Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

When Akim Mur­ray earned his un­der­grad­u­ate de­gree in Elec­tri­cal and Com­put­er En­gi­neer­ing two years ago, he dreamed of cre­at­ing more ef­fi­cient In­for­ma­tion and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Tech­nol­o­gy (ICT) sys­tems that would ben­e­fit gen­er­a­tions.

To­day, far from cir­cuit boards and da­ta se­quences, Mur­ray, 27, finds a new way to build stronger sys­tems, be­gin­ning in his Mal­oney neigh­bour­hood, as a part-time math­e­mat­ics tu­tor.

Five days a week, Mur­ray hosts sec­ondary school stu­dents at his Wood­star Av­enue home, as part of prepa­ra­tions for CSEC ex­am­i­na­tions.

But more than cov­er­ing top­ics in the CXC Math­e­mat­ics syl­labus, Mur­ray takes his lessons a step fur­ther, as he hopes to not on­ly give them the con­fi­dence to ap­proach math­e­mat­ics prob­lems, but al­so life’s prob­lems.

A life­long Mal­oney res­i­dent, Mur­ray has seen first­hand what the neigh­bour­hood has had to of­fer, not­ing that while a lot has changed since he was a child, the sense of com­mu­ni­ty and ca­ma­raderie is still alive.

Raised by his moth­er, Mur­ray cred­its her for in­still­ing in him dis­ci­pline, while nur­tur­ing his nat­ur­al tal­ent for cal­cu­la­tions and prob­lem-solv­ing as he con­tin­ued his ed­u­ca­tion at the Ari­ma Cen­tral Sec­ondary School.

But even with a strong fam­i­ly foun­da­tion to re­in­force his val­ues, Mur­ray ad­mits that peer pres­sure has been present in his life.

Some­thing, he says, that has pro­vid­ed him with re­al-world ex­am­ples of how im­por­tant de­ci­sions are in liv­ing a mean­ing­ful life, even dur­ing tur­bu­lent times where he doubt­ed him­self.

“Some of my friends from Mal­oney, we had promised each oth­er that we would nev­er smoke and un­for­tu­nate­ly, every­body, ex­clud­ing my­self, took up the habit.

“It got worse to the point where some start­ed sell­ing the drugs.”

But Mur­ray says that a wa­ter­shed mo­ment in his own life hap­pened when a child­hood ac­quain­tance was shot and killed out­side his apart­ment build­ing, where he lived, when he was on­ly 17 years old.

He says see­ing first­hand how frag­ile life could be fur­ther re­in­forced his own world­view that he was on the right track.

“I had to duck for cov­er be­cause I was at home when it hap­pened and I was able to look through that bul­let hole and see him ly­ing on the ground.

“It mo­ti­vat­ed me more to stay away from the gang life.”

This urge to want more from life even­tu­al­ly led Mur­ray to en­rol at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI), St Au­gus­tine, for an un­der­grad­u­ate de­gree in En­gi­neer­ing.

He ad­mits that fi­nan­cial sta­bil­i­ty was the ma­jor dri­ver for his de­ci­sion, but notes that find­ing em­ploy­ment in his par­tic­u­lar field, even af­ter grad­u­at­ing, has been a chal­lenge, as he now works in the ac­count­ing de­part­ment of a com­pa­ny.

But Mur­ray says that he doesn’t see it as a set­back, as he still adds val­ue to his com­mu­ni­ty by work­ing as a lessons teacher.

Re­fer­ring to the con­fu­sion he faced in find­ing a ca­reer path by re­search­ing dif­fer­ent op­tions and qual­i­fi­ca­tions on his own, Mur­ray says he hopes to make the jour­ney for oth­er young peo­ple eas­i­er by be­ing a guid­ing force to a bet­ter life.

“For me, it’s not just about teach­ing them math­e­mat­ics. Yes, they can get a Grade One or Two in O-Lev­els, but that’s still not prepar­ing them for the de­ci­sions they have to make and how they’re go­ing to deal with fail­ure ... some peo­ple take their own life be­cause they failed an ex­am and these are the things I ad­dress with my stu­dents.

“It’s about hav­ing that men­tal re­silience to know that fail­ure isn’t a dead end and I be­lieve if I can do that with enough young peo­ple in Mal­oney, then the com­mu­ni­ty can on­ly get bet­ter.”

Mur­ray says get­ting the most out of his stu­dents means build­ing a strong rap­port with their par­ents as he takes his re­spon­si­bil­i­ty as a teacher se­ri­ous­ly.

Re­call­ing one in­ci­dent where he saw first­hand the chal­lenges one stu­dent faced in her en­vi­ron­ment at home.

“The moth­er had no be­lief that her daugh­ter could have done well, and I went as far as to buy art sup­plies for the daugh­ter be­cause she had a nat­ur­al tal­ent for draw­ing and the fact that the moth­er had that kind of doubt for her daugh­ter, the young woman lived with a lot of chal­lenges af­ter, but I thank God that there are some par­ents who are sup­port­ive.”

Speak­ing with WE, one of Mur­ray’s past stu­dents, 17-year-old Ze­li­ka Fred­er­ick, who earned a Grade Three in CSEC Math­e­mat­ics, said she was en­cour­aged by his teach­ing style and will­ing­ness to help her un­der­stand the ma­te­r­i­al.

“I’ve been with Akim since Stan­dard Five straight to Form Five, so it has been dif­fi­cult, but he has helped me so much. The prac­tice and rep­e­ti­tion he goes through with each top­ic was re­al­ly what made the dif­fer­ence.”

An­oth­er past stu­dent, Tevon Stowe, 18, al­so cred­it­ed Mur­ray for help­ing him pass his ex­ams, but not­ed that oth­er pos­i­tive fig­ures like him were need­ed in the com­mu­ni­ty.

“I want to en­cour­age oth­er young peo­ple to stay out of crime and find some­thing worth­while and pos­i­tive to dis­tract your­self from that. That road goes nowhere.”

And as Mur­ray’s work as a teacher con­tin­ues, he says he hasn’t giv­en up on his work as an en­gi­neer, as he con­tin­ues to fund his own re­search in de­sign­ing tech­nol­o­gy and sys­tems that can have re­al-world ap­pli­ca­tions.

“What­ev­er I can af­ford, my fi­ancé and I would buy mi­cro­con­trollers and so on, be­cause she al­so stud­ies elec­tri­cal en­gi­neer­ing, and at home we would do the work and the projects to see how we can at least build around a con­cept.”

Just as im­por­tant as build­ing ma­chines, Mur­ray says he is heart­ened by the vis­i­ble change his in­volve­ment has made and hopes oth­er peo­ple can fol­low suit to give their time and ef­forts to cre­at­ing a more healthy so­ci­ety.

“I can’t reach every­body, but if there are more pos­i­tives than neg­a­tives, at least we’re us­ing the right for­mu­la.”