Month: February 2022

I remember driving myself to Kgakoa Senior Secondary School in Mogwadi. I’ve used two routes to get here: using the main road to Senwabarwana and using the N1 to Louis Trichardt then connecting to the aforementioned main road by driving through the farms.

I met a handful of debaters that day. I had my laptop, printer and a good internet connection. All pre-covid things. The learners enjoyed it, I enjoyed it and I think they are better people for the experience.

Today, I got to meet the learners at the school again. But not before adventures with the taxi politics of the North. How the village of Ga-Ramongwane and taxis to Dendron are located at two different ranks truly defeated me today.

Many hiccups aside: bank queues at month end, app only banking apps with spotty internet connections, the local taxi rank drunk or nyaope smoker, and other logistics issues. I got off at the entrance to Ga-Ramongwane, a literal shot left from the R521, and started the 10 minute walk to Kgakoa Senior Secondary.

It is a quiet village. I saw the young women with braided hair that had the golden braids mixed in with the black braid waiting for the taxi. I saw the elderly women with her mask on making her way somewhere. I saw the young man (clearly on something) leaving the bottle store.

I took the last turn and looked up to notice the revamped school entrance. A smile shot across my face. Progress! Painted walls! A beam across the school gate with tubed signage confirming that I had undisputedly arrived at my chosen location: KGAKOA.

In this moment, I have never felt prouder to be asked to visit the learners again and offer training. My body has the fondest memories of this campus. Seeing the entrance and all the other campus developments somehow left me feeling like I had progressed too.

Let’s run a few numbers on the hypothetical marking load of a language teacher required to result some 200 learners…

Assume a learner population of 1000 young teenage minds eager to learn and discover the world around them, 3 formal assessments per quarter, 20 minutes norm time per script, and an 8 hour working day. There are a few other caveats but…

Let the numbers run.

1000 learners ÷ 5 grades = 200 learners per grade on average

200 learners × 3 scripts = 600 scripts per quarter

600 scripts × 20 minutes = 12000 minutes required to complete the marking

12000 minutes ÷ 60 minutes = 200 hours of marking

Lastly,

200 hours ÷ 8 hours = 25 working days of marking

Worth noting that there are 50 actual teaching days in a school quarter.

The biggest concern for me as an educator is that with these numbers, it is quite possible that I do not have “a life”.

I think after two attempts at the full-time production orientated education cycle spanning eight years, it is safe for me to say, “No, I can’t do this, again!”

There really should be other ways to make money and explore my chosen field of study. There really should be.

After three stops, I arrived at my penultimate stop for the day. Pietersburg English Primary School. I greeted the security guard and explained who I would be visiting for the afternoon. He called the teacher and asked me to wait till the teachers were done with a staff meeting. I was 30 minutes early and had little qualms with waiting.

It really was generous of the security guard to gesture that I take a chair on my arrival and settle down under the shade. The shade was refreshingly cool and gave me the chance to take in the last three stops. Curro Heuwelkruin, FNB Platinum Park, and Cash Crusaders Checker Centre. Surprise, surprise! The bank was the most trying of all those stops.

I passed the time by responding to emails and tying up loose ends from the day’s activities.

“Your call is valuable to us” chimed the answering machine at Northern Academy Primary School. After three minutes of hearing the voice, I reckoned my call will probably be valuable tomorrow too. I chuckled at the irony… the valuable call and the three minute wait.

I also got to meet one of my former learners. I can’t quite remember her name but she had a younger sister whom I also taught. They had the most loving father. The warmth of that gentleman’s smile still warms my heart nearly a decade on. She is an EA at the school now. Temporary position. EA as in Education Assistant and not Examination Assistant.

Eventually the time for my appointment arrived. The teacher walked me through to the offices at PEMPS. And the memories rushed back into my mind: school concerts, eisteddfods, adjudicating one debate, Mr and Mrs Claasen (a couple that held the principal positions at the PEMPS and PCS respectively). But the memory I shared with the teacher was the day I was in the quad waiting to write an aptitude test and the school hall where I choked on my poem while I was at Pietersburg Christian School.

We arrived at her office and I explained the purpose of my visit. She knows that I have been running debating tournaments in Polokwane high schools for many years. So she was won over on that front. Today, I wanted to see if a primary school league would be feasible. The teachers face lit up at the possibility. Her excitement was often expressed throughout our conversation. We discussed what would be possible: what would the school consider affordable, how much debating can children handle after a school day, can we meet during term four.

It was a meeting. The culmination of four years worth of planning started by a parent and a handful of teachers. Not enough is said about how long some journeys take. Little is said about how sometimes you may have three to four different starts before events actually start. I’m glad I am around to see this start. The conversation came to an end as I wrapped up the story of my aptitude test. “I wasn’t aware you attended school here” she said. I had to correct the tale. “No, Ma’am. I only wrote the aptitude test. I never did quite make it into the school.” It was an odd story to retell. My Grade 1 photos are a testament to this. I was the only school child at PCS with PEMP’s school socks. Come to think of it, I’ve never heard the story of how I ended up at PCS with PEMP’s school socks while also having written an aptitude test at Mitchell House. Definitely a story to hear the other side of one day. Before the mother breathes her last.