Teachers at the new NEW Blackman And Gollop Primary School have been given some timely advice from a former educator.
Ada Straughn, sister of the late Sir Clyde Gollop – for whom the school is named, along with Wilfred Blackman – left them with five requests.
She urged them not to let computers make books obsolete; not to let power point presentations replace their handwriting on the chalk boards; to use technology as an aid, and not as a replacement for the human personality of the teacher; to be like an oil lamp from whose flame several flames can be emitted; and to remember that children are children first, and their childhood should be honoured.
Straughn was speaking on behalf of the Gollop family at the official opening of the school last Wednesday.
Retired Central Bank Governor Sir Courtney Blackman, son of the late Wilfred Blackman, spoke on behalf of his family and later presented the W. W. Blackman Shield, which is to be presented annually to the most outstanding student at the school.
Minister of Education Ronald Jones said there was no difficulty in coming up with the names of Wilfred Blackman and Sir Clyde Gollop when they sat down to canvass.
He said he was confident that the Blackman and Gollop Primary School would carry on the excellence of the amalgamated St David’s And South District Primary Schools, which were both small but “powerful in educational pursuit”.
