School life can never be boring. Yes, there is a serious side to schooling but in my 39 years of teaching, I have found that all teachers must develop a sense of humour.
The late Prof Cecil Leonard who specialised in animal anatomy had a wonderful sense of humour. He would have his students rolling in the aisles of the lecture hall at UWC.
The late Prof Jan Skinner who was a zoologist, while he was dissecting a mammal, said to us: “The priests tell us this mammal has a soul. I have dissected so many animals and never found a soul!”
Fred Coker my teacher and mentor was a scream. He was an avid reader of books. He had a lisp and all students mimicked his lisp. He would come into the class seriously and say: " The young man walked into the bedroom. He was handsome, tall and slender. She was sitting on the bed waiting for him. He moved closer to her and … Students let us continue with our topic the sexual reproduction of humans! What an anti-climax.
We had a physical science teacher who always seemed out of money. He would tell one of the girls: “Go to the tuckshop get me a pie and a cool drink.” Without giving her any money he said: “And bring me the change.”
The same teacher during his free period will lie down on three chairs in the staffroom and when people said but the principal will frown upon this he said: “The principal cannot hit me!”
The past principal of the school I taught at, was authoritative and firm. The staff had an end-of-term party in Hout Bay. The principal walked into the staffroom on the first morning of the new term and announced that he had the mouthpiece of the staff party in his possession (a teacher had lost his set of dentures in the pool at Hout Bay!).
When I was principal at the school, I was doing gate duty and a student on his motorbike drove into school without a helmet. I was asked by the teacher doing detention in the afternoon, why this student was wearing a helmet in the detention room.
I remember being in a class that had a wooden divider between the two classrooms. As I was teaching I saw a hand come through the gap in the divider punching a boy in my classroom. I went to the back of the class waiting for the hand to come through the gap again. It did and I caught the hand and we wrestled. We both opened the divider and to our surprise, I had caught the hand of the teacher in the next classroom. Of course, we were both furious at the time because the students found it hilarious. The boys were duly punished. We, the teachers had a good laugh in the staffroom.
I suppose many teachers reading this column would be able to add their own stories. Schooling must also be fun. Not everybody is born with a natural sense of humour. If you do have a sense of humour you are fortunate. I was not born with an innate sense of humour but have tried to develop one so that my teaching could be more fruitful. I recommend this to all in any career, especially in teaching.
* Brian Isaacs obtained a BSc (UWC) in 1975, a Secondary Teacher’s Diploma in 1976, BEd (UWC) in 1981, and MEd (UWC) in 1992. He is a former matriculant, teacher and principal at South Peninsula High School.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
Cape Argus
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