Teacher Dorothy Isaacs – image of conviction

She is the looking glass image of cause and conviction – teacher Dorothy Isaacs, 92 years and blooming … a special brand of Jamaica land we love.

Retiring in 2024 – 53 years in the classroom guiding children … and the children of those children, she has surpassed the country’s 63 years of independence in her role as teacher, if one takes into account how from the age of ten onwards, she was ‘playing school … keeping class at the back of the yard where even those who were older were answering ‘yes Miss’.

That home, that makeshift school at the back of the yard, is 18a Septimus Street, Jones Town, Kingston 12 – where she was born, where she grew up, teaching at the Jones Town Primary School within walking distance… and where she still lives. An inner-city community at times in a social broil, whatever could be tempestuous is brought to a calm when Isaacs, affectionately known as ‘Aunt Dor’ or ‘Teach’, is passing by. Community matriarch, she is revered … as she remains portrait and pin up poster of relevance.

To every member of the Jones Town community, she’s royal.

The 2025 recipient of the Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA) Golden Torch Award for service to education, presented annually to members of the JTA who have given a minimum of 35 years of service, she was this year’s special honouree. Beaming, when asked about her advice to teachers now in a changing world – where children she admits are at times not as responsive nor respectful as in previous years, she reassuringly states what has worked for her and what she believes will keep on working …..‘get as close to them as possible – be involved with their lives’.

It’s the story of her life.

A graduate of Mico College (first attending Caledonia Junior College), and after her internship at Chetolah Park Primary in the adjacent Hannah Town community, she returned home as it were to Jones Town Primary in her early 30s. She taught the full syllabus – and was assigned the music class after playing the piano at worship in the mornings. The multifaceted Isaacs was sent to music lessons by her mother as a child, learning to play the piano, organ and violin.

Classmate of world acclaimed guitarist Ernie Ranglin at Kingston High School (then Kingston Senior School) – and aunt of local DJ pioneer U-Roy, whose musical development she influenced, Isaacs also fondly remembers training the Jones Town Primary School Choir to many gold, silver and bronze medal performances in the island’s Festival of Performing Arts competition … and in that choir were the twins Richard and Robert Morgan who later became members of the popular To-Isis singing group. She would work, assiduously, with the venerable Olive Lewin to successfully bring classical music to inner-city schools, and members of Jones Town Primary were later members of the Jamaica Orchestra for Youth.

She pulled children to her… and they followed.

“They would always be behind me,” she chuckled. “Following me home as I was not living far away. I fed them, helped them with homework, and being very much a Christian I took some of them to Sunday school. Some wouldn’t want to leave – with their parents having to come for them.”

Mother of 11 children (fellow educators, nurses, accountants; all raised in the Christian faith and treated no differently than her students – her older children taught to be responsible for the younger who subsequently had to show respect, as how her classes were conducted), she married Roland Isaacs (now deceased). She left Kingston to live with him in St Mary, returning after his passing. There she taught at Trinityville Primary… and did the same thing as when she was at Jones Town Primary. She took home the school with her.

She did that… and actually more. To address the slow learners in particular, she was also going to school their parents.

Her husband was kindly asked to build a shed at the back of the house for a makeshift classroom for parents with their own literacy and other ‘school challenges’. Everyone was involved in the learning exercise and soon after the facility had to be extended to accommodate two classrooms.

Children with behavioural issues were also brought home, No one was being left behind – and the stern disciplinarian that she is, says her nephew George Cooke, a community development social worker, ‘everyone was brought in line’. A community, positively impacted, lives were transformed … with many a slow learner becoming successful professionals.

‘There’s good in everyone,” says the lady who’s still a Sunday school teacher. “And as teachers, our job is to find it – and work on it.”

And what was the task, you were urged to ask, for teachers when the nation achieved Independence – now that we’re 63 years as a sovereign state, matching the count of her years keeping class?

“For me, as a teacher, the 1962 Independence Declaration signified our responsibility to help students nurture their academic growth which would contribute to the building of a stronger, better Jamaica. It meant an opportunity for us to be utilising our talents and gifts to create a new pathway for the land we love.”

That makes her quite a brand.