Those teachers who change our lives …

By Nicky Willemse

Guest blogger

We all have one of them – a teacher or lecturer who made a big impression on us, someone who changed our lives in one way or another, and whom we’ll never forget. A “Morrie”*, for those of you who’ve read the book.

Mine was Mrs Carol Scheepers, my Standard three teacher at Clarendon Park. I had just moved to Port Elizabeth from Polokwane (then Pietersburg) and somehow, with her as my teacher, I went from a diligent pupil to an inspired one. I can’t remember exactly what she did, but I remember she was warm, really spoke to us as individuals and expected the best. Somehow she reached the 10-year-old me – and I was the better for it, for life.

I’m not a staff member at NMMU, but I write a lot of stories for the university. One of them was about Dr Kathija Adam, lecturer and director of NMMU’s School for Continuing Professional Development in the Faculty of Education.

She received an accolade for excellent teaching from the university last month. While interviewing her about this, I soon recognized the “Morrie” in her. She doesn’t just teach. She leaves her students changed for life.

For instance, when she had to teach “Curriculum Design and Development” to NMMU students completing the Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) last year, she could have followed the typical talk and chalk approach, giving her students all the theory they needed to pass. And that would have been fine. It would have been enough.

But instead, she chose a different mode of delivery, shifting them from the comfortable corridors of NMMU’s South Campus in Summerstrand to the university’s Missionvale Campus in the heart of Missionvale township.

Then she took it a step further and partnered with nearby Khwezi Lomso High School so that the teacher candidates could get first-hand experience of where and how 80% of the country’s learners study, and gain insights about whether the current national curriculum is truly meeting the needs of most South African learners.

It was a perspective-changer for the PGCE students – many of whom matriculated at former Model C schools in suburban areas, and had never set foot in a township. They found themselves visiting pupils’ homes, talking to their families and caregivers, and even getting a glimpse of township life after dark.

“I have a living systems approach to module design. It allows me to teach in ways that tap into my student’s learning beyond the content being taught,” explained Kathija. “The biggest gift is when students have a paradigm shift in their thinking. It’s an authentic process – they do their own learning and make up their own minds.”

Perhaps that’s the crunch when it comes to these great teachers, I thought. Those that inspire their students to think for themselves, using creative means that in turn inspire creativity. Mrs Scheepers used to get us to write poetry and compile entire newspapers. Creative fodder for the journalist I would one day become?

And in Kathija’s case, she is no doubt building future change-makers. And don’t we need them, desperately, in education in this country?

By the end of the Missionvale project, the students had produced eight short films, which were collated into a 60-minute documentary called “Heart of the Who” which was screened at the Grahamstown National Arts Festival this year.

But more than that, the project inspired the awakening of a social consciousness in the students – and a desire among many of them to teach in the country’s more challenging schools, where they can make the most difference.  “If we can make a student excited about those contexts, and equip them so they believe they can make a difference, that they will be different – it is a transformative experience.”

Sixty-five per cent of her past students teach in schools like Khwezi Lomso.

And she stays in touch with them, providing advice and insights – especially as many of them find themselves working against the system when trying to implement positive change in schools that are more used to surviving than thriving.

“One of my students is teaching in Bizana. He sent photographs of the learners writing exams without proper furniture … The students keep in touch with me about the wider issues. We’re in this together. This drives me, this continued communication with students in the field. I continue to engage with them.”

As her students graduate and become teachers, I can only wish that they are as bold as Kathija, with the courage to teach in a way that truly makes a difference, that they share even just a fraction of her passion and that they rub off on their learners, as she has rubbed off on them.

What a difference it would make.

As Henry Adams so aptly said: “A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.”

*Refers to the teacher in the book “Tuesdays with Morrie”, by Mitch Albom

Kathija Adam recently won a prestigious “NMMU Excellent Teacher” award.

PGCE student Lee Abrahams surrounded by kids in Missionvale township.

Kathija with Khwezi Lomso High pupils (from left) Apalele Makanda, Yolanda Meleni and Lungilwa Fanti. They appeared in the film “Heart of the Who”, made by Kathija’s PGCE students.