Francina Lanferman-Duncan is a teacher by profession and anyone who shares just five minutes talking with her about her job will also know she’s a teacher by heart.
When the national COVID-19 emergency measures were instituted at the start of April, one of Lanferman-Duncan’s biggest fears was what would happen to her students’ education and without any hesitation she got right down to business to fix that.
A mathematics teacher at the Essequibo Islands Secondary School situated on the island of Wakenaam, Lanferman-Duncan is said to be the first teacher on the island who took up the initiative of teaching students via WhatsApp. Since she made this move on April 4th, the day after a partial lockdown order was implemented, a number of other teachers in Wakenaam have followed suit. “I remember when we were told that school would be closed indefinitely and I said, ‘What’s going to happen to my students?’ Children are children [and] if school closes for a week or two, by the they time school reopens you have to go over every single topic because they were not engaged in learning during that period so being able to have a virtual classroom it gives me great satisfaction to know that they are still learning,” Lanferman-Duncan told Stabroek Weekend.
Lanferman-Duncan teaches the seventh, eighth and ninth graders. She dedicates three hours each day to each grade. She said there has been great feedback from the parents and the students in the seventh and eighth grades but the same cannot be said for the majority of students belonging to the ninth grade, which she believes may be due to a their parents think of them as being old enough to get their work done and not checking in to ensure that they do so.
For those students who do not have access to internet, she has seen to it that they have textbooks at hand. “I would encourage other students who would have participated in the online class to meet with them because these other children may be their neighbours or living close by. This way they can pass on what we have done. Some of my students, even if they don’t have the internet at home they go where you would have the government Wi-Fi and the parents message to let me know they are there and I send the work that we have done privately to them,” the teacher explained.
According to Lanferman-Duncan, her pilot class was the eighth graders as she is the class teacher for grade eight (A) and already had many of their contacts. Once this kicked off, she created groups for the other two grades. Lanferman-Duncan said that after the first few times she began realizing that she didn’t know who the students were that were signed on during class, so she began asking that they register themselves by mentioning that they are present when they sign in. Students are required to submit photos of their work upon completion so that she can mark it and she follows up by posting the solutions in the group with the steps outlined. Sometimes when a student has difficulty understand a concept taught, Lanferman-Duncan does a video or sends voice notes explaining the idea as best as she could. “In some ways doing the online classes is more difficult for me because I’m accustomed to being able to walk around and monitor them on how they are progressing but with the WhatsApp I don’t have that physical contact to say ‘well you’re going wrong here, this is what you need to do’. It takes more time for me to help them to grasp the work online but at the same time it may be more beneficial in some cases because I noticed that most of the students who would not have asked questions in physical class setting feel more open in our WhatsApp sessions. Even if they don’t ask me the questions in the group, they would send me a private message to explain it to them”, the teacher shared.
She noted also that not all of her students are able to access the classes at the required time because they may be doing chores or may not have the phone at hand. However, when they do sign in they get their work done. They can still ask their questions in the group or privately. Though Lanferman-Duncan may be dealing with another class at the time, she said this does not affect the students she is teaching unlike a physical class where it would have. She may teach for three hours then use additional time to explain outside of teaching time, but her work doesn’t end there. Marking their books takes another three to four hours, she said, before adding that it’s almost the same as when she is working from school. Sometimes in the night she is still marking schoolwork depending on the number of questions that were given.
Last week was the first time she gave tests in the groups. The tests were all multiple choice and each child had half an hour to complete and submit photos of their work via private messaging.
Making an impact
It has been thirteen years since Lanferman-Duncan began teaching. “I remember after writing CXC (Caribbean Examinations Council) in 2001. My aunt, who was a teacher, said to me that I should go to teacher’s training college. I said, ‘Who me? I ain’t able with them headache. Teaching is plenty headache.’ She was so persistent, and I was so stubborn that I refused. I instead went into an accounting career. Somewhere along the line I realised that I wanted to create change and I figured that the only way I could do that was start with children and what better profession than becoming a teacher. My aunt is now a retired teacher. She tells me had I listen to her I would have been teaching for longer but for me it’s better to teach wanting to teach than to just teach because you are qualified to do so. I always say when you do teaching, it’s different than taking any other jobs because it concerns moulding the minds of children,” Lanferman-Duncan said.
When she first took up the profession, she began as a Principles of Business teacher and taught the tenth and eleventh graders, but it took a lot of work to get them prepared for writing CSEC. It didn’t take her long to realize that the work was much more needed at the foundation and she later switched to teaching mathematics at the three lower grades, having majored in mathematics at the Cyril Potter College of Education (CPCE).
Lanferman-Duncan said that there isn’t much a teacher can do for a child when they get to the CSEC level which is why she chose to work at the foundation levels.
Apart from being a teacher, Lanferman-Duncan is a mother and wife. She has three daughters, all of whom have online classes as well and one of whom is currently preparing to write the National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA) examinations.
Regarding the plans to have the Caribbean Secondary Education Certification (CSEC) and NGSA exams being held in July, Lanferman-Duncan said she is against it as the safety of the children should be paramount. Children sitting these examinations, she argued, are already tense and fearful and she believes that this will be compounded by the current pandemic. She said children should be relaxed when writing exams instead of worrying about the child sitting next to them could be in infected or that they may have touched the same surface another child has touched.
At this point in time, Lanferman-Duncan added, children are more worried about what they are going to eat since many of their parents are without jobs. She said she considers her sixth grader to be fortunate enough to have internet access as well as a parent who can see that she is doing her lessons. “What about the students who are not as fortunate, and their parents are not educated enough to work along with them? Yes, the teachers are doing their bit, but the child needs that extra push. What will happen to the children who do not have internet access like the Amerindian communities and other communities as such where they cannot get the work that is being given? If it were up to me, I’d say let these children do their exams a month after school reopens. People don’t make holistic decisions, especially when it relates to children,” she stressed.
She hopes to someday become a policy maker in education as she wants to be in an area where she can make more of an impact on the system. “I want when my name is mentioned, I want it to be associated with a real revolutionary change as it relates to young people, that I was able to pave a way for them,” she said.
She mentioned that one of several of the things she would want to change should she become a policy maker. “My top priority is to do away with the ‘No Child Left Behind’ policy, where the child is not required to pass but we put them over to the other level. That is putting them at a great disadvantage. It tells the child that they do not need to work to achieve anything and that is not true. Children have developed this [lax] approach to education because they know, study or not, they are going to be promoted. It is the same attitude they are going to apply in their daily lives, they are not going to push for anything. If a child knows that if they do not perform in primary one (grade 3), they will not be given a place in primary two (grade 4) they are going to work. No child is going to want another child from a lower grade come the next school year to be in the same class with them and that will be a motivating factor for them to work harder. Look at our society. Everyone is trying to get things the easy way and that is because that is what we are teaching them. Do you know what is hurtful as a teacher? To see that a child is not required to pass their subjects to be promoted to another class then when they get to CSEC classes all the work is left on the CSEC teachers to get the child to pass. It is frustrating. When you have a child reaching to form four (grade 10) and they can’t do basic math, and cannot read and comprehend, what can the CSEC teacher do at that level? If this was rectified from the beginning, we would not have to go to all the trouble of teaching them what they should have known already and we’d have better performers at CSEC,” she argued.
Lanferman-Duncan added that some parents also have a lax attitude. She gave an example of this by pointing out that while the school already has trophies prepared to give to their students who have worked, parents who do not want their child to be left out although they have not done the required work present them with trophies also. Lanferman-Duncan questioned, “What are you awarding them for?”
“The best part of teaching is seeing my children, years after finishing school, doing something positive with their lives. Even while they are in school, I’m happy even when it’s just one little step up than where they were. I feel that sense of satisfaction,” she added.
