3 decades of creating hope

For the past 25 years, miss Jasmine Lyners has made her presence at Swakopmund Secondary School unmissable with an immeasurable passion for teaching and the strict management of her classroom for which she is known.

“I think it’s about striking a balance between being strict but also having students know that they have someone they can come to,” she says.

Lyners started her career in teaching prior to going the Swakopmund Secondary School staff as a teacher at M&K Gertze in Rehoboth. She is of firm belief that the children who will build tomorrow, even if they come from humble backgrounds, do not need much more than a reason to believe in a better tomorrow.

“I think a lot of kids, especially at government schools, don’t have a lot of inspiration and many lack a mother figure to uplift them. With my own kids, I was always sharing inspirational books like Rich Dad, Poor Dad just to inspire them,” she says.

She notes that respect is immeasurably important to her and that she does not take the futures of the learners lightly.

“I don’t like messing with the future of my learners, that is somebody else’s child,” she says.

Even after retirement she hopes to be able to serve as an adult figure in learner’s lives. “I would like to open a place to assist kids where they can learn to do projects properly and they can get help in their schooling because a lot of learners don’t get that. I think they really just need someone to believe in them so they can realise that they can change their future,” she says.

Small changes make a big difference

Lyners remembers how seemingly unnoticeable details have had a great impact on learners. “I remember a group of learners were complaining to me about the bathrooms, which can often be a problem at government schools due to the fact that there are so many learners using the bathrooms, but I put some towels, sanitiser and air freshener in there and they told me they want to keep the bathrooms clean now because it is nice now,” she says.

She believes that today’s youth are sorely affected, not by the presence of the internet, but by the ways they use it.

“I always tell the kids that the internet is the biggest library there is but they only use it for movies and music instead of using it for what they should,” she says.