Richard Gayle -
Michael SloleyHE learnt from a very early age that teaching was not a job for 'softies'. It is no surprise then that at age 38, he remains one of the few men brave enough to stand up and face the class.
"Something happened while I was a third form student (at St. Jago High) which put a boy's life in danger. Two male teachers stepped in and just kinda quelled the disturbance very very quickly...I recognised then that teaching is not for a 'softie'," he recalled.
Fresh out of high school Richard Gayle, then 20, worked at the Ministry of Health for six months before realising that it was not the type of job he wanted.
"I never liked where I was heading. I wanted to make a serious contribution so that I could feel as if my life was worth something."
Gayle quit his job at the Ministry of Health in 1982 and enrolled at the Mico Teachers' College and completed the three-year teacher training programme.
He then taught for six months at the St. Hugh's High School, then taught for another six at the St. Andrew High School for Girls before landing a job at Jamaica College (JC) where he has remained for the last 13 years.
"Teaching is not just a job, its something else. To watch these youngsters grow up and thing, is really remarkable. One of my students actually came to JC to teach with me," said Gayle.
"I like teaching here because I understood what these guys were going through. It was a phase that I went through myself...It was like I was going back to some extent to correct something in my own development," he mused.
The stoic Geography teacher has wasted very little time in the classroom. He is a disciplinarian with a difference who declares that he tries very hard to understand his students whom he refers to as his 'sons'.
"I think I represent for them a kind of window to what they want to become. It's a situation like listen, you can become who you want to become, you don't have to kill your personality."
"One of the things I try to value in the students is a matter of their own personality that God gave them, because that is what is going to be of greatest value to them in the future."
He says one of the more memorable experiences he has had while teaching at JC came in the aftermath of Hurricane Gilbert in 1988.
Gayle who was the grade supervisor for second form at the time related the conditions under which the students had to work.
"There were no classrooms for a couple of weeks and the boys had to be housed in the school auditorium, no chalkboards, sections filled with mosquitoes...having to go through that and to see these young men come to manage on their own was something remarkable," he said.
He does have his regrets, though.
"The only regret that I have is my hesitance at times to do things that are radical. There are some changes that have to be made in the education system and also myself, and I have been hesitant in effecting these changes," he said.
Gayle, who, apart from his regular duties at Jamaica College, coached the under-13 football team from 1990 to 1997, and was also actively involved in the Inter School Christian Fellowship programme (ISCF), acknowledges the importance and magnitude of his job in the class room. He has focused all his energies on that aim. To create a better society.
"I'm just trying to create a place for my 'sons' and 'daughters' so they can live and be happy in this country."
