My Academic Career

Towards the end of 1967, which was my last year at Fish Hoek High School, the headmaster called my parents in for an interview. He told them it was his sad duty to inform them that their son would never amount to much in life. Because I was dull-witted and lacking in any God-given talent, my prospects were bleak. It would be futile to hope that I might avoid the usual disappointment, boredom and pain associated with a life of mediocrity.

I urged my parents to disregard this man’s assessment of my ability and character, as he was a pedagogic prick who specialized in Youth Demotivation and could go to hell with a carrot up his arse, for all I cared.

Unfortunately, as it turned out, he wasn’t far off the mark. I scraped through Matric after having to write a supplementary exam in Mathematics. This meant that I was only eligible for an undergraduate place at UCT in 1969. None of the usual professions called to me, so I chose to do a BA in the hope that the qualification would somehow improve my chances of finding well-paid and stimulating work. The subjects I chose were English, History and Psychology, and at the end of the year, I only managed to pass English. I persuaded my parents to let me have one more shot at a university degree and took Xhosa, Social Anthropology and English II in the second year. This time I failed all three subjects and was obliged to throw in the academic towel. There was no escaping the fact that I was intellectually and temperamentally unsuited for formal study and the writing of exams. 

After a lengthy process of introspection, I identified the main cause of my inability to successfully participate in a formal educational environment. This single most important influence was the role played by my poor eyesight. Stargardt disease is a form of macular degeneration, a progressive congenital condition that begins at puberty. It is incurable and its effects, unlike with myopia, cannot be corrected by the wearing of glasses. (I intend to write about this affliction in a future post.) Not being able to see what was written on the board put me at a considerable disadvantage, especially when it came to Maths.

Furthermore, this eyesight problem gradually contributed to increasing introversion accompanied by a sense of isolation and alienation. I became critical of what I was being taught and questioned the relevance of the information I was supposed to assimilate. I found the archaic methods used to impart knowledge were so stultifying that my mind, instead of being stimulated, was paralysed by boredom. 

Consequently, in order to pursue my wide-ranging interests, I found it necessary to take control of my education and become a life-long autodidact. To this day, I remain interested in everything under the sun and am continually making a superficial study of whatever comes my way.

But, to return to the main topic of this post, let me continue with my involvement in the world of learning and teaching. In my twenties I avoided gainful employment as far as I could, but on several occasions, I was obliged to take a job and earn some money. When I heard that the Department of Coloured Affairs was looking for temporary teachers, I exaggerated my qualifications and was given a post at Oaklands High School in Lansdowne.

For two terms I taught English and History to children in standards 7 and 8. From the start, I realised this was not going to be my vocation. The English curriculum was designed to make grammar a complicated and intimidating set of rules, and the literature was taken from the colonial era, emphasising the superiority of British culture. And History was even worse. How could I tell these kids that the Europeans had come to Africa and civilized the brown and black people and replaced their primitive beliefs with Christianity, the true religion? It is little wonder that I was unable to engender a love of English and an interest in History in my pupils. They became disrespectful and increasingly unruly and I was relieved to receive notice that my services would no longer be required after the second term.

Two years later, the unpleasant memory of what it was like to be a reluctant and ineffectual pedagogue having faded, I again ventured into the teaching environment when faced with the urgent need to make some money. This time it was at Ocean View High School in a newly established apartheid township for Coloureds. By the end of the first week I knew I had made another serious mistake and would not last more than a term. The children were from a disadvantaged, crime-ridden community and clearly had no interest in acquiring an education. They were impervious to reason, and the only way to keep them under control was to use physical violence in the form of corporal punishment and to accompany it with verbal abuse. These hooligans soon discovered that I had neither the inclination nor the willpower to take command in this way, and they soon reduced me to a humiliated wreck. By the time I drew my last pay cheque, I was in need of a prolonged period of recuperation.

For the next two decades, I continued to educate myself in a wide range of subjects until I felt I had acquired a coherent world view. At the same time, I was making a living as a builder in Hermanus. When my eyesight deteriorated to the point where I could no longer drive or read a plan, I persuaded my wife that our best course of action was to sell up and return to Pearly Beach. This new venture would involve her finding work in Gansbaai in order to support the family, while I would perform domestic duties and home school our two children.

With only two students to contend with, my teaching now yielded better results, and they both acquired a solid, well-rounded education. This was partly due to the excellent Cambridge distance learning program that they followed and partly as a result of being encouraged to think independently and critically. It could be said that they too became autodidacts and my role was downgraded from teacher to observer. In retrospect, I have enormous admiration for what they achieved through their own ability and in spite of being deprived of a normal schooling experience.

That was the last I had anything to do with teaching. However, I have not yet reached a stage when I can claim to be done with education. My quest for knowledge and meaning continues.

See also: My Military Career and My Nursing Career

To view my longer work as an author, you can find me on Smashwords here.