So what does that mean? Well, I sat in on all of these classes and observed. And this is very informal, you know, the headmaster knew. But certainly, there was no colleagues involved. I was just going there to watch. And I had a little studio space in the corner, and I painted and the students would come up and ask me what I was doing and explained, the kind of things I was painting. And then he invited me to go and help the students who don't work. And then it went from there. And then I applied to go back to college to become a teacher. So I did a postgraduate teaching certification.
Have you ever had an experience with a student that like kind of stuck with you, or a story?
Many, many, many, absolutely. My favorite one, after I became qualified to teach, I did lots of part time teaching and youth work jobs. I eventually found myself teaching in Africa for two years in Botswana in a middle school. And in Botswana, if you pass your middle school exams, you qualify to go to high school, high schools not automatic, you have to attain a certain level with your, they call them Oxford examinations, because they come from Oxford, England. So I had a student whose name was cucumber, who was a brilliant sculptor. Academically, he was struggling. And he wasn't going to get the four grades, the five grades he needed in his Oxford examinations. His a and art, got him into high school.
And he came back and he thanked me because he wanted to make a living as a sign writer, writing on the side of buildings, you know, shop names, that kind of thing. And he needed to get into high school to be able to do that. So that one's stuck with me. Other experiences, again, from Africa stuck with me. [One time] the water supply ran out in the school for two weeks, we had no running water. So for our class, we used to start the class by walking down to the river. And my students walk back with buckets on their heads full of water for the day, like the ones that you see, like you say, you see the villagers walking through Africa with buckets of water on their heads. Yeah, that's what would happen.
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