Building a sustainable culture of excellence

Tshwarelo Hosia | Friday December 22, 2023 12:44

It was not just about provoking debates for their own sake but to build a sustained culture of academic excellence while inculcating a love for the teaching profession, especially in the minds of the novice teacher and to inspire hope among those who might be losing faith and confidence in the profession.

The reason is that if the teaching profession, the hub of any nation, loses its spark, the world will go adrift. I find it fit and proper to end the year by walking the reader through the original, unadulterated character of the teaching profession. Where possible and necessary, one would lace the story with examples drawn from one’s 30-year-old journey as a teacher and education manager.

One is hoping that doing so, one will not land into the danger of facing the charge of blowing one’s own trumpet. There is nothing, which reveals the true character of a teacher than investing energies and time in the sporting life of a school. Sports enormously benefitted the client more than the service provider.

This is not to down play the fact that teachers derived fun and intrinsic satisfaction from involvement in sports while also contributing to good health. It also improved the teachers’ promotional prospects because a teacher who went that extra mile was or still is considered an asset. But the biggest winners were students and the school principal. Sports glorified the school principal and once you enter a principal’s office the first thing that strikes the visitor is the display of trophies.

It is for this reason that I have elected to focus on the teacher and his/her role in the grassroots development of sports at a school level. Sadly, the teaching profession has evolved over time and in the process of mutation, the system has impacted negatively on grassroot sport development. When I joined the teaching profession in 1993, it was out of character for a school to insulate itself from sports life. Now schools are slowly coming to terms with a new normal of doing without sports originally occasioned by the COVID-19. Sports life has come to a standstill. It is noted, however, that plans to resuscitate sports are afoot. To the uninitiated, not so much with familiar with the territory, everything may appear perfectly normal.

After all, the sun has not fallen from the sky. But a glance at the inventory of the teaching profession would quickly show that the profession has become a shadow of its former self. Traditionally, teaching offered a total and well-blended curriculum comprising a good mix of classroom teaching and extra-curricular activities. The more formal core business of teaching ran during normal working hours while sporting activities were religiously performed by a group of dedicated sports enthusiasts beyond after cessation of the official classroom activities.

Academic pursuits and sports were like Siamese twins - completely inseparable. Those who chose to participate were not coerced into sports but were driven by love and passion. Talk of intrinsic motivation! Save for the Sports Master, nobody ever thought of earning any extra remuneration for coordinating a sporting code. Some did more than one sport codes. In my case when I joined Lotsane Senior Secondary School in 1995, I got involved with boxing, Scout movement and drama among other things. Because of my solid training in English and Setswana Literature and my stint with the Scouts at high school, my association with the two was understandable but my involvement with boxing was nothing short of a miracle. The students approached me to patronise boxing and I accepted the request reluctantly.

I did not know the rules of the game, but was keen to learn. Indeed I learnt the art of building a ship while sailing. The joy of bringing home medals from a game you hardly knew was overwhelming. Like any other teacher of my generation, I never thought sports could be a financially rewarding enterprise. Only the designated head of sports benefitted financially but the rest of the teachers manning various sporting codes were the proverbial sacrificial lambs - quietly doing their duties with a display of deep patriotism and love - a rare breed of teachers ready to surrender their best selves to the development of sports at the grass roots.

The country is littered with names of athletes who made it internationally and thanks to their solid foundation at school level. Voluntary participation in sports made a case of the 13th cheque strong, in my view. Somebody asked me the other time why I chose the teaching industry. Here is my story. Armed with top-notch grades from high school, the University of Botswana enrolled me for a Bachelor of Social sciences majoring in Economics and Sociology. It was clearly a high sounding and prestigious programme, but to the naive rural boy, I was, it was not a familiar territory. A bit apprehensive about what the programme had for me, I declined the offer and I requested placement in the Humanities Department.

I am not clear whether I knew this would lead me into the classroom. I simply derived comfort from exploring subjects I had navigated at high school. When I finally found myself in the classroom, I never looked back. I realised sooner than later that I found my purpose while in the classroom.

That my mission was (still is) to help the young generation to find their purpose in life. My friends keep on telling me that I should have been anywhere else and not in the classroom. Yes, the temptation to leave for greener pastures has always been there but I have been so fool hardy to remain rooted in the cause of building a better future for our children. This is a testament of the fact that the chemistry between the teacher and his/her job is amazingly strong. Financially, one may not have accomplished much over the last 30 years, but the joy of working with children helping them fulfil their dreams and aspirations is the biggest reward a teacher can ever get.

As they say, once a teacher one is always a teacher. I have now educated myself on matters of school governance and I will not cease to persevere, to fight cheerfully for the love of my country and for restoration of a culture of academic excellence, for raising management and accountability bar in schools. The quiet and subtle feedback one continues to get from retired and serving school principals is overwhelming and therefore keeps me going.

Wishing everyone a happy Christmas and a reassuring new year.