For our underpaid heroes

There are two types of people in the world: those who remember their school days with fondness and those who couldn't get out fast enough. If you're still in school (chokes back the tears) then ... well ... give this column to your dad.

We all have those classmates we wonder about; did they become boardroom bullies or trophy wives? I particularly wonder about a little short boy called Colin, who was the class bully at my primary school in Meadowlands. I had fears of him making me the object of his misguided affections as I watched him steal lunches and make nine-year-olds call him "boss".

School either made you feel like the world was your oyster, and you couldn't wait to dazzle when the 12-year sentence was up, or there was promise of self-discovery - away from being teased about your hair or laughed at because you were the tallest kid in class.

I mention hair because when I finished higher primary (my wonderful father had sat with me during the aptitude tests that they made children take who were coming from schools in the township into the suburbs), I decided I wanted to improve my look.

Unfortunately we didn't have much money then, so on my first day of high school I had half-relaxed hair and wore my Toughies shoes, which were like roller skates. I remember slipping and sliding during classes as the straps of my bag tore from the pressure of the heavy textbooks. I knew I would have to change my fate in order not to spend the rest of my days as a nerd.

When I was in standard seven (grade nine for all you young'ns), there was a girl who would get flowers every Valentine's Day. Let's call her Tumi. At our school, flowers would be delivered during class and messages of adoration would be read on the intercom.

Every year, without fail, Tumi would get an abnormal number of messages from "admirers". Until one day, when one of the mean girls decided to out her by telling the class that she was, in fact, sending them to herself. She didn't come back the following year.

From the cool kids to the class hotties who would have hormonal girls watching basketball games just to see them take off their tops, school delivered the good with the bad. For some of you it was a time of bunking, bad math marks and biology drawings that had to be looked at upside down in order for them to make sense.

Some of you were discovered making out in the gym and made to confess your dirty deeds in front of the whole school. And if you went to a school in the township, you probably remember those corporal punishment days when, while trying to soothe the pain from your throbbing palms, you would feel a little better after watching classmates make complete idiots of themselves by saying: "No teacher, please teacher," while they nervously offered their palms. Which then brings me to the point of this column. Teachers.

I was lucky enough to be taught by people who knew they were shaping minds. Whether it was Mr Thabo Moeketsi at Indoni Higher Primary School, who taught the English language with passion and precision and helped me grow confident by making me read in class; or Mrs Bashe who, in my first year of high school, taught me to stretch my imagination and would later help me decide to become a journalist. (While packing my books in Matric, I saw a note she wrote when I was 13, asking if I'd ever considered being a writer. It was a life-changing moment).

Two other teachers stand out at my high school, Barnato Park: Mr Richard Cawker, who was my favourite history teacher and taught me to think freely and always ask questions; and in my final year, Mr Weissenbacher, who would talk to me as an adult when I misbehaved, and prepared me for the real world. I never told these teachers the impact they had on my life.

We rarely ever tell people, let alone teachers, how significantly they affect us. We need to salute the dedicated yet still underpaid teachers - like my best friend's mom, who still lives in Sharpeville but travels to Soweto every day to teach primary school kids; the teachers who take time to nurture and encourage kids year after year and the ones who see things even parents don't see in their own children.

From me to you, and I'm sure plenty others, I thank you.