From zero to hero

After the ultra lows of this past weekend, today I had a fabulous little "pick me up". I needed the encouragement so badly, and God knew that.

Today I received an email from an ex-pupil. I've removed the personal info, but essentially, this is what the email said:

I finally realized why everybody has made such a big deal about how different varsity is compared to school. They are two worlds apart! I thought matric was tough, until the real world gave me a wake up call.

Anyway, I'm sending you this email in order to personally thank you for the way you have taught me in my senior years, especially last year. 

Last year, I struggled to understand why you flew through work, why you didn't check homework, but trusted that we did it. I struggled to understand why you'd force us to do extra reading around the subject and why you put the onus on us to take down effective notes everyday in class. But most of all, I struggled to understand why you told us to give "100%" in every class. Even though I struggled to understand your teaching methods, I adapted accordingly in order to keep up. It has been the best decision I have made.

I realized recently that your teaching methods had prepared me for the real world. It has taught me self discipline, perseverance and resilience. It had taught me to work effectively on a daily basis in order to stay on track and cope with the work load and demands of varsity. The way you did things last year has taught me that lecturers really don't care about you, and that the onus is all on you!

So, thank you for doing what you did. I appreciate every little thing - besides subject related work- that you've taught me with your teaching methods. The values and skills it instilled in me has made varsity manageable and I am far more effective than I could imagine.

Not much tops that! Wow! There is something incredible about knowing I've made a difference to this life. It makes it all worth while - all the stress, and heart ache, blood, sweat and tears. Teaching is a vocation, not a job. I don't get paid enough for what I do, but the knowledge that I'm helping to build the future of this country, that I'm changing lives... that is some compensation. (I'd still love the cash ;) but this is good too!)