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obviously, it would never be the same as when I was young. I promised myself that I would allow my own children much freedom to be children and enjoy their childhood. My children are grown adults now, but we still talk about old times and watch videos of them when they were children.
This photograph actually inspired me to watch the old videos and the joy and laughter on my children’s faces as they frolicked in the sand and rolled on the grass brought me such peace. At least I gave my children that opportunity—I never restricted them. They used to come in at night with dirty faces, scraped knees, and filthy hands but I never complained because I wanted them to be children. Unlike me who never really had a childhood.
What stood out in my mind was that there were no disposable nappies and the baby wore a towelling nappy. I was but a child myself, but I had to change the soiled nappies. Sometimes I was too lazy to change the nappy and left the baby with a wet nappy and, because I was carrying the baby on my hip, the nappy gave me a rash on my hip and the baby got an even worse nappy rash. I got many a boxed ear and scolding for being so lazy but all I wanted to do was play like a regular child, not babysit. Here the bleakness of Mary’s initial life on the moor was so like my life that it made me empathise with the anguish she must have been through. This episode in my life was something that I wanted to wipe out forever, but it remained in my memory as a constant reminder of my bleak existence as a young child. I felt the strangeness, loneliness, and absolute devastation Mary felt when she first saw the moor. By the time my aunt came home from work, I would be too exhausted to do my homework or practise playing my recorder. As a result, I was not performing well at school.
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When I was in Standard 4 (Grade 6), I believed one of my teachers hated me with a passion. She would ask for my vocabulary book, which was always in such shambles that she would hold it with a ruler. We wrote with fountain pens then, which required you to dip the pen into a bottle of ink and then write. I would do my homework with the baby strapped to my hip or playing on the bed beside me and on many occasions, the ink spilled onto my book. It was a real mess with ink splashes all over and the writing absolutely atrocious. She would hold my book up with a ruler and show it to the rest of the class—on many occasions she called me a “dirty pig.” I would hide my head inside my desk with embarrassment, and cringe and hope she would stop, but she took some perverse pleasure in picking on me. Not once did she ask me why the book was in that state. She just assumed I was a filthy child. By then, she was detaining me every afternoon, making me sit in her class and write vocabulary. When I got home, it would be very late, my chores piling up, the baby crying, the other children in need of bathing, my grandmother grumpy—and me in big trouble. To avoid this, I would escape detention before the teacher spotted me, and face her punishment the next day.
Corporal punishment was the main method of punishment then and she would make me kneel on the floor in front of the class with my fingers on my ears.
Sometimes, teachers made learners kneel on course salt on the floor in order to punish them. When they got up from the floor their knees would be bruised and sore. It was the most humiliating time of my life because the other kids laughed and teased me. It became so stressful that I developed a stammer and a nervous twitch—I would twitch my nose every few minutes—an action that I had no control over. Reading aloud in class was so traumatic that on days we had reading, I would make some excuse not to go to school. As a result, my favourite subjects, English and Afrikaans, became a dread for me.
Whilst writing these stories, I reflected on what impact we as teachers actually do have on our learners and students. We can either make the students or break the students’ spirit entirely. It placed a burden on me and, I suppose, other teachers, to comprehend how powerful our role modelling and influence really is. The other children used to call me for no reason—pretend to talk to me—just to see my nose twitch, and then burst into laughter. It was, indeed, a very traumatic period in my life, and in the lives of many other learners who were victims of such harsh measures of discipline. These thoughts continued to plague me—the humiliation and disregard for dignity and human rights. As a schoolteacher, whenever I was tempted to lash out at a learner, these thoughts would always come into my mind like a silent warning. On numerous occasions, my memories and triggers of emotions from past history cautioned me, just in time, to not put my learners through those experiences. When
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I reflected on this now, as much as my primary school experience haunted me, it served as a deterrent for me not to make the same mistakes my teachers made.
One day that same teacher gave me a letter requesting my mother to come to school. I put the letter into my bag with dread because she had told me what was in the letter. On the way home, I plotted what I could do with the letter, and even thought about tearing it up, throwing it away, and saying that my mother could not come. Nevertheless, I took it home and handed it to my aunt who read the letter and phoned my mother. My mother was extremely worried and said she would come the next day. I did not sleep that night and worried all night what the teacher was going to say about me.
Next morning, I hoped the weather would be stormy and that maybe my mother might not come but, to my misfortune, it dawned bright and sunny. I could not even eat breakfast, and felt like vomiting as I left the house. When I got to school, my friends and I spoke in hushed tones about what we thought my mother would do to me. I felt like running away from school, I could not concentrate on the lessons and kept looking out the window, thinking she would appear at any time.
I even got boxed on the ear by another teacher when she caught me staring out the window. A little after ten, I began to relax slightly thinking my mother would not come but then my worst fear had come true. From the corner of my eye, I saw the black cape that nurses wore over the white uniform, and the brown shoes. I was so scared I did not even lift my head, but acted as if I was concentrating on my work. I heard the knock on the door and the blood was pounding in my ears. My breath caught in my throat and I waited to hear my name being called. But then I could hear laughter and happy voices and my friend seated next to me nudged me to look up. Was I surprised? My mother was actually hugging my teacher and they were smiling and laughing with each other—the very same teacher who made my life a living hell, called me a filthy pig, and made me kneel on the floor was laughing with my mother.
I could not believe it. Apparently, they knew each other very well and they were so busy catching up with stories that they forgot all about me. I was ecstatic and believed I was safe, and then my mother mentioned the letter and my dread began again. The teacher took my soiled vocabulary book from the cupboard and showed it to my mother. My mother was disgusted and called me to the door.
She asked me about the book, I mumbled something incoherent, and they began discussing me. The teacher told my mother how I avoided detention and ran away in the afternoons, but she did not tell her she called me a filthy pig nor did she tell my mother she made me kneel on the floor. The teacher agreed to give me a new vocabulary book but I had to rewrite all the words during the lunch break.
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I was quite happy doing this because my book was now neat and tidy, and I liked writing. This experience made me aware of not judging my learners without sufficient information about their circumstances. I always made it a point of enquiring first about the learners’ and students’
circumstances before I made rash decisions. This made me very endearing to the learners at school and, more especially, to my students at university—they see me as a mother figure because I show them I care. They have the utmost respect for me because of my empathetic attitude; this impacted positively on my teaching experiences but, on the other hand, it worked in my disfavour. Students are very reluctant to hurt my feelings and are loyal to a fault; it was very difficult to get a truly objective perspective from them about my teaching. That was when I decided to use metaphors as a medium through which they could express their views about my teaching.
My other nightmare at school was needlework. I cannot do needlework at all—I cannot cut straight or sew straight. We were required to cut out a pattern, stitch it, and add frilly lace on the edge to make knickers. My knickers looked nothing like knickers at all with their mismatched thigh sizes and crooked lace. I could not hold scissors straight. I was belittled because I could not sew and, at the end of the year when all the other girls put their garments on display for parents to come and admire the finished products, I did not mention it at home and told the teacher that my mother worked far away and could not come. She said that was well and good and kept my garment hidden in a cupboard whilst the parents were there. At the end of the year, she gave it to me and said it was only good for wiping the floors—I took it home and hid it in my cupboard.
However, on discussion with a few colleagues I managed to locate who went to primary school with me, I realised that they did not think I was that bad. I felt like a complete idiot with my messed up vocabulary book and my crooked knickers. My friends commented on how well I played the recorder despite my lack of practice and, especially, they spoke about how I excelled at languages.
One friend could not stop talking about my ability to be able to write the best compositions and stories both in English and in Afrikaans. She said it always amazed her how I could just start writing instantly and, in a few minutes, write a whole page while they were still coming to grips with the topic. We laughed about the teacher who constantly scolded me for writing too much because she would then have too much to read and mark. Indeed, I did not realise it at the time but the teachers and the school itself were slowly stifling and killing my creativity. I was always careful to write only the required length for fear of being scolded but in reality, my hands itched and my brain tingled in wanting to write lengths. I felt as if I could write and never stop. As my time in primary school slowly came to an end, I looked forward to my last year, Standard 5 (Grade 7). At least, after that, I
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would no longer have the hateful teacher who made me feel terrible about myself like I was nothing and nobody.
Nothing significant occurred during that year except my hopes of leaving the school were dashed—
we were informed that it was the last year the school would be a primary school and from the next year, the school was becoming a high school. I was devastated because I wanted a change, a new beginning in a new school where I could leave behind all the hurtful memories of having to kneel on the floor and be humiliated. I was to remain in the same school for my high school career. My academic progress improved slightly in Standard 5, with me excelling in English and Afrikaans. I was allowed to participate in the Afrikaans Olympiads and I achieved good results and obtained certificates of merit. This boosted my very low self-esteem and improved my confidence tremendously—so much so that by the end of my primary school life, I began looking forward to high school despite the fact that I had to remain in the same school. As the end drew close so, too, I mentally shut the doors on my primary school life. Throughout my life, I seldom spoke about my primary school experience. I heard other people chatting away happily about incidents from primary school but I was always silent in this regard. This thesis was the first time that I had to think about that phase of my life.
Not only did it open up old wounds and hurts, but it helped me to see my primary school life from an adult’s perspective. As an educator in a combined school prior to becoming a teacher educator, I had to teach primary school learners subjects like needlework. I remember making the lesson as exciting as possible, and allowing learners to do what they were happy and comfortable with. Those who did not like sewing, I let them knit or crochet, and those learners who could not do any of that, I allowed them to cut pictures out of magazines to make scrapbooks of pretty clothing. I never forced a learner or embarrassed a learner. I would plan fun activities for them because I had dreaded needlework. I got into lots of trouble because needlework was a compulsory component of the curriculum but I had learners making popcorn and candy apples instead of doing needlework. Whilst writing this personal history about my primary school, I came to realise what an impact some of my experiences had on my development and my role as an educator. I never wanted to put the learners through the same torture I had gone through.
I transformed myself from a bitter, angry, and resentful child to a mature forgiving adult. Neu (2011, p. 134, as cited in Adams, 2017) described forgiveness as a “change of heart, a shift in attitude, an alteration of an inner state.” Hagberg (2011, as cited in Adams, 2017) claimed that forgiveness
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occurs when the harmed person is able to get over the anger and bitter thoughts towards those who inflicted harm upon her. When this happens, then the incident no longer remains the focal point of the person’s existence. Although the incident is not forgotten, the injured person develops a changed perspective of the situation, the people, and the events that harmed her. By making herself believe that the persons who injured her were only acting as best as they could, the injured person is able to change the dynamics of the incident. Adams (2017) advised that forgiveness is not applicable to only one incident, but should be an ongoing occurrence and should be a reminder to the injured person that she should not inflict the same damage upon others. Hence, in my practice as a teacher and teacher educator, I am always mindful never to make the same mistakes that my teachers made with me at school.