RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

De­liv­er­ing an im­pas­sioned speech to grad­uands of TML San Fer­nan­do Pri­ma­ry School, Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo has ad­vised stu­dents to be cau­tious about friend­ships, re­sist the neg­a­tive in­flu­ences of peer pres­sure, and em­brace life’s anx­i­eties caused by change.

De­liv­er­ing the fea­ture ad­dress at the school’s grad­u­a­tion held at Achie­vors Ban­quet Hall in San Fer­nan­do, on Thurs­day, Kan­ga­loo, ac­knowl­edged her own anx­i­eties and mis­takes, high­light­ing the sig­nif­i­cance of fam­i­ly in pro­vid­ing sup­port dur­ing chal­leng­ing times. 

En­cour­ag­ing the chil­dren to ac­cept and wel­come change, Kan­ga­loo said, “I can tell you that we adults of­ten have an ex­treme­ly dif­fi­cult time adapt­ing to change. Don’t feel bad if you too, like so many of us adults, are anx­ious about the changes that are com­ing when you leave this school.” 

She added: “I can tell you that when I be­came Pres­i­dent, I felt a lot of anx­i­ety over that change in my life, too. So, be­ing anx­ious about change is nat­ur­al and noth­ing to be ashamed about.”

She en­cour­aged the chil­dren not to be in­flu­enced by neg­a­tive peer pres­sure from so­cial me­dia.

“Ask your­self, what kind of hu­man be­ing am I now and what kind of per­son do I want to grow up to be? No­body can de­cide that for you. On­ly you can de­cide that,” she said.

She al­so urged them to de­pend on their fam­i­ly and ex­tend­ed fam­i­ly, which in­cludes teach­ers, for sup­port.

“It is re­al­ly very im­por­tant that you don’t keep your con­cerns bot­tled up in­side of you. It is very im­por­tant that you speak them out, in words, and that you do so to the adults around you who love and care and sac­ri­fice for you, and who al­ways have your best in­ter­ests at heart. It is there­fore very im­por­tant that you dis­cuss your anx­i­eties with your “ex­tend­ed fam­i­ly,” she added.

She said the ex­tend­ed fam­i­ly sup­port sys­tem can as­sist them in mak­ing de­ci­sions.

“You will find that you can avoid mak­ing some re­al­ly bad mis­takes if you dis­cuss your de­ci­sions with your fam­i­ly be­fore you make them. And even if you think that you’ve al­ready gone ahead and made a re­al­ly bad mis­take, you should still dis­cuss it with your ex­tend­ed fam­i­ly.”

Mean­while, act­ing school prin­ci­pal Wahi­da Mo­hammed-Nar­ine said the school was gain­ing in­ter­na­tion­al recog­ni­tion as a lead­ing pri­ma­ry school in the Caribbean.

She said TML San Fer­nan­do had been ac­knowl­edged as a flag­ship in­sti­tu­tion in T&T by the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion dur­ing a re­cent vis­it from school su­per­vi­sors and the Di­rec­tor of School Cur­ricu­lum. 

“Present­ly, the school is be­ing recog­nised by Ed­u­ca­tion­al Re­view mag­a­zine one of the top 10 mag­a­zines na­tion­al­ly based in Col­orado Ohio and Ex­cel­lent Mag­a­zine based in T&T as one of the lead­ing pri­ma­ry schools in the wider Caribbean,” she said.