The journey has been a long one; it has been filled with many obstacles, yet young teacher, Krystal Reid remains strongly committed to her role as an educator.

Reid, a recent graduate of the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts where she earned a bachelor’s degree in education is currently making the sometimes difficult transition from being a student to one of a teacher at the prestigious Titchfield High School in Port Antonio, Portland.

Reid started actual teaching earlier this year and is coming to grips with the exacting demands of her profession and dealing with having to relocate from her home parish of St Mary to Portland.

“It is a gigantic step moving from a student to a teacher in such a short space of time. It is very demanding, but we all have to start somewhere and I am continuously learning.

“I love teaching and will do everything possible to ensure that I depart the knowledge I have to my students in an effective way,” Reid who attended the Ocho Rios High School in St Ann, told Observer North and East.

The well-spoken Reid admitted that it was difficult dealing with moving away from the familiar surroundings of her mother’s home in St Mary to being on her own in Portland.

“I am not so dependent on Mommy anymore. It took a while to fully grasp that change. I am now living on my own, I have to feed and take care of myself, but it is necessary if I want to progress and move my students and myself forward. “Thus far, I am coping well and just excited to be in the classroom with my students,” Reid said.

But why the non-traditional subject area of the visual arts instead of the other tried and proven subjects?

“The visual arts, arts in general are my passion. I strongly believe that for any society to grow and prosper, there has to be a mix; a mix of all the subjects certainly in the formative years.

“And the visual arts provide a motivating vehicle for expression, and can be considered part of the cohesive mix in growing the minds of young people and Titchfield — as you know are the 2016 Schools’ Challenge Quiz champions — is fertile ground for this growth and assimilation.

“When I went to Edna Manley, I gained the realisation that teaching was the way to go for me because I thought that Jamaica needs art teachers since art is not a popular subject area. You will find a lot of mathematics and science teachers in every school… You hardly fine persons pursuing the visual arts, so I decided to become a visual arts teacher,” Reid stated with obvious joy in her eyes.

She readily shared that the early days of her teaching career have been dotted with challenges.

“I took the place of a well-loved teacher here at Titchfield, and that in itself is quite demanding. They (students) tend, to judge, ‘This is how my other teacher would do it, and so on, but apart from that they have received me very well and the management of the school provides encouragement, for which I am grateful,” Reid said.

Commenting on her choice of becoming a teacher, Reid said: “Originally I did not want to go into teaching, but when I was in high school, my visual arts teacher, who later became the vice- principal, encouraged me to pursue teaching. So after much consideration I went to Edna Manley. My teacher at Ocho Rios High was the one who really prompted me to be a teacher,” Reid explained.