Kennetta Bobb is 2018 Teacher’s Icon

Kennetta Chrysantha Bobb is Tobago’s Teacher’s Icon for 2018.

Bobb was honoured with the accolade at the opening ceremony and award function of the 78th annual Tobago Teachers’ Get-Together las Thursday, hosted by the Trinidad and Tobago Unified Teachers’ Association (TTUTA) at the Tobago Nutrition and Cooperative Society Building in Canaan.

Twelve retired teachers were also honoured - Glenda Bacchus, Jennifer Irwine, Marilyn Cowie-Clarke, Anthony Moore, Rennison Quashie, Cecelia George-McWellington, Marcia Des Vignes, Secretary for Community Development Marslyn Melville-Jack, Cheryl McEachnie, Jacqueline Springer-Dillon, Bernadette Andrews and Jacqueline Mitchell.

On receiving her award, Bobb said she was happy to be honoured as Tobago’s Teacher’s Icon.

“Put that in allyuh pipe and smoke it… I am so happy that they chose me to be this year’s special personality.

“I taught the way I know… I learn from below my mother house where I bat a lot of coconut shell and wood for them to learn. It has made me into the person I am today,” she said.

Bobb began her teaching career in 1972 at Elizabeth’s College and the Charlotteville Methodist School, moving to Scarborough Methodist Primary in 1973.

In 1976, she entered the Teachers’ Training College where she studied Home Economics, and though it was not her first love, she excelled at it.

She would return to teach at the L’Anse Fourmi Methodist school and by 1979, she was teaching Home Economics at Roxborough Secondary School. Her next move was to then Scarborough Junior Secondary from 1981 to 2008.

With the wealth of experience as a teacher at diverse schools under belt, and now topped by the Teacher’s Icon award, Boob is well placed to offer advice to young and aspiring teachers.

“You have to like people,” she said.

“You are getting the pay packet and the pay packet fat. When I started to work, they paid me $234 for the whole month and I did a lot of things with it. Now you are getting plenty more than that, teachers, don’t let anything get in the way of your becoming beautiful.

“Each of those children, each child that you take under your jurisdiction to teach must feel your presence. Please I am begging you this evening, remember that you are to press forward and deliver to the people’s children,” she said.

Spence added:

“Teaching is a nice profession, it depends on what you want out of it. What you want out of it is what you have to put in. You asked God to help you find a work so that you can mind yourself till you dead, and so you cannot withdraw any niceness from any child,” she said.

Bobb’s contribution to education and Tobago life went beyond her teaching at schools. Her involvement in theatre in particular stands out - from stage acting to co-producing and producing various plays and productions, and performances on television and cinema screens - ‘Back Bay’, ‘Return to Back Bay’, ‘The Invocation’ and ‘Turn of the Tide.

She has also sat on boards at Bishops’ High School, the National Schools’ Dietary Services Limited, Tobago Hotel School and Mt Olive Spiritual Baptist Church. And she has served on the Friends of the Tobago Library Committee, the Tobago Best Village Steering Committee, was a judge of the Best Village competition and the Heritage competition, a storyteller, a talent scout for several youth talent programmes, a preliminary judge at the Children Showcase, and a radio personality.