Nordia Bailey: The 'accidental teacher' enjoying the best of both worlds

As far as math and science teacher at Bethel Academy, Nordia Bailey, is concerned, there is no need for 'specialised' math teachers, but for the current crop to exercise some creativity in how the lessons are taught.

Bailey, who said she has a 100 per cent pass rate in science, boasted that all her students over the years have aced the subject in the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate exam.

And although she has been teaching math at the school for 10 years, this is the first year she will be doing so at the exam level.

A confident Bailey said she is expecting the same results from her math students when they sit the exam next year that she got from her science cohorts.

She revealed that among the strategies she uses to engage her students are songs, poems and dub poetry, tweaking the lessons so that they find it more interesting and easier to grasp.

EVALUATING STUDENTS

But before any lesson is taught, Bailey said she first does an evaluation of the students in order to group them according to their abilities.

"The ones who are more advanced I give them group activities, and the slow ones I take the time to meet them at their individual points and develop different strategies for them," she said.

Bailey said there are times when she has to take the lessons outside the classroom to accommodate the slower ones, and she does that through a homework club.

With all the fun she has been having with her students while challenging them to learn, one would think teaching has always been her first love ... it was not!

With a smile, Bailey said her first career choice was nursing. She is actually a trained nurse who, for a few years, worked at the St Joseph's Hospital in Kingston. However, during the summer holidays, her home would be filled with children all benefiting from her tutoring. It was after conducting one of those sessions that it finally dawned on her that she really enjoyed teaching, and that her love for the profession might just have been passed down to her from her mother, Kathleen Bailey, who is a retired teacher.

"My mother was always saying that none of her children has taken a page from her book by being a teacher," she said, admitting that her mother was happy when she made the decision to enter the classroom.

Fast-forward to 2018 and Bailey has now been a math and science teacher for 10 years. She is also the head of the nursing programme at Bethel Academy.

Bailey admitted that there have been days when the pressure makes her want to quit, but her heart would not allow her to.

"One time I took four months off and my students called, texted and begged me to finish the year," she said, adding that each time she makes the promise that she would finish the year with that batch, the following year sees her making the same promise.

Laughing, Bailey admitted that she is in love with her career choices, as she is living the best of both worlds - teaching and nursing - and if there are days when her students become her patients, so be it.