Newcastle Senior Primary School is once again saying goodbye to one of its stalwarts, Ronel Schoeman, who has been a teacher at the school since 1985.
She began her teaching career in 1984 at Umhlali Primary School, which is located between Balito and Salt Rock. It was also the only primary school in the area at the time.
A year later, she was transferred to Newcastle Senior Primary, where she worked till March 30 of this year.
According to her, she chose teaching as a career because she loved children.
I always had a Mickey Mouse waving a banner above my chalk board that said Mrs Schoeman loves me to bits. On the first day of each school year, I asked my children to replace the word ‘me’ with their own name. While I was removing the posters from my wall, the kids requested that I leave the Mickey Mouse for them.”
She continued; “This really touched my heart and made me realise how desperately our children need to experience love, care, and support. Our homes and classrooms must be loving havens where our children can feel happy, safe, and secure in order to attain their greatest potential.”
She also thought that while teaching and explaining academic work should be the primary and most important responsibility of any educator, establishing morals and values should never be overlooked.
“The need for morals and values to be taught to our children is more important than ever before because through social media, our children are being exposed to the most inappropriate, rotten, filthy material that unfortunately leads to the moral decay of our society,” she explained.
Mrs Schoeman admitted that her decision to retire had crushed her heart, especially after seeing how sad it had made her children.
“My children were crying and sobbing both the day before I left and on the day of my retirement, and it felt like a very traumatic experience that just broke my heart into a million pieces. For 39 years, my children were not simply a part of my life; they were my life!”
Read more about this on the front page of this week’s edition of the Newcastle Advertiser!
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