A Jeppe High School for Boys teacher has been trending on social media and news sites for most of the week but a former student has finally written something which really makes sense and brings a new perspective to the saga.
The former student, Bongani Kumbula wrote the post on Facebook which has received massive amounts of support from the community and has already been shared over 4000 times!
The original video has been trending on social media…. it shows the teacher having a melt-down and yelling at a student but as Kumbula points out… it doesn’t show what caused the teacher to get to that point.
“God you are such an idiot‚ I have to say to you‚ stop your sh*t and work. Really‚ where is your book? Where are your notes? What the f*ck is it doing in your case. Oh shut up you idiot‚ you cannot talk back because you know you are guilty.”
The teacher then raises what looks like her middle finger and says: “This my finger. You can leave!”
You can watch the full video below but please be warned that this video contains very strong language:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snOLpEItiNk
And read the full transcript of Kumbula’s post here:
So I woke up this morning to a video of my old high school Afrikaans teacher trending for an out burst she had while teaching.
This 30 second clip could derail the career of a wonderful woman who has given more than 30 years of her life to educating kids. No context is given within the clip. What is missing is the amount of pressure and stress these kids put on educators to get them to reach breaking point.
Trust me she was pushed, pushed into a corner where she was left with two choices. React the way she did, or break down and cry. Cry and admit defeat.
And we, the young, ignorant and full of nonsense know exactly how to break a teacher. They all break, because we are little tsotsi’s who sit and plot and find the cracks and buttons to push them over the edge.
This 30 second video clip that makes people feel entitled to judge and condemn dear Mrs. Awesome. That clip that excludes that she is a loving wife, a good mother to her offspring and an army of Jeppe boys. Let’s say she has 5 classes from each grade, each averaging 30 students, that’s 150 students a year. That’s a minimum of 4500 students that have passed through her classroom over 30yrs.
And we judge her over this 30 second clip. My class made her cry in my day’s as a student. But she picked herself up, taught us and made sure we were best positioned to pass on to the next grade. She didn’t hold it against us. Boys schools are inherently filled with testosterone and hormonal teenagers.
It’s warfare for teachers. It can be torture for female teachers.
The older I get, the more guilty I feel for the kak I put them through.
But they keep coming back for more. She is a passionate educator and shame on any system or person that tries to derail her career over a 30 second video.
A 30 second video that starts rolling when she has already been pushed to boiling point. That started recording because the kids knew they had pushed her so far that they were going to get a reaction. The show was about to start. Lights, camera and action.
Oh, but how biased is this video?
Where are the cuttaways of the students tormenting and baiting her to behave like this? Where are the cuttaways of the 99% of the time when she is a good teacher, calm, colllected and caring? Where are the 30 second video clips of the 4500 students who will come out in her defence and tell you what an awesome teacher she is?
This 30 second clip is not the Mrs. Awesome we know. This does not represent her.
I am a little teary eyed thinking that the one time this beautiful woman gets her 15min of fame it’s over this rubbish. That she is probably in bed depressed right now because of this.
Not fair at all.
I wish I could give her a hug. But what I will instead do is defend her memory as a proud former student. Let this story about her trend rather than that silly clip.
To the kids in that class that did that to a good teacher, I ask them to look in the mirror and ask if they feel good?
Is this what they wanted?
What can they do to help the situation?
What’s done is done, but they can use this opportunity to let the world know that that video is not an accurate representation of Mrs. Awesome. They have the power to rectify this and get the truth out there.
That’s my two cents. 30 seconds does not a person make. Forti Nhil Difficlus and right now she needs brave old boys and students to come forward and support her.
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by 
I am an ex teacher. Trust me I have also been there. I do believe there are many of us that has been in the same position. I raise my hat to you, Mam. You are the type that students will remember for life. Respect, Bogani, for standing up for a good teacher. We certainly need more voices like this backing us. Mam, and you must stay AWESOME. You are the type of teacher we need in our schools.