In a couple of days I go to a school I love in Johannesburg.
Talking today with an administrator about one of the teachers there I am meant to help I thought of those times when help doesn’t much matter.
Only twenty-three, the teacher in question began her career this January by taking over the class of a long-standing, much-beloved faculty member. “Not easy shoes to fill,” said the concerned administrator.
“She’ll be fine. Or not. But anyway, it does not matter,” I said.
Because teaching, like any deeply human work, is essentially impossible to experience, let alone take advice about, as you first go through it. You may as well tell Romeo or Juliet to chill out.
In theory, a surgeon cutting into a body for the first time “knows what they're doing" just as this teacher will be able to talk about grammar or whatever. There will be no malpractice. But it must take more than a few operations before the surgeon’s senses calm down enough to begin pressing the knife differently. A p…
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