Wakenaam teacher on quest to create change
Francina LanfermanDuncan 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, LanfermanDuncan 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,” LanfermanDuncan 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 LanfermanDuncan 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
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