It's teaching time with Tristan Smith

Every day is an opportunity to learn something new and Tristan Smith wants to help other children do just that.

So, since March 2020, he has teamed up with the Chaguanas public library to post an educational video on their social media accounts every weekend.

The videos are part of an online learning series called Teaching Time with Tristan.

“In the videos, I cover all different types of topics like animals, experiments and different school work,” said ten-year-old Tristan, who is a standard three student at Regulus Educational Academy.

The idea for the series first came about when one of the library’s staff saw a video of Tristan reciting his timetables on his mother’s WhatsApp status.

Impressed by his presentation skills, the library staff knew they wanted to work with Tristan right away.

To create each video, Tristan comes up with a script beforehand.

Sharing the camera work are his parents Natasha Mc Intosh Smith and Nigel Smith.

The length of time it takes to create each video varies.

For example, videos covering school work can take less than 30 minutes to make while videos in which Tristan interacts with live animals can take up to an hour to produce.

“I would like children watching the videos to learn about what I do (in the videos) and to always put their best foot forward into whatever they are doing,” Tristan said.

The videos he enjoys making the most are the ones which feature animals. He enjoys the experience so much, he rarely has time to be scared when handling the animals.

To date, he has handled an albino Burmese python and a yellow tree frog.

“For the snake, at first, I was nervous to hold it, but it was fun, and all the other animal videos were fun also, I wasn’t afraid at all. I just love to do the animal videos," he said.

His videos have gained thousands of views and people have reached out to congratulate him. Tristan hopes children watching his videos continue to value their education.

But for Tristan, learning isn’t only confined to the classroom.

Last year, he decided to learn to play the steelpan and is currently being tutored by one of his school’s teachers.

He can already play this country’s national anthem on the pan and is in the process of learning to play the infectious Baby Shark song.

Due to covid19, he is now doing his music classes online.

To relax, Tristan plays football with his brother in the backyard of their Chaguanas home and he also takes kung fu classes.

Since starting kung fu classes in 2018 with Grand Master Ted Sandy Institute of Kung Fu in Chaguanas, Tristan has reached the level of a purple belt.

He has a kung fu tip: “Kung fu has a lot of stretching and stuff like that. If you don’t stretch, my master said you can pull a muscle.”

Tristan loves planes and would like to become either an engineer or a pilot when he grows up.

He would also like to help those in need when he starts working.

While Tristan enjoys hosting his online series, he hopes to one day be able to do in-person learning sessions.

For now, he misses seeing his friends in school and being able to do other things like practice his football skills and kung fu in-person.

You can view all the episodes from Teaching Time with Tristan on the Facebook page of the Chaguanas Public Library.