The teacher determined to make a difference

For more than 30 years, Taneka McKoy-Phipps has been committed to the call to educate Jamaica’s children, crusading in classrooms and under trees to reach the vulnerable.

Videos of her curbside classroom initiative went viral in the early weeks of the COVID-19 outbreak, shortly after schools were shuttered in March 2020.

Armed with missionary zeal, McKoy-Phipps gathered chalk and worksheets and had a blackboard painted in one of Kingston’s inner cities.

The Union Gardens Infant School teacher felt a sense of responsibility for the unsupervised children who scampered around without the structure and order.

McKoy-Phipps, winner of the 2020 RJRGLEANER Honour Award in the category of Education, said that she was determined to offer a lifeline to kids who might be at risk of yielding to negative social factors like gang violence.

“Education is the get-out key out of poverty.” the 49-year-old told The Gleaner in a recent interview.

“That could have been me if I didn’t have ambition.”

Losing her mother at age seven toughened up McKoy-Phipps for the life lessons she would learn, and later, share with others.

Immediately after her mom’s passing, she moved away from her three siblings at 20 Delacree Lane to Warsop, Trelawny, to live with Inez Rutty-Evans, a foster mother.

GOD’S GUIDING PRESENCE

McKoy-Phipps, a worshipper at Zion Seventh-day Ministry, The School of Christ, said she felt God’s presence from as early as she can remember consoling, protecting and guiding her.

Her foster mom was not passionate about education and made it known very early that she would be sending her to learn to sew. But McKoy-Phipps had other plans – even though she sometimes missed classes because her foster mom believed that schoolchildren only spent time playing on Fridays.

To McKoy-Phipps’ surprise, she ran for student leadership although she did not see herself as the neatest or brightest.

Her penchant for leadership shone through early, as she was selected deputy head girl of her primary school.

“I was always in the top five or six out of 40 students in my class, and dem used to call me ‘Man Boot’,” she said, referencing the rugged shoes for boys she wore.

Though McKoy-Phipps did not sit the Common Entrance Exam, later results showed that she had a knack for academic excellence before moving on to Warsop All-Age School.

However, at 14, she sought a new lease on life, leaving home for Kingston to work in the clothing industry at the free zone.

“I didn’t want any boyfriend, etc, and I wanted some money, because ... I decided that I was going to go to school and work,” said McKoy-Phipps.

When she sought her first teaching job, she approached the founder with down-to-earth chutzpah.

“‘All I have is just my natural passion and ability. I can make a difference in your school,’” McKoy-Phipps recalled of her candid pledge.

“I had to keep my dream alive ... . It wasn’t really so much frightful to me because the passion was there, faith in myself was there, and I was eager and anxious to see what else I could produce and how far I could go with helping these children.”

TURNING POINT

That experience lit a flame that propelled her to walk away from a stable income at the free zone into the unknown to teach at Caring Basic School on Howard Avenue in Kingston.

There she doubled as teacher and principal.

Initially, 28 students were enrolled. The turnout grew to 50 by the time she exited the post.

McKoy-Phipps later launched an ad hoc school under a mango tree in her yard at 20 Delacree Lane in Kingston. Within four months, 50 students became regular attendees.

But duty to her ailing foster mother would compel her to pack up, with her partner, Mark Phipps, and three girls, and head back to Trelawny.

“She adopted a lot of children and I have always said though I left at such a young age, I would come back and care for her,” McKoy-Phipps said of Rutty-Evans.

With the stamp of approval of her foster mom, the teaching dynamo wedded Phipps in 2005.

Phipps has been a pillar of support for his wife’s education drive, travelling into volatile communities to help paint and maintain blackboards despite heightened security concerns.

Additionally, all three children have played an active role in visiting the communities.

McKoy-Phipps and her family have gained the confidence of, and inspired pride in, parents of community children they have reached. They have also been a guiding light, keen on warning them of violent flare-ups.

The Phipps couple’s first child, Sherice Bryan, who is adopted, is currently a student of Mico University College, alongside her mom.

The husband-and-wife team is searching for more children to adopt even as they aim to have six of their own.

McKoy-Phipps shares the same dream with 26-year-old Bryan of having a haven for children with an open curriculum of life lessons and the Word of God.

The family matriarch lauds her husband for consistently supporting all her endeavours.

“He has never left my side, no matter how crazy the ideas are,” she said.

FIVE FUN FACTS ABOUT TANEKA

1. “I was a promoter for The Gleaner and Observer in the 1990s. I used to sell these at stop lights and in the middle of the streets.”

2. “Martanek Phipps, one of the 10 finalists from the 2020 JCDC Gospel Song Competition with the entry song Ye Who’s Without Sin, is my daughter.”

3. “When I was attending all-age school, I was an athlete. I participated in the following events: the 100m, shot put, and long jump.”

4. “My daughter and I go around and do singing ministry at churches.”

5. “Before I started my career as a teacher full-time, I used to write original poems and travel from parish to parish to sell them.”