in personal disappointment.

Yet, that experience also taught him the importance of support from others as he sought to lift himself from mediocrity to excellence.

Graham’s experiences obviously taught him humility and the value of gratitude. He spent more than half of his acceptance speech at the inauguration ceremony thanking those who had helped him, not least his mother.

“I graduated from Munro College in 1995 with four subjects, Maths and English not included,” the 36-year-old Graham told his audience.

“I felt like it was the end of the world; I felt very ashamed,” he said. Ashamed because he knew the sacrifices his mother had made and “that this was not the result that she was looking for”.

But then his mother’s response helped him to find a way forward. “While I was in my room crying, she came in and said, ‘you are going to have to pick yourself up and go again,'” he recalled.

Since then, Graham has worked his way through tertiary education and rapidly through the ranks of the teaching staff at Maggotty High to become the school’s leader.

Perhaps, because of his experiences, Graham says his own approach as leader at Maggotty High will involve patience, tolerance, and a recognition that for many young people school provides the only consistently positive influence. He urged his staff to support him in his quest to guide children with love and understanding.

“I urge all of us to believe in the children. Let’s be patient with them,” Graham said.

“Children are many times misguided, but in my mind, the school right now is the only remaining socialising agent that gets to everybody. Children are no longer going to church, children are no longer having family time, and so the school is that entity of change. Let us be patient with them, let’s take time to listen to them, to treat them properly, to be courteous to them, and even as we insist on discipline, let us remember to love them,” he added to loud applause.

Graham said he was taking the baton from former Principal Rawle Bent, with Maggotty High already on its way to being a “great school”. He pointed to rapidly improving results in external examinations and to high achievements in sport.

Maggotty High student and Jamaica Under-19 cricketer Odean Smith was voted Most Valuable Player of the West Indies Under-19 tournament in July, Graham pointed out. And early in the current schoolboy football season, the school became the toast of St Elizabeth football by defeating many-time daCosta Cup champions and holding current powerhouse St Elizabeth Technical High School to a draw.

Several speakers, including special guest Yvonne Clarke, principal of Bethlehem Moravian College, hailed Graham as a leader with great potential. He was urged to be “transformational …and not just a manager”.

Perhaps, the finest tribute came from student representative Odane Brooks, who described Graham as “the one the majority of students feel comfortable seeking audience with”. A school principal, Brooks argued, should be approachable, with a democratic approach even while insisting on discipline. Graham, he believed, fitted the bill. “The student body looks forward to working with you to make Maggotty a school of choice in St Elizabeth,” Brooks said.

Member of Parliament for St Elizabeth North Western JC Hutchinson pledged that under his watch, Maggotty High will be removed from the shift system and benefit from improvements in physical infrastructure, as well as additional land from an adjacent publicly owned property.

For the ‘doubting Thomases’, Hutchinson made it known that Education Minister Ronnie Thwaites — though from the other side of the political aisle in Parliament — was his personal friend and former college roommate.

“Ronnie Thwaites was my roommate at Cornell University, so when I speak, I speak to a colleague who is a friend of mine…,” said Hutchinson.

Chairman of the school board, Lola Marshall-Williams, emphasised that a priority project planned for Maggotty High was an auditorium to serve as an assembly hall. She noted that only a select few of the Maggotty High student body could be accommodated at the inaugural ceremony, precisely because of inadequate space.