Aubrey Quamina is currently enjoying his summer vacation at the Silvertown home in Linden where he grew up, basking in the satisfaction of recently receiving one of the more prestigious awards for educators in New York.
Quamina, Head of the Mathematics Department and part time Dean of the Brooklyn School for Career Development, Brooklyn, NY, was among twenty four recipients of the Education Update – Outstanding Educator of the year, 2015 award at a ceremony held at the Harvard Club, Manhattan, on 24 June.
Naturally proud of being honoured amongst the distinguished leaders in education for 2015 in New York, Quamina said that it must be a good feeling to be
handpicked as part of twenty four teachers out of the 70,000 educators in New York from an entity that has been in existence for nineteen years. During an exclusive interview at his Silvertown home on Monday 17 August, Quamina disclosed that this year’s awardees included President Barrack Obama’s sister, Dr. Mayo Soetoro-Ng from the University of Hawaii and Carmen Farina, Chancellor of the NYC Board of Education.
Quamina, who graduated from the Mackenzie High School with ordinary and advance levels GCE certification in 1978, went on to the University of Guyana where he obtained a degree in electrical engineering before working at the Guyana National Engineering Corporation (GUYNEC) as a project engineer for a year. But, according to him, that was not his thing.
He then taught at the Wismar Christianburg Multilateral School, the Mackenzie High School and the Georgetown American International School before migrating to the United States in 2002 where he immediately obtained a teaching job at a private school. He taught at that private school for two years during which time he acquired his New York Teachers’ Certification. He subsequently obtained a post graduate Diploma in Education and a Masters Degree in Education.
Quamina, who has been teaching at the Brooklyn School for Career Development for nine years, said that he made a smooth transition into the New York education system probably because he taught the American curriculum at the Georgetown American International School. Stating that he was not overawed by the multicultural nature of the American society and the various rights and privileges that are given to American children, Quamina stressed: “For me, children are children regardless what part of the world you go … and they got to go by the rules,” adding that he has taught high school aged children throughout his teaching career.
The Brooklyn School for Career Development is a transitional school where the students are enrolled after graduating from juvenile school, Quamina said. “It is important to form good relationships with the students. It depends on how you carry yourself,” he said. “They call me pops. They call me their father. They call me Mr. Q.”
Noting that his engineering background gave him an option to teach mathematics or physics, Quamina said he chose the former because he found it easier to get students to be interested in mathematics. According to him, students at the school he teaches are not as academically inclined as those he taught in Guyana but they tend to gravitate towards mathematics because they want to shy away from the subjects that incur a lot of reading.
