As a teacher for ten years, Jamain Hatton has seen his students at some of the highest and lowest points in their lives and he has always pushed them toward the path of success. But recently, the 27-year-old has had to face his own struggles and has publicly shared how the coronavirus pandemic has affected him, including sinking him into depression that has seen him battling with suicidal thoughts.
“This pandemic has drained me! I WAS NEVER SUICIDAL IN MY LIFE BUT THIS PANDEMIC MADE ME! I’m begging you to check on your strong friends because their strength might be slowly turning grey,” Hatton said in a recent Facebook post that has seen close to 400 persons commenting.
Noting that he knows it is an issue that has been bothering many persons, especially since March when the pandemic hit these shores, Hatton said, “…I just thought that if I don’t talk about it, other persons may not be willing to come forward to talk about their experiences.”
Hatton told Stabroek Weekend that this was the motivation behind his decision to bare his soul publicly.
“For me and my courage I just wanted to get it out of my system. I typed the situation… [and went to bed] and when I woke up it was still exactly what I wanted to say and so I posted it… I turned my phone off and I just let it go. And when I went back the responses were overwhelming,” Hatton said.
For all his teaching years, Hatton has been employed with one institution and while there have been ups and downs he said that since March, even though he took up the mantle with online teaching, there have been issues with him being paid. This has seen him at times not being able to afford enough to eat. This situation recently forced him to down tools and exit the profession formally, even though he continues to conduct online tutoring for individual students. Since his post, persons have been messaging him about similar situations in different workplaces across Guyana and he hopes that the Ministry of Labour is looking into them to help persons who may be working but are still on the breadline because their employers are not honouring their obligations.
The responses to his post, especially from past students, brought comfort to Hatton as they helped him to realise that he did not waste the ten years he spent teaching.
“I have never had issues with suicidal thoughts or depression… but the fact that we are locked up in a room or in a house every day for weeks upon weeks to months and it would soon become a year, it makes people go crazy. It is the longest I have been at home in all my life and to know that you would have had such a drastic change in such a short time, literally drives you over the edge,” Hatton said.
He shared that at one point he just had to leave his house to walk in an effort to “ease my mind” as apart from teaching he also had classes as a student at the University of Guyana all of which combined was not good for his mental health.
As a teacher, Hatton said, he has held talks with many of his students, including adults, who had issues with depression and he always told them that his favourite punctuation mark was the semicolon, which indicated that the writer wanted to continue the situation instead of ending it.
“So I encourage them that the semicolon indicates that the best part of your life is yet to come, only if you give yourself that chance to live… I never thought that I would have been in the situation of having to deal with negative thoughts. But the pandemic brought out the worst in many of us,” he added.
And while his former students have been reaching out to him hoping that he would return to the classroom, Hatton said he is at the point where he needs to do something for himself. “I am not going to return…,” he said emphatically.
Hatton began teaching soon after he wrote the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) exams. He recalled that there was not much available in terms of work for students who wrote science subjects and since he needed to support himself as he entered university and the job was available he took it without hesitation.
“When I entered the teaching job… I realised that I really liked it,” he said, while adding that there was joy when he helped children to understand concepts they initially struggled with.
And that was what drove him year after year, helping his students get to a point where they received excellent CSEC results and could go on to fulfilling their dreams.
About five years ago, Hatton started to share his students’ journeys on Facebook. Many have been inspiring; they worked hard, some coming from difficult backgrounds, and they served as motivation for many.
Family firsts
But while Hatton loved teaching, his dream is to become a medical doctor and he is just two years shy of making this dream a reality. It has also been a journey for him, but he does not regret the path he has taken, as for him teaching was where he needed to be as he worked towards achieving his ultimate goal.
Looking back, Hatton said, his family is not “typical.” He was the first to attend secondary school and the first to enter university and once he is successful in completing his medical degree, he will be the first doctor in his family.
“The idea of being the first to pave the way for other persons in my family to come is quite fulfilling. And it is not just me but many families across Guyana, we have to create paths for people who are coming behind us. We need create paths to show that my cousin did it, my sister did it, my brother did it and I can do it too,” he said.
The former Cove and John Secondary School (now Hope Secondary) student had no qualms about stating that he was not “born brilliant”. He noted that success may come easy for some because they are naturally brilliant, but for others it is because they are persistent and at times they may have to do things over and over to understand.
“That is what I have been doing. I might not get it on the first attempt, but I am willing to do it over and over again until I get it… And not to toot my horn, I think have been doing a fairly good job of it,” he said.
He recalled that while he was in secondary school, he was involved in almost every activity. He was on the debating team and he was the first student body president in addition to ensuring that he kept up his grades.
After Cove and John Secondary, he attended President’s College and he described the experience as “beautiful” as he met students from all walks of life and various parts of the country which motivated him to travel to the interior and experience the culture. He described the experience as a “melting pot” of what Guyana has to offer and because he experienced so many different cultures, he developed a deeper love for his country.
Since he was unable to begin studying medicine right out of secondary school, Hatton said, he started to read for a degree in biology with the hope of starting his medical degree after one year. When that did not happen, he switched to medical technology and it was there he realized his purpose.
“Medical technology is the branch of medical science that deals with diagnosing disease from a laboratory perspective…,” he said. Hatton graduated with his degree in 2017 with a distinction.
In wrapping up the degree, Hatton said, he was about to apply for a scholarship to read for a masters as he was a bit hazy about going on to a medical degree but a chance encounter with a complete stranger saw him applying and being accepted into the degree programme.
He pointed out that his family could not afford to upkeep him as he studied so he had to work. “I can’t afford not to work,” he said, while adding that for now he will continue to tutor privately until something permanent comes along.
Coconut vendor
The second of three children, Hatton said his mother is a housewife and his father is a coconut vendor. He shared that the dreadlocked coconut vendor at the East Coast Demerara Bus Park is his father and that he has sold coconuts to put his children through school. Before he settled at the park, he walked and sold water coconuts for some 20 years.
“That would have pitched him to pay school fees such as lesson fees and passage to go to school…,” he said of his father’s coconut business.
However, he was quick to share that there were many persons who contributed to his upbringing over the years, such as his uncles Tony and Moses, among others. For him, the saying it takes a village to raise a child, is quite true.
His sister, who is his youngest sibling and a student at the University of Guyana, Hatton said, is brilliant and over the last few months she has actually been helping to support him during his difficult periods. And while his older brother has not taken the academic path, Hatton still sees him as a role model. He recalled that it was he who taught him when he was a young child. Hatton said his brother always answered his many questions, encouraged him and gave him much needed information when he was a boy.
And so while he dedicated his first degree to his parents because of their hard work, Hatton said he would dedicate his medical degree to his brother because he believed in his dream even before he conceived it. He said his brother was brilliant though he did not complete secondary school probably because of friends, but he helped to pave the way for him to achieve his dream.
To his parents Dexton and Camille Hatton, he said “Thank you for believing me”. He had several teachers over the years from nursery to secondary who have been instrumental in helping him to get where he is today, and who motivated him to be a good teacher. He named Lynis Robinson, Tamatha Nelson and Winnet Collymore as teachers who impacted his life tremendously.
Speaking to young people, particularly young men, Hatton used the words of Jamaican singer Alkaline, “Things Take Time”. He noted that often youths want to rush to achieve things but “if we listen to the words of Alkaline we would understand quite clearly that in life everything takes time.”
“Everything is a process, and we should not be rushing to achieve a certain thing before a certain time. Everything has its season. So I want to encourage young boys to have careers in mind but [if that is not for them] they can learn a trade or start up a business and they can make so much more money than if they were maybe a doctor,” he advised.
He stressed that all hope is not lost if one is not academically inclined, but one must be persistent in following a dream to get to one’s ultimate destination.
And while Hatton will be a medical doctor in another two years, he also wants to enter politics one of these days. For him, change in any country can only come through solid governmental policies.
“For you to contribute to policies that will positively transform people’s lives you need to be in politics. I want to help steer this Guyanese ship onto the shores of prosperity,” he said.