Teaching – The wonder of seeing caterpillars turn into butterflies

Secondary school in South Africa covers a period of five years. The first three I spent in a boarding school. Because? I hear you ask.

I read too many stories about British school days when I was young, so I thought it would be one long midnight party and one adventure after another. The reality was far from that, so I spent my last two years in day school with my friends from elementary school.

The problem was that they had moved on with their lives and friendships and there was no place for me. I did what misfit teens the world over have done: I acted badly for attention and soon found myself in big trouble.

My parents could not cope. What had happened to his well-behaved son? Who was this stranger who had come home in his place? Everyone thought he was heading me for a fall. Everyone who is, except Miss Evans, my English teacher.

She was a diminutive woman with the spirit of a Jedi warrior. Her passion for English was where we connected and her classes were a light in the gloom of those days. It was through her care and wisdom that I realized that she could achieve anything she wanted. Thanks to her support, I applied and got a scholarship to study and eventually became an English teacher.

I dropped out of school and although I was grateful to him, I didn’t give it much importance until a few years ago when I heard that he had retired from teaching. On a whim I wrote to thank him for the role he had played in my life. I was so surprised when I got a reply. This was part of what she wrote:

I was very moved by your letter. Teaching, to me, has always been his own reward, but his was one of the few thank-you notes I have received from a student.

Truth be told, teaching in South Africa has become a beleaguered and embattled profession in the last fifteen years. Schools try to get by without the necessary number of teachers, and many schools have no principal. In areas where funding exists, parent agencies assign assistant teachers, but where funding is an issue, untrained teachers sometimes provide inadequate instruction.

A year ago, dozens of teachers took to the streets on strike in an attempt to persuade the government to seek adequate working conditions and benefits for its members. Recently, temporary teachers appointed with the promise of permanent appointments in the near future have been summarily fired, leaving students stranded and teachers looking for jobs.

So why do we still teach? Why did we decide to be teachers?

In my case it was a special teacher who believed in me and saw my potential. It is not necessary for him to have been an actual teacher, but he could have been a Mr. Chips or Sidney Poitier in the movie.To the Lord, with love. Or it could have been Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society encouraging you to Carpe Diem – Sixteen the day.

A few years ago a dear friend gave me a poster that now takes pride of place in my classroom. It reads: The wonder of teaching is to see how caterpillars turn into butterflies – And that about sums it up for me.

When I think about what keeps me coming back year after year, here are some of my reasons:

• She is that barefoot theater student who keeps coming back to say hello, even years after finishing her training;
• He runs into an alumnus from town who says, “You encouraged me to keep writing, and I’ve just published my first collection of poetry.”
• It’s a boy who shows up on a Monday morning to wish you a belated Happy Mother’s Day.
• It’s watching the lights go on in the eyes of a senior class when they finally get Lady Macbeth;
• It is when one of my students struggles, but overcomes, her impoverished and single parent origin; First, she works for a couple of years to pay for it and then she becomes a human rights lawyer, so she can continue fighting for her people.

When I became a master, I knew that I would not earn a king’s ransom. I knew that the hours would be long and that without the holidays we would not survive. I knew it would be stressful and often thankless.

But I also knew that I wanted to make a difference; that this was not just a job, but a vocation, a calling.