It was the middle of summer last year when this incident occurred. I was very thirsty and as I was busy I sent a learner to fetch water for me. When he brought it I drank it with a straw so that I could enjoy it. I had drunk a quarter of it when another […]
I am an educator at a primary school in Pietermaritzburg. I teach English, EMS, LO and HSS to Grade 7 learners. A few years ago I had a learner in my class who was performing badly at school. He was not attentive in class and was always daydreaming. He was struggling to keep up to […]
Our school, Sithumani Primary, is situated at the foot of the Ribolla Hills, an extension of the Soutpansberg Range, in the Limpopo province. On a rather cool but sunny July morning last year Miss Dhlomo joined our Grade 6 class in the vegetable garden to assist with the watering of the plants. The pupils are […]
In the late 1990s, I was appointed temporary educator of a Grade 7 class in Limpopo. It was a very small school with four male teachers and I was the one and only female teacher. Three months after my arrival, I discovered that one of my learners was pregnant. She was only 14 years old […]
I started my teaching career in 1993 in Ezakheni in the northern part of KwaZulu-Natal when the province was in political turmoil. As KwaZulu-Natal is a predominantly Zulu-speaking area and I am Sotho-speaking, people assumed that I supported a particular political organisation which was not popular in the area where I was working. That year, […]
As well as being the principal of a primary school in a rural area, I teach English and Zulu to Grade 4, 5 and 6 learners. A while ago I asked the Grade 6 learners to write a Zulu composition. The topic was ‘A day I’ll never forget in my life”. One of the girls […]
It was in the year 2000 when one learner who passed his Grade 2 in my class in 1999 started playing truant. His Grade 3 teacher who was also the principal of our school, approached me to complain about him. He asked me to write a letter to call the parents to school. We reported […]
It was the first day of the year and, speaking in English, I told the learners that I could not afford to translate my lessons into their mother tongue. Instead the lessons would be offered in English. As I spoke, I noticed out of the corner of my eye, a strange smile from one older […]
Our school, Makovongo Secondary, is situated in the settlement Makosha, north of Giyani Township, Limpopo province. The school is approximately 12 kms from Giyani. It was 1991 and our area had been hit by a terrible heat wave. On this day the sun rose red-red hot. Ants moved around with their bellies pushed up to […]
The Revised National Curriculum Statement (RNCS) will be implemented in the whole of the Foundation Phase next year and in the whole of the Intermediate Phase in 2005. From a training perspective, there are good arguments for implementing by phase rather than by grade. But these implementation time frames are likely to have a negative […]