Reading an interview with Jonathan Jansen in an Afrikaans daily took me on a trip down memory lane. Specifically, to the beginning of the academic year of 1979, at the newly opened high school in a small West Coast village about 200km north of Cape Town. This was the school where Jansen started his teaching career after completing his honours in science, but with an unmatched degree of energy, enthusiasm and zeal. This was for his subjects, maths and science, but especially for his students. "JJ" motivated us, mostly pupils whose parents were fishing folk, to start dreaming about going to university. Through his belief in us and motivation to do our utmost (while returning after every trip to Cape Town with application and bursary forms), we repaid him with a quality of matric results and number of learners to attend tertiary studies that was only matched almost 20 years later. From "his class" emerged lawyers, teachers, social workers, a scientist, a doctor and even a student who a...
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