MUSIC MEMOIR

Another Brick in the Wall: Teachers! Leave Those Kids Alone!

From being a pupil, to wanting to be a teacher and then not

I have called myself a ‘rock chic’ many times, since songs by Pink Floyd, AC/DC, Queen, Guns ‘n Roses, and other rock bands always get me singing along, and feel on top of the world.

The song ‘Another Brick In The Wall’ inspired this post.

My own school days

When we came to the Netherlands and my children went to school, I had to adjust to how different their school days were from mine when I was a kid.

They went to school five days a week, as did I, but there the similarities stopped. Their school days started at 8.30 am and ended at 3.45 pm, whereas mine started at 7 am and ended at 2 pm. They had the afternoon off on Wednesday, which I never had. They had no extracurricular sport in the afternoons, where I did.

Except for 1.5 years in my high school career when I cycled to school — and loved it — my mother or father always brought us to school by car, but here in the Netherlands, my children went to school either by public transport or on the bicycle. Back when I cycled to school was the only time we lived moderately close enough to the school for us to cycle, and it was when South Africa was a much safer place than it is now.

Something I also had to get used to was that the teachers over here were called by their first names. Okay, the kids used the word ‘miss’ or ‘mister’ before those names. It was much more formal back in South Africa than here in the Dutch schools, and many times we didn’t even know the first name of our teachers, only the last.

I think the only teacher’s first name I ever knew was my gymnastics coach, which was also my PT teacher — and I still talk to her on Facebook, now calling her by her first name, of course.

Back in my school days, there just always was a huge distance between teachers and pupils, and a teacher was someone you always looked up to, whether or not you liked them.

Studying to become a teacher

Because I fell pregnant when I was sixteen, I went to university a year earlier than my peers. This was because I completed the last two years of school through a correspondence course during those months I was pregnant.

As a child, I had never had a clear idea of what I wanted to be when I grew up. When in high school, Geography was my best subject, and that’s when I first expressed a desire for a future occupation: either an astronomer or a meteorologist.

During that year of being pregnant and studying for my final exams, there was one thing I missed so incredibly much: gymnastics! That’s when I decided I was going to become a teacher. I wanted to do the same as my gymnastics coach did: coach gymnastics, and be a PT teacher. And because I loved languages and Geography, that would be the additional subjects I would study at university, so I could lecture those too.

In the beginning of my second year at university — this was also my last year, as I had to quit my study because of an injury — I had to find a school where I could do my internship. I returned to my old high school, and suddenly for a full week, I found myself in front of a class filled with young teenagers, lecturing Afrikaans. I was only eighteen — 5 or 6 years older than them. Still, they looked up to me, because I was a teacher… and probably also because their class teacher supervised from the back of the room!

I enjoyed the week in front of the class but didn’t like to go to the teachers' lounge during breaks. It just didn’t feel like I belonged there. However, despite that, after the internship, I knew I had chosen the correct study. Sadly, when I had to stop my study, I couldn’t transfer to a different one because of the regulations of the bursary I had, so I went to work and never became a teacher.

Full circle

In 2011 I received my bachelor's diploma, after a 4-year study, where I specialized in ‘Learning and Development.’ This was so I could train people in a work environment.

For my oral exam, I had to prepare a short lecture and deliver it to the two examiners. Essentially, I found myself in front of a class again.

During my introduction before the examination started, I told the two examiners that I have no desire to stand in front of a class, but I do like to make training programs ‘behind the scenes.’

After I finished my oral exam — I gave them an Afrikaans lesson, as it’s hilarious how some words in Dutch and Afrikaans are exactly the same but have totally different meanings — they asked me to reconsider my decision. They told me I would be brilliant in front of a class.

It was like I came full circle. I had to give up my study when I was 18, and there I was at 44 years old, and I got this wonderful compliment.

In a strange way, it almost felt like I had righted a wrong, like I have completed my university study after all. I guess, if I ever think of doing retraining, I can always decide to go into teaching. I know they always need more teachers!

However, with how quickly kids seem to be grown up nowadays, I might just find myself in front of a class hearing them sing:

We don’t need no education We don’t need no thought control No dark sarcasm in the classroom Teachers leave those kids alone! *

* Lyrics from Another Brick in the Wall Part 2 by Pink Floyd (Music and text by Roger Waters)

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