I had been a teacher for more than thirty (30) years, and those were the most fulfilling years of my life (except that I retired financially worse off than I started). 

However, the monetary rewards were not the only thing on my mind when I started teaching. I chose to become a teacher because I was following a calling I loved.

I am possibly one of the few top performing students who opted to become a teacher, while many of my classmates in the science class opted to become engineers, technicians, and other professionals. 

I always harboured ideals of becoming a medical doctor and studying at Medunsa (a medical university in South Africa) until my English teacher, for whom I had great reverence, in Std. 9 (Grade 11) asked if I ever considered becoming an English teacher. 

This question was prompted by my exceptional grades in English. The place, the time, the occasion, and the day that the seed had been planted in my mind are as vivid as daylight in my memory.

The rewards of my choice to become a teacher are so visible that I feel a degree of self-actualization and prestige (the highest need in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs) when I turn on the television and see my learners in politics, ministerial positions, broadcasting, etc. 

When I enter a public institution, I am called to the fore as “Our English Teacher” (and not by name), due fully assisted and always leave with a smirk on my face. 

There was a time when a former learner swiped my entire groceries! These rewards have come to me because my personal mantra in teaching was embedded in the didactic principles, which can be summed up in the 17th century Japanese maxim of the wisdom of three monkeys, namely “see no evil in a child, hear no evil about a child, and talk no evil of the child.” 

Therefore, I was and am always in pain when a child is expelled from school. 

The education authorities expect teachers to hold professional teaching qualifications so they can apply the theories they have learned to “educate” the child to become a better citizen. 

A teacher can be equated to a medical doctor as both are professionals. Children come to school just as sick people go to a doctor. Nowadays, some schools opt for an easy way out by sending ill-disciplined children to the streets, creating a bigger problem in society, whilst a teacher’s task is to educate. John Locke states “that education and environment play the primary role in shaping a child’s mind and character”. 

He asserts that a child’s mind is a “tabula rasa” (a blank slate) that is shaped by the experiences and information obtained. The practice of expelling children from school is counterproductive and prohibited under the Education Act.

It is also important that we, as teachers, should be loving people. We should show compassion and care. 

Children sit in your class with a mixed bunch of woeful and deplorable experiences; some have not eaten since last night, others walk long distances to school, there are those with chronic illnesses, some coming from abusive households, some having mental issues, and many others with learning handicaps. 

A school should be an environment where all these children find peace of mind, feel accepted, valued, and respected. Let us educate our children. 

Our rewards as teachers do not really lie in the peanuts we earn as salaries at the end of the month, but in the pride and prestige we feel when we see them soar! 

*Marin Matsuib is a retired teacher, writer, and a freelance training consultant. He is an Alumni from the Academy of Tertiary Education (now UNAM). Mr. Matsuib is the National Coordinator of the Namibian Education Coalition (NECCSO) and is involved in a project to advance the development of indigenous languages in Namibia.