Wednesday, March 5th marked a significant day during CedarBridge Academy’s Literacy Week celebrations. The school held two special gender assemblies featuring motivational Bermudian men and women who shared their perspectives on literacy.

The panel for the women included Principal Mrs Kalmar Richards, media teacher Ms Shoa Bean, singer-songwriter and poet, Ms Joy T Barnum, Chewstick’s spoken word artist Ms Deidra-Lee Bean, Schereene Outerbridge, Marketing Manager for CellOne and Senator Renee Ming JP (St George’s Parish Council), as well as student participant Lashuntae Dill-Assing and student moderator Destinee Taylor.

The males were in the company of Mr Gavin Smith, Executive Director and Founder of The Chewstick Foundation, Chris Crumpler the Executive Director for Team Street Safe, Mr Michael Weeks, Shadow Minister of Community and Cultural Affairs and Thaao Dill, Recruitment Officer for the Bermuda College.

The guests shared books which they are currently reading and as well as ones which have had great significance in their lives.

In the female assembly, the guests recognised the importance of female activists, such as Malala Yousafzai, and encouraged students to realise the importance of literacy and education.

Everyone agreed that through the evolution of technology, today’s youth have a come up with shorter and ‘unique’ phases to communicate, changes which have also impacted the student’s writing in class. Teenagers are now glued to their phones and seldom take a moment in the day to actually read a book.

So how can we help teenagers to strike a balance between their “modern” literacy and “traditional” literacy? Accepting the evolution of technology would be a good way to start. After all, technology also has several positive aspects. We are now more aware of current events taking place in everyday society and information is more accessible to us though the internet. Mrs Renee Ming JP was amazed at how her children simply “Googled everything on their phones”, while Ms Barnum shared her love of audio books which she “listens to in the car”. Marketing manager, Ms Outerbridge shared how literacy was an essential part of her job because using the most effective words and phrases was essential in creating effective and creative advertisements.

Overall the both assemblies offered the students a chance to see that despite recent changes, literacy will always be an important part of everyone’s life.