Republikein Newspaper

Iréne-Mari van der Walt

After decades of living out her passion, Lucy Mogotsi looks back on the turbulent path that she walked to become a teacher.

Driven by her passion for teaching, Mogotsi returned to Namibia after completing her primary and secondary education in South Africa’s Northern Cape province.

She initially started her teaching degree at Akademie, now known as the Namibia University of Science and Technology (Nust), but due to financial troubles had to drop out after her first year.

In 1995, after having had to abandon her tertiary studies, Mogotsi started work at a local Montessori school.

“I had no formal training; I was driven by love,” she says.

Two years later, she started her role as a teaching assistant at Windhoek International School, where she worked for 12 years. She was able to complete her teaching degree in 2007.

She proudly graduated cum laude from the Windhoek College of Education.

After 14 years in education, Mogotsi decided it was time to bring the knowledge she had gained closer to home. She decided to start work at People’s Primary School in Katutura in 2011. Here she teaches grade one.

Mogotsi remembers her fascination with a primary school teacher of hers and credits this exact fascination as the origin of her passion.

“I was inspired by one of my primary school teachers in the way that she taught us, the way that she dressed and how she loved and care for her learners,” she says.

Today, Mogotsi shares the care that her primary school teacher showed.

“What I love most about teaching is seeing learners learn what I taught them and seeing them become confident by the end of the year.”

She says her students are not the only ones learning.

“My learners have taught me the value of sharing and they have shown me that even teachers do not know everything. I have often struggled to find a way to explain something to a class and then a learner will find the simplest way of explaining it to the class,” she says.

She is still ardent about the impact she can make in young lives.

“Working with kids is never boring,” she says.