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"There was no other place I wanted to be, and there I learnt that if you want to have a career, do what you love. It will soon become a way of life and not just a profession," teacher Mutsa Ella Pazvakavambwa said.
Yochanaan Coetzee
Very few professions call for the personal and profession buy-in teaching takes. The input, empathy, sacrifices and safe nurturing spaces teachers, tutors and many others offer up in the name of educating the next generation cannot be quantified. The hours of preparation, assessment, assistance, even accommodating learners in their homes, should not be ignored.
Despite the challenges, the African Child Development Trust’s (ACDT) education project principal online teacher Mutsa Ella Pazvakavambwa said she can’t see herself doing anything else. “I always enjoyed school and especially my extramurals like going to the sports games, and taking part in tennis, hockey, debate and public speaking. I remember having this incredible pride in having school pride,” she said warmly.
“So, I always saw immense value in learning and loving the school environment. Even from my earliest memories from grade one. “I actually wanted to become a lawyer, but in order for my family to prepare the funds, I took a gap year and started working as a grade one teacher,” she said. Soon she realised that moulding young minds was more rewarding than she could imagine, took on this selfless but incredibly satisfying career path.
Part of the process
“Being an assistant teacher to a new grade one class, I got to witness the process of learning from a teacher’s point of view. It made me so happy to be there and be part of that process,” Pazvakavambwa said.
“There was no other place I wanted to be, and there I learnt that if want to have a career, do what you love. It will soon become a way of life and not just a profession,” she added.
“Even before Covid, many of us always asked ourselves how we could reach everyone in a society with so many social inequalities.
“We say ‘education for all’, but is that really the reality outside urban centres?” she asked. “We want to build a nation of excellence, so when the ACDT project came about, I was excited that we could now put children on an equal platform and give those who previously had less access to printed and audio-visual material an equal opportunity to learn,” she said.
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