Do learners really need teachers?

With the wage strike still ongoing and more than half the teaching staff exercising their right to protest at the Western Cape Sport School, I thought I might begin with a question or two today, just to get those here thinking about things. Let’s begin by asking whether the learners really do require the attention of teachers, and confinement in school, in order to learn. In other words, are teachers really necessary?


Even more radically, some news paper writers have suggested that young people may be their own best teachers. For example, they say research on the process of acquiring a language indicates that we learn, not by being taught by others, but from everyday experience – by listening to others, trying out patterns of words, and eventually discarding ones that don’t seem to work.


Teachers are ordinary but unique people who become teachers for different reasons, have different teaching objectives, and work in different circumstances, against a background of unequal educational provision.


I believe the impulse to teach is fundamentally humane and represents a desire to share what you value and to empower others. I began teaching when I was twenty-five and my students were thirteen years old. Now I’m forty-something and those youngsters are in their thirties. There’s not as much difference between forty-something and thirty, as between twenty five and twelve. I believe your students ‘catch up’ with you and quite often end up knowing more than you do. It’s wonderful to witness that continuous growth at the same time as you’re taking on another group of learners. You can see and feel your students grow, and that finally is the
reason to teach and the reward of teaching.


To all the staff at Western Cape Sport School, whether you were here or not whether you felt the need to strike or not... Your time and effort placed in educating the learners is appreciated by me and the community we serve.

Have a little break this weekend and return to the school ready to continue with the sterling work you already do.