The 2023 Al­ta stu­dent reg­is­tra­tion cam­paign in­vites peo­ple aged 16 and over to add read­ing, writ­ing and spelling to their skillset by join­ing an Al­ta-V class via Zoom, start­ing this Sep­tem­ber. To reg­is­ter by phone, call 708-1990. Reg­is­tra­tion clos­es on Ju­ly 15.

Al­ta stu­dents are skilled in many ar­eas of en­deav­our. We asked them to share this by writ­ing on the theme “I am skilled” to re­mind them­selves and oth­ers of the breadth of ex­pe­ri­ence they pos­sess, and that lit­er­a­cy is a skill like any oth­er.

To­day Mick­el Williams writes about ex­plor­ing his in­ter­ests and be­com­ing skilled. He is a Spe­cial Olympian in open wa­ter swim­ming and a drum­mer. He al­so hap­pens to be a proud Al­ta stu­dent who re­cent­ly sharp­ened his skill in pub­lic speak­ing when he gave a mo­ti­va­tion­al talk to young Al­ta On­line stu­dents at Mu­cu­rapo West Sec­ondary School.

Time, pa­tience and ex­pe­ri­ence

“My name is Mick­el Williams. I be­lieve one of my great­est skills is to drum. I think that mu­sic is a world­wide lan­guage, and the drums are the foun­da­tion for any beat or rhythm. I think my tim­ing and speed is what makes me great at drum­ming.  

This skill takes time, prac­tice, al­so ex­pe­ri­ence. You are al­so re­spon­si­ble for your pace and speed or any rhythm and beat when drum­ming. I must say though that the most im­por­tant part of drum­ming is tim­ing.

I start­ed off drum­ming on a buck­et think­ing it was just fun to pre­tend I could drum. My par­ents no­ticed that I had an in­ter­est in mu­sic and de­cid­ed to get me in­volved on a se­ri­ous lev­el. I be­gan mu­sic school at Ex­o­dus Mu­sic Acad­e­my and be­came a be­gin­ner.

A teacher by the name of Mr Rose taught me the ba­sics of notes, tim­ing, and the dif­fer­ent types of drums. How­ev­er, there are still many types of drums I need to learn. For now, my skill is play­ing the African drums like the Con­ga and Bon­go, but I in­tend to im­prove and ex­pand.”

Mick­el recog­nis­es the pow­er of be­ing skilled and Al­ta skilled. In his speech at Mu­cu­rapo West, he out­lined that his busy sched­ule as a full-time stu­dent with sev­er­al ex­tracur­ric­u­lar ac­tiv­i­ties keeps him fo­cused on his goals.

Mick­el’s mes­sage: stay com­mit­ted to your lit­er­a­cy jour­ney in spite of any dis­trac­tions you may face.

If you or some­one you know is in­ter­est­ed in be­com­ing a tu­tor, join­ing a class, or be­com­ing a spon­sor, call 624-2582 or email al­ta­pos.tt@gmail.com

Keep up to date with Al­ta on Face­book, Twit­ter, and In­sta­gram: Al­ta TT