I ended my previous article on this note: Woodmead is still very much alive in the hearts and minds of so many real, living people out there! It is so good to know, and one fondly remembers the people who touched and sometimes profoundly influenced one’s life in the course of so many years. Naturally people are linked to events in one’s life and in the life of the school as well, and of course there are anecdotes to be told. Woodmead brought into my life what Dr Phil McGraw describes as pivotal people, defining moments and critical choices in his book Self Matters. Of necessity this article will deal with personal memories and anecdotes; therefore it is my perspective and other people may have experienced the same things differently. Hopefully it will encourage other people to make their own unique contributions – more than just a few short remarks in the Guestbook. The trouble with memories is that they are moments frozen in time and one tends to forget that kids, who were 13-17 years old in 1970, are now middle-aged people with their own memories and with kids of their own and maybe even grandchildren! Newspaper clippings and photographs from more than 32 years ago only make it more difficult to envisage people differently. (At least some stuff was not destroyed. Remember that first official school photograph taken in the middle of that excavated area – for the sports field – our shoes all muddy and dirty, with the Makin bulldozer in the background? – The Star, 14 February 1970) Sometime during the second half of 1969 I was introduced to Mr Krige (I never called him Steyn – only few of us ever did; it is only for the purpose of these articles that I am doing so) and Mrs Krige by Roger and Del Petty, because Woodmead School, due to start in January 1970, needed an Afrikaans teacher and I expressed an interest in the post. I liked what I heard, because fundamentally the approach suited my style; I was captivated by Steyn Krige’s vision and his ideas on education intrigued me – not quite knowing what I was letting myself in for. I think this was true for some other staff members as well. Most of us had to get to grips with an exciting and completely new and challenging educational experience, and we needed the insight of an educationist of Steyn Krige’s calibre to allow us the scope for our individual growth and development – something we needed as much as the students. At some stage Steyn Krige mentioned my contribution to Woodmead and he asked me whether I didn’t think that Woodmead had also changed me. I was quite nonplussed and I gave him a rather non-committal answer. I now know the answer to that question, and in a way this article will also provide some answers, albeit in a roundabout way. Maybe I can summarize it like this: I was always very aware of time and that one should use time well, therefore I was always in a hurry, but over time at Woodmead I realised that, however important time and purpose and goals may be, it is people who are of the essence! Essentially Woodmead was a people-place! Early in December 1969 Roger and I drove out to Rivonia for me to observe the Woodmead School site. We came off the tarmac, drove some distance along a dirt road, past a sign that said Woodmead School … I saw a slightly dilapidated farmhouse with a semi-attached cottage, a smaller house, two barns a distance away, a raw stretch of earth, a broken down bulldozer … and that was it! So I went back there on 15 January 1970, and there was an unfinished prefab building: the admin section (the headmaster’s office and the secretary’s office cum staff common room) and one classroom. I enquired about the other classrooms (mind you, not about the school anymore!), and on 26 January the other prefab building was there – 3 classrooms – ready for us to paint on the outside, hammer blackboards into place, sort out desks and chairs, unpack books and other equipment (under the ever watchful eye of Miss Tietz who clucked possessively over everything belonging to the school) … and to do whatever else needed to be done. Us being Steyn Krige, Roger Petty, Ron Hughes, Tony Richardson, Erna Tietz, Elias Makhuvha, the three Thompsons (father, mother and son) and I. And two days later we were ready for the first school day on Wednesday 28 January 1970! (Soon two more founder teachers joined us: Philippa Dorling and Debbie Tulloch – 7 teaching staff all told.) How do I remember the exact dates? I don’t, but I wrote a little humorous article – in Afrikaans – on those events for our first Woodmead “publication”. (Was it called The Woodmead Phoenix then?) My basic English made for some frustration but also for some amusing and some embarrassing incidents. At Woodmead I was truly thrown in at the deep end. Only Steyn and Roger understood any Afrikaans and I had to converse with the other people as well, and Erna would time and again simply respond with a frown and an unsympathetic “What?” At least I had my trusty Afrikaans/English Woordeboek/Dictionary, and for pronunciation I purchased Everyman’s English Pronouncing Dictionary for the grand sum of R2-85 on 21 January 1970. (I used to sign and date all my book purchases.) Woodmead in Rivonia was where the school opened on that Wednesday in January 1970, but it didn’t last for more than 5 months. Maybe just as well, because virtually everything had to be constructed from scratch. We had four standards (Std 6-9) and we taught in those prefab classrooms with their thin dividing walls. I could clearly hear Tony Richardson carrying on next door in his Welsh accent, but I could never make out whether he was telling the kids that they were bone idle or borne idle. One of the barns was our dining room, and for more “classroom” space for Extra Afrikaans, we had to use one of our kombis … and we were in the middle of summer! All our students had to do Afrikaans. Nice, or maybe not, because some of them felt they had to fight Afrikaans all the way, and Afrikaners/Afrikaanders were rocks and rock spiders and hairy backs, and the poor dearies had to do Rock … all this anti-stuff coming as a completely foreign and new experience for me. Some had to fight -3- everything all the time. (Not so, Bert? – one of that difficult Std 8 bunch. Remember the tantrum I referred to in Part 1?) Maybe that’s why I was hit by a piece of chalk as I turned to write something on the blackboard for that unruly Std 6 mob. That same bunch who once tried to block my way as I came rushing up to the classroom to get in out of the rain. Perhaps they hadn’t forgiven me for unceremoniously crashing through their blockade. Who was the culprit (martyr for the cause!) to become the first Woodmead student to get two of the best with a slat from one of our (already) broken chairs? That tool of extreme punishment was displayed in a glass-fronted display cabinet for some time! Especially for the first year or two of its existence Woodmead was very much in the spotlight. Events at St Stithians and Steyn Krige’s “revolutionary” ideas on education received wide coverage; therefore the eyes of many people in education in Johannesburg and even beyond were on Woodmead School and over a short period of time many articles about the school appeared in newspapers, especially The Star. The school simply had to succeed, and we, staff and students, had to make it work for parents and for very critical onlookers. For the founder members of the school it was a brave step into the future. Then came the move to Paradise Bend. On Saturday the 19th of June we literally picked up everything and moved to a reasonably well-developed ex-pleasure resort where we had quite a number of proper rondavels for accommodation and some prefab rondavels, a number of longdavels (later disrespectfully referred to as tin huts) and of course our old prefab buildings for classrooms. Some of those longdavels were under trees right next to the river – lovely in summer, bitterly cold in winter; some under the blazing sun – wonderful in winter, a furnace in summer. That is how I became the one person amongst the teaching fraternity with “summer quarters” (room 4) and “a winter palace” (room 8)! Later thatch canopies had to be constructed over some of those longdavels – to keep the sun in summer and the frost in winter off the roofs! Then more help was required, and polystyrene sheets were attached to the inside – not only for insulation against the heat and the cold, but also for a bit of soundproofing against the clatter of those king-size highveld summer raindrops, but not much use against the sound of rushing flood waters just there below the windows – the same flood waters that on occasion covered the whole of our bottom field up to the amphitheatre and nearly washed away our Berry suspension bridge across the Little Jukskei River. Eventually, after many years in those temporary structures, we had to say farewell to them with quite a bit of nostalgia. Of course I was confident; I knew my Afrikaans, but some unexpected revelations and realisations would dawn on me as time went by. You see, the teaching of Afrikaans as a first language was something completely different from Afrikaans second language. We took up our Afrikaans books for classroom reading. First sentence: “What?” So I explained in nice and simple Afrikaans. Thank goodness, that one went down OK, but it didn’t last. Soon my explanations in simple Afrikaans were met with “What’s that?” … and then they managed to look completely dumbfounded. I had to explain in -4- English, and of course I was well prepared: “They were bondgenote/allies”, but I pronounced it alleys … and those who knew, nearly fell off their chairs with laughter, it was so funny; and those who didn’t know, followed suit … it was so hilariously funny! And of course awry I had to pronounce aury. Understandably, I thought, but nobody allowed me to get away with it without some mirth at my expense. Naturally adults don’t normally go around acting all funny. They stolidly allow you to discover your mistakes only much later, but when they helped, they were so maddeningly helpful: “What Ben is trying to say …” and I would respond with: “I’m not trying to say; I am saying!” In one of our early staff meetings I commented rather indignantly on someone’s remark about something: “But that’s an awful indictment of what we are doing!” Only, I pronounced the c very distinctly – applying the general rule for Afrikaans, being a phonetic language, very diligently: Write what you hear and pronounce what you see. (I’m sure some of you folks will remember that one.) So much for my Free State conversational English! To my chagrin there were those common Afrikaans words such as kant in the phrase daardie kant/that side, which couldn’t be avoided, and some horribles knew it; so they always caused a stir … and of course I didn’t know, at least for some time, what the stir was all about! Mind you, I did pick up some words from just hearing people like Roger and others using them in our conversations. You see, nonsense is a rather gentle word, so I picked up a shorter, crisper alternative – same meaning, though, I surmised. So, in a heated moment, I snapped at one of the kids in class “Don’t give me that crap!” – and they were shocked into silence and acted completely scandalised. How could I! Mind you, some of the students came up with some of their own Afrikaans gems. There was the chap in one of Michelle Randall’s classes who presented us with this one: Dr. Chris Barnard is ’n beroemde pondokspesialis. Now try to work that one out. You look up heart in the dictionary, but you mispronounce it by changing the vowel sound ever so slightly and by shortening it only marginally: hut/pondok. See. That made the now late Dr Chris Barnard a famous hut specialist. If only he knew, he could have had a much more lucrative career! There was also this one: Afrikaans classroom readers were supposed to improve fluency, word order, pronunciation, sentence structure and also vocabulary. Therefore the students were given the meanings of Afrikaans words and expressions and they also had to be able to use these words and expressions in sentences. In a Std 8 test one of the words was rooi-aas/red bait. So this jewel of a sentence appeared: Ek het te lank op my maag in die son gelê; nou het ek rooi-aas! You sort that one out for yourself. Then there were also those special and truly uplifting and rewarding experiences of whole classes or groups of students or inspired individuals coming up with the most unbelievably wonderful projects, group work and individual pieces of writing. There -5- were individuals like Jacqui Lloyd with Die Stukkie Papier, John Lauf with Die Mot, Pieter Wildervanck with Die Reëndans, Mark Sebba, the linguist, with his brilliant little Afrikaans poem, and Greg Janks who always strived to make every piece of writing into something special. Students like John Snider, Anthony Dickman, Chris Overbeck, Ian Lowitt and others tackled the academic challenge of research and extra reading with so much vigour; and people like Joanna Weinberg and Mark Swilling did such special project work. Yes, we did our own bit of experimenting with the teaching of Afrikaans by means of project work, the language laboratory, extra reading and reporting, creative writing and listening to and doing write-ups on recorded radio plays, including those hilarious Staal Burger episodes – with kids sprawled all over the floor in my rondavel; and I kept extensive and meticulous record of successes and failures, but this also had to be phased out due to internal and external pressures. It was a most challenging and demanding but also a thoroughly rewarding phase in the teaching of Afrikaans. Goodness, who could have thought that something like the project work done for the Afrikaans Centenary Celebrations in 1975 could ever be possible or the group reading of N.P. Van Wyk Louw’s Raka to the assembled school there in the dining hall? After a false start I soon realised that emotions and politics should be kept out of the teaching of Afrikaans, but that 1975 experience was moving and touching and quite emotional! Of course not all students liked doing Afrikaans. I wonder how many ever did. However, my guidelines to staff in the Afrikaans Department were to get the work done with as little emotional involvement and political innuendo as possible and to never underestimate the intelligence of students while they had to cope with a second and often a third language. Naturally there was work to be done and it was not our duty to entertain students. That was one of the reasons why the project work, which made for a substantial amount of group work, had to be phased out. Some students saw it as an opportunity to get away with as much as possible, and those were quite often the same students, along with their parents, who said: “That was nice, but what have we learnt?” It was intended as a cumulative learning experience, but too many students accumulated too little. So we all had to adjust to the stringent and less exciting rhythm of “just work”, and when students wanted to know, “What are we doing today?” my answer would invariably be, “Work!” and they would respond with, “Never a dull moment!” It became a bit of a ritual in some classes. There were also those students who behaved quite obnoxiously about not wanting to do Afrikaans or just for whatever reason. My favourite in those circumstances was: “Go and park yourself outside Mr Krige’s office!” I don’t know of a student who ever enjoyed that. Steyn Krige asked me about this once. So I told him I simply wanted to make it as unpleasant as possible for students to be outside the classroom. I didn’t expect or want him to do anything, apart from frowning at them or ignoring them in a noticeable way(!) or just to enquire what on earth they were doing there. Of course I also had those disruptive skepsels in the classroom who had to be told: “I’m trying my best to ignore you; please allow me to do so!” -6- However, just occasionally students came up with some novel ways of conveying their own message. If I remember correctly, it was that Overbeck bunch, with whom I had an excellent understanding, who pulled this one on me: I always prided myself on preparing well for any class and, if at all possible, to be in the classroom before the students arrived. So there I was, and I waited. The siren had long gone, and I waited. No students. So I went looking for them. Not a student in sight, and nobody detained by anybody. Eventually I had to give up. Next time round, though, I watched them from my rondavel as they trooped into the classroom. I could hear the usual noise before they settled down. Then they settled down and they became quiet. But I stayed put. First a head, then more heads popped out the window. I had them worried. Good. Satisfied, I carried on with some work at my desk, oblivious to their plight. Then a body appeared in the doorway, then more bodies. After a while, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a figure walking towards my rondavel, and then I heard a knock on my door. “Yes!!” not in any inviting tone of voice; see, I didn’t like being disturbed. So I was asked very nicely to please come to the classroom. Of course I gave them quite a lecture about how prepared I was for them and about courtesy and all that and how the work for the previous lesson will be regarded as having been done and they will be tested and examined on that stuff. That settled it. I always regarded my sense of humour as rather suspect, and my temper running on a short fuse. It irritated me no end that some students forever wanted to know about this or that word. “Sir, this word, what does it actually mean? Is this how one spell it? How does one use this word, Sir?” Very respectfully and oh so innocently! So I wanted to know from Roger what the heck the matter was with these kids; surely they couldn’t be all that eager to learn. “They’re trying to get a rise out of you, and they’re succeeding,” was his diagnosis. I wasn’t impressed! Some wise guy once said if one wanted to survive in teaching, one had to have a good sense of humour. Indeed! The next time round I informed those kids in no uncertain terms that I did not have a well-developed sense of humour, “and don’t push your luck!” Still there were those goggas in those early months who insisted on calling me Meneer, but who, for the life of them, simply could not pronounce it any differently than to make it sound like something that had to be dug into the garden! Oh my, now that reminds me of the time I had to rush into the staff room for an end of term marks meeting. The only chair left was the one right next to Mrs Krige. I don’t think I took anything untoward with me into the staff room, but I soon became aware of Mrs Krige leaning away and even further away from me to her right. So I had to lean over her way. “Sorry,” I whispered, “for the fresh farm flavour.” She didn’t look too pleased, so I had to explain in a more urgent whisper; people were starting to take an interest in our whispered conversation: “They were cleaning out the stables and I quickly filled the boot of my car with horse manure for my garden. There wasn’t any time to wash up.” (I had a plastic lining for the boot, but the aroma accompanied me.) I don’t know whether the other staff members got a whiff, but the staff meeting ran its normal course. -7- I must say there were also times when I wasn’t even remotely prepared to give humour a try. Imagine allowing some Woodmead kids to change my white standard poodle (Risto) into a pink pooch – just for fun. No ways! I kept him locked up in my rondavel for the whole day, and fortunately they couldn’t get the key out of John either. I’m sure they tried. Mind you, that Risto dog of mine caused me quite a few hassles. There was the time when, as a puppy, he used to decorate the place around my rondavel with toilet paper streamers from the ablution block behind my place and I had to go and undecorate the shrubs after him. Later he carried all sorts of stuff to my rondavel: one sandal and then another and another, which I advertised and then simply popped on top of my cupboard, only to discover later that some kids were not aware that they have lost pairs of sandals! Then, one morning on my way to breakfast, there I saw some delicate piece of material fluttering from a rosebush below the steps to my rondavel. I casually walked past it, scooped it up and deposited it in the laundry, where it must have come from. It was a flimsy piece of ladies underwear! Imagine the amount of useless explaining I would have had to do if one of the kids managed to find it there! Blame it on your dog! Really, how convenient! Quite early on I learnt to mistrust the Woodmead kids when they got up to any kind of prank, because they somehow got the notion (completely foreign to my way of thinking) that you simply played your prank and then you couldn’t care less about the consequences – like throwing another fellow’s bag up there onto a roof and then forgetting about it. Or imagine throwing a person’s bag out of a moving bus on your way home. I saw what it did to some expensive textbooks! There was also the time when they had Roger (although I didn’t know it at the time) in on some Matric last day pranks. The one moment my keys were there on the desk; the next moment they were gone. Neither Roger nor the kids appreciated my tantrum. In lieu of my keys as a farewell present, I was given a pair of old socks! I must say I felt ever so slightly bad about that one. But mostly not. Sir, can’t you see the funny side? What funny side? Surely, sir! No! Some humour! Sometimes one has to rely on other people’s sense of humour. One day Ron Hughes, one or two other staff members and I were on our way back from the dining room and I was animatedly arguing some point. Just as I was getting nicely worked up, Ron said (most probably trying to be helpful, because I still had quite a battle to express myself properly in English): “We agree with you.” Heatedly I responded: “Now don’t you come and agree with me!” And just as I was about to continue, they burst out laughing and eventually Ron said: “Oh, you don’t want a nice argument ruined by us agreeing with you!” I don’t think the argument was ever resumed. Mind you, just occasionally I couldn’t refrain from putting one over on my colleagues. One Sunday night rain came pouring in through the roof of my rondavel, exactly there where my bed stood. It was a rude and unpleasant awakening, but I had no intention of going without my sleep. The next morning in the staff room I -8- cheerfully announced that the past weekend was a marvellous one for me; I did not have to sleep all alone. It was met by some rather bemused and shocked expressions. So I had to explain: “I spent half the night with my arms wrapped around … my wastepaper basket to keep my bed from getting soaking wet.” Disappointment! At Woodmead one heard of all kinds of things, and one Monday morning, after a particularly busy weekend soon after we moved to our house in Randburg, I said to no one in particular in the staff room: “Folks, after this weekend I know what it means to spend a dirty weekend.” Everybody heard me. Silence, then: “What?” So I explained: “You see, I had this grassed area in my garden that I wanted to convert into a vegetable patch, and over there I had a piece of lawn all infested with weeds, so I dug up both areas and I spent most of the weekend on all fours in …” They weren’t listening anymore. Occasionally my sense of humour met with stark disapproval. I was working in the staff room when I became aware of the conversation going on around me. People, mostly ladies, were talking about table etiquette. It was about removing the plates from the table with leftovers and all and that, only once in the kitchen, one should scrape the leftovers off the plates. Casually I remarked: “You know, we don’t have that problem. Once we have the plates in the kitchen, we have to hold them up to the light to see whether they have been used or not. If we see the lick marks, we know our dogs have cleaned them off.” It wasn’t quite true, but the response was rather vehement: “How disgusting! Remind me never to eat at your place.” “Don’t worry,” I said, “we always put the plates through the dishwasher.” More disapproval. As I said, not quite true, but it was true that little ever went to waste at our place, and it was also true that I really couldn’t care too much for etiquette, let alone serious conversations about it in the staff room. On a few occasions my humour, I suspect, was quite misplaced or perhaps it was just not appreciated. Remember that photograph of me at assembly with Murgatroid at my feet in The Woodmead Way of 1987? There was one cat with good taste and what a personality! Murgatroid adopted me and almost invariably came to meet me at my car every morning, and Lucia still reminds me that she had to put in umpteen snacks for the cat along with my lunch. At first I simply shared my lunch with Murgatroid and whatever cat or dog came along, also demanding a share. People wanted to know what was left for me of my lunch, so I reminded them of the fish and the bread in the Bible: You share what you have, and there will be more than enough for all! Then, in 1989, I broke my leg and I came hobbling to school on my crutches and my leg in plaster. So Murgatroid still met me at my car and then traipsed along to the staff room. It took me quite a while to get organised for Murgatroid and that impatient cat started climbing up my leg. It was OK until he/she got beyond the plaster. Then I had to call for help, my crutches dangling from my arms and my hands occupied with the lunch box. This was where Jenny Woods always kindly lent a helping hand; also by getting my tea to me once I managed to gingerly lower myself into a chair. Eventually I managed to shed my crutches and I only had to rely on my walking stick, but Jenny felt I still needed some help, and I said: “No thank you; I think I’m out of the woods now.” I don’t think it went down well. Sorry, Jenny! -9- There was also the time when Dr Muthal Naidoo told a group of us about some experience where someone said or did something to upset her. She concluded her narrative with: “You know, I’m a humble person,” and I responded with: “Yes, and you have so much to be humble about.” She was extremely annoyed with me, but before she could really tick me off, I told her that when someone told me about how humble he or she was, I was always tempted to quote Winston Churchill when he said exactly that about Clement Attlee in his address to the United States Senate. I think she forgave me. Others didn’t, like Barbara Marsden/English when she was so furious about her car having been tampered with. I dared to see the funny side of her tantrum, but she did not. So much for humour. Woodmead was a place of varied experiences. When we moved to the old Paradise Bend site, not only did we have rondavels of different sizes, squaredavels, longdavels, a proper kitchen, a dining hall, three fancy swimming pools, ablution blocks and lots of braais, but we also had the amphitheatre. This facility was used for open-air meetings and also for our first drama production towards the end of our first year: Richard III. A truly ambitious venture, but we could trust Ron Hughes to bring it off. I dared to open my mouth about having some experience of drama production and lo and behold I became the designated sound and lighting specialist, not only for this play but also for Under Milk Wood, Murder in the Cathedral and our own David Brindley’s highly successful A Catching of Happiness. But it was the first one, which nearly gave me my second school nickname: Buzz Laubscher! The lights were put up, the sound system connected to the specially installed power source on the bank of the amphitheatre, with electrical wires running all over the place and into the duly rearranged interior of our kombi, where we had my reel-to-reel tape recorder with some super music and battle sounds and all that sort of stuff. Then came the night of our first full dress rehearsal, with the whole school in attendance. Up came the lights and on came the sound … buzzzz and a louder and more urgent buzzzzzz, and the only nice sounds those of the frog choir and Erna’s ducks by the river. After some scurrying around, the problem was solved. I didn’t realise what the highveld weather could do to electrical plugs nicely wrapped in plastic for protection against the unexpected shower! Irony for you! Talking of different types of experiences. I wonder how many will remember the time when, because of the open-mindedness Woodmead professed to, we invited speakers from different political parties to address the school on subsequent Friday afternoons. Maybe not too many, because it was way back in those early years – in July 1971, to be exact. I was never any sort of political animal by any stretch of the imagination, but I was given the task to approach the National Party about this. And guess who was delegated to address the school on that occasion. None other than advocate Jimmy Kruger who became notorious for his pronouncements on the Steve Biko fiasco. But that was much later, and he visited us long before he became minister. He made quite an impression, but I don’t suppose too many people would want to testify to that. However, it was in the nature of Woodmead to also provide scope for this sort of experience. -10- Perhaps I should also add something here. If I remember correctly, I told Steyn Krige about this later. It was in the late sixties (before joining Woodmead) that I met Mr P.W. Botha for the first time when he was still minister of Defence. I know he wasn’t too impressed by something I said about the country’s defence situation. However, I spoke to him for the second time at his Wilderness house in the middle eighties, when he was State President. We talked about my work, and I was quite surprised to learn that he had indeed been well aware of Woodmead for many years and that he was equally well informed about the school and interested in what he regarded as quite a unique experiment. I remember saying to him, with reference to the multi-racial situation at the school: “If only more people had the opportunity to get to know each other, things could be so much different.” He didn’t respond at the time, but later he said to Lucia that he needed more people with that sort of attitude around him. One of the special occasions on Woodmead’s calendar for quite a number of years was the Library Party in the library of Little Brenthurst, the Oppenheimer residence. On one such occasion Mrs Oppenheimer donated that beautiful set of books Kennis Ensiklopedie to our library, which we used extensively for our Afrikaans project work. Many quality books were donated to the school by parents and friends in this fashion. But that’s not what I’m on about. I think it was on the occasion of our first Library Party that Lucia and I were talking to a very nice lady and along came a rather scruffy looking black dog. Of course we, but especially Lucia, took an immediate interest in this dog. It didn’t take Lucia long to ascertain why this dog had such a scruffy look about it, and she addressed this lady: “Is this your dog?” A bit hesitantly: “Yes,” and Lucia said: “This dog of yours has got mange you know. Don’t you have the money to take him to the vet?” and she answered: “He’s going to the vet tomorrow; he just turned up on our doorstep this morning, and he decided he liked it here. We call him Dog.” Yes, you guessed right. We were talking to Mrs Oppenheimer, and she really didn’t take umbrage. Actually, she phoned Lucia to tell her that she had taken Dog to the vet, also our vet, and to confirm her diagnosis. Lovely! At those Library Parties they always served the nicest snacks: cheese and wine and all that sort of stuff. Lucia and I were contemplating a particularly appetising arrangement when along came a fellow with a glass of wine in one hand but looking extremely distressed. “That looks so inviting and I’m so hungry”, he said “but how is that supposed to be eaten?” Promptly Lucia plucked a biscuit off the plate, slapped some butter on it (real butter so not all that soft and it could therefore not be spread all that thinly), whipped off a rather thick slice of cheese, plonked on another biscuit. “There you are …” Just then Roger came along and said, hardly breaking his stride: “That’s not how it is done”, and off he went. Very helpful, but just maybe Lucia saved a poor chap’s life! Certainly, as individuals each of us experienced Woodmead in our own unique way, but it would seem that Woodmead had something special as its common denominator for all of us. It must have been that special something about Woodmead, which -11- brought into my life what I can certainly identify as a defining moment. I came from a completely different background to that of most of the people I encountered at Woodmead. In the years preceding 1969 I grew up, studied and taught in exclusively Afrikaans environments. When visiting my brother in Johannesburg, he used to point out groups of students as people going to this or that private school, and I had the sense of some huge distance between them and our circle of people. That same sense I took with me to Woodmead, and for some time I regarded the people of this exclusive private school as distant and of course very different. It was my duty and responsibility to go and teach those students Afrikaans. Sure. Then, one rather chilly spring morning in September of our first year, something happened: We were gathered for assembly in front of the tuck shop, the teachers under the tree and the students against the wall of the building. The assembly had nothing to do with what I experienced, but I became aware of a sense of being suspended somewhere (not something spiritual like in a super-natural sense, but something so real as to be almost unreal), and I was suddenly aware of one student and then another and another, each an individual, one attentive, the other still half asleep, another snugly dressed against the chill, that one shivering, one nicely groomed, the other with hair all tousled and tie askew: Jonathan, Neil, Ian, Brian, Vasco, Anthony, Dan, Clive, Roger, John, Roy, Colin; then the staff members came into view, each a separate and different individual and each individual looked so startlingly ordinary … and special at the same time … just like the people I knew in my own circle and just like those colleagues and students where I taught before … and the gap closed and a door opened for me – away from stereotypes, but not starry-eyed or blind to the vagaries of human nature! It opened the door for me to a different kind of awareness of people; an awareness that grew with similar experiences that made me realise to what extent people truly were of the essence. Maybe my presence and work at Woodmead as well as that of other members of the Afrikaans staff (Daan du Toit, Ryna Smit, Michelle Randall, Marthy Watson, Louis Esterhuizen, Marius Meyer and André Oosthuizen) did something to turn our students away from stereotyping. I remember some students once going on about how Afrikaans people did this and that and were so and so. So I reminded them that I was an Afrikaner and a Nationalist to boot. Without blinking an eyelid one of them said: “Sir, but you are different!” I told him how I was not different, but that he perceived me differently only because he knew me. On another occasion one of our Indian students very earnestly told me how he would personally ensure my safety once the revolution came! No, I had nothing to say to that. Then there was also the fellow whom I gave a bit of a blast for some or other misdemeanour. So he untangled himself from his desk until he glared down at me from his considerable height and said quite distinctly: “I hate you!” No, I didn’t bundle him into detention, but that certainly brought me down to earth with a bit of a bump. No halo for me! Of course there were no saints at Woodmead, but there were people, real people – staff and students – who brought about some shifts and even changes in my way of -12- thinking, not always and not necessarily through any profound wisdom they had to impart, but often by means of a casual word or act in the normal course of events. Naturally there was Steyn Krige who shaped much of our thinking about education and about people over a period of more than ten years by means of speeches, assemblies, meetings and personal conversations. Although we sensed and often knew that it wasn’t all that simple, one always experienced some upliftment when he spoke about education and about Woodmead. He may not know it, and I certainly did not realise it at the time, but when I was offered another post at a different private school in our second or third year, he said to me that the decision must obviously be mine and that nobody was irreplaceable, but that there were people who were just that less replaceable than others and that I was one of those people, and it brought me to another defining moment and critical choice … and I stayed for the next twenty years! There was Roger Petty who said to us: “You folks are sometimes inclined to talk at people; don’t talk at them; talk to them!” There is a difference, but it took me some time to work that one out, and I’m not even sure that I ever got it right. Just as well for us to have had Roger there along with Steyn for at least the first ten years of Woodmead’s existence, because we needed him to remind us of our direction and purpose with his unfailing support and persistent drive. This was something we sorely missed after Roger’s departure, and it was also the reason for my impassioned plea to him to return to the school when Peter resigned as principal of Woodmead. Roger didn’t heed my plea, and we went into another chapter in the history of Woodmead. Occasionally a student would come up with something that would immediately strike a cord and which would give one that instant of insight into the person or situation one had to deal with. I once talked to students about the option to study for the exams away from home under the disciplined circumstances the boarding house had to offer. It was Graeme Simpson who said to me: “Home is much too nice!” Thank goodness! We encountered so many kids whose circumstances were so completely different. On another occasion he wrote in one of his essays – in Afrikaans: “When confronted by someone, look that person straight in the eye. Look away, and you will always give way to that person.” There’s wisdom for you! Maybe not so nice to hear, and actually something that caused me quite a bit of amusement, but it was Henry Gilfillan (School Council president at the time) who once told me straight to my face: “Sir, you folks are so gullible!” It concerned a particularly difficult matter I had to deal with at the time when I was acting head. We had so much trouble getting to the bottom of some issue, having to cope with their “conspiracy of silence” – as Peter Nixon termed it – while trying to uphold something I sincerely believed in: “Never think the worst, until you’ve tried to think the best.” Perhaps they expected us to use some good old torture methods! One day, on our way to one of our Skoegheim leadership camps, I explained my point of view about something to Ian Lowitt and I somehow expected him to agree with me. -13- Quite casually he said to me: “Yes, from your perspective; that’s how you see it as a teacher.” It pulled me up short, realising that I should allow students the same scope I demanded for myself: If your only purpose is to get me to along with your point of view, then say so; if you want my opinion or my input, don’t expect me to necessarily agree with you. Mind you, I also experienced the downside of my approach at Woodmead. I don’t think I was ever so opinionated as to not ask for other people’s point of view on matters under consideration. Unfortunately I also had to remind people that, in asking for their opinion, the intention was not for their point of view to necessarily carry the day or to give them ownership of the process. Going onto another tack, it was Ken Jennings, our resident clinical psychologist cum teacher at the time, who brought a new dimension to my outlook on teaching when, sometime in the course of 1988, he put a sheaf of about 30 photocopies in my hand: the first chapter of Leo Buscaglia’s book Living, Loving and Learning. After having read it, my first response was: Stop the bus; let’s scrap all classes and start from scratch! Of course practically we couldn’t quite do that, but much of what went into my assemblies over the next four years was based on what Buscaglia viewed as important in education: people, a person’s perception of self and relationships. It is difficult to determine the impact of individual people on the overall phenomenon that was Woodmead and the part they played in shaping the Woodmead Concept, the Woodmead Ideal, the Woodmead Ethos and in developments at the school over the period of its existence. It goes without saying that Steyn Krige was the driving force behind the whole venture and that he and Roger Petty brought with them the nucleus and even the substance of what evolved over their subsequent ten to twelve years at the school. In a previous article I already indicated what effect the departure of Steyn Krige and Roger Petty may have had on the school. To my mind Steyn Krige was the person at the philosophical and educational helm of the school and Roger made sure that the engine was ticking over just nicely. We were not privy to the reasons for their departure, but the fact that they left the school, certainly changed the course of events for Woodmead. It would be grossly inadequate to talk of Steyn Krige’s “contribution” to Woodmead, because he laid the foundation and he determined the nature, the direction and the spirit of Woodmead. All others made contributions to various degrees. It was only to be expected that certain shifts and changes would come about in due course, and various shifts and changes came either to the fore or became more pronounced with every change in headship, and it was my impression that it became increasingly more difficult to maintain what many people regarded as the essential Woodmead. Of course the initial fifty odd students along with their parents supported Steyn Krige’s vision, and naturally they also played their part. Some students showed so much maturity in their understanding of what Woodmead was all about, while others -14- had their own version of what those lofty things like freedom, objectivity, fairness, courtesy, etc. were supposed to do for them. As founder staff members we had something to bring to the school, but certainly not of exactly the same nature as that which Steyn and Roger must have had as a basic concept in their own minds from their experience at St Stithians. By its very nature Woodmead was a reactionary school with a value system and an approach quite contrary to that of the Government schools, but in essence the purpose was the same: to educate students; to provide scope for their growth towards adulthood and to prepare them for formal exams in order to provide them with a school leaving or matric certificate. The how of this process was really at the heart of what Woodmead was all about. In this we all had a part to play and we did this with what we had to bring with us to Woodmead: our strengths and our weaknesses as well as our idiosyncrasies and even flaws; but make no mistake, the sum total of that special something that was Woodmead, also moulded and shaped all of us in the process. One can be pretty sure that Integrated Studies and Humanities would have been introduced at Woodmead at some stage, but one wonders whether it would have come off the ground in the same healthy fashion it actually did, were it not for the superb effort and input from people like Colin Berning and Liz Woods. I was privileged to get an insight into the meticulous planning and record keeping that went into presenting these two almost all-encompassing tools of education and learning. There were others who fulfilled the same role later, but the Brindleys played a vital part in those early years in getting our students to develop objectivity and open-mindedness about the world around them, to get them to understand how relative so many things in life really were. This process certainly had a place in the Woodmead context, but to a worrying extent it unfortunately also made for an inverse outcome in the shape of critical rigidity towards and rejection of long-standing values and value systems. Be that as it may, the easy and comfortable relationship between the Brindleys and many of our students represented an almost ideal situation in which students could experience a sense of fellowship and belonging. Most probably because it was not in my nature to cultivate that kind of relationship with students, I always found it rather intriguing. Ever since Lyn Scott joined Woodmead in the middle seventies I always marvelled at the way she related to her students – in class, in tutor sessions, in her involvement with the tuck shop and on Council. There was always a genuine interest in and rapport with her students. The ease with which she related to students was very noticeable, but one was always aware of an element of sound respect as well. I often wondered what effect this must have had on students and to what extent the relationship enhanced their sense of self and of worth. For those students this in itself must have contributed to making their stay at Woodmead a worthwhile experience. For some time we still had Steyn Krige’s peripheral presence at the school, but for -15- various reasons the school was set on a different course with the appointment of Peter Nixon as headmaster. Of course we didn’t know what went on in Board meetings and elsewhere, but with the appointment of the new head, we became aware of a shift towards the more conventional approach to education and teaching. More emphasis was placed on administration, organisation, finances, corporate involvement, development, expansion, and the term “academic excellence” became a catch phrase at staff meetings and staff conferences. Different aspects of school life at Woodmead went into the think-tank as it were: academic standards, staff responsibilities, afternoon activities, the School Council, the Tutor System, etc. Many of us liked the direction we were taking and I dare say the influx of Indian students to the school bore testimony to the fact that there were parents who were looking for a school to meet their high expectations (apart from any other considerations) and who found a haven for their kids at Woodmead. But there was something that always puzzled me. Somehow the so-called “retreat”-sessions we had at Woodmead during Peter’s term of office were symptomatic of something that simply wouldn’t gel. In a way Peter did shed some light on this in his article in The Woodmead Way of 1987, but it was my impression that he could never devise a balancing act for himself between managing the school and the necessary interaction with people who wanted the abstraction that was Woodmead – that something which made Woodmead special – to live on in all aspects of school life. Peter loved teaching and according to him he never really took to the administrative side of headmastering, but privately I made the (obviously debatable) comparison between Steyn, Peter and Allan Graham at the time, and to my mind in Steyn we had the educationist, in Peter the administrator and in Allan the manager. Of course to put people into concise and cryptic categories, does not necessarily make for accuracy, but those were the distinctions I made. But I wasn’t the only one to put people into certain categories. According to Peter I was an excellent second-in-command, but at a conference of heads and deputy-heads he remarked rather critically that I was not one to make decisions! Maybe so, but I also had other characteristics ascribed to me. Lyn Scott once called me a public servant par excellence, and maybe she was right therein that I always regarded the service aspect of whatever position I held, as very important, and perhaps that is also why I enjoyed my years in Public Service so much – the four years after leaving Woodmead. There was also Allan Graham who reckoned I ran the exam invigilation at the school like a military exercise – which, of course, simply had to be the case! I don’t even want to think of what the students ascribed to me in our first year at Woodmead. They decided I was a boxer of some repute and that I practised my blood sport on the sly over weekends. Oh yes, they had their suspicions confirmed by a news item in one Monday Star about a certain Laubscher fellow who fared excellently in some boxing bout – and they studied my face in minute detail for any telltale markings when I returned to school on the Tuesday. (I had to be away from school on the Monday for some obscure reason. Imagine!) -16- During Peter’s six years as head of Woodmead the school moved in more ways than one: the school’s finances improved; the school day became more structured; afternoon and other activities were revamped and restructured; some posts were made redundant and we had a leaner teaching complement; student numbers went up and the student body became more representative of our South African society; we were moving out of rather shabby temporary structures into permanent buildings – and many of us got all nostalgic about the past! Earlier I remarked that Woodmead was essentially a people-place and, without taking anything away from what Peter and Allan contributed to the school, it seemed to many of us that this aspect of Woodmead most suffered the ravages of change. We were not privy to what Peter’s and Allan’s briefs were, but we had the impression that some kind of business orientation took the place of people orientation, and in each case posts were made redundant and valued staff members had to leave the school. It created unease, uncertainty and friction. But there were also aspects with which people felt more comfortable: In certain instances firmer and more control; better administration; improved management; more financial security; the building programme which resulted in many improvements in teaching surroundings and facilities; corporate involvement which drew many bursary students; the establishment of a feeder school for the senior school, etc. On the other hand, there were difficulties and mistakes were made, and I appreciated it so much when both Peter and Allan had the courage to admit to some of those mistakes and difficulties in THE WOODMEAD WAY of 1987. Goodness, so many people come to mind for various reasons and there are so many little anecdotes to be told. For instance there was Chris de Villiers with his innovative thinking, but one also remembers him for mischievously luring us into believing that he was only playing devil’s advocate for some or other outrageous scheme at some of our staff conferences; the oh so dignified Vernon Pillay who was so furiously annoyed with me when I once told him he was talking a load of rubbish; Ken Jennings who dealt with the problems of so many of our students with so much empathy but who also knew when to apply a real touch of tough love; Helen Kay who perhaps could have contributed much to Woodmead but who didn’t stay long enough to make any real impact; Viv Henry who knew how to organise functions in the finest detail and who managed to run everyone else – especially Peter – ragged in the process; Paula Goldblatt – our first old pupil to join the staff as teacher; the Jacksons whom one cannot forget because of their tragic loss; Erna Tietz who passed away in her rondavel on the property after serving the school faithfully as well as looking after the ducks by the river for so many years; John Woodley from those early days, Janet Beardwood, Colin Purkey, Georgie Jacklin, Janet Sali, Vic Rodseth, Pam Raper, Veronica Jones, Paddy Smith and many more, but I don’t intend writing down the whole list of Woodmead staff here. In conclusion, just a final thought: To my mind we had many special people at Woodmead and many old-Woodmeadians went on to become well-known people and even celebrities in their own right: Stephen Laufer, Rian Malan, Mark Read, Mark -17- Sebba, Deon van Zyl, John Perlman, Joanna Weinberg, Mark Swilling, David Unterhalter, Brett Lotriet and others. Woodmead was even represented in our first South African Big Brother show! I think it is safe to say that at least one Woodmead old pupil, Bruce Fordyce, has attained icon status. However, contemplating that aspect of Woodmead or what impact Woodmead must have had on education in South Africa and on the broader South African society, falls outside the scope of this article. Maybe someone would like to do a bit of research and then do a write-up on that specific aspect for this website. How about it? |
| WOODMEAD NOW – WORTHWHILE ABSTRACTION OR TEMPORARY DISTRACTION
Part 3: People, Events, Personal Anecdotes Ben Laubscher: January 1970 – July 1992 |