Dr.Joyce Glasgow
After several letters back and forth between Dr. Glasgow and
ESRA, and with the kind assistance of Dr.Barry Wade ("Mr.Environment Jamaica") of
Environmental Solutions who helped find
her unlisted (?) telephone number just before our visit to Jamaica,
we finally met for the first time, in the parking lot of HUML at 08:00 Tuesday, March 12, 1996.
Prepared to see a fragile 70 year old retiree, we were most surprised to
see instead an energetic and small dynamo: Joyce Glasgow.
We took some
pictures and sorted out
some books to be donated to schools,
then departed for Ocho Rios, talking all
the way about the three or
more lives she
had lived consecutively.
In the first life, Joyce got married
and established a family with her
husband Charles (a.k.a. Sonny or
Daddy) and five children.
Then, in 1960, she went to UWI
for degrees in biology and education,
taught high school from 1964 to 1979,
when she returned to UWI and served
as Lecturer, and Deputy Dean
until her retirement in 1992.
She also wrote a series of reports for
UNESCO on Environmental Education
Curricula in the Caribbean
(that's how we first noted her).
Perhaps frightened by the thought of
retirement and forced inactivity,
she next undertook to pilot a
program in environmental education,
working for the National Resource
Conservation Authority and in close
cooperation with one of her previous
employers, the Ministry of Education.
Her mission for this day was to visit and administer a simple test to
the several fourth grade classes in the large (>2000 pupils) Ocho Rios
Primary School, where we were welcomed by the friendly principal, Mr.
James and were joined by Mrs.Thompson of the Ministry of
Education.
The school is overcrowded and very noisy, but all five of the teachers
we met were dedicated and caring, and the 'environment' was cheerfully
cleaned up by teachers and students alike wielding brooms and filling
freshly painted oil drums
'Garbage in - garbage bin'.
At this fourth form level, there is no need for a separate environmental
course in the already crowded curriculum and classrooms, but the
teachers are prompted by Joyce to encourage active participation in
keeping their classroom and schoolgrounds clean and instilling a new
environmental awareness which was so sadly lacking till just a few years
ago.
While the tests were taken - with two of the classes going outside
their crowded classrooms and sitting under some trees - we visited the
special education facility, the small library and the school counselor,
who alerted us to some recent problems with absent parents, child
mistreatment, and drug pushers, possibly related to the
extensive tourism prevalent in Ocho Rios.
Again, I was impressed with the dedication of the staff and their
genuine concern for the students: education in Jamaica seems to be in
very good hands, mainly those of teachers who are also mothers.
Joyce and I left around lunch time and next visited the Moneague
Teachers College, gloriously located in the hills in a former hotel
complex.
In addition to teacher training, curricula are scheduled in computer
training and hotel management.
We found out that some twenty computers had been installed in one of the
classrooms by the Jamaican Computer Society
Education Foundation, and Joyce was pleasantly surprised to hear
that one of her former students, Everald Gowie, is its executive director.
I decided to try and take up contact with Everald and wondered inhowfar
JCSEF was doing the same type of project as the sponsors of NetDay96 in California....
After a pleasant drive along some quiet and spectacular backroads
through the mountains, we reached the Glasgows' "Richmond Estate" near
the shore and enjoyed a late lunch with her husband Charles - who is
rightly proud and very supportive of his wife. Joyce returned me to HUML where we discussed with the co-directors,
Sarah Bronsdon and Magnus Johnson, the possibilities of
bringing some Jamaican teachers to the lab and taking them out on an
oceanographic cruise. Leave it to Joyce and these two British Ph.D.
students in Biological Oceanography to make this another successful
environmental educational exercise!
A footnote: HUML is getting quite international and this week was
overrun by Europeans: Swiss, German and Dutch students and visitors in a
marine biology class offered by Dr. Erich K. Ritter
(eritter@rsmas.miami.edu): the week before, we heard, there had been a
very successful ElderHostel group from the USA.
To inspect the resume of Dr. Joyce Glasgow, please press here
NOTE added on April 15, 1998:
During the Spring 1997
Millersville
University
Homecoming Weekend,
ESRA invited Dr. Glasgow and her daughter
Camille to
visit Lancaster County
in recognition of her many services to
environmental
education.
Included was a tour along the Susquehanna River and visit
to the C & D Canal and Chesapeake City,
where we enjoyed a wonderful
lunch with Mr. and Mrs.
Charles de Bourbon of Toronto/Montserrat.
In January, 1998, Joyce and
her husband Charles celebrated their fiftieth wedding
anniversary.
first version prepared March 18, 1996
corrections by Dr.Glasgow included on May 15, 1996
note added on April 15, 1998
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