I am working on getting my next book ready for publication soon. It is set in a high school in Cape Town, and to write it I drew heavily on my own teaching experience. The protagonist in my story, Amy Atwood, is an English teacher just as I was, although I need to say right away that she is not me - okay? Just making that clear from the start!
One thing I share with Amy, however, is a genuine affection for the teens I came across n my classroom. When I began teaching I was 22, barely out of my teens myself. You're the same age as my boyfriend! I was told once in my first year. And I was advised, more times than I can count, not to get too attached to my students. But I could never get my head around that. Over the years I built relationships with some of the girls I taught, relationships that were more like friendships than anything else. Even now, ten years after the last time I stepped into a classroom as the teacher, I still have contact with some of them, and the memories of those special kids inspired me to write Teacher, Teacher.
It was a privilege, I realize now, to be there for some of them when they needed me. Once, I left a class unsupervised because one of my girls was sobbing in the foyer, traumatized and devastated after a violent family incident the day before. I held her in my arms, unable to do anything about what was happening in her life except for pray for her as she cried. After that, this girl knew that she could come to me about anything, and she did, many times. More than once, girls came to me with questions about spiritual things. I sat at those old wooden desks with holes for inkwells and studied the Bible with them, prayed with them, counselled them. I was young and naive, and looking back there were things I wish I had done differently, things I said that I should not have said, things I should have done to help them that I barely considered at the time. But we bonded, over those desks, in my upstairs classroom, the air often thick with chalk dust and adolescent angst.
Once, at an evening function, I realized that one of my girls was planning to walk the 5kms home with her aunt who was her guardian. It was too late for trains and busses and walking was the only option they had, so I drove them home in my car. This girl was lonely, a bright child from a different province who after only two years of being taught in English was reading every book she could find and writing essays better than most of her peers who had been taught in English their whole lives. When the situation at home was unbearable one Friday she came to me in tears, and ended up coming home with me for the weekend. She slept on a couch in my room in the flat I shared with some friends from church. We went to the supermarket to stock her up on sanitary pads and we hung out. I probably should have got into trouble for that, but to be honest I don't think I even thought it might not be a good idea. I remember wishing I was older, that I could take her in and look after her, wishing that I could give her more than just my moral support and friendship in the turbulence that was her life at that time. But last year I needed something translated into her home language, so I reached out to her on Facebook and we had a chat. Almost twenty years later, the relationship is still there. If she didn't live on the other side of the country we could go to Mugg and Bean for coffee and talk literature.
I can't say that I took every opportunity to be there for the kids I taught over the years. I was wrapped up in my own narrow little life and didn't always want to reach out. Then I had my own babies and when my third was on the way I was so grateful for the option of being at home full-time for my own children. The other day I locked eyes with a young woman in a shopping centre. I felt a flash of recognition, and she smiled. Where do I know you from? I asked. She answered with the name of the school, reminded me of her name and let me give her a hug. My life is so full now that I can't imagine going back to school full time, but I remember and I am grateful. It was good to write Teacher, Teacher and explore those feelings, to remember how I felt about the privilege I had in knowing these kids and being part of their lives.
(The kids in this picture must be in their thirties now. They were my first senior History class in a school in Joburg and I abandoned them half way through their Matric year to have my daughter. They gave me a pile of baby gifts and told me I'd be a great mom. I don't know where any of them are now, but I remember all their names. You were awesome, guys.)
