“I see my job as very important” – Teacher Roxanne Beck says after 48 years of service

At age 14, Roxanne Beck began her teaching career at the St Peter Catholic School, now known as the Awaruwaunau Primary School, located in the Deep South Rupununi, and she eventually became known as “Miss Roxanne”. Forty-eight years later, Miss Roxanne remains an active member of the profession, still passionately moulding the minds of the next generation.
Recently rehired to teach at the Awaruwaunau Nursery School, Miss Roxanne has said, “I see my job (as) being very important: to lay a concrete foundation at the nursery level, (in order) to prepare pupils for primary education.”
In an interview with Guyana Times, the seasoned educator recalled that, at the age of 13, she had studied for two examinations. “One was the Preliminary Certificate Examination and the other was College of Preceptors, which was an examination set in England.”
The College of Preceptors dates back to 1846, and is the oldest surviving teaching association in the United Kingdom. Its founding principle has been to certify teachers.
Beck was a student of the St Peter Catholic School, where, confident in her brilliance and abilities, her teachers paid for her examinations. Lester Beck, who later became her husband, had also contributed to the fees. Her parents were farmers, and were not in a position to financially support her education. In those days, no proper lights were available at night to help her study, and she had to depend on the flickering light from the fireside. The situation had presented major challenges, but the young girl was determined to excel in her exams.

“I made up my mind to study because I needed a job to support my parents,” she affirmed. According to the educator, in those days, the only employment opportunity available in the hinterland was teaching. She wrote seven subjects – Mathematics, English Language, English Literature, Algebra & Geometry, Biology, History, and Art.
“During my studies, Geometry and History were very challenging. In Geometry, I had to learn and know all the statements from Theorem 1 to Theorem 30. In History, I had to learn all the years and dates of events since Columbus discovered the New World up to the end of slavery. I had to learn it all because, if I didn’t know the answers, my teacher would get his piece of stick and give me lashes on my hand. Sadly, I got some of it,” Beck reminisced.
In January 1977, at the age of 14, she joined the teaching profession as a teacher aide at that very Catholic school. “In September 1977, I was appointed as pupil teacher with a salary of $221 that I really appreciated,” Miss Roxanne expressed.
She taught at that school for several years, until she was transferred to fill a vacancy at the nursery school in the village, which back then was a benab with a thatched roof.

Miss Roxanne said it wasn’t until 1999 that a proper building was erected for the school.
In 1996, she seized the opportunity to become a trained teacher at the Cyril Potter College of Education (CPCE). Being a teacher in those days, especially in remote areas, was incredibly challenging, Ms Roxanne noted. However, her mother was determined to have her children obtain a solid education.
“My dad would normally go hunting and fishing for the family. My mother was a hard-working mother. She ensured that I go to school early and every day. She taught me how to spin the cotton to weave the hammocks. When she had cassava work to be done, she would normally wake me up at midnight to grate the cassava…and then go to school on time,” Ms Roxanne disclosed.
She says she has witnessed the remarkable transformation of the education sector, especially in the hinterland; where, apart from there being an increase in schools, which is improving access to education for children, the availability of learning materials for students and the yearly cash grants from the Government are remarkable improvements. She is also pleased that these schools now have sweeper/cleaners.

“So, I no longer have to sweep the school,” she noted.
What is important to her is that there are now more trained teachers available, and it is now much easier for them to study, since CPCE has launched its online classes for hinterland educators. Moreover, opportunities now abound for student graduates.
A mother of three, Ms Roxanne has been able to send at least one of her children to advance her education. “I managed to assist the third child in sending her to school in Georgetown, where she was successful in CSEC and CAPE…and was awarded a scholarship to study in Cuba for seven years; hence, she continued to climb the ladder…getting a Master’s Degree where she went to study at Barningham University,” Roxanne proudly revealed.

Teacher Roxanne has said she owes her life’s successes and her career to the many educators who have made inputs into her life over the years. These include Peter Charles of Victoria Village, ECD; Kissoon Lall, and Cecil Kowlessar of Mahaica. “Thank you so much!” she has expressed to those teachers who have helped her to see her way through to today.
Ms Roxanne has explained that in her days as a pupil, the teaching staff comprised primarily of “coastlanders” who had made many sacrifices in leaving their homes to offer the hinterland children an education. “Those teachers came to impart their knowledge, and taught me good values of life that are instilled in me today,” she noted. Now, she says, it is her turn to do the same for the next generation of leaders.
“I would tell them (pupils), ‘Take education seriously! Don’t think about marrying right now; complete your education first,’.”
Located in the Deep South Rupununi, Awaruwaunau is a community with a population of some 700 persons mainly of the Wapichan nation. Primary school graduates would have to travel some 25 miles to the nearest secondary school in Aishalton Village.