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Mrs. Marion Corbin, former senior teacher at the Maria Holder Nursery School, embraces students of the school during a retirement function held in her honour at the Sharon Moravian Church in St. Thomas.

ADVICE FOR TEACHERS

Having spent forty-two years in the teaching service in Barbados, retired educator Marion Corbin is offering a few nuggets of wisdom for teachers who want to excel in this noble profession.

The former senior teacher at the Maria Holder Nursery School was at the time speaking during a retirement function held recently in her honour at the Sharon Moravian Church in St. Thomas, by the principal, staff and students of the nursery school. Her husband Victor Corbin, daughter Keisha Marshall, mother Eugene Skeete, siblings, grandchildren and other relatives were also present to share in the moment.

Corbin revealed that she was able to glean all of the characteristics necessary to be a successful, caring and compassionate educator from to her upbringing in a caring home run by her mother, her Sunday School teachers and loving and empathetic school teachers, who helped to shape and guide her.

Mrs. Corbin then suggested how teachers presently in the service or those seeking to enter the profession could make the most of their time, aid students in reaching their fullest potential and uplift their schools.

“You can’t be a teacher and not have a love for people,” the retired educator stressed.

“You must be confident in sharing knowledge. You can’t be a teacher and be a person who is concerned with self. You have to be team player,” she said.

Corbin added, “You have got to be calm; when the water is troubled we can’t be troubled. We have to rise above that. We must be fair in all of our dealings. We must be able to see situations from different angles, not only one viewpoint. There is not only one way to see things.

“You must be a good time manager. Know how to manage your time and you also have to display the art of flexibility,” she stated.

“As an educator, we are expected to display the core values of honesty, fair play, integrity, being trust worthy, sympathetic and being empathetic. During my tenure, I think I tried to do all of that and I always tried to do my best, because my mantra is ‘Nothing but the best is good enough.’”

Mrs. Corbin, who started her teaching career at the Sharon Primary School in St. Thomas and later taught at Grace Hill Primary, Holy Innocents, Grazettes Primary and Lawrence T. Gay Primary where she spent 27 years, noted that she had come “full circle”, having fulfilled the rest of her time in the service at the Maria Holder Nursery School in the same parish.

She told those gathered, “By choosing teaching as a profession, I have been able to fulfil my life’s ambitions and achieved many hours in touching the lives of numerous students, parents, friends and colleagues.”

And while Mrs. Corbin noted that she misses both the staff and pupils of the nursery school, she is satisfied that during her career she was given the opportunity to use several of her talents and gifts from God to make an impact on the lives of others.

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