The Covid-19 teacher in hospital

Iwas saddened by Basic Education Minister, Angie Motshekga’s announcement that we have already lost in excess of 1 200 of our teachers to Covid-19.

I regard our teachers, together with our medical staff, as very important frontline workers. As an old man, I can honestly say that, in my lifetime, I have met thousands of teachers whom I have loved and respected.

There were only two rotten eggs that I knew of.

One that inappropriately touched young boys in my days in the 1940s, and the second was a Zululand teacher who shared a Covid-19 ward with me in the hospital for a few days.

This man - who was past his sell-by-date at about 63 - was still teaching young children in a government school. If I understood him correctly, he was a respected leader in his community.

Like all of us in this particular ward, he would splutter and cough as a symptom of the illness. We would, however, wear our masks permanently because of our close confinement in this particular ward.

Our teacher friend would, however, openly defy all state and hospital regulations, and cough without his mask in place.

Being a group of rugged men, we would shout at him to mask up, as per regulations. I presume, because he was a sir at school, he would just brazenly ignore our requests.

I strongly suspect that he was doing it on purpose, because whenever a hospital staff member walked in or if his cell phone rang, his coughing fit would cease immediately.

This man does not deserve the honour of being called a ‘sir’ - this is reserved for people we respect.

At his age, I sincerely hope he does not go back to school to teach our precious young children.