Bringing down the walls of Jericho

You know, I have always trusted and respected my teachers at school - from primary right through to high school. Never did I question their authority, or deliberately go against their instructions.

I was a good boy - the first to enter class, and the last to leave. Well, except in maths class which I never attended at all. Now you know why I hate arithmetic!

As a child I looked up to a teacher as being a superior being - one that knows about everything from astronomy to the ‘Chinese art of war’.

Well, occasionally I would be disappointed by a teacher crucifying the Queen’s language with statement like “Both of you three, come here”, or “Tomorrow I want you to come with your mother, father and both your parents.”

But that aside, we had teachers that, despite their paltry grasp of the English language, still had the ability to teach the Queen’s language in higher grade! Those of us born after 1990, ‘higher grade’ was the difference between kids like me and those that were required to attend longer classes.

Those kids that had their business economics on higher grade could tell why sugar – a product used almost every day – is placed at the back of the shop, while simple things like boy’s toys are placed right under your nose next to the till.

The logic, I am later made to understand, is to trick you into buying things you do not need as you await your turn at the till. Eish, standard grade never taught us that!

But nothing could prepare me for what happened at a rural school I was visiting recently in the great Omaheke Region.

In my quest for news, I end up at a school whose name I still struggle to pronounce located deep in the Kalahari bushes. I swear the name of that school is probably derived from the one or the other medical term. No wonder kids there keep failing!

Attempting to get the best out of the story, I asked if I could sit in on one of the lessons in a Grade 4 class.

It was my lucky day, as a school inspector was assigned to the same class I was visiting.

Soon things got underway and the inspector was introduced to the class by the teacher.

She says to the class: "Let's show the inspector just how clever you are by allowing him to ask you a question."

The inspector reasons that normally class starts with religious instruction, so he asked a biblical question.

He asks: "Class, who broke down the walls of Jericho?"

For a full minute there is absolute silence. The class sat quietly and just stared at him as it went blank. Eventually Tangeni, whom I figured was the black sheep of the class, raises his hand. The Inspector excitedly points to him. Tangeni stands up and replies:

"Sir, I do not know who broke down the walls of Jericho, but I can assure you it wasn't me."

Of course the inspector is shocked by the answer and looks at the teacher for an explanation. Realising that he is perturbed, the teacher says: "Well, I've known Tangeni since the beginning of the year, and I believe that if he says that he didn't do it, then he didn't do it."

The inspector is even more shocked at this and storms down to the principal's office and tells him what happened, to which the principal replies:

"I don't know the boy, but I socialise every now and then with his teacher, and I believe her. If she feels that the boy is innocent, then he must be innocent."

The inspector can't believe what he is hearing. He grabs the phone on the principal's desk and in a rage dials the Minister of Education's telephone number and rattles the entire occurrence to her and asks her what she thinks of the education standard in southern Africa.

The Minister sighs heavily and replies:

"I don't know the boy, the teacher, nor the principal, but just get three quotes and have the wall fixed!"

Eish, and you thought failing mathematics was such a big deal! Now you know why logic should be introduced as a subject during the formative years of primary school.

Until then…

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