Giselle Donaldson Yeates teaches from the heart

GISELLE DONALDSON YEATES is just "Miss" to her students. But she's not like any other "Miss": she's a larger-than-life character who assumes multiple personas to make learning fun and interesting.

A standard three teacher at Scarborough Methodist Primary School, Tobago, Donaldson Yeates uses culture, theatre and non-traditional methods to engage and inspire her students.

Over the years, she's tried to make sure her students don't just regurgitate information, but are critical thinkers.

The effects so far, she told WMN, have been immensely fulfilling.

“I nurture and equip them with the academic skills, confidence, critical thinking mindset and dramatic character traits necessary to perform holistically.

“The growth and improved performance in their academics, attitude and behaviour throughout the year when they are in my class is remarkable and most rewarding.”

Donaldson Yeates believes her background in culture enhances her work.

“My very multi-talented background fuels my creative, innovative and dramatic personality in my classroom, as every year I will transform the environment into an enriched theatrical movie set where I engage my students using songs, jingles, raps, spoken word, drama and even dancing.”

She has converted several subject concepts into fun jingles, raps and scenarios so the children can not just participate in them but internalise them.

As a young girl growing up in Les Coteaux, her involvement in the village’s cultural groups fuelled her passion.

“I would have taken part in the Tobago Heritage Festival, danced with the Les Coteaux cultural dance group and sung in school and church choirs.”

She even placed second in the 12 and Under talent competition, doing a bamboo dance.

Donaldson Yeates has captured several titles over the years since then. In 2005, she won the Miss Big and Beautiful competition, the Miss Plus Size Beauty in 2014 and the THA Inter- Department Personality competition in 2019.

She's also a writer, director and actor with the Les Coteaux Folk Performers.

But Donaldson Yeates, who has been teaching for 19 years, believes she was born to be an educator.

As a child, she said, she was often seen mimicking her primary schoolteachers.

“I pretended to teach the trees, dolls, teddy bears and chairs in my backyard.”

She also had some early mentors of her own. They included former school principal and national award recipient Dr Verleen Bobb-Lewis, who she said introduced her to dance and drama at the age of eight, as well as teachers Jacqueline Seales and Abeni Taylor.

“Each individual played an integral part in my vision, mission, growth and development as an educator and cultural participant.”

She said her late mother, Joy Donaldson, also was instrumental in her decision to be a teacher.

“I have her to thank for the birthing of my teaching career, as she would have often called my past primary school principal, Mc Donald Duncan, to remind him that I had completed all the necessary requirements.”

After graduating in 1998 from Signal Hill Secondary School, in 2006 she was among the first cohort of teachers to start a bachelor’s degree in education at the University of Trinidad and Tobago’s Valsayn campus. She returned to Scarborough Methodist after graduating in 2010.

In 2017, she launched a July-August vacation camp “with a difference” called Summer Stars Kids, where, apart from academic subjects, students were taught creative activities such as dance, drama, singing, sign language and art. The camp was a success – but three years later, during the covid19 lockdown, Donaldson Yeates faced a new challenge.

“I had to quickly train and equip myself with the skills and knowledge to navigate the online platform and to be able to teach and engage my students in a significant way.”

She later set up her own educational online after-school facility, the Yeates Enrichment Academy. There she widened her reach to include students in standards one to three from all over the island. Her classes, she said, are in high demand.

Although schools have resumed face-to-face learning, Donaldson Yeates said many students are still experiencing the effects of the pandemic.

“After being isolated in their homes for two years, many of them have problems concentrating in class, especially if others are noisy and disruptive, or even socialising and interacting with others in a positive way.”

Teaching is difficult enough as it is, and poses a “plethora of challenges, because we do not exist in a perfect world or teach in a flawless or faultless system.”

At present, Donaldson Yeates said, many teachers are also struggling because their professional needs are not being met, “Yet we are expected to produce student performance to high standards.

“That's where the true challenge lies. Sometimes we are expected to teach without tools such as PowerPoint projectors, and simple manipulatives which can aid in students having a clearer and better understanding, and make it more appealing to the multiple intelligences of the many children throughout the teaching and learning process. After all, we are teaching in the 21st century.”

Also, over the years, she observed, some teachers have had to dip into their pockets to provide materials their students need.

But Donaldson Yeates believes once teachers are equipped with the tools and support from all stakeholders to do their jobs, it would be "easy."

She also believes a sound parent-teacher relationship is essential for students' holistic development.

So she's been collaborating with the Oaktree International Institute of Education, led by Sharon R Wilson-Strann, to engage parents and students in weekend workshops. They're structured to equip parents to help their children with homework in areas such as reading, comprehension and writing.

“This drive and passion is to ensure that my standard three students are given extra reinforcement of what is taught, which usually proves to be successful, as the students participates exceptionally well during each day's proceedings, and the parents are more confident and able to assist their children at home.”

With all this going on, she has to juggle her own family life with work commitments. Donaldson Yeates laughed as she said, “My daughter, Amaiya, has accepted the fact that she had to share me with all of the students I have taught over the years.

“I love and treat all my students as my own and I encourage them to be confident in everything they set out to do, not only academically, but socially and emotionally as well.”

She also encourages them to develop their spirituality by inviting them to worship and fellowship at the Canaan/Bon Accord Methodist Church on Sundays.

Her advice to young people considering teaching as a career is that it is a “work of the heart.

“If you do not possess the love and passion for working and nurturing children – choose another career path, as education is not about filling a bucket, but the lighting of a fire. Therefore, teachers who love teaching, teach children to love learning.”