Three teachers from George Dickerson Primary School are putting their chalk down at the end of this year after 40 years in front of the board. Linda Mains and Phyllis Haarhoff started teaching at the school in 1971 and Emily Pepper, who has been teaching since 1970, joined the school in 1984.
Three teachers from George Dickerson Primary School are putting their chalk down at the end of this year after 40 years in front of the board. Linda Mains and Phyllis Haarhoff started teaching at the school in 1971 and Emily Pepper, who has been teaching since 1970, joined the school in 1984.
Speaking to Grocott’s Mail at the school, Haarhoof said she started teaching at the age of 19. All three teachers said that teaching came as a calling to them and they that they have enjoyed their profession all these years.
“Some people just come to teach for the sake of getting an income instead of being passionate and do it for love,” said Pepper.
According to these veterans, the Outcomes Based Education (OBE) system was good in theory but it did not work for them, mainly because of the lack of resources and confusing training courses.
Mains said: “I always stuck with the old ways of teaching because it has always been the simplest way in teaching children how to read and write.”
Pepper said that making the classes smaller would be a good change. “For example there are 40 children or more in our classes, cutting them down to 30 would be good,” she suggested.
Haarhoff said: “Although many of our learners endure hardships, one must never underestimate their abilities. Every single one is unique and special in his/her own way.
As a teacher one is a life-long learner there is always something new to learn as time goes by.” The teachers said that every year they ask an Afrikaans speaking child to translate to the Xhosa speakers during Afrikaans lessons.
This puts a great strain on all the learners and they hope something will be done about this soon. Zanele Toyisi, a 12-year-old Grade 7 learner said, “I am going to miss everything about Mrs Pepper because she made us understand a lot of things, especially her Bible classes every morning.”
Bukiwe Ncetani says, “The reason I love Natural Science is because of Mrs Haarhoff.” Grade 7 learner Deveron Size said, “Mrs Mains taught us music and I will miss the way she played the piano.”
Renita Daves, a Grade 6 learner got very emotional when she said that she will miss all these teachers. The teachers say they have all taught children who grew up to be famous and important.
These include: Allister Coetzee, the Western Province rugby coach; Advocate Lyle Prince, state advocate of the Grahamstown Magistrate's Court; Charlse Wessels, the Media Liaison officer for the Springboks and actress Samela Tyelbooi.
Riaan May Lloyd Christian, Roslyn Koffie and Rodrique Coetzee were learners at George Dickerson and later came back to teach at the school themselves.
“I am who I am because of these teachers and they have never changed from when I was a learner till now,” said Rodrique.
Mains, Haarhoff and Pepper all say that they will miss the spirit of the staff, when they used to laugh together in the staff room they forgot about all their problems, and they are definitely going to miss the smiles of the learners.
They said they are very sad about leaving but they are tired now and need a rest. Melville Meiring, the school principal said, “It is a void that’s going to be left because we are going to lose 121 years of accumulative experience. It is fine replacing one teacher with another but it is not fine replacing one person with another because every teacher has their own strong point.”
