The Eyeball: Salt Cay's Education Week 2010

Among the many activities marking Education Week earlier in the month of March in the Turks and Caicos Islands is Career Day on Salt Cay. On March 4th, students of Salt Cay's Mary Robinson Primary School walked from the school to the Salt Shed carrying placards and singing songs about the islands at the start of Career Day 2010.

Arriving at the Salt Shed, students, teachers and community members were welcomed to Career Day 2010, by Mary Robinson Primary School Principal Shyvonne who introduced Salt Cay's District Commissioner Carolyn Dickenson.

DC Ms. Carolyn read an address from HE Governor Gordon Wetherall stressing the importance of education, thanking the teachers for the fine work they do with the students who are the future of the Turks & Caicos Islands.

Ms. Carolyn went on to encourage the students and reaffirm the importance of the theme for Education Week 2010, "Rebuilding the TCI through Commitment and Education."

The next portion of the program was the introduction of various members of the community to talk about their jobs and encourage the children to start thinking about what field they will be interested in when they grow up. With over 18 years experience, Nurse Simpson from Guyana works as a Staff Nurse, Midwife and Nurse Practitioner and she noted that one of the nice things about being a Nurse is that you can live anywhere!

Next on the program for Salt Cay's Career Day was a couple of songs by the students. They sang a song about the Turks and Caicos Islands and another that was a cute spelling song.

Police Officer Jeremy Spencer was a popular speaker of the day talking to the children about the various jobs in law enforcement including lawyer, judge and police officer. When he asked who wanted to see how the handcuffs worked, every hand went up! Raynard hammed it up as the officer showed how the cuffs went on - and he looked a little relieved when they were finally removed. Raynard's father, Fireman Newton Bassett got a few good pictures and laughs.

Richard, the divemaster, and Ollie, co-owner, of Salt Cay Divers were the most popular career of the day. Richard explained the equipment to the children and got volunteers from the audience to try breathing through a regulator. He explained to the children that they can start learning to dive at 8 years old and asked how many would like to learn. About four or five hands shot up!

Richard asked them to identify some of the fish shown in the book he had. When they identified the shark he asked if they knew what to do if they saw a shark, one child yelled, "Run!"

The children (and members of the community who attended) learned the underwater hand signals for "up", "okay", "down", "boat", "turtle" and "shark." Students were also able to come up and try on a mask and snorkel and try breathing with it on.

Ollie and Richard stressed the importance of helping the protect the underwater environment by making sure that all garbage, especially plastic bags and other things that can trap sea life are disposed of properly.

Next on the program for Career Day were interactive activities presented by Island Thyme Bistro and me. Haidee Williams, co-owner of Island Thyme Bistro had all the children crowding around to learn how to bake pizza and how to figure out how much to charge for that pizza if they had a restaurant. She reported that the actual making and eating of the pizza was more popular than figuring out the cost. :0)

I brought my computer to the Salt Shed and with the built-in web cam took each child's picture, let them pick some graphics to decorate their pictures and talked about the importance of learning computers in any job they might want in the future. It was a lot of fun getting each child to type in their name and select graphics to add to the picture!

The next day I took my thumb-drive with the photo graphics to the school to be printed and the Principal is going to laminate them and hang them on the wall until the end of the school year when the children will be able to take them home.

Ms. Heather Floan got the children thinking about saving money and working with money by asking "who likes money?" She went on to explain that if you have fun with numbers and like counting money, there are lots of jobs in accounting all over the world.

Best for last - the Salt Cay Fire Department. Fireman Newton Bassett and Ranfly Been demonstrated the proper use of a fire extinguisher and explained how to remember the steps for the use of one. P.A.S.S. = pull (the pin), aim (at the base of the fire), squeeze (the handle) and sweep (the flames).

Next the children went outside to get up close and personal to the fire truck and have it explained to them. And the firemen showed them how to hook up the hose. Screams of delight and lots of jumping around accompanied the water spray!