My Take: My teacher, my hero
What purpose does it serve to demoralise an entire team by making an example of and punishing one bad employee?
WOULDN’T it be great if our leaders actually went out of their way to look for “something good” to say about our teachers for a change.
Don’t shoot the messengers (the media) as they are just doing their jobs, but take a pot at the politicians for jumping on every isolated incident of “racism” and then branding the entire teaching profession bad.
We woke up on Monday morning to screaming headlines:
• “Teacher calls parent a baboon, girls are labelled bitches and sluts”.
• “Racist schools face the cane”.
• SA Human Rights Commission is considering a “national investigation into racism at all public and private schools”!
Of course we can’t condone racism in any form, anywhere. But any good employer/manager/leader will tell you that it is more constructive to “praise in public” and “discipline in private”.
What purpose does it serve to demoralise an entire team by making an example of and punishing one bad employee?
Our leaders seem to be doing just that.
There are many teachers right here in Scottburgh who have been dedicated to their profession for 30 years and more for a measly take-home pay of about R11 000 a month.
They are blind to colour, but conscious of the disadvantaged backgrounds that the majority of their wards come from. Many of these teachers have willingly taken on the unofficial role of parent to children whose own biological parents have just abdicated their God-given responsibilities.
In spite of their own meagre bank balance, teachers often dip into their own pockets to provide stationery, clothing and even tuck money to the pupils they bond with year after year.
Just one example, a promising young cricketer who currently plays for the Dolphins returns to the South Coast whenever he can to spend time with his mother who is a domestic worker.
He also makes a point of always popping into his old primary school to hug his Grade One ‘Model C’ teacher whom he still remembers with fondness 12 years down the line.
We need to hold these teachers up as shining examples to the few who are “racist” and don’t belong in such an honourable and vital profession.
Parents! When last did you give your child an apple to give to their teacher?
