LANCE McFarlane —the teacher who led an entire class of fourth-formers in an accelerated exam programme at Wolmer’s Girls’ to grade one in maths this year — began his teaching career as a matter of circumstance. It was in 2008, his fifth year at The University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona, struggling to complete a bachelor’s degree in electronics and computer science, with the Students’ Loan Bureau breathing down his neck.

“I needed a job. I was looking to see what kind of job I could do. Mommy said try teaching. She saw it in me from before. And I sort of saw it in me from before. I said to myself ‘Lance, you know you could teach for a couple years, one or two years’. So I had it in the back of my head but not as a primary career goal,” McFarlane told the Jamaica Observer.

And it were it not for the insistence of his then-girlfriend, now-wife Sherika, he might not have heeded.

“There was a job fair going on at the assembly hall at UWI. I told my girlfriend Sherika that I was going to look a job. By the Wednesday I got a shave and ‘line up’, but by Friday I still hadn’t gone. I was putting on my boots and shorts to play some football and Sherika said to me, ‘Lance, the job interview down by assembly hall, you need to go to one’. I said, ‘By now they should have already found who they’re looking for.’ She said, ‘Lance, you said you were going to go’. And she pressed a shirt and pants for me and I borrowed a brethen’s tie and went down to the hall and saw St Hugh’s advertising for a maths and physics teacher,” he recounted.

McFarlane spent a year at St Hugh’s High, where English teacher Duane Burke interested him in a business partnership to teach mathematics on weekends. And thus his extra-class business, Sophomore Academics, was born.

After St Hugh’s, McFarlane went on Institute of Academic Excellence for three years before landing the position at Wolmer’s Girls’. He has enjoyed much success in the classroom, with an average Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) pass rate of 99 per cent in his six years there.

McFarlane acknowledges that when he just started teaching, he wasn’t nearly as sharp as he is now, especially since he lacked class-control skills. However, he has learned from his experiences.

“It was between IAE and Sophomore Academics that I really started learning the syllabus, really started learning what the exams looked like. So ever since then, I’ve been doing the syllabus in one year, with both adults and children. That’s where I learned a lot of class management, with students who are rough. It takes a whole heap of inter-personal skills, a whole lot of confidence,” he explained, saying that he became so good at what he did that IAE students would flock to his classes, and he was even approached by a competing remedial institution but declined.

His success in the classroom contrasts with his university life, McFarlane admits. He told the Jamaica Observer how he lost focus, and ended up spending six years trying to complete a three-year degree programme that he had little interest in.

“[Leaving high school] I wanted to become a pilot. I wasn’t aware of any way to do it except you pay for it, or the JDF; and I wasn’t interested in the JDF. I remember thinking, ‘Lance you have a brain, just go and do a three years at UWI; do something that’s marketable’. So I did an electronics major and computer science minor,” he said, noting how strange it was considering he didn’t know the first thing about computers.

“I never ended up liking it and I ended up losing a lot of interest. I ended up also being distracted while at UWI. I just went through a bad phase at a bad time,” he added, noting that he skipped many classes, especially mathematics, and cared more about socialising than academics.

“I failed a few courses [and] ended up having to do a fourth year. During my fourth year I had a lot of courses outstanding and I started to do them one at a time part-time,” he said, explaining how the SLB withdrew its funding and how that caused him to spend six years at university.

Financial struggles were not new for McFarlane. In his early years, his family relocated often and could barely make ends meet. His father, who was a member of the Jamaica Constabulary Force until 1996, was the only breadwinner in the family of six, which consisted of his mother, and three other siblings.

“The struggles were primarily financial. Some of the time bus fare was an issue, but he (father) would still find a way to put us on the bus on our way to school. There were several days when we didn’t have lunch money. The plan was my father would pretty much try to get the money to bring to the school. And this was a regular practice. There are days you would end up going without lunch because not every time it would be sourced. Some of the times it comes late so you eat lunch after school. But it’s not a case where we’ve ever gone one full day and not eaten,” he said.

There were also days when, while a member of the Kingston College track and field team, he trained on a empty stomach, but it had little or no effect on his academics and leadership involvements.

“After first form, I was in the ‘honours class’ where I was usually in the top ten. I did nine CSEC subjects, did well at track. I have two champs medals: 100 metres hurdles bronze and 400 metres silver, both in class three,” he said listing some of his achievements in high school.

McFarlane was also deputy head boy at the North Street-based school, and while at Mona, founded The UWI chapter of the Kingston Old Boys’ Association.

While he made it to the ‘honours class’, he described himself as an average student, with mathematics being the obstacle between him and the Masters Club, initiated by his third form maths teacher Mr Burke for the high achievers in the subject. He didn’t become a strong mathematics student until fourth form, and passed the subject at CSEC with a grade two.

“My first real test at teaching actually came when I was in upper six. My little brother, Mark, had been failing maths. As a matter of fact, his mock exam grade before CSEC was five per cent. My mother came to me about two weeks from the exam and said, ‘Lance you have to help your brother’. I said, ‘Mommy, he cannot be helped, he is going to fail’,” he recalled.

Mark got a grade three.

The “awesome responsibility” of teaching was not lost on McFarlane.

“I remember being introduced to the school population at a devotion at St Hugh’s. It dawned on me the responsibility that I have to really be their teacher; to show them the way. You’re looking at those students and you know that it is your duty to educate them, it’s your duty to guide them and take care of them during school hours. It’s your duty to inspire them; and that society demands all of this from you,” he told Career & Education.

Having shouldered this responsibility in the public system for just about eight years, the 31-year-old is seeking growth in the private education system as an entrepreneur. He recently handed in his resignation at Wolmer’s and is now focused on growing Sophomore Academics in the next five to eight years.

“My aspiration is not to be in the classroom forever. I’m not satisfied with just being a regular classroom teacher. That was never the plan. Sophomore Academics is our (him and Duane Burke) brain child. [Though] people like my style of teaching and people want Mr McFarlane to teach them, eventually I want somebody to replace me. There are good teachers, and others who I can train and show them the ropes; create the formula, share the formula,” he reasoned.

“Had teaching been a more attractive offer, I would have probably stayed longer. I know that things are rough, but if it is that the Government can’t pay more, [they should] create more benefits for the teachers, attract the brighter minds, make the profession a more respectable profession. A lot of the teachers can’t afford a car, and if they don’t find a partner in life, they can’t own a house,” he argued.

“If you ask the honours students, none of them are saying they want to be teachers. It attracts the lower grades of students. Jamaica is not attracting the brighter minds because the brighter minds think they can earn more,” McFarlane continued.

On the subject of entrepreneurship, the teacher encouraged young people with that mindset to strike while they are young.

“Timing is important. Create the platform and wait for the right time to launch out. And make the step while you’re young. Don’t try to take too many responsibilities. Try and create a platform that you can live from and then you take on responsibilities,” he said.

He also advised that people should spend their youthful days getting qualified.

“Education is the way to go. Get that paper. It’s not necessarily the route to wealth, not for most of us, but it is a safeguard against poverty,” he counselled.